Résumé

A résumé, also known as a curriculum vitae (CV), is a document containing a summary or listing of relevant job experience and education, usually for the purpose of obtaining an interview when seeking employment. Often the résumé or CV is the first item that a potential employer encounters regarding the job seeker, and therefore a large amount of importance is often ascribed to it.

Traditionally, résumés have been, like careers themselves, oriented towards what a person has accomplished thus far. In most contemporary career consulting the trend is to fashion the document towards what that person can accomplish in a particular job. This is sometimes called a "targeted résumé."

Terminology

In the business world, the word résumé, also spelled resumé and resume, is used especially in the United States, the Philippines and in English Canada.

In North America, where the terms are also commonly used interchangeably, a résumé is generally used for seeking employment in the private sector, whereas a curriculum vitae (also called vita) is more often used to seek positions in academic or educational environments.

The Latin term curriculum vitae (plural: curricula vitae; often abbreviated CV) is used preferentially in Europe, New Zealand, French Canada and some British Commonwealth countries, as well as in many languages other than English.

In some regions of the world (such as Australia and India) CV and resumé are used interchangeably.

Many Indian people use the word biodata instead of résumé when referring to clerical, driver, and other unskilled jobs.

Curriculum vitæ is Latin meaning "course of life" and résumé is French meaning "summary".

Styles

Résumé

A résumé is a summary typically limited to one or two pages highlighting only those experiences and credentials that the author considers most relevant to the desired position. It also contains the author's information in such an aspect that it is considered as your presence in your absence to the one who reads it. Simple résumés may be organized in different ways:

Chronological résumé

A chronological résumé enumerates a candidate's job experiences in chronological order.

The chronological résumé format is by far the most common résumé layout in use. In using this format, the main body of the document becomes the Professional Experience section, starting from the most recent experience going chronologically backwards through a succession of previous experience. The chronological résumé works to build credibility through experience gained, while illustrating career growth over time.

Functional résumé

A functional résumé lists work experience and skills sorted by skill area or job function.

The functional résumé is used to assert a focus to skills that are specific to the type of position being sought. This format directly emphasizes specific professional capabilities and utilizes experience summaries as its primary means of communicating professional competency. In contrast, the chronological résumé format will briefly highlight these competencies prior to presenting a comprehensive timeline of career growth via reverse-chronological listing with most recent experience listed first.

Combination résumé

The combination résumé balances the functional and chronological approaches. A résumé organized this way typically leads with a functional list of job skills, followed by a chronological list of employers.

Curriculum Vitae

In the United States, a CV is expected to include a comprehensive listing of professional history including every term of employment, academic credential, publication, contribution or significant achievement. In certain professions, it may even include samples of the person's work and may run to many pages.

Within the European Union, a standardised CV model known as Europass has been developed (in 2004 by the European Parliament) and promoted by the EU to ease skilled migration between member countries.

Structure

Résumés

In many contexts, a résumé is short (usually one or two pages), and therefore contains only experience directly relevant to a particular position. Many résumés use precise keywords that the potential new employers are looking for, are self-aggrandizing, and contain many action words.

Traditionally, résumés have rarely been more than two pages, as potential employers typically did not devote much time to reading résumé details for each applicant. However, employers are changing their views regarding acceptable résumé length. Since increasing numbers of job seekers and employers are using Internet-based job search engines to find and fill employment positions, longer résumés are needed for applicants to differentiate and distinguish themselves. Since the late 1990s, employers have been more accepting of résumés that are longer than two pages. Many professional résumé writers and human resources professionals believe that a résumé should be long enough so that it provides a concise, adequate, and accurate description of an applicant's employment history and skills. The transmission of resumes directly to employers became increasingly popular as late as 2002. Jobseekers were able to circumvent the job application process and reach employers through direct email contact and resume blasting, a term meaning the mass distribution of resumes to increase personal visibility within the job market.

The complexity and simplicity of various resume formats tends to produce results that vary from person to person, occupation, and industry. It is important to note that résumés used by medical professionals, professors, artists and people in many other specialized fields, may be comparatively longer. For example, an artist's résumé, typically excluding any non-art-related employment, may include extensive lists of solo and group exhibitions.

Curricula vitae

As with résumés, CVs are subject to recruiting fads. For example,

• In German-speaking countries a picture was a mandatory adjunct to the CV for a long time.
• In the huge Indian job market, photos and good looks are strongly preferred in the service industry (hotels, aviation, etc.) and in sales-marketing, front office and customer service jobs.
• Including a photograph of the applicant is strongly discouraged in the U.S. as it would suggest that an employer would discriminate on the basis of a person's appearance — age, race, sex, attractiveness, or the like. The theatre industry is an exception, where it is expected that résumés will include photographs.
• When listing non-academic employment in the U.S., the newest entries generally come first (reverse chronological).
• The use of an "objective statement" at the top of the document (such as "Looking for an entry-level position in stores") was strongly encouraged in the U.S. during the mid-1990s but fell out of favor by the late-1990s. However, with the avalanche of résumés distributed via the Internet since the late 1990's, an "objective" and/or "skills summary" statement has become more common to help recruiters quickly determine the applicant's suitability. It is not prevalent elsewhere.
• A profiling statement (or thumbnail description) was a protocol developed by placement agencies in the late 1980s. Many candidates now open their CV with such a statement. This can be a short paragraph or a handful of bullet points delineating the candidate's most desirable skills and experiences.
• Listing of computer skills (such as proficiency with word processing software) was a strong differentiator during the 1980s but was considered passé for most professional positions by the 1990s.

A British curriculum vitae

A standard British CV used to have the following points

• Personal details at the top, such as name in bold type, address, contact numbers and, if the subject has one, an e-mail address. Photos are not required at all, unless requested. Modern CVs are more flexible.
• A personal profile, written in either the first or the third person, a short paragraph about the job seeker. This should be purely factual, and free of any opinion about the writer's qualities such as "enthusiastic", "highly motivated", etc.
• A bulleted list of the job seeker's key skills or rather, professional assets - skills alone are somewhat unsophisticated
• A reverse chronological list of the job seeker's work experience, including his or her current role. The CV should account for the writer's entire career history. The career history section should describe achievements rather than duties. The early career can these days be lumped together in a short summary but recent jobs should illustrate concept, planning, achievement, roles.
• A reverse chronological list of the job seeker's education or training, including a list of his or her qualifications such as his or her academic qualifications (GCSEs, A-Levels, Highers, degrees etc.) and his or her professional qualifications (NVQs and memberships of professional organisations etc.). If the job seeker has just left the place of education, the work experience and education are reversed).
• Date of birth, gender if you have an ambiguous first name, whether you have a driving licence used to be standard - but nothing is required and you should not waste space on trivia. An employer requesting date of birth and gender needlessly could find itself on the losing side of recent anti-discrimination legislation.
• The job seeker's hobbies and interests (optional)

It is obligatory for it to be typed or word-processed, not hand-written.

There are certain faux pas for CVs:

• The CV being longer than one or two full sides of A4 paper
• Writing anything pejorative about other persons or businesses.
• If applying for a specific position, omitting a covering letter explaining one's suitability.
• Using the wrong size of envelope -- CVs are generally put unfolded into C4 envelopes..

Lying on a CV (on the work experience or the education/training) in order to get a job or anything else of value is fraud, a serious criminal and civil offense. An employer has the right to dismiss an employee or claim money from him or her in a civil court or even have the employee arrested for making false statements or fraud.

The Europass CV was developed by the Council of Europe and replaces the European CV, launched in 2002 by EU parliament. In January 2005 Parliament updated the format of Europass CV.

Online résumés

Many employers and job-seekers use the Internet almost exclusively in their search. Keeping résumés exclusively in electronic format has altered the dynamic of résumé reading and writing in several ways.

• Job seekers must choose a file format in which to maintain their résumé. Many employers insist on receiving résumés only as Microsoft Word documents. Others will accept résumés formatted in HTML, PDF, or plain ASCII text.
• Many potential employers now find candidates' résumés through search engines, which makes it more important for candidates to use appropriate keywords when writing a résumé.
• Including an e-mail address in an online résumé may expose the job seeker to spam.

Some career fields include a special section listing the life-long works of the author. For computer-related fields, the softography; for musicians and composers, the discography; for actors, a filmography.

Keeping résumés online has become increasingly common for people in professions that benefit from the multimedia and rich detail that are offered by an HTML résumé, such as actors, photographers, graphic designers, developers, dancers, etc.

Job seekers are finding an ever increasing demand to have an electronic version of their resume available to employers and professionals who use Internet recruiting at any time. Internet resumes differ from conventional resumes in that they are comprehensive and allow for self-reflection. Unlike regular 2 page resumes, which only show recent work experience and education, Internet résumés also show an individual’s skill development over his or her career.

Another advantage to internet resumes is the significant cost savings over traditional hiring methods. The Employment Management Association has included internet advertising in its cost-per-hire surveys for several years. In 1997, for example, it reported that the average cost-per-hire for a print ad was $3,295, while the average cost-per-hire with the Internet was $377. [1] This in turn has cut costs for many growing organizations, as well as saving time and energy in recruitment. Until the development of résumés in an electronic format, employers would have to sort through massive stacks of paper to find suitable candidates without any way of filtering out the poor candidates. Employers are now able to set search parameters in their database of résumés to reduce the number of résumés which must be reviewed in detail in the search for the ideal candidate.

Résumé service

A résumé service or résumé firm is an organization or company that provides résumé writing services or résumé certification services for a fee to a client or customer. Résumé writing services take a person's career information, work history and educational background and compose a document that is submitted to a hiring company for a specific job position or opening within the organization. Résumé certification services take a person's employment history, education, and credentials and verify them similar to a background checks. Résumé service companies are used by job seekers of all types to get help in creating, writing and composing an individual's résumé in preparation for a job search.

Résumé Database

In an effort to reduce fraud, various members of the United State Congress have suggested the use of a résumé database that would automatically keep track of all employment performed by an individual and would replace the résumé created by the job-seeker. The database, which would be tied to a social security number, would provide an accurate, fact-based account of an individual's work-history free of deception and exaggeration. Copies would be available for a nominal fee to all individuals, or potential employers who have obtained an applicant's signed consent. Due to controversy surrounding this, such a plan is yet to be implemented.

Information that could be contained within the résumé database would be as follows:

• Employers the individual has worked for, and a description of the services provided by the employer.
• The title of the position held by the employee.
• The employee's job description.
• First and last dates of work.
• Whether the decision to terminate employment was made by the employer or employee. Some versions would detail this section, including one of several categories listing reasons for termination, whether or not the employee gave proper notice, or whether or not the employer would recommend.
• Average wages received by the employee throughout duration of employment.

Sources

• Euro CV, Jean-Pierre Thiollet, Paris, Top Editions, 1997. ISBN 2 87 73 1131 7

See also

• Video resume
• Cover letter
• Europass European Standardised model
• hResume - a microformat for marking up résumés on web pages.
• Résumé fraud