Anyone know how to write a CV?

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texherp

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Hi guys. Thanks for taking the time to help me out. It's been a tough time to be just out of college and looking for a (good) job. :glare: I'm trying to apply for this internship with a company in Kansas and when I sent them an email asking about applying, the guy said it was "very informal" and to just send a CV with a brief cover letter including my interests and when I'd like to start/end.

So, I did a little searching and the internet says some people interchange the words "resume" and "CV", but that "CV" properly refers to a more lengthy and detailed resume that can be several pages long. So my question is, what do you think they want? I figure going with a real CV would be safer. But I've never seen a CV before and I haven't really found a solid example online. If you Google "CV examples" and look at the images, they all look so different and most of them look like ordinary resume's anyways.

Have any of y'all had to write CV's and what kind of fomat did they have?
 
I don't know that anyone is going to be able to give you a good answer for this question since you are trying to read someone else's mind.

From what I read, one of the worst faults you can exhibit when applying for a job is "NOT" following directions. CV may mean different things to different people; but "informal" I think is the clue here. I know it is not strictly true; but I think some folks use resume and CV as more or less the same document; but use the term CV when the application is for an academic position.

Given that you are just out of college, neither your resume nor your CV are going to be very long and they are going to be pretty similar as to content.

Take a look at this lin k and see if is helpful:
Curriculum vitae - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Your resume will be going through a screening process. The company's human resources people and the hiring managers will be FLOODED with hundreds or thousands of resumes. They will be spending an extremely short time with each resume (a couple of seconds) looking for key bits of data to help them decide if you make the cut or get trashed.

As a recent graduate with little or no working experience I recommend you confine your CV or resume to one page. Frankly, you don't have a lot to tell them about that they care about.

List your college degree and any academic honors you received such as deans list etc. Same for high school.

List briefly, any employment you had during school or in the summers. Also internships.

Unlike college admissions, they won't care about clubs and extra curricular activities.

I recommend a lightly colored paper such as a beige or tan color. It will get noticed among the sea of white resumes.

In your cover letter, also brief, highlight your positive qualities and point them to a key part or two of the resume.

Send more than one copy as directed. Find out the name of the hiring manager and send one directly to that person. Follow up a week or ten days later with another round of resumes and cover letters. Expressing that you are still very interested and eager to meet with them to discuss their needs and how you can help them.

Good luck. You are looking for work in a difficult time and are not only competing with other college graduates abut with older people who are out of work.
 
You may want to be specific about courses you took in college that may be directly related to the job you are applying for. You have a degree but each college has different requirements and you may have taken a course as an elective that will be useful in the job you are seeking. Since you are fresh out of college, that will help to flesh out your CV or resume.
 
Funny you should ask this. I'm currently teaching a a writing course and resumes are one of the things on my list.

There are different schools of thought about colors of paper. Some say it will make your resume stand out. The last batch of resumes I saw were ALL on colored paper so no single resume stood out. However, the smart arse that put his resume in a slippery report cover scored an interview because all the other resumes slid OFF his.

Keep it short and sweet. Catch their attention with your cover letter. Don't be boring on your cover. One page cover, one page resume (CV) and thats it. On your resume you will want to point out the classes that you excelled in or that you feel are relevant.

Sorry, I must dash off to a ball practice with my daughter but will check in here later if you have more questions.
 
There are many ways to write a resume, and they all vary to the person writing it. How do you want to come across? If you want it to look professional, you had better make sure it looks uniform and neat. Etc. There is only one person who can write your resume the perfect way - YOU! :) If you are having a hard time, try researching how people have applied to your type of position before. You can switch the order of some things according to importance, too - think about the person you're writing it for. What would they MOST like to see? What do they care about? If you worked a part time job for a few months three years ago that has NOTHING to do with the field and does not prove anything to the person screening your resume, don't put it in. You don't have to put everything under the sun, unless you really have little experience in the job world. Just think about it if you were on the other side of the desk.

In my opinion, it is better to be overdressed than underdressed. Even if he says it's "very informal", you're better off writing a professional resume.

Everyone here is going to have conflicting information about what you should put in and what you shouldn't - YOU decide that. If you want to put in under your degree that you excelled in analytical thinking, doing a specific task related to the field, put it in!!! If you want to leave it out because you don't think it's important, leave it out. What will work and what won't? It's up to you to assume what the guy on the other side of the desk is thinking. Also it helps to look at the job description, and take information from there and apply it to your resume in your own words.

Keep in mind some companies are looking for key words in your resume to screen through hundreds of them. After they do that, the ones left over are the ones that actually get read. Make sure yours gets read!!! :)

And one more thing... don't lie!! lol
 
Thanks for the all the advice!!!

I know I need to be brief, but sometimes it feels like I'm coming across as incomplete or something. I really wasn't sure how "wordy" you could go with a CV vs. a resume. I do have a resume by the way, so maybe I could just elaborate on it a tiny bit.

I'm definitely gonna go with putting a few of my classes since I really don't have a lot of past jobs to speak of. This is for an internship with an agricultural research company (The Land Instititute, in case you're curious) and I'll be doing a lot of the down-and-dirty field work for their research projects. It's just a temporary job and I would think most applicants would be like me.

My cover letter is a whole other thing I got to do too. What kind of key words are ya'll referring to? I always just end up saying the same old "I"m a hard working, self-motivated, etc. etc...." which is true, but maybe over done.

And then he says to talk about my interests when I was always told it was more important to talk about what you can do for them. It is an internship, so it's probably a little different.

AND, I'm supposed to just email it to him, so no colored paper :rolleyes:

I'll see what I come up with, Thanks again!
 

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