The CV is the central document of the labour market, the crucial communication between would-be workers and employers. There are variants; job application forms, both online and off, cover letters and personal statements. Sometimes called a ‘résumé’, the snappy abbreviation ‘CV’ stands for curriculum vitae, a cumbersome Latin phrase meaning the ‘course of life’, positioning human existence as a series of formative experiences and training. Over recent decades, this document has become not only essential but is used more frequently, as ‘jobs for life’ have become rare and shorter contracts and projects become the norm – amid the shocks of recession and redundancy (Standing, 2011). Becoming unemployed is the main reason people ‘refresh’ their CV, making it a strange document, a self-definition under constant revision, showcasing achievements and ambitions, written under pressure to find work, including demands from welfare offices.

Seemingly, the CV is an innocuous document, a mere pragmatic list of personal details and a record of education and employment history. CVs are a common target of criticism because they serve to ‘sell’ labour and are thereby inauthentic, prone to being ‘massaged’ and exaggerated, replete with jargon and cliché. Moreover, they serve to commodify the individual, making them complicit in the capitalist process of competitive labour markets. There is some validity to these critiques, both the puritan or romantic critique of fakery and theatrical posing and the socialist critique of how the individual is drawn into the processes which exploit them (see Boltanski and Chiapello, 2005).

Herein we go further, reading the contemporary CV as a form which translates religious practices into the economic sphere. Effectively, the CV is a form of confession, especially when it is produced under pressure from welfare offices to explain gaps, position present unemployment as temporary and articulate a determination to find work. Historically, confession involves ‘telling the truth about yourself ‘, alone or to a spiritual advisor, which serves to purify and redeem the soul. Furthermore, it was a ‘profession’ of faith, a declaration of personal hope for salvation, just as a CV is a ‘personal statement’ of experiences and ambitions.