What’s the Deal with Resumes, CVs, and CCRs?

Written by Payton McPhee

Thumbnail Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash

As a university student, there are three documents which are arguably the most important pieces of paper for helping you within, and outside of, your university career. These special documents are your resume, your curriculum vitae (CV), and your co-curricular record (CCR). These documents will help advance your career and act as a permanent record of what you have accomplished thus far in life, whether that be academically, in the workforce, or in your extracurriculars. However, even though these documents are highly valuable, not many students have them or understand their importance.  This article intends to inform students about the importance of these three documents and how to make their own stand out among the crowd. 

Resumes

Resumes are the most common of these three documents given that most students already have a resume that they have used to apply for jobs or positions on campus. However, there are a vast amount of differing guidelines online on how to create a proper resume which makes it difficult to understand the appropriate resume etiquette. Many different resources suggest different ways that resumes should look and what they should include, which often sets students up for failure before they know it. For example, there are certain fonts, templates, and formats that are just not acceptable to use when creating a resume, and oftentimes when they are used, the resume won’t even be looked at by the employer. 

To begin, a resume should include all of your basic contact information, followed by specific sections that illustrate your employment experience and other relevant information such as certifications, skills, and awards. Some people may also include their volunteer experience or athletic accomplishments if it is relevant. In general, the sections of a resume tend to vary depending on the individual’s past experiences and what job is being applied for. This is because resumes should be tweaked to reflect the job you are applying for, which means that your resume will look different for every job that you apply to. 

When creating a resume, there are a few general tips that should be followed to ensure you create a resume that is professional and memorable. First, students should stay away from the templates that are provided on Word or other websites. These templates often aren’t recognized by the scanner that employers sometimes use to review resumes, which means that yours will likely be rejected before anyone even looks at it. In a similar vein, PDF files often aren’t recognized by online application portals, which is why students should always use Word docs instead. Additionally, students should always use sans serif fonts (i.e., Arial, Times New Roman, Calibri, etc.), make use of bullet points, and keep their resume around one to two pages long. 

Curriculum Vitae

Curriculum vitae is Latin for “course of life”, which is exactly what this document represents. A CV is a document that is often described as a more in-depth resume because it not only showcases your work history and extracurricular experiences, but also all of your awards, publications, honours, achievements, projects, and presentations. However, some applications require either a resume or a CV, so it is important to understand the difference between these two documents and when to use each.

In general, a CV will include anything that you were involved in, inside and outside of university, and any awards that you were given. Scholarships, Dean’s List, bursaries, research experience, employment, thesis presentations, and extracurricular activities are some examples of what is usually included in a CV. These documents are generally used in an academic setting and might be required when applying to graduate school, paid positions on campus, or even when requesting reference letters from professors. 

With regard to the format, a CV is laid out similarly to a resume in the way that there are sections for each important topic. However, these sections are not strict and they may vary for each individual. For example, someone who has been highly involved in sports might include a section to highlight these skills, whereas someone who has lots of volunteer experience may opt to write about these roles instead of sports. Additionally, the length of a CV varies depending on how involved the person is. For example, a first year undergraduate student may have a CV that is two pages, but a professor’s CV might extend past 30 pages! 

It is recommended that you update your CV regularly so that you don’t forget to add an important activity. When you begin a new volunteer position or receive recognition for an accomplishment, the first thing you should do is add it to your CV. If you leave this until the last minute when you are applying for a job, you may miss out on critical information that could help you get the job. On a similar note, CVs should always be tailored to the position that you are applying for, just like resumes. For example, a CV for a data analyst job would look quite different than a CV for a teaching position. The former might highlight the person’s skills with Excel and SPSS, whereas the latter might put more emphasis on their public speaking and communication skills. 

As with resumes, CVs should not use a pre-made template that is provided by Word. These templates often don’t register with the programs that scan the documents and come off as unprofessional. Because of this, CVs should be made from scratch, but the Internet does provide helpful tips for how to lay out your document to help make the process less daunting. A great website that offers a guide for creating a CV can be found here. 

Co-Curricular Records

A student’s co-curricular record is similar to a CV in some ways, however it is not the same thing. A CCR records and verifies a student’s outside-of-class involvements in six main categories: volunteer work, leadership, societies, athletics, co-curricular awards (such as awards outside of academics), and personal and professional development. While most of the activities that appear on your CCR take place at SMU, some CCR activities do take place outside of our campus. For example, being a member of a SMU society would be included on your CCR, but so would being a volunteer with the Correctional Service of Canada. 

This document is provided though Saint Mary’s, who sanctions what activities can be added to it. SMU has a list of activities and events that are recognized as something that can be put on a student’s CCR. Because of this, not every involvement you have may appear on your CCR, though many will. In fact, if there is something that you are involved in that you think should be included in your CCR but is not listed as a CCR activity, students can submit a formal request for that activity to be added. The useful part of a CCR is that the activities you want to appear must be verified before you can add them. This ensures that students don’t falsify their involvements. 

Students can locate the CCR activity directory on Career360 by logging in and clicking on “Co-Curricular Record” and “CCR Dashboard'' from the side menu. From here, students can look through SMU’s CCR directory and add activities to their own CCR. To do this, students will be asked to answer a few short reflection questions that describe their role within that specific activity, which will be verified by the coordinator of the specific activity. After it has been confirmed, the activity will officially be added to your CCR. 

Although this may sound like more effort than a CV or a resume, the great part about a CCR is that after the activities are added, the document is auto-generated, so you don’t need to worry about formatting or making it stand out and look unique! Additionally, this document is university certified, which offers employers or future schools a verified and trustworthy document that is able to highlight a student’s skills and competencies. 

SMU’s Centre for Experiential Learning and Careers (CELC) is a fantastic resource for students who are looking to create or update their resume, CV, or CCR. The staff at the CELC are incredibly knowledgeable and helpful when it comes to creating a meaningful document that will stand out to employers, graduate schools, or on any other application. Students can book a virtual or in-person appointment with the CELC through their website. Additionally, the CELC also offers workshops on resume building and all things career related that students should definitely take advantage of.

Claire Keenan