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Hello everyone,

I have been accepted to an EMBA program in Europe that starts next spring. The format is similar to a U.S. EMBA in that a full time job is encouraged if not required.

Can anyone provide some advice on transitioning your résumé to a Curriculum Vitae (CV)?

Thanks.

stephenbooth_uk's picture

This isn't an answer to your question directly but something you probably need to be aware of if you're job hunting in Europe is that, in the UK at least, I've noticed over the past 10 to 15 years a definite swing to using agencies for all but the most junior positions. If a position is advertised that's probably to fulfil some procedural/legislative/equal-ops requirement (e.g. certain bodies are legally required to advertise all jobs, even if they expect to appoint internally) or they've already gone the agency route and not found anyone.

For example at the company I work for (although friends and acquaintances at other companies tell me the procedure is similar there) we first advertise internally to a pool of people in posts that are due to be deleted (i.e. at risk of redundancy) if none of them are suitable we advertise more generally within the organisation. If no internal candidate is found we go to our partner organisations. If there's still no-one we go to our preferred contingency recruitment consultancy. If they have no-one we do a mail shot to other contingency recruitment consultants. Finally, our last resort is an advertisement in appropriate newspapers and journals plus we're starting to use websites. As you can see from that by the time you see our advert in the paper we've already had 5 attempts at filling the post.

On spec applicants tend to get told to contact our preferred contingency recruitment consultancy.

The situation may be different in other countries in Europe.

Stephen

asteriskrntt1's picture

Ok, I will bite on this.

Why do you have to transfer your resume to a CV? Are you becoming a full-time academic?

*RNTT

iann22's picture

I'm UK based and I believe that the resume and CV are different names for the same thing.

My CV is in the Manager Tools format - and the Manager Tools resume review service is completed by a Brit.

In summary, I would suggest that you put your resume through the MT service and leave it at that.

bug_girl's picture

as someone who moves back and forth between academia and industry--resume and CV are not the same!

Now, what it means in Europe is probably different. And lots of things show up on European CVs that here in the US are non-starters (age, marital status, photos, etc.)

A traditional academic CV can be up to 20 pages :shock:

A [i]useful[/i] CV can be 4-5 pages, front loaded with the relevant info on the first page, but still heavy on details and a kitchen-sink sort of document.

Ian's suggestion might be the simplest way to go, but make sure they know you are going to an academic situation. (that's how I am interpreting the MBA in your initial post.)

bug_girl's picture

I thought some more....my experiences with German Academia are with scientists. They are some of the most formal academics I've ever worked with.
Every single title they have is used.
(I kept getting introduced as Frau Doctor Professor Director Bug_girl.)

If you are in an EMBA program (congrats on your admission, BTW!), you may be with a completely different crowd.
But I'm betting that more formal is still better.

stephenbooth_uk's picture

[quote="bug_girl"]And lots of things show up on European CVs that here in the US are non-starters (age, marital status, photos, etc.)[/quote]

Standard advice in any CV writing course, workshop, book &c I've come across for the past 20 years has been to leave those details out unless they are specifically and legitimately relevant to the role being applied for. Obviously a modelling/acting CV would include a photo, probably several. Marital status can be relevant to things like being a pub landlord where the typical expectation is that it will be run by a couple.

When I was in school we were taught a style of CV that included date of birth, place of birth and marital status (the style was colloquially known as "Tomb Stone" and for a school leaver typically ran to 3 pages as it included everything in great detail) but by the time I left university that style had pretty much disappeared. I'm not aware of anywhere still teaching that style but wouldn't be surprised if there isn't some crusty old teacher somewhere still churning it out.

Stephen

thaGUma's picture

CV or Resume is academic (lol). What are you trying to do. If academic then list your papers research whatever. The distinction that used to exist is rapidly disappearing. Common sense in advance of semantic correctness. We now offially have forums and agendas and the historical distinction between resume and cv is becoming lost.

Hippopotimi or Himppotomae ... QI

bug_girl's picture

Not in Academia, alas.

Stephen is spot on that there are dusty old faculty giving bad advice--apparently on multiple continents :)

I had a new PhD apply with a 57 page packet last month. :shock:

refbruce's picture

Having lived in industry, academia, and a government lab (all in the US, though), I agree with Bug_Girl. There's a huge difference in what we would call a resume and a CV. For an academic posting, a good CV for a junior person is typically 3-5 pages and 4-8 for a more senior level. And in my world, having something of a good CV on-line is almost required -- because they're used as part of the grant preparation process, background info on prospective collaborators, and for students hunting up professors they might want to work for. That I have [i]n[/i] refereed publications is possibly interesting for a resume. What those publications are and in what journals is absolutely critical for a CV.

sgtfun's picture

Thank you all for your helpful responses. I created a CV when applying for the EMBA because it was required in the application package. I now have a detailed 3 page CV/résumé/whatever you want to call that I’m trying to refine for job searches in Europe (Stockholm Sweden to be exact).

I guess my question should be this: I am an American moving to Sweden looking for employment. I would appreciate some insight on the most common format for communicating work history/experience. Is the standard one page U.S. résumé typical protocol or should I use a more detailed CV format to communicate my information.

Thank you for your comments!

asteriskrntt1's picture

Here is the simple answer. A resume and a CV are different things.

A resume is the work history and accomplishments of someone who is primarily a business person. In the MT world, that equates to a one-page resume with a multi-page career management document that you use to craft the one-pager.

A CV is the work history, accomplishments, grants, papers authored and refereed as an academic. It is often looked at as the longer the better.

Simple choice. Are you a business person or an academic?

*RNTT

mkirk's picture
Licensee Badge

May I suggest you get a Swede to advise you on what is effective in Stockholm? Depending on your field, local job agencies and govt job centres may offer some form of review service.

The cultural norms are so varied within Europe that you can waste weeks and months with a perfect but totally culturally ineffective CV. I recently tested this theory (not intentionally) and boy, was it expensive!

I now have a French CV (with marital status, photo and personal objective on it), a Swiss CV (with my age at the top as age discrimination is perfectly legal in Switzerland) and a great UK CV which is the MT-reviewed one (thank you, Wendii). They all work in the relevant country and none of them work in a different country.

Of course, I now spend half my life updating all of them ...

Regards
MK