Difference between CV, Resume and Cover Letter

For most of you, a CV and a Resume typically mean different names of the same version but sent to people or companies belonging to different countries namely US and Britain.

Trying to find the relationship between a Resume and CV is one thing, but relating these two to Cover Letter is a completely diversified subject.

Both Resume and CV give an account of a person’s qualifications and his achievements, but the cover letter is a short description of what to expect in the resume or CV and perfect reasons as to why you are applying to the job.

Hence, understanding how Resume, CV and Cover letter are different from another and also how to effectively write them so that your prospective employer would want to read ahead, is very important.

Some critical differences

Length

A CV or the curriculum vitae basically means “course of life”. As the meaning, it is a detailed description of your history of educational and employment that is completely updated. It is a long document having at least two pages.

On the other hand, the Resume is shorter and consists of a single page. Here you are required to give a focused account of your skill and talent that are required for that particular job. You can mention your experience in the relevant field.

Purpose

The purpose of CV is to give a detailed account of your educational achievements, qualifications, awards received, scholarships and experience in the required field. A CV is particularly used when a post doctoral position or teaching position is sought.

A Resume is used to highlight briefly on your talents that are transferable to the intended company and show how useful you would be to the future growth of the company. Thus no details are expected here.

Though CVs are common form of job application, people in US always prefer a Resume.

CVs are more descriptive whereas Resumes are self promoting in nature.

CV sections

A CV usually is sectioned under separate subheadings such as objective, educational qualifications, skills, awards/ medals won and career summary etc.

You can present the information in bullet points or tables, so that your prospective employer may get an idea of what you want to highlight.

Resume sections

A Resume can also be sectioned just as in CVs, however all the information is not required. Depending on the type of Resume you may change the information provided.

A Functional Resume should highlight your skills and qualifications. A Chronological Resume is concise form of CV and a Targeted Resume gives specific information that is required for the job you are applying.

Cover Letter

A Cover Letter basically is a formal letter that is presented as a prelude to CV or Resume which briefly but effectively gives an insight of what can be expected inside.

Writing an efficient and catchy Cover Letter is very crucial because it has the capacity to decide the fate of your application and thereby your fate.

Some important points that you have to keep in mind while writing a cover letter are

· Keep your Cover Letter Linked to your CV. This provokes enough interest in your prospective employer to read the CV thoroughly.

· Make the letter sound as if you are personally speaking. Address the person to whom you intend to send the CV, giving a personal and emotional touch.

· The letter should be brief giving a crisp description.

· The person reading the letter does not expect any excess pompous information about you. Too much “I: factor could turn them down.

· Most Important –DO NOT MAKE TYPO AND GRAMMATICAL ERRORS. This would surely spoil your image.

Though basically CVs and Resumes mean and give the same information, they are quite different from one another. Choosing the right form of your personal information you have to present on specific occasion gives you better chance of getting the intended job.

A well crafted cover letter along with a neatly thought out and written CV or Resume gives better chances of success to you.

How To Prepare a Project Report

Report writing is one of the primary objects of any student who are in the threshold of completing their graduation. It is to be noted that the final report is not to be done for sheer formality. This report acts as a tool for judging the professional skill of the new engineer. It is also considered to be an extended service for the engineering students who might require information. Remember this report will be subjected to critical analysis by many readers.

Hence to prepare the final report, an engineering graduate must have good knowledge about the practical skills that will be required to solve an engineering problem. All sorts of resources must be compiled to create a report. Experimenting by using the lab, analyzing the theories, observation, details with regard to how to use the equipments, and work experience with others. The most important aspect is one must have a good flair for writing and ideas must be well communicated and the information should be authentic.

There are structural guidelines that one needs to follow while preparing a project report for final year engineering. This format is applicable to all types of students.

Title Page

The following details must be given

· Title

· Authors full name

· Discipline and degree

· Appropriate industrial and other collaboration

· Month and year of submission

It is important that this page will not show any page number

Abstract

Here one has to pint out the main ideas of what the project is about, how it was visualized, and what has been achieved. All this must fit into one page.

Content List

Here one must give a complete list of what the report will contain including the abstract. Make sure that the title page is not included in this list. Here you will be providing chapter wise list.

List of Tables/Figures

A list of tables and figures must be provided if the report contains tables/figures. The list must include table/figure number, title of the table/figure and also page number. These must be numbered sequential throughout the document. The table/figure must highlight clearly the points you are making. Fit the contents of the table within a page. Use a smaller font if necessary or place it in a landscape mode.

Acknowledgements

It is normal to thank all the people who have helped you and provided support. It could be your guide/supervisor. Acknowledgements should be short and business like.

Background.

This area deals with the subject area of the project.

· Chapter 1 : Background

- Motivation

- Problems description

- Objectives of the work

- Organization of the report

Introduction

Here you must include specific topic related problems that you would be researching. Include your research design, hypothesis etc.

· Chapter 2: Introduction

- Details of relevant theory

- Review of past/reported work

- Brief introduction of the proposed work/solution

Methodology

This is the main body of the report. This will include the following:

· Chapter 3: Deals in accordance with the title that is to be researched.

- Main work

- Theory

- Simulation software

- Solution approach

- Design or circuit

· Chapter 4:

- Method to be described

- Presentation of Data

- Results

- Findings

· Chapter 5: Evaluation [ this could be an optional]

- Provide objectives of evaluation

- Compare with other works

Conclusion

· Chapter 6: Conclusion

- Review of the project in brief

- Reiteration of important findings

- Suggestion of future work

Appendices

This has to be numbered sequentially with Appendix 1. Numbering of pages will include appendices.

References and Bibliography

Usually a number of reference materials will be used in a report. The use of source material should be explicit in the report. Every item mentioned in the report must have an entry in the reference list. There are many styles that are followed like APA etc. It follows a sequential order

Books

Title of the book, name of the author, year of publication, and name of the publishers can be included.

Journal

Author(s) name, year of publication, title of the article, name of the journal, volume, year of publication and page numbers can be included.

Website

Do not specify as Google/Yahoo. Specify the exact url of the website rather than specifying the top level domain like www.xyz.com

Instead specify as www.xyz.com/abc.html

The above is the basic structure of a report. There are hard fast rules one must apply when writing the report. Some are discussed below:

Formatting of the report

Please use Microsoft Word so that all information that is explained will have good looks as these help you to avoid rearrangements. Also make sure that the document is Word 2003 compatible.

Length

Basically there are no hard fast rules and the length can vary from person to person depending on the project. It is advisable for an engineering report to have around 100 pages. These will include tables and appendices.

Language of Report

Report must be written in English as this is considered to be consistent form. Certain grammar rules needs to be followed

Apostrophes: This is the most common mistakes all students make. In English language the apostrophes is used as a contraction. In an academic writing the words must be written in its full form and words should not be shortened.

Acronyms:

Science and engineering fields use lot of acronyms and will be familiar only to specialists who are familiar with the subjects. When using it for first time always give it the expanded version.

Colloquialisms:

Avoid usage of slang, phrases, idiomatic and chatty expressions while writing a report. In an academic or technical writing avoid using the first person ‘I’ as much as possible and also do not refer to the reader as ‘you’

Grammar:

Make your sentences small and write it as whole sentences. Proofread your writing every 3-4 hours so that you will be able understand the text as it was to be meant. Ensure that the writing is clear and it follows the basic grammar rules.

Jargon:

Be consistent while using technical terms. Please define and use the same words when you are writing about the same concept.

Spelling:

There are no excuses for spelling mistakes. It creates a bad impression. Take the help of spell checker or dictionary. Spell checker will not be useful if the words spelt are correct ex. ‘from’ or ‘form’ Hence a manual spell check is advisable to ensure the correct word fits into the sentences. Hence proof reading is always suggested.

Typeface and Font Size

Times New Roman typeface and font size of 12-point should be used throughout the report except for Appendices. Italics should only be used sparingly for emphasis.

Paper

High quality 80gm A4 size paper shall be used. The paper should be white in colour, acid free and non-erasable kind.

Printing

Printing has to be done on one side only. It is recommended to use a laser or ink jet printer. Avoid dot matrix printers.

Corrections

Corrections of typographical errors, or changes in the text, figures, or tables, must be made as cleanly and invisibly as possible. Do not use Correction fluid. Corrections should be made on the original word document before printing the problem page.

Margins

The margin on the document must measure according to the following specifications:

Top : 25mm

Bottom : 20mm

Left : 20mm

Right : 20mm

Spacing/Justification

Text should be typed, one and a half-spaced, left-right justified on one side of the paper only. For captions of figures and tables, single spacing can be used.

Pagination

Page numbers are to be placed at least 15 mm from the edge of the page at the bottom centre of the page. Every page except the title page must be numbered.

Title page is 'i' but is not numbered. Preliminary pages are to be numbered in lower case Roman numerals (ii, iii, iv etc).

The main text pages are to be numbered in numerals and all pages must be numbered consecutively and continuously.

Header

A header should be included at the top of each page from the title page. It will include candidate’s name, qualification sought and calendar year.

Paragraph

This should be separated by a single blank line.

Citations

Whenever more than 30 words are quoted from other person’s work the authors name should appear in the references. When small words are quoted, these can be written within quotation marks.

Plagiarism

This should be avoided at any cost. Try to use the content of the subject matter but do not copy word to word. Words and sentences can be rephrased and written. This can lead to serious trouble and it will be treated as an offence as many come under the copyright category.

Hence it is to be noted that report writing is an art by itself and one has to follow the normal procedures.

Information Technology ( IT ) Mini Projects - Tips and Latest Trends

The wide range of information, data, and knowledge for problem solving and decision making are dealt with Information Technology. Demanding needs of users has always been fulfilled by Information Technology with establishing trends. Before starting with the projects, students should be aware of authentication, and integrity features in their projects. Breaking of passwords and hacking can be avoided using these techniques. Anyhow, the various trends for projects are based on the emerging software technology.

Flash Technology

To add multiple types of external data to the given text, images, video, XML and to interact with web pages, Adobe Flash is used. It provides multimedia platform. The main purpose of this technology is to be used in advertisements and games. Both audio and video streams are supported by flash. One of the Object-oriented languages called ActionScript is the language used here by the developers. Flash player includes ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM). The compiler, Just-In-Time (JIT), is used for MP3-based audio and bitmap graphics. Flash CS5 is the latest version of Adobe flash which was released on April 12, 2010.

Microsoft Silverlight

Microsoft Silverlight is developed on web framework and is similar to the functions of those in Adobe Flash. In addition, it also integrates multimedia graphics and interaction with a single runtime environment. Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) and its development tools are supported by Silverlight. The processor x86 with streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE) is used by Silverlight. Also the other processors which support Silverlight include the Intel Pentium III and AMD Athlon XP. Any of the .Net Programming language is supported for Silverlight applications. The developing tools for the application can be used along with the .Net language but should be aware that they can target only the Silverlight core CLR for hosting the applications and not that of the .Net Framework CLR since both differs in their own functionalities. 4GDR1 (4.0.50524.0) is the latest version of Silverlight and was released on 03 June 2010

Open Source Software

Open source software is newly emerging trend which is one of the best options for the students. The source code can be modified by the students as per the objective of project. Hence Open source is much flexible than closed version software. Open source software is mainly developed on peer to peer production by collaboration of end product, source material. Open source software can be enhanced by anyone and if you join some open source developers community, you can learn a lot of things directly from the most knowledged persons in the developers community. Even the top companies like Google who are paymasters gives lots of importance to candidates who have worked in open source projects during the interviews.

http://sourceforge.net is one of the biggest open source community and you can engage in one of the groups or even start a new project.

Cryptography

Cryptography is the practice and study of hiding information. It also refers to confidentiality. It is often seen as a “black art”, which means something others don’t understand but you need to understand. Cryptography is one of the essential aspects for secure communication. There are many aspects of security and applications ranging from secure commerce to private communication and to protect passwords. Cryptography is necessary for secure communication but it is not sufficient by itself. Here, the text is encrypted first; i.e the plain text is changed to inarticulate garbage. The end user does the reverse process i.e decryption, where the original text is retrieved. There are a lot of algorithms in this area which is used in real time for data protection in sectors like banks, Research, Password Protection and so on.

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is the study of controlling properties of an atom and molecules. As the name indicates, it deals with the study of structures sized between 1 and 100 nanometer. It is said that, nanotechnology has a tendency to create new materials and devices which can be used in future in a wide range of fields such as medicine, energy production, electronics and bio materials. As they are very small in size, nano structures have a tendency to change its state for transformation of energy. The two main approaches used in nanotechnology are Bottom-up and Top-down. In bottom-up approach, materials and devices are built from molecular, a component which later assemble themselves chemically and follows the principles of molecular recognition. In top-down approach, nano-objects are constructed from larger entities without any atomic level control. Biotechnology is the best example to show the use of nanotechnology in various fields.

Conclusion

The upcoming trends mainly focus on security and hacking. Mobile application for iPhone and Android are great areas to explore with good revenue opportunities as well. If you want to stand out from others, instead of going for some courses, try to contribute for an open source project.