Welcome to the debate. So today, we're turning
our attention to a document that is, well, it's
ubiquitous in professional life, yet curiously
ill -defined. It's a file that sits on the hard
drive of nearly every adult listener, probably
saved under a dozen different names like, you
know, Final Version 3 or Updated 2025. I am talking,
of course, about the Curriculum Vitae. The CV,
or depending on where you live and what you do.
The resume. And I suspect for many people listening,
those two words are completely interchangeable.
Precisely. And that interchangeability, that
blurring of lines, is exactly where we find our
contention today. We aren't just looking at a
piece of paper. We're looking at a fundamental
divergence in philosophy. On one side, you have
the curriculum vitae in its truest classical
sense, a comprehensive, exhaustive record of
one's course of life. And on the other, you have
the modern standard, a ruthlessly efficient,
curated summary designed for a really rapid screening.
Right. It's the battle between the historian
and the marketer. Is this document a biography?
Or is it a brochure? A biography implies a narrative,
which I believe is essential. But yes, the core
question is clear. Should a CV be a repository
of one's entire professional history, preserving
nuance and depth? Or does it have to be a two
-page snapshot, stripped of everything that doesn't
immediately sell a specific skill set to a specific
buyer? I'd frame it as utility versus vanity,
but I have a feeling you might see it differently.
I certainly would. I am the advocate, and I'll
be arguing that the curriculum vitae, especially
in its academic and research context, is a vital
historical document. This trend toward narrative
formats and preserving detail isn't vanity, it
is accuracy. You can't just reduce a 30 -year
career to bullet points without losing the truth
of the expertise. And I'm the dissenter, and
I come at it from a different way. I'll argue
that for the vast majority of the working world,
a CV is a tool with a single purpose. get an
interview. If it's not concise, if it's not scannable,
and if it's not tailored, it is a failure. The
comprehensive approach is frankly often just
a barrier to employment. You can be the most
qualified person in the world, but if your document
is a slog to get through, you won't get the job.
Then let us begin with the definitions, because
words matter, and in this case, geography seems
to dictate everything. They do. Let's get into
it. Okay, so I want to start by really grounding
this in the term itself. Curriculum vitae. It's
Latin, right? For course of life. The very etymology
implies a journey, a progression. It implies
a document of substance. When we look at the
standards in academia, especially in the United
States and Canada, the CV is explicitly distinct
from a resume. It's meant to be a full history.
We're talking about academic accomplishments,
teaching, research, publications, awards, honors,
all of it. You're listing categories. But let's
talk about volume. Because, oh, history is, well,
it's a very polite way of saying long. The volume
is a reflection of the contribution. I mean,
the source material notes that an academic CV
can be, and I really want to stress this, as
long as 69 pages. Now, I know you might recoil
at that. Recoil is an understatement. But just
consider the depth of a 40 -year career in high
-level research. To compress that into two pages
isn't editing, it's erasure. If you have published
200 papers, given 50 keynote speeches, and mentored
30 PhD candidates, that information is the qualification.
I'm sorry, I just don't buy that. 69 pages? That
is not a job application. That's a memoir that
absolutely no one asked for. Even in academia,
who is actually reading page 54? It is a record
of evidence. It allows a committee to verify
the standing of the scholar. It's a record of
everything, which means it highlights nothing.
But let me offer a different perspective. You
were focusing so heavily on this North American
academic distinction. But in general usage across
all other English -speaking countries, and very
specifically in British English, the term CV
is synonymous with a short summary. Synonymous
in usage, maybe, but functionally different.
Now, functionally identical to a resume. If you're
applying for a job in London or Sydney or practically
anywhere outside of a U .S. university, and they
ask for a CV, they expect a maximum of two sides
of A4 paper. That is the standard. If an American
academic applies for a corporate job in London
and sends a 20 -page document because they think
CV means course of life, they are going straight
into the bin. That's a constraint of paper, not
of intellect. It's a constraint of time. We know
the reality of the hiring process. Employers
rarely spend more than a few minutes reviewing
a document. In fact, many studies suggest it's
mere seconds, often under 10 seconds for that
first scan. Successful documents have to have
white space. They must be easy to scan. If you
hand a recruiter a 69 -page document or even
a five -page document, you are signaling a lack
of respect for their time. You're failing the
practical test of the job market. I see why you
think that, but let me offer another view. You're
prioritizing the comfort of the screener over
the quality of the candidate. Clarity doesn't
require brevity, it requires precision. If I
am applying for a post -secondary program, a
grant, or high -level tenure track position,
white space is not a virtue. Detail is the virtue.
The University of California, Davis explicitly
notes this. They state that in the U .S. and
Canada, while the terms are sometimes used interchangeably
in conversation, there is a distinct functional
difference. CVs are for academic positions. Resumes
are for non -academic ones. Right, but notice
the caveat there. They are sometimes used interchangeably.
That's the linguistic reality. But that doesn't
mean they should be. The source material clarifies
this beautifully. It notes it is a widespread
misconception in American English that calling
a short document a CV is incorrect. It isn't
incorrect, necessarily, but it blurs the line.
My argument is that preserving that functional
distinction, different contents, different lengths,
is intellectually valuable. By collapsing everything
into a short summary, we lose the tool we need
for rigorous evaluation. But we aren't collapsing
it. We're just using the label CV for the short
document because that is what the market dictates.
Outside of North America, the word resume is
barely used. In the UK, New Zealand, Ireland,
you don't send a resume. You send a CV. And that
CV represents experience and skills in a concise
format. If you insist that a CV must be a long
history, You are essentially telling the entire
English -speaking world outside of North America
that they're using their own language incorrectly.
That's an interesting point, though I would frame
it differently. It's not about correctness, it's
about expectations. Labels frame expectations.
If I ask for a CV and you give me two pages of
bullet points, I don't know your research interests.
I don't see your full publication list. I don't
see the trajectory of your thought. You don't
see it because for 99 % of jobs, it doesn't matter.
If you're applying to be a project manager or
a software engineer, nobody cares about your
trajectory of thought regarding a paper you wrote
in 1998. They want to know, can you use the software?
Have you led a team? Can you start on Monday?
And that reductionism is exactly why we have
a crisis of competence in so many industries.
We hire based on keywords and then wonder why
the person lacks depth. But I want to pivot to
something that I think proves my point, that
the world is actually craving more depth, not
less. I'm all ears. Let's talk about the narrative
CV. This is a really significant evolution in
the document's history. Oh, here we go. The storytime
CV. It is not storytime. It is context. The field
is moving away from simple lists and toward explaining
societal relevance. Just look at the source material.
In October 2024, the Government of Canada's main
research councils, NSERC, SSHRC and CIHR, announced
a transition to a new CV template. A bureaucratic
template change? That's your evidence? It is
significant. These are the bodies that fund the
vast majority of research in the country. They
are allowing for free -form narrative personal
statements. This aligns with the responsible
research assessment movement and trends we're
seeing in the UK with UK Research and Innovation
and in the US with the National Institutes of
Health. Okay, let's pause and look at what that
actually means. You are citing the NIH, the Government
of Canada, and UK Research and Innovation. These
are massive, government -funded grant bodies.
Of course they want narratives. They have committees
whose entire job is to read these things. They
are trying to allocate millions of dollars, so
they need to justify the spend with impact. They
want to understand the value of the work, not
just the count of the citations. A list of papers
doesn't tell you if the research actually changed
policy or improved patient outcomes or influenced
a community. The narrative format lets the researcher
connect the dots. That is a compelling argument.
For a scientist seeking a grant, I will grant
you that. But have you considered the context
of the private sector or even the non -academic
public sector? The private sector could learn
a lot from this. The private sector doesn't have
the time. You're talking about narrative flow
and societal relevance. I'm talking about applicant
tracking systems. The robots. The reality. The
source material explicitly mentions that in the
2010s, it became popular to provide electronic
versions via employment websites or LinkedIn.
When you submit a CV today, it's often processed
by an ATS before a human being ever sees it.
These systems do not care about your freeform
narrative. They care about keywords. They care
about standard formatting. Which is a tragedy
for human nuance. We are letting algorithms dictate
human value. It might be a tragedy, but it is
the rules of the game. If you write a beautiful
narrative about your course of life, and the
algorithm is looking for Java and Agile, and
you buried those words in a paragraph about your
philosophy of coding, you are filtered out. You
don't get the job. I'm not convinced by that
because it assumes we must capitulate to the
machine. The narrative format allows for context.
It allows an applicant to explain a gap in employment
or why a certain research path was chosen. Standard
bullet points punish anyone with a non -linear
career path. You can explain that in the interview.
The CV is just the key to the door. But you just
said the door is locked by an algorithm. Exactly.
So use the key that fits. Brevity. Keywords.
Clear headings. The narrative CV is a lovely
concept for tenured professors or people applying
for Guggenheim fellowships. For the rest of the
workforce, industry, nonprofits, the public sector,
the ability to tailor information to a specific
position is what matters. You don't send the
same history to every employer. You curate. Curating
is fine. Omission is the problem. But let's step
back from the mechanics of hiring and look at
the document itself. I want to discuss the etymology
because I think it reveals the weight this document
should carry, regardless of what an ATS thinks.
I suspect we are about to get a Latin lesson.
A brief one. As I mentioned, the term is a loan
word from Neo -Latin. Traditionally, it was spelled
curriculum vitae, with the ligature, the and
a combined. Which practically no one uses anymore,
mostly because finding that character on a standard
keyboard is a nightmare. Rare, yes, but elegant.
But here's where it gets interesting. The plural.
In English, we often see curriculums. Which is
perfectly acceptable. I have three curriculums
on my desk. It's acceptable in dictionaries,
yes, but the traditional Latin plural is curricula
vitae. And notice, it's vitae, singular. The
course of a life, not curricula vitarum. Curricula
vitarum? Yes. Some people try to pluralize both
words, thinking they're being clever. They think,
well, if I have multiple courses, I must have
multiple lives. Logical, in a way. But incorrect.
The source material calls this a hypercorrection,
based on superficial knowledge of Latin. Vitae
is a genitive singular. It means of a life. So
curricula vitare means the courses of a life.
So saying curricula vitarum is basically tripping
over your own pretentiousness? Indeed. It implies
courses of lives, which is technically acceptable
if you're referring to a group of CVs from different
people, but usually it's just someone trying
too hard and missing the mark. My point is, there
is a precision to the language that mirrors the
precision required in the document. When we treat
the CV as just a list of stuff, we get sloppy.
We get curriculums. We lose the connection to
the course of life. That's a fascinating linguistic
debate, truly. But I, I come at it from a different
way. I find this debate interesting, but ultimately
academic. And I intend that pun. I expected nothing
less. Whether you use the ligature A or not,
or whether you pluralize it with an S or an A,
the document's utility is defined by the reader,
not the writer, and certainly not by a dictionary.
But if the reader is ill -informed... The reader
is the employer. They are the one with the power.
If the employer wants a resume and you insist
on sending a curriculum vitae because of its
neo -Latin roots, you are prioritizing your ego
over the objective. It is not ego to insist on
accuracy. It is standards. It is if the accuracy
doesn't serve the goal. The source material states
clearly. A CV's format is not fixed. Its main
purpose is to impress an employer, showcasing
skills, experience, and creativity. And creativity
can be shown through narrative, through a comprehensive
display of one's work. Creativity in presentation,
not in reinventing the wheel. The source notes
that successful resumes have enough white space
to make them easy to scan. That is the design
constraint. You are arguing for a document that
exists in a vacuum. I am arguing for a document
that exists in a market. I am arguing for a document
that respects the complexity of a human life.
When we reduce a career to skills and experience
tailored for a specific position, we commodify
the person. The comprehensive CV, the one that
lists the publications, the presentations, the
awards, says, this is who I am in full. And the
concise CV says, this is what I can do for you
right now. And frankly, that is what pays the
mortgage. Perhaps. But notice how the source
mentions that a CV represents a full history
of academic accomplishments. Even in the U .S.,
where the resume is dominant, the CV is required
for academic positions. Why? Because in that
field, what you did 10 years ago matters. The
foundation matters. If you're hiring a heart
surgeon, you want to know every fellowship they
did. You don't want the concise marketing summary.
Agreed. In that field. But you cannot extrapolate
that to the rest of the economy. If you're a
graphic designer, your portfolio matters more
than a list of every client you've ever had since
1990. If you're a sales director, your numbers
matter more than a narrative about your philosophy
of sales. But even there, the course of life
matters. The evolution of a style matters. The
consistency of performance matters. We are going
to have to agree to disagree on the philosophy
of the course. Because I see a course as something
you navigate. You see it as a map you have to
carry with you forever. I suppose so. But looking
at where we've landed, it seems we have two perfectly
valid documents trying to share one name. That
is a fair assessment. To summarize my position,
while brevity has its place, perhaps in a cover
letter or an introductory email, the curriculum
vitae remains the essential format for deep intellectual
and professional accounting. The shift toward
narrative formats in high -level research supported
by major funding bodies in Canada, the UK, and
the US proves that we are realizing the limitations
of the bullet point. We need the history. We
need the course of life to truly understand the
candidate. And to summarize my view, for the
modern workforce, the CV is a flexible, concise
marketing document. Its value is measured solely
by its effectiveness in securing interviews.
not its page count. Whether you call it a CV
or a resume, if it isn't tailored, if it isn't
scannable by both humans and ATS bots, and if
it doesn't respect the reader's time, it belongs
in the recycling bin. It seems the context really
is the deciding factor here. It is, if you're
in academia, medicine, or high -level research.
You need the course of life. You need the evidence.
You need the 69 pages if that's what the career
demands. Exactly. But if you're in industry,
the nonprofit sector, or the public sector. You
need the summary. You need the marketing tool.
One thing I think we can both agree on is how
the digital age is sort of blurring these lines.
Yes. The source mentioned LinkedIn and social
networking services. In a way, those platforms
allow for both. Right. You can have the electronic
version that acts as a comprehensive record.
Basically an infinite scroll of your history.
That's your course of life. A digital compromise.
The comprehensive archive lives online where
space is infinite. Well, the curated summary
gets sent via email as a PDF, where attention
is finite. That is a very elegant solution. You
keep your curriculum vitae in the cloud, your
curricula vitae. Don't push it. And you send
your resume to the recruiter. Precisely. It allows
you to be the historian and the marketer. You
just have to know which hat to wear and when.
And perhaps that is the ultimate skill, knowing
your audience. That's the first line of any good
CV. Thank you for listening to the debate. We
hope this conversation has prompted you to look
at that document on your desktop a little differently,
whether it represents a marketing pitch or a
life's work. Just make sure you spell check it.
Until next time.