Student CV Vs Professional CV

CV stands for Curriculum Vitae. A resume or a CV is a summary of one’s academic and professional career, achievements, contributions, and skills you have acquired. Your resume can create a firm impression on the admission committee or a recruiting board. So you can say that it is most important to design it very carefully and subsequently, critique it meticulously. Several important points must be kept in mind while building your CV. A well-written CV defines your objective and purpose through its content.

How is a student CV different from a Professional CV?

A student’s CV is not much different from a professional, but still, there are minor differences. The big difference between these CVs is that you cannot mention work experiences. Frankly speaking, little work experience is usually a drawback but all employers understand that students are unlikely to have all of the skills they require. Therefore, a student’s CV will need to make more of the positive attributes of the individual concerned which will leave a positive impact on the recruiter rather than highlighting the relevant work experience.

How to Write a Perfect Student CV?

To build a strong CV for students, just begin with your name and contact details before progressing towards the detailed profile and educational qualifications. In the body content, write in complete sentences. You can also use bullet points to highlight key skills. One of the most important things to remember while creating your CV is to include your current degree information first, followed by other qualifications. Add your work experience if you have any.

A good CV must contain the following points:

Personal / contact details
Full name
Place of residence
Phone number
E-mail address
LinkedIn profile (if representative and up-to-date)

Personal profile: Make a short, but powerful introduction of yourself emphasizing your skills in two to three sentences. Explain who you are, what you are skilled at what you are looking for, and what your ambitions are.
Work experience: Describe the jobs and work experience you have in short and also explain your tasks and responsibilities there. Focus on transferable skills as it will help you to be successful at other jobs as well.
Education and qualifications: Always keep your most recently finished study first and include details of your degrees. Mention the skills you have learned, projects undertaken, and your specific role and achievements.

Best Format and Structure for a Student CV?

Nowadays, some job applications are specifically providing the format they want to receive your CVs in. This is because the employers don’t want to duplicate information which will slow their selection processes down.
For a strong CV, use a clear and readable font that looks clear in the CV. We suggest Comic Sans is the font, that you should avoid and Times New Roman, Arial, and Verdana all work well. Make your fonts a bit larger for your name and contact details as the CV is about you, after all.
Put subheadings for the different sections of your CV to ensure that you make good use of line breaks so that the information in your CV is arranged in a manner that can be scanned. Employers see hundreds of student CVs every day, so you should remember that they will only glance at the details at the first scan.
Keep in mind that your CV should not be too long.
Make your CV according to the organization you are applying for. For example, if you are applying for a strong commercially oriented job, it does not help to mention your ambition of becoming a world-renowned environmentalist. Just like that build your CV accordingly.
Focus on achievements as the employer is interested only in that.

How to Write a Professional CV?

A professional CV should be focused on skills and past work experiences. At the beginning of your put some compelling and imposing personal statements that highlight your skills, achievements, and educational qualifications. The introduction of your CV comprises two to three sentences highlighting, who you are, your academic qualifications and experience, and your ambitions.

Professional CV format

Avoid using titles for the document like ‘curriculum vitae’ or ‘CV’ as it is a waste of space. If you want to keep any title then just put your name as the title.
Always mark the section headings or subheadings as it is a good way to break up your CV. Just make sure that they stand out with a larger and bold font format.
Use fonts that are professional, clear, and easy to read such as Arial, Calibri, or Times New Roman. Keep the size of the fonts between 10 and 12 and ensure all fonts and font sizes are consistent throughout the file.
List out everything in reverse chronological order which means the recruiter will review your most recent achievements first.
Keep the CV systematic in a particular order by using clear spacing and bullet points. This type of CV layout makes employers quickly pick out important information first.
Don’t just save the CV file as ‘Document 1’, name the file instead. It is better to name the file as it identifies you, such as ‘Joseph-CV’.
Just try to keep your CV clean without any grammatical as well as spelling errors as it will leave a bad impression on the recruiter.
If you are about to submit your CV, print it on an A4 size paper. Make sure that the print should be done on one side only and don’t fold your CV.

What to include in a Professional CV?

Contact details – Mention your full name, address, email address, and mobile number. There is no need to mention your date of birth and photograph unless you are applying for an acting or modelling job.
Profile – A CV profile highlights your key attributes and helps you stand out from the crowd. A good CV focuses on the sector you are applying to, as your cover letter will be a job-specific one. Keep your CV introduction short and snappy i.e. within 100 words.
Education – List all the previous education including professional qualifications. Keep the sort by the dates in descending order. Place the most recent first.
Work experience – Mention your work experience in reverse date order. Make sure that all the information you have mentioned is relevant to the job you are applying for. Mention your previous job title, the name of the company, the duration you have spent with the organization, and your key responsibilities there.
Skills and achievements– Add the skills that are relevant to the job you are applying for. Don’t exaggerate or bluff your abilities, as you will need to back up your claims at the interview. If you have got a lot of job-specific skills then it is better to build a skills-based CV.
Interests–Many job hunters write their hobbies in their CVs like ‘Socialising’, ‘going to the cinema’ and ‘reading’, but let us tell you that these are not going to catch a recruiter’s attention. You can provide relevant interests that give a complete picture of who you are, as well as give you something to talk about at the interview.

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