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?
Dr. Jubbal, MedSchoolInsiders.com. 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.
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.
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.
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.
If you’re struggling to write your own, be sure to check out the Med School Insiders CV
and Resume Editing Service. In traditional Med School Insiders fashion, we’ve recruited top
talent and painstakingly optimized our systems to provide you with the best possible service.
Our resume and CV editing services include careful, detailed analysis of formatting,
content, tone, in addition to insights on how to improve effectiveness in landing your dream
position. Learn more at MedSchoolInsiders.com. Thank you all so much for watching. If you enjoyed
this video, be sure to check out Medical School Application Explained or 5 Reasons
Premeds FAIL to Get Into Medical School. Much love, and I’ll see you guys there.