Whether it’s medical school or residency applications, job offerings, or even

asking for letters of recommendation, you will often be asked for a copy of your CV. But what is a
CV? Why is it important? And how can you create one that presents you in the best light?
CV stands for curriculum vitae, which is Latin for “course of life.” Your CV is essentially
your personal list of all your academic achievements and credentials. Although this may sound
similar to a resume, the two documents are not the same.

Curriculum Vitae vs Resume

Let’s start by breaking down the differences between a curriculum vitae, or CV, and a
resume.
The most important difference between your CV and your resume is the purpose of each
document. CVs are used predominantly in the academic or research setting to provide an objective
list of your educational accomplishments and awards. In contrast, resumes are used predominantly
when applying for jobs. The primary goal of a resume is to quickly catch a prospective
employer’s attention and show them why you’re a good fit for the position you’re applying for.
Although the two may contain similar information, there are additional differences you
should be aware of. For instance, length. Because your CV is a summary of all your qualifications
and accomplishments, there is no minimum or maximum length.
Although you should be succinct when listing your education and experiences, a CV can
be as short or as long as necessary. If you’re early on in your academic career, your CV may only
be 1-2 pages. If you’re further along in your academic career and have been participating in
research for decades and have your name on hundreds of publications, your CV may be
substantially longer.
Resumes, on the other hand, are much shorter. Your resume should be 1-2 pages maximum and
be tailored to the specific job that you’re applying for.
Much like your CV, you should still include information about your educational
background; however, the main focus should be on the job skills, work experience, and
accomplishments that make you a good candidate for that specific position. Employers don’t
have the time to review a 6-page long CV when they’re screening through hundreds of candidates.
Instead, they want a quick summary of your qualifications and why you might be a good fit.

Organizing Your CV
Now that we know the differences between a curriculum vitae and a resume, let’s discuss
how to organize your CV. No matter what type of program or position you’re applying to, your CV
should be well organized, easy to follow, and free from spelling and grammatical errors. You
should choose a font that is easy to read and professional, such as Arial or Helvetica, and a font
size that is unobtrusive – usually around 11 or 12. The margins should be consistent at around 0.5 -
1 inches and you should avoid overcomplicating things with excessive bolding, italics, or bullet
points. Unlike your resume, your CV shouldn’t be used as an opportunity to show off your graphic
design skills. It should be simple, easy to read, and professional.
Most CVs will be organized into five major headings: personal information, education
and awards, professional experience, extracurricular experience, and research &
publications. The order in which you present the information may vary depending on your
strengths and the type of program or position you're applying for.
The general consensus, however, is to organize each section chronologically, starting with
your most recent experience and working backward. Now that we have a broad overview of how
to format and organize your CV, let’s break down each of the five major sections in detail.
For your personal information, you should include your name, title, and contact
information. This includes your address, email, and phone number. Although this should go
without saying, don’t include sensitive information such as your social security number. Also
avoid including irrelevant or unnecessary information such as your marital status,
nationality, sexual orientation, or spiritual beliefs.
Next is education and awards. Some people will keep this as one section, whereas others
may break it up into two separate sections. Regardless, you should mention your most recent
degree first along with your graduation date or expected graduation date. If you have an advanced
degree, you should also consider adding your thesis as a bullet point. This is the section where you
should also mention any honors or awards, including any scholarships or grants, you’ve
received. That being said, as you progress through your academic career, you may want to limit
your honors or awards to only your most recent accomplishments. If you’re applying to residency
programs after medical school, for instance, you may choose to omit awards from high school or
undergrad. The fact that you were valedictorian or soccer captain during high school isn’t
important for residency program directors and may come across as unnecessary “fluff” used to pad
your CV. Consider who will be reviewing your CV when deciding what information to include.
Next is the experiences section. How to best organize this section will depend heavily on
your specific experiences. There is no absolute right or wrong approach. The most important thing
is that it is well organized, easy to follow, and everything is categorized correctly. If you’re a
premed, for example, you may choose to split this section into work, research, and volunteering
and organize each of your experiences into one of these categories. For each one, you should go
into a little bit of detail about what you did, where you did it, how long you did it for, and, in the
case of shadowing or research, who your supervisor was. The key to an effective experiences
section is presentation. How you present an experience can sometimes be even more important
than the experience itself. Your goal should be to demonstrate the traits that programs are looking
for through your experiences. Instead of saying you’re hardworking, frame your experiences in a
way that shows you’re hardworking. Use action verbs whenever possible. These are
words that convey doing. For example, if you spent a few months researching in a lab, your
first bullet point can say something like, “Investigated the effect of a new drug on pluripotent
stem cells.” Action verbs help frame your experiences and provide a clearer picture of what you
did.
Next, highlight your accomplishments within that role. In contrast to simply listing
your duties or your responsibilities, listing your accomplishments often allows you to frame the
experience in a way that sounds much more impressive. “Created a system to poll 1,000 students
using social media” sounds much more impressive than “Surveyed students through social media.”
You should also try to quantify your achievements whenever possible. For instance, saying “1,000
students” sounds much more impressive than just saying “students.” That being said, you should be
careful to never lie or over-exaggerate your skills or accomplishments. Not only is this
incredibly unprofessional, but it can also hurt your chances of getting into whatever program or
position you’re applying to – especially if you can’t back up something on your CV. Remember,
anything that you put on your CV is fair game for an interviewer to ask about, and they can also
check with your references. Make sure you’re able to talk confidently and truthfully about
everything you choose to include.
Next is the extracurricular activities section. Here’s where you get to showcase the skills
that make you a good team player. This is where you should discuss your leadership
experiences and any events that you helped organize. You should discuss what you were a
part of, what your role was, how long you were there, and approximately how many hours
per week you dedicated to it. This is another great opportunity to use action verbs again. If you
were the leader of a student club, you might want to discuss how you “improved” something
during your term as leader. If you started the group and built it from the ground up, you may want
to use even stronger action verbs such as “founded” or “established.” Similar to the experiences
section, you should also talk about what you accomplished during this time.
Lastly, we have the publications and presentations section. Depending on where you are
in your academic career, you may have very little or a lot to write about in this section. If you’re a
premed, for instance, this section will be much shorter than if you were a Ph.D. graduate applying
for a research position. If you don’t have much to write about in this section, you may want to
consider adding it as a subheading under your research experiences.
Regardless, this section is your chance to organize any research articles you’ve written
or presentations you’ve done. A good way to organize this section would be to categorize them
based on type. As an example, you could have different sections for peer-reviewed papers,
published papers, oral presentations, and poster presentations. This is another section where
you want to be careful not to include fluff, lie, or over-exaggerate your accomplishments. Don’t
include simple presentations that you did as a student for your classes. Although you may
have spent a great deal of time preparing these and they may have been important for your growth
as a student, these types of experiences are often seen as just “padding” your CV and can
negatively impact the reviewer’s perception of your accomplishments. Additionally, you should
avoid placing the same information in more than one place. If you did a poster presentation on a
project that also ended up getting published in a journal, you should only include it once – either
in poster presentations or published papers. Including the same project multiple times can come
across as just “padding” your CV.
Depending on what type of program or position you’re applying for, you may also choose
to include some additional subheadings in your CV. For example, if you’re a registered nurse
applying for clinical research positions as you pivot towards applying to medical school, you may
want to include a certification section. On the other hand, a medical student may want to
include a section dedicated to any societies or student interest groups that they’ve been a
part of. If you decide to include any of these sections, the same rules apply as they did for
previous sections.
Make sure the sections are well-organized and succinct and avoid adding fluff or
repeating information.

Final Thoughts
When writing your CV, it’s important to remember that first impressions count. This is often
your first opportunity to make a professional impression, so having a rock-solid resume or CV
is paramount when applying for a new job, position, research, or other activity.