What on earth is a CV?

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by AV8R, Sep 11, 2003.

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  1. AV8R

    AV8R Active Member

    This may very well qualify as the official dumb post of the year but this is a term that I am totally unfamiliar with. I see people frequently using the term "CV" on this web site. Can someone fill me in on what these mysterious initials stand for (other than my name, of course).

    Cy
     
  2. agilham

    agilham New Member

    It's a curriculum vitae. It's what you guys on the other side of the pond call a resume.

    Angela
     
  3. Ike

    Ike New Member

    It's usually more detailed than a resume.
     
  4. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    All this time I thought CV stood for Cyrus Vanover!
     
  5. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Take GREAT comfort, my friend, no one has contributed more dumb posts than I. I qualify for dumb, dummer and dumbest!
     
  6. agilham

    agilham New Member

    Um, not necessarily. Or at least, not on this side of the pond. But that does depend upon circumstances.

    A standard business CV will be one or two pages, and will nowadays (it wasn't always the case) look and feel very similar to a US resume, apart from the tone in which it is written.

    An academic CV is a very different beast. Even for a postgraduate or first postdoctoral post it will run to a minimum of three pages, including detailed descriptions of previous employment, research already pursued and research and teaching interests.

    Back in the days when I was still a full-time academic, my academic CV ran to about five pages plus publications and covering letter. I could, by dint of taking the font down to ten point, the margins down to 3/4 of an inch, losing a lot of the formatting and heavily pruning the prose take it down to four pages of A4, but it was a hell of an effort and I'm pretty certain it wouldn't be possible now.

    Needless to say, despite a lifetime interview to application ratio of about 2 in 3 in the UK, my record for posts in the US is, er, not quite so good . . . pretty terrible, in fact ;-)

    Angela
     
  7. AV8R

    AV8R Active Member

    Thanks for all of your responses. I learned something new today!! :p

    Cy
     
  8. AV8R

    AV8R Active Member

    Let's just keep it our little secret, Bill. :D
     
  9. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    Curriculum Vitae

    I've looked at advertisements for faculty positions and they always request that the applicant submit a curriculum vitae. I had no idea what a curriculum vitae was, but incorrectly assumed that whatever it is, it must be much too important for me to be able to have one. :eek:

    Thanks to this thread, I now know that a curriculum vitae is simply a document that is a little bit more detailed than a resume. It's a fifty-dollar word for resume. :p

    The 21st Century, with the help of the internet, is truly the information age and the barriers of the secret language (Latin) continue to fall. :D
     
  10. Mike Albrecht

    Mike Albrecht New Member

    In the US a curriculum vitae is often referrenced in the academic arena (as Tony said), it also (usually) goes into greater depth on your academic experience, and research experience.
     
  11. agilham

    agilham New Member

    The Chronicle of Higher Education runs an occasional column called CV Doctor that gives advice about the US style of academic CV. The most recent one I could find was http://chronicle.com/jobs/2002/10/2002101101c.htm

    Unfortunately, they started the column *after* my time of sending UK-style academic CVs to US institutions.

    Angela
     
  12. Chip

    Chip Administrator

    Think of a CV as an *academic* resume.

    Where a regular resume focuses on achievements in the workplace and employment, the CV focuses more on education and the application of education (publications, teaching positions, etc)

    They really aren't the same thing at all; someone who works in the commercial sector and in academia might well have both a CV and a resume.
     
  13. bruinsgrad

    bruinsgrad New Member

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