How do I know if a CV or a Resume is best to submit?

I’ve always been told CVs are used only in the academic world, as in, if you’re applying to be a professor or something along those lines. In the business world, people don’t want to spend their time reading 6 pages of information about you, they want a quick, to-the-point, summary of the most important things about you.

I used to work at career services at my school, and that’s just what I gleaned from reading the information there over and over again in search possible grammatical errors. others might have different opinions, as this is an issue of style.

Yes, we use CVs in my world (to apply for graduate positions, grants, post-doctoral fellowships, and faculty positions).

Everywhere else, resumes are preferred.

I would almost always just use a resume. If you want, it might also be clever to put a URL to a full CV at the bottom of your resume.

Really depends on the industry, I would imagine.

I never know the differences between a CV and resume..anyone care to explain?

meakey,
A CV is really long and basically lists everything you’ve ever done relating to the field, all the awards you’ve won, all the jobs you’ve held, all the papers you’ve ever written, etc.

A resume is a very flexible animal, but in general, it is only 1 page long, and only lists the most important things.

A CV is used in the academic world, and a resume is used in the business world.

(That would be my soundbyte on the difference between the two.)

I guess I was thinking that I could get more creative with a CV, but the above is good advice….

For instance, I was thinking of designating section: business, teaching, writing, as opposed to centering it around job title….whadya think?

I personally would center it around the job you’re applying for.

I took a business class recently in which the prof really emphasized a concept he called balancing “the need to know versus the need to tell” which basically is saying – you may want to tell your possible employer a lot of information about you, but s/he doesn’t want to know information about you s/he considers irrelevant. s/he only wants to know what makes you a good candidate for the job. if business, teaching, and writing are all parts of the job in question, then including all of them would be perfect. otherwise, i wouldn’t.

If the job has a lot of applicants (and often, even if it doesn’t) they won’t have the time, energy, or interest for more than one page about you.

And as chica said, do center it around the job you’re applying for. List only or mostly things that are relevant.

In my (limited) experience interviewing computer programmers, the worst applicants have the longest resumes. Unless you are certain that more is expected, keep it to two pages.

”...business, teaching, writing,...”

For those fields, you would definitely want to go the more formal route. It’s one thing if you are in a creative field (so writing is a maybe), but for traditional job applications you want to stick with the familiar one page format. If they have a stack of resumes and are looking for a routine worker, they will immediately put aside one that is out of the box.

You have to know what the hiring manager is looking for and craft your resume to their preferences. Usually they want to see skills and a stable history of relevant experience, training or education.

Make those be the first thing they see on the page and avoid adding anything that would allow them to disqualify you for the position before they even interview you.

Usually the hiring manager has too many resumes and is looking for ways to quickly disqualify candidates so that they can focus on just a few applicants.

I think it really does depend what you’re applying for. University teaching position—CV. Creativity won’t help you there; they want content experience. You are selected on the basis of what you’ve taught, written, attended, because they need to know what gaps you can fill in their course offerings.

Anything else really wants skills and completion highlighted.

I second that CVs are standard in the arts world / creative fields. Also you might use them in an industry mirroring in some sense academia (for example: a curator). For resumes, I tailor each one to the job I am applying for. But I use my CV when I am getting my foot in the door of a new industry and I know they may need a more complete picture of my experiences (I still edit for the job, tho). As someone who hires a lot of contract labor, I can tell you that readability and clarity of thought and overall message are the most important things I look for in a resume. Also rudimentary sobriety and not being a d-bag :)