In general, CVs are used throughout most of the world, while resumes are the common format in America. However, there are significant differences between the two documents.
At first glance, the differences between the two seem slight. Both consist of a structured list of facts that allows you to impart relevant information about your skills and achievements to an employer as quickly and simply as possible.
Although in essence they both serve the same purpose, the main difference between a CV and a resume is that a CV acts as a complete record of your professional history, while a resume is a short, targeted list of transferable skills and accomplishments, intended to show how you can be of specific benefit to the particular company to which you are applying.
A resume should be a shorter, more focused account of your relevant skills and achievements. Although the exact length of a resume is open to debate, in general it should not exceed one page in length, and it's safer to be conventional; after all, you want to get the job. It's fine to miss things out of a resume to keep the length down; you should only include the things that are most relevant to the position you are targeting. Resumes also often miss out some of the more personal details that CVs include, such as hobbies and interests.
As with CVs, resumes are usually organized into a few essential sections. However, one key difference between a CV and a resume is that resumes are focused on your skills and accomplishments, rather than providing an objective account of your history. As a result, resumes often feature aggrandizing language, and tend to be more obviously self-promoting than CVs.
A Resume is normally a concise one-page summary that describes an individual's education, employment history, awards, biographical information, and other accomplishments. It is intended to focus and highlight just the main strengths of the individual, and demonstrate fitness for the particular post.
On the other hand, a Curriculum Vitae (CV) is more detailed, meant to describe each and every job, training course and accomplishment in full. Thus, CVs tend to be longer, more informative, yet more tedious for the person screening them, while resumes are more brief and easier to scan through but could be too general for the employers needs.
Normally, employers seeking individuals for higher education positions prefer a CV over a resume due to the fact that it tends to be more comprehensive.
Information above courtesy: www.wiki.answers.com
Below you will see an excellent CV created by a MFA Alumni, Lindsay Chenault.
(Her CV was originally a pdf and I broke into jpgs so you can view it here. Click image for larger version.)
A Resume from an Alumni. This is a very short and sweet version (this is a b/w version and I will post the color version shortly.)
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