The Difference Between A Resume And CV

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What Is the Difference Between a Resume and a CV?

The primary differences between a resume and a curriculum vitae (CV) are the length, its layout, and purpose. While both are used in job applications, a resume and a CV are not always interchangeable.

Curriculum Vitae (CV):

A CV (Curriculum Vitæ, which means a course of life in Latin) is an in-depth document that can be laid out over two or more pages and it contains a high level of detail about your achievements, a great deal more than just a career biography. The CV covers your education as well as any other accomplishments like publications, awards, honours etc.
The document tends to be organised chronologically and should make it easy to get an overview of an individual’s full working career. A CV is static and doesn’t change for different positions; the difference would be in the cover letter.

Resume:

A resume, or résumé, is a concise document typically not longer than one page as the intended the reader will not dwell on your document for very long. The goal of a resume is to make an individual stand out from the competition.
The job seeker should adopt the resume to every position they apply for. It is in the applicant’s interest to change the resume from one job application to another and to tailor it to the needs of the specific post. A resume doesn’t have to be ordered chronologically, doesn’t have to cover your whole career like and is a highly customisable document.

Differences:

As stated, three major differences between CVs and resumes are the length, the purpose, and the layout. A resume is a brief summary of your skills and experience over one or two pages, a CV is more detailed and can stretch well beyond two pages. The resume will be tailored to each position whereas the CV will stay put and any changes will be in the cover letter.

A CV has a clear chronological order listing the whole career of the individual whereas a resume’s information can be shuffled around to best suit the applicant. The main difference between a resume and a CV then is that a CV is intended to be a full record of your career history and a resume is a brief, targeted list of skills and achievements.

In summary:

CV – long, covers your entire career, static
Resume – short, no particular format rule, highly customisable