Curriculum Vitae
Angela MUSC Ă
Institute of Educational Sciences, BucharestHistory
Curriculum Vitae (CV) is based on the autobiography, understood as a usually written
presentation a person makes of the events in his or her life. Autobiography is viewed as
“an individual product, a personal reflection of one’s life experience, and also as a mirror
of social life” (Chelcea, 2001), a highlighting of thinking models, affective and
behavioural manifestations in certain moments of an individual’s evolution and in a social
context.
Theoretical background
In literature we distinguish 1) relatively official forms of autobiography compiled for
informing employers or Human Resources Departments and 2) others, underlining the
author’s personality structure, allowing analyses and interpretations (Holban, 1978).
Autobiographies in the first group resemble the current CV, since they include official
data and information on place and date of birth, family members, school account,
lifestyle, jobs, etc. These types of autobiographies constitute a first stage in realizing an
investigation of personality. If in the case of writing a CV one obeys a strict information
framework, in the case of an autobiography one mentions personal values interests and
aspirations, preferences and rejections, successes and failures, significant interpersonal