Key Differences Between a CV and Biography

Technically, a CV and Biography are all quite different things. In practice, Resume and CV are used interchangeably, while a Biography or Bio is something else altogether.

Curriculum Vitae, CV

Some countries use one term more than the other. Australia tends to use resume more than CV, the USA uses resume almost exclusively while the UK mainly uses CV. Everybody understands what they are though.

Curriculum Vitae is a much longer and more detailed document than a resume. It will detail and outline everything you have ever done in your career, whether relevant to one particular job application or not.

Biography

A bio, short for biography, is a short document demonstrating major event highlights – not necessarily recent, but more likely highlights of their career and notable achievements. A bio is tailored for the occasion in which it is to be used.

According to Wikipedia, a biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person’s life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person’s experience of these life events.

Biography is an account of someone’s life written by someone else. In a biography, you’re telling the story of someone’s most prized possession, their life.

Bios can include photos, credentials, awards, personal information, name dropping of companies and impressive job titles.

A bio is not typically a recruitment document, though a prominent and strong bio can certainly help with your visibility and positioning at job-hunting time.

Biography – Some Characteristics or Elements

• Describe and discuss the life of a real person.
• Information is based on fact.
• Incidents, dialogue, and people are accurate and from a reliable source using first person accounts when available.
• The person’s life story is told with respect to other people and events of the time in which they lived.

Key Differences Between Biography and CV

The difference between biography and CV are discussed in detail in the following points:

• Biography is a detailed account of a person’s life written by someone else, while a CV is written by the subject themselves.
• Biography can be written with (authorised) or without permission (unauthorised) from the person/heir’s concerned. Therefore, there are chances of factual mistakes in the information. On the other hand, CVs are self-written and therefore doesn’t require any authorization.
• Biographies contain information that is collected over a period of time from different sources and thus, it projects a different outlook to the readers. On the other hand, CVs are written by the subject themselves, therefore, the writer presents the facts and his thinking in his own way, thus providing an overall narrow and biased perspective to the readers.
• In a CV, the author uses self narrative like I, me, we, he, she, etc. This, in turn, makes an intimate connection between the author and the reader since the reader experiences various aspects as if he/she is in that time period. As opposed a biography is from a third person’s view and is much less intimate.
• The purpose of writing a biography is to introduce and inform the readers about the person and his life whereas a curriculum vitae is written in order to express, the life experiences and achievements of the narrator.

In Summary

Bios, short for biography serves a specific purpose and is designed to be read by a wide audience, unlike a resume/ CV which is more targeted to a narrow audience.