Curriculum vitae abbreviated a CV in Latin means "course of life" which is a comprehensive listing of professional history including every term of the employment, publication, academic credentials and contribution or significant achievement.

Different countries hold different yardstick for the definition of curriculum vitae. In the western countries, using a photograph is strongly discouraged because it may be taken that the employer would discriminate on the basis of a person's appearance, age, sex, race and attractiveness and so on except for theatre and modeling jobs.

A British CV has personal details on top, like name in bold letters, address, contact numbers and an e-mail address. Modern curriculum vitaes are more flexible. Curriculum vitae should be a personal profile written either in the first or third person, which is purely factual with a bulleted list of the jobseeker's key skills and work experience in a reverse chronological order. In US and Canada a curriculum vitae is a comprehensive listing of every stage of the professional history of the applicant and in some professions, it may even include samples of the person's work running into many pages.

The curriculum vitae should account for the writer's full academic and career history describing the achievements and it is better to be typed or word-processed. The worst thing is to lie on the work experience or education, will be considered as a fraud and a serious criminal offence.

Internet recruiting has been on the increase and so electronic version of the curriculum vitae is preferable which has the added advantage of cost savings over the traditional methods.

Although resume and curriculum vitae can be used interchangeably there are certain basic differences between a resume and curriculum vitae.

A resume usually has a free form organizational style to find an employment in the private sector whereas a CV has a more standardized synopsis looking for positions in academic or educational institutions. A resume is suited for a specific group of target people and is more descriptive whereas a curriculum vitae presents information about oneself in a compact and clear and precise way. A resume may start with a specific personal goal followed by a list of achievements whereas curriculum vitae includes complete list of data. A resume may or may not submit the complete history of the person but curriculum vitae usually ensures that there are no omissions.

Even though there is no universally accepted format for writing a curriculum vita, it should basically possess a good presentation, be a source of interesting relevant information and a script that talks about oneself because a curriculum vita is written not for the applicant but for the reader's information. Irrelevant and negative information should be left out. The appearance of curriculum vitae makes a lot of difference. So the layout of a curriculum vitae should be neat, must be written on a good quality paper, be concise and should be free from spelling or typographical errors.

In a nutshell, a curriculum vita must meet the needs of the person to whom it is intended for and the applicant must be comfortable with its content and style.