Why You Should Start Your CV Now
Even as a high school student or college freshman - to reduce your workload and streamline the application process in the future: start your CV now.
By Ceanna Hayes Daniels — June 14, 2023
During the spring semester, many college students find themselves stressing as they update their resumes, draft cover letters, and prepare to interview for summer jobs or internships. It's a hectic season for everyone, particularly since you don't get a break from classes or exams to focus on these applications. While it can be easy to view this stress as an inevitable element of the season, there's actually something you can do — even as a high school student or college freshman — to reduce your workload and streamline the application process in the future: start your CV now.
What Is a CV?
"CV" is an abbreviation for curriculum vitae, a Latin term meaning "course of life." While a CV is often used in place of a resume, particularly in academic contexts such as grad school applications, it also has a much broader application. Whereas you might view a resume as a one-page snapshot of the work experience that's relevant to the job you're applying for, a CV is more like a running log which tracks your overall experience and achievements. While most successful applications tailor their resumes for specific fields or specific job postings, you only need to update your CV to reflect the addition of new experiences as you gain them. Because they aren't constrained to one or two pages, CVs can be far more comprehensive than resumes; they list your academic experience, professional experience, achievements, honors, the languages you speak, and whatever other relevant information you may wish for an employer or school to know about you as an applicant.
Why Start One Now?
Because your CV can be so comprehensive, the document makes a convenient repository for all the information you'll highlight in resumes, cover letters, and job interviews in the future. It can serve as a "data dump" or "brag sheet" to help you keep track of information that might be important in the future. As a result, starting one now will help you to quickly find information about old roles, categorize new experiences, and streamline the process of writing resumes and cover letters down the road.
What Should It Include?
A CV should include a number of headings so that it's simple to add new data find information about roles you had, awards you received, classes that are relevant to your intended career path, and more. These headings can include topics like the following:
Academic Experience.
Be sure to include the name of the college you're attending, your GPA, your major, your minor (if applicable), and your anticipated graduation date. If you have multiple degrees, include the name of each college, the degree you received there, and the year you earned it in this section.Professional Experience.
This section is where you track your jobs, internships, and sometimes volunteer work that relates to a particular career path. Some CV styles just feature the titles and relevant timeline of these roles. However, for our purposes, the document is functioning as a point of origin for future application materials, so you should include descriptions of relevant tasks and achievements within these roles like you would in a resume.Volunteer Work.
If you volunteered regularly, keep track of the groups you worked with here. Sometimes individual experiences may be better represented within professional experience, but you can generally categorize those experiences within this subheading.Languages.
This section should include not only the name of the languages you speak or read, but also your level of proficiency in each.Awards and Honors.
If you're a National Merit Scholar or a black belt in Judo, this is the place to add that detail! This section is also a great place to record scholarships you've received (including the semester it applied to). While you generally won't write out the dollar amount of the scholarship, it can be worthwhile to note if it was a major scholarship, such as full-tuition or full-ride.Extracurricular Experiences.
In addition to the traditional extracurricular activities you'd expect to track here — like participating in the yearbook committee — you can also add experiences like study abroad programs to this section of your CV.Published Materials.
If you plan to become a journalist or writer, or if you aim to enter an academic field where published articles will be relevant to your intended career path, include a list of materials you've published near the end of your CV. Save copies of these materials somewhere accessible so you can easily locate the materials later, including links to any that were published online.References or Recommenders.
Some people recommend listing your references at the end of a CV, while others prefer the phrase "references available upon request." Still others argue that this should be left out entirely, since recruiters know they can request a reference if they want one and don't otherwise need the information. While you may choose to cut this section out of your CV before you send it to anyone, it still makes sense to keep this information in your own files so that you have a central location for everything you need to fill out job applications.Tips to Keep in Mind When You Begin Building Your CV
- Track the timeframe of every experience. You never know when you'll need that information — for example, some job application software requires you to input the exact day you started and ended prior jobs. Rather tha trying to remember it all, just log it in your CV.
- Don't fall for the trap of thinking you don't need to elaborate on something because you'll remember enough about the role later. Although you might for a brief period, the odds are not in your favor if you're revisiting the document much later to remember what you did on an average day during your summer internship last year. However, taking a few minutes today to add a few lines that you can easily adapt into compelling content for application materials will save you hours and hours during future job hunts.
- Don't underestimate or shortchange your impact in a role, particularly in extracurricular experiences. Use your CV to keep track of specific tasks you performed, as well as any special achievements you saw during that time, within each role. For example, if you became president of the American Sign Language (ASL) club on campus and were able to successfully recruit 5 new members during the spring semester, bringing the total number to 15 members, write that you promoted your organization's efforts, increasing membership by 50% within 4 months. That's a fantastic achievement which you can later use in interviews as an example of leadership skills, helping you back up your qualifications and increasing your odds of being hired!
- When you first begin building your CV, focus on practicality and content above formatting or aesthetic preferences. Because the document is initially functioning as a starting point for future application materials, it doesn't need to look perfect right off the bat. However, to save yourself unnecessary stress and labor later in the process, be sure to use professional wording and prioritize clear organization from the beginning (even if you intend to use your CV primarily as a data dump and don't plan to show it to anyone). After all, if you were a secretary for a student group and are now applying to a finance internship, you'll have a much faster and easier time building your resume if you can copy and paste phrases like "managed organization's finances, keeping up-to-date records of all transactions" and "oversaw the collection of membership dues for over 100 members," rather than needing to rephrase unprofessional language like “kept track of where the money went” and “bugged people who forgot about dues until they actually paid” for every line of content.
- Keep track of supervisors who you had good rapport with, especially those who offer to provide a reference or write you letters of recommendation in the future. As part of the interview process for many internships and jobs, potential employers will talk to old supervisors about their experience working with you, so having an email address and phone number to contact these recommenders with will be helpful in the future. Be sure to get correct contact information now, before you can no longer knock on their door and talk to them directly to confirm that everything is spelled right.
What If I Don't Have Enough Experience Yet?
As a high school student, your resume is likely to be a bit sparse — after all, you haven't yet had enough time to gain the experience you need to fill it out. As a result, it might feel unnecessary to start tracking your jobs and extracurricular activities in a CV. However, starting the document now, while the task is small and manageable, will set you up for success in the future. In addition to providing you with a record of the extracurricular clubs you've been involved in or the summer jobs you've had, this document will give you a place to quickly log updates as new information becomes applicable, saving you the work of creating new resumes and cover letters from scratch.
In addition, you could surprise yourself by having more experience than you think. You might not realize how much you're fitting into your schedule or how much work you're investing into an extracurricular activity until you start typing out a description of what you add to the team. Starting to keep a CV as a high school student can help you to understand the value of roles you're volunteering for now and enable you to describe them in a way that emphasizes that value to future employers or schools.
While starting as a high school student is a great idea, it's never too late to start a CV. Investing some time in this project now can save you hours and prevent countless headaches in the future, by simplifying the job application process, helping you to evaluate the merit of potential projects before you commit to them, and providing perspective on the overall story of your experience more efficiently than a resume can.
Ceanna Hayes Daniels
Ceanna Hayes Daniels is freelance writer and editor. In 2022, she graduated Hillsdale College summa cum laude with a degree in politics. In her free time, she continues to enjoy studying philosophy, political theory, and literature. She and her husband live in Michigan, where the two enjoy perusing bookstores together for new books and old records.
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