Today’s post is a long overdue post on CV s.
While the CV genre permits a wide range of variation, and there is no consensus on the value or desirability of one particular style, I am going to present a list of expectations that govern my own work at The Professor Is In.
These expectations will produce a highly-readable, well-organized CV on the American academic model. British and Canadian CV-writers will note that the font is larger, the length is greater, the margins wider, and the white spaces more abundant than you may be used to. These are the typical norms for American CV s (again, admitting of enormous variation among fields and individuals).
These norms govern the “paper” CVs that are submitted as elements of a job application. The CV can be created in a program like Word but submitted as a PDF to ensure proper formatting on the receiving end.
These rules do not encompass online CVs, which may employ elements such as bullet points that I reject.
Candidates seeking work in the UK or Canada might want to consult with experts from those countries for opinions on whether this American model CV will work against candidates in searches there.
Without further ado: Dr. Karen’s Rules of the CV.
I. General Formatting Rules
One inch margins on all four sides.
12 point font throughout
Single spaced
No switching of font sizes for any element, EXCEPT the candidate name at top, which can be in 14 or perhaps 16.
Headings in bold and all caps.
Subheadings in bold only.
NO ITALICS OF ANY KIND EXCEPT FOR JOURNAL AND BOOK TITLES (Brits, I’m talking to you)
One or two full returns (ie, blank lines) before each new heading.
One return/blank line between each heading and its first entry.
Left justify all elements of the cv.
Do not full/right justify any element of the cv.
No bullet points at all, ever, under any circumstances. This is not a resume.
No “box” or column formatting of any kind. This interferes with the constant adjustments a dynamic professional CV will undergo on a weekly/monthly basis.
No “XXXX, cont’d” headings. Page breaks will constantly move as CV grows.
YEAR (but not month or day) OF EVERY ENTRY THROUGHOUT CV LEFT JUSTIFIED, with tabs or indent separating year from substance of entry. Why, you ask? Because candidates are evaluated by their productivity over time. Search and tenure committees wish to easily track yearly output. When you produce is as important as what you produce. Year must be visible, not buried in the entry itself. (table formatting another option as described in comment stream)
NO NARRATIVE VERBIAGE ANYWHERE. Brits, I’m talking to you.
No description of “duties” under Teaching/Courses Taught
No paragraphs describing books or articles.
No explanations of grants/fellowships (ie, “this is a highly competitive fellowship…”).
No personal stories.
No “My work at the U of XX is difficult to condense…” etc. etc.
One possible exception: a separate heading for “Dissertation” with a VERY short paragraph abstract underneath. I disapprove of this. Some advisors insist on it. One year beyond completion, it must be removed.
II. Heading Material:
Name at top, centered, in 14 or 16 point font.
The words “Curriculum vitae” immediately underneath or above, centered, in 12 point font. This is a traditional practice in the humanities and social sciences; it might be optional at this point in time, and in various fields. Please doublecheck with a trusted advisor.
The date, immediately below, centered, is optional. Senior scholars always date their cvs.
Your institutional and home addresses, tel, email, parallel right and left justified.
III. Content:
1. Education. Always. No exceptions. List by degree, not by institution. Do not spell out Doctor of Philosophy, etc.; it’s pretentious. List Ph.D., MA, BA in descending order. Give department, institution, and year of completion. Do NOT give starting dates. You may include Dissertation/Thesis Title, and perhaps Dissertation/Thesis Advisor if you are ABD or only 1 year or so from Ph.D.. Remove this after that point. Do not include any other verbiage.
2. Professional Appointments/Employment. This must go immediately under education, assuming that you have/had these. Why? Because the reader must be able to instantly “place” you institutionally. These are contract positions only– tenure track or adjunct. Postdoctoral positions also go here. Give institution, department, title, and dates (year only) of employment. Be sure and reflect joint appointments if you have one. ABD candidates may have no Professional Appointments, and in that case the Heading can be skipped. TA-SHIPS, ETC. ARE NOT LISTED UNDER PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT. COURSES ARE NOT LISTED UNDER PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS.
3. Publications. Subheadings: Books, Edited Volumes, Refereed Journal Articles, Book Chapters, Conference Proceedings, Book Reviews, Manuscripts in Submission (give journal title), Manuscripts in Preparation, Web-Based Publications, Other Publications (this section can include non-academic publications, within reason). Please note that forthcoming publications ARE included in this section. If they are already in the printing stage, with the full citation and page numbers available, they may be listed the same as other published publications, at the very top since their dates are furthest in the future. If they are in press, then they can either go into that section, or into an “Publications In Press” section. The line is fuzzy and should hinge on the completeness of the citation you can provide.
4. Awards and Honors. Give name of award and institutional location. Year at left. Always in reverse descending order. Listing $$ amount appears to be field-specific. Check with a trusted senior advisor.
5. Grants and Fellowships (if you are in a field where these differ categorically from Awards and Honors). Give funder, institutional location in which received/utilized, year span. Listing $$ amount appears to be field-specific. Check with a trusted senior advisor. Year at left.
6. Invited Talks. Give title, institutional location, and date. Year only (not month or day) at left. Month and day of talk go into entries.
7. Conference Activity/Participation. Subheadings: Panels Organized, Papers Presented, Discussant. These entries will include: Name of paper, name of conference, date. Year (Year only) on left as noted above. Month and date-range of conference in the entry itself (ie, March 22-25). No extra words such as: “Paper title:” Future conferences SHOULD be listed here, if you have had a paper or panel officially accepted. The dates will be future dates, and as such they will be the first dates listed.
8. Teaching Experience. Subdivide either by area/field of teaching or by institutional location, or by Graduate/Undergraduate, or some combination of these as appropriate to your particular case. Give course titles BUT NEVER GIVE COURSE NUMBERS! Course numbers are meaningless outside your campus. If your quantity of courses taught exceeds approximately 15, condense this section. TA experience goes here. No narrative verbiage under any course title. No listing of “duties” or “responsibilities.” There is one small exception to this rule, as noted in the comment stream (near comment #100). If your department is one that has its “TAs” actually design and sole-teach courses, then this needs to be clarified. Language to be added can include, “(Instructor of record)” after course title, or “(As TA I designed and sole-taught all courses listed here),” etc. Keep it short and sweet.
9. Research Experience. RA experience goes here, as well as lab experience. This is one location where slight elaboration is possible, if the research was a team effort on a complex, multi-year theme. One detailed sentence should suffice.
10. Service To Profession. Include journal manuscript review work (with journal titles [mss. review CAN be given its own separate heading if you do a lot of this work]), leadership of professional organizations, etc. Some people put panel organizing under service; check conventions in your field.
11. Departmental/University Service. Include search committees and other committee work, appointments to Faculty Senate, etc. Sorry to be a pain, but here the convention is that the Title or Committee is left justified, with the year in the entry. Don’t ask me why, and only a convention, not a strict rule.
12. Extracurricular University Service. [Optional. ] Can include involvement in student groups, sporting clubs, etc.
13. Community Involvement/Outreach. [Optional.] This includes work with libraries and schools, public lectures, etc.
14. Media Coverage. [Optional.] Coverage of your work by the media.
15. Related Professional Skills. [Optional.] Can include training in GIS and other technical skills relevant to the discipline. More common in professional schools and science fields; uncommon in humanities.
16. Non-Academic Work. [Optional—VERY optional!] Include only if relevant to your overall academic qualifications. More common in Business, sciences. Editorial and publishing work possibly relevant in English and the Humanities.
17. Teaching Areas/Courses Prepared To Teach. [Optional]. You can give a brief list of course titles (titles only!) that represent your areas of teaching preparation. No more than 10 courses should be listed here.
18. Languages. All languages to be listed vertically, with proficiency in reading, speaking, and writing clearly demarcated using terms such as: native, fluent, excellent, conversational, good, can read with dictionary, etc.
19. Professional Memberships/Affiliations. All professional organizations of which you are a member listed vertically. Include years of joining when you are more senior and those years recede into the past—demonstrates length of commitment to a field.
20. References. List references vertically. Give name and full title. Do not refer to references as “Dr. xxx,” or “Professor xxx.” This makes you look like a graduate student. Give full snail mail contact information along with tel and email. To do otherwise is amateurish, even though we know nobody is going to use the snail mail address. Do not give narrative verbiage or explanation of these references (ie, “Ph.D. Committee member,” etc.). The only exception is a single reference that may be identified as “Teaching Reference.” This would be the fourth of four references.
IV. Principle of Peer Review.
The organizing principle of the CV is prioritizing peer review and competitiveness. Professional appointments are extremely competitive, and go first. Publications are highly competitive, and go second, with peer reviewed publications taking place of honor. Awards and honors reveal high levels of competition, as do fellowships and grants. Invited talks suggest a higher level of individual recognition and honor than a volunteered paper to a conference—this is reflected in the order. Teaching in this context, ie, as a list of courses taught, is not competitive, and thus is de-prioritized. Extra training you seek yourself, voluntarily, is fundamentally non-competitive. Etc. Etc.
What is never included:
Overseas travel
Career goals
Anything you’d see on a business resume.
[This post will be added to later; I've run out of time just now! In the meantime, please feel free to add your thoughts on anything I've missed.]
Great post. And just to stress: including “guest lectures” for other people at your institution, or including on-campus responses to some round table or other in your conference section is very common, and very very unprofessional. It makes it look like you are padding your cv.
Agreed.
Guest lecturing in the course you TA’d in? Looks like padding.
Awesome!
It occurs to me that one reason why people tweak this kind of formatting (rearranging the order of content, or burying the year in an entry) is to cover up or minimize gaps in research productivity, as for example when nothing much happened in one’s life professionally for a couple of years because of children or illness or ailing parents. In such circumstances, is it better to brazen out the gap and stick to the formatting you suggest or to adjust the formatting to give greatest prominence to what one has accomplished without drawing attention to ones failure to achieve as much as possible?
You always raise the hard questions, Kirstin! I guess my response would be: readers don’t usually miss those gaps. So, may as well own up to them. A brief, non-defensive word of explanation can be included in the accompanying letter.
But I’m open to other viewpoints on this. What do you think?
I’ve always been told to prioritize according to what’s most important to the institution/position. According to this logic, for R1 positions, the order you list here is best; but for schools/jobs that emphasize teaching over research, it’s best to put teaching ahead of publications. I’m of two minds about this advice. While I can understand the rationale, it still seems counter-intuitive in some ways. I’d like to hear what you (and others) think about this.
Yes, I also paused to ask myself whether I should add a note about teaching positions, and whether to list teaching first and/or more elaborately in such contexts. My general feeling, after reviewing something like 300 cvs, is that FAR FAR more people lean too heavily on their teaching and allow it to take up FAR too much space on their CV than otherwise. Put another way, far more adjuncts who are seeking tenure track work send teaching-centric CVs, than the reverse. Basically, I want to hammer home, yet again, the point that TEACHING DOES NOT GET YOU TENURE TRACK JOBS! RESEARCH DOES. EVEN FOR TEACHING-CENTRIC POSITIONS.
I’m shouting. Yes, I am. And I will continue shouting until I’m hoarse. I’m sick of seeing adjuncts doom themselves. I’m going to write a post on this soon.
So yes, there is a school of thought that Teaching should be more prioritized on the CV for some positions. if you wish to adjust the order and put teaching a bit higher in the CV for adjunct teaching positions, it’s not the end of the world, go ahead. But for tenure track applications, even at SLACs, you want your research to go first.
Wrong.
Thanks for the reply, Karen. This confirms what I was thinking.
I would say, speaking as someone who is t-t at a teaching-centric university, that Karen is spot on. When we look at candidates we look at both research and teaching. But as long as they have reasonable teaching experience etc., the time is spent on looking at research. Search committee folk glance through the CV first pages to understand the research potential, before moving on. I would say that the major exception to this is applying at community colleges. It is a major flag at cc’s when research is emphasized.
thanks, Debora. When will this message get through????
Excellent post. Here’s a tweak: “Books, Edited Volumes (this covers both edited collections in book form and special journal issues), Refereed Journal Articles, Book Chapters, Conference Proceedings, Book Reviews, Manuscripts in Submission (give journal title), Manuscripts in Preparation, Other Publications.” I like to see edited volumes separate from books because they have a different status from monographs. I wholeheartedly agree with the advice to keep the material under submission separate, because it looks like padding when articles that have simply been sent out appear in the same section as accepted and forthcoming and published articles.
thanks, I wholeheartedly agree. I’ll probably amend the post to incorporate that, actually.
Yeah, I tweaked mine to have peer-reviewed publications and other publications…
For clarification–is an adjunct position at a community college considered “professional employment” or does it go under “teaching experience”? And does a post-doc fall under “professional employment”?
excellent questions, lynn. Postdocs DO fall under Professional Employment. I will add that note. Now, adjunct positions can be tricky. If they are year-long appointments, especially at ranking institutions, then yes they count. If they are one-off, semester-by-semester appointments, then no, they don’t count, and must go under “Teaching Experience.” Sometimes the lines are blurry, and that is why people hire me! Seriously, I spend an inordinate amount of time parsing details like this. I am hoping this post minimizes that in future.
Great advice! As a foreign language PhD, I’m curious where to include study abroad experience (as an instructor and even graduate student). I know that many SLACs – and even some larger public institutions – prefer candidates who have experience taking students abroad and who are willing to participate in and develop their schools’ study abroad programs. This experience abroad is also important for non-native speakers of Spanish, French, Italian (or any language), applying for a position teaching said language. Where should this information go? Would you recommend a separate heading, or would this be included with teaching experience and courses? Might it be completely unnecessary for an R1 school? In my field, I have been told that this type of “overseas travel” is quite important. Thoughts?
This would fall under Teaching Experience or possibly Departmental/University Service. If it has somehow become a major element of your teaching profile, you could make a separate heading: “Study Abroad Program Experience” or something like that.
For those of us still working on the PhD, where would things like research assistant or teaching assistant positions go?
Teaching assistant work goes under “Teaching Experience.” Research Asst work goes under a heading I forgot tomention (oops) called “Research Experience”. Adding that now!
This was my question too. This is an incredibly helpful post about something that is so basic/integral to our tool kits, but for which I’ve never received any good advice. Thanks!
This is a very helpful post and helps greatly with the editing of my CV. I do have one question, however. As I am just finishing up my PhD and have had no “professional appointments” but have been working as an adjunct, do I leave out the “Professional Appointment” section altogether and go directly to the “Publications” sections (also sadly short, at this point)? Or, would it be better to label the section “Professional Employment” and list my adjunct work to at least illustrate some experience?
Kimberly, first, please remember that many adjucting jobs would be fine to list under Professional Appoinments anyway.
Now if you have only one-off course adjuncting, and you are ABD, then yes, it is fine for you to launch directly into Publications.
It is worth clarifying: ABDs are not expected to have professional appointments! So the absence of that section is not in itself problematic. It becomes problematic only after the Ph.D. is granted.
How about pedagogical training as a sub-heading to teaching experience? I know it’s a common feature of UK CVs, but perhaps not so emphasized on US ones?
Oh, and “research interests” or “teaching abilities”?
I actually really dislike the “Research Interests” heading. I know it’s quite common, but it always feels like a lot of fluff to me. The reason is: if you have the PUBLICATIONS that you should have, your research interests should be OBVIOUS. Excuse me for shouting. I know it’s obnoxious. But this relates to my shouting in the response about whether to prioritize the TEaching section. Too many ABDs and Adjuncts just refuse to get the message: Only publications in the highest ranked venues you can manage give you meaningful advantage on the job market.
Now, you raise a good point with “Teaching Abilities.” I dislike that particular title, because it sounds desperately grad student-ish (“I can do it, I swear!”). I would call it, instead, “Courses Prepared To Teach” or something like that, and yes, that is a valid heading, although not very common.
I think ‘research interests’ can be a helpful heading for search committees if it is conceptualized as a way of indicating the various audiences/fields of scholarship that are addressed by one’s published work.
For example, if a scholar of African history works on the influence of the Cuban Revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa, it might be helpful for a search committee to be told (via the research interests section) that one’s work is relevant to scholars of ‘the Cold War in Africa’ and the ‘global 1960s’ in addition to the obvious field of modern West African history. This can help a search committee member in how she thinks about one’s publication list as she quickly scans it, ranks it, and moves on to the next c.v.
As long as I’m posting here, I want to second what Karin said about about the importance of research and emphasizing one’s research accomplishments even in applying for jobs with a heavy teaching load. As the job market has gotten worse, more and more people with impressive publications and research records are junior faculty at schools with 4/4 teaching loads. I’m currently serving on a s.c. at one of these schools, and we had a few early battles between more and less recent hires about the nature of the people we are looking for: i.e., how much should teaching count in the search? Long story short, the more recent faculty who publish won as administration came down firmly on their side, accompanied by a warning to publish more or not get tenure to the faculty in the department that were hired before 2009. All this was of course done more tactfully than I’ve presented it here, but the message wasn’t lost on anyone. This year’s job market will help cement this change, which will remain in place until most of us can use our research to bolt for better jobs. Who knows when that will happen on a large enough scale to change things back to how they were before 2009.
Thanks for this incredible view from the front, Severus. Well actually from the back of the front. Which is even better.
Any chance you’d write an anonymous guest post elaborating on this?
Yes, that can be included. It really isn’t typical in US CVs, but as long as its kept relatively brief, it’s ok. In a US context, having too much of that makes you look like a grad student. It appears infantilizing to emphasize the “skills training” that you pursued, as if the gazillion years of schooling wasn’t good enough and you were still kicking around in this and that class. I of course can see it from the other side, that it shows commitment to quality teaching, etc. But that is not how it comes off looking, in a US context…
Thank you so much for this post! As an ABD (possibly going on the market next year), do I already need to nix everything from college (including academic awards, research experience, and such)?
yes.
What about conference presentations and publications that pre-date doctoral studies?
Depends–are they undergraduate? then no. Are they in a job, but connected topically to your current work? Then they can be included in “Other Publications.” And a new subheading under Conferences is possible, such as “Non-Academic Presentations.”
The confs were academic, I was commercial
Thanks!
I kept undergrad awards on. And I’m a decade plus out of undergrad… But they weren’t dinky. It was like ‘best student in department’ awa rds. I have honors on there too…. But now I think I’ll delte.
?”Give course titles BUT NEVER GIVE COURSE NUMBERS!!!!!” … Good lord. This post is for people who believe there is a perfectly right way to do everything, and every other way is very, terribly, horribly, wrong. I would not like to work for any department that shudders over my use of bullet points or course numbers or anything else so utterly trivial.
Do you want to be right or do you want to be hired? Dr. Karen knows her stuff, and what she is doing is giving the inside scoop/unwritten rules about what experienced academics and screening committees want to see when they review a CV. She is giving you the secret handshake, tipping you off to the inside joke. If you want to show that you are part of the club, you might want to pay attention. This is social capital at work. Ignore at your own peril.
I am currently in the process of reviewing applications for a major national fellowship, and throughout the process one of the things I pay close attention to is how people present themselves. Do I rule out an application because of a typo or because they listed part-time non-academic jobs they had as early graduate students? No, but it does call into question their attention to detail, their ability to comply with administrative procedures, and whether or not they have enough real, relevant experience to warrant a major investment by a funder. There are limited opportunities out there, and competition is fierce. You don’t have to take Dr. Karen’s advice, but in my view it is right on the mark.
thanks, lhamo! That is *exactly* it. As a search committee or review committee member I didn’t instantly toss a document that had a typo or a few errors…..but I absolutely made a mental note that the candidate was showing a degree of sloppiness, unpreparedness, or ignorance of basic conventions that raised questions. This then colored how I viewed the rest of the application.
And let me take this a step further. In days when there were only, say, 100 applications to choose among, such an outcome might have little impact. But in a day when there are 1000, anything short of an A++ presentation is as good as an F.
That is the core message of the blog. Not all want to hear it, of course. I’m just glad so many do.
“but I absolutely made a mental note that the candidate was showing a degree of sloppiness, unpreparedness, or ignorance of basic conventions that raised questions. This then colored how I viewed the rest of the application.”
This is exactly what happened to me when I read this post. I simply could not get past the ALL CAPS AND HUNDREDS OF EXCLAMATIONS MARKS!!!!!!!! If you had given a rational argument for why you don’t find these things helpful rather than making it sound like a dictate from God himself, I might have listened.
I don’t think it’s very helpful to people looking for jobs either, as I have heard from several others on job committee searches that they DO appreciate bullet points and course numbers. It’s important for everyone to know that this is the perspective of only one person and if you ask another person in another department you will probably get another response.
I think I understand why Jena believes committees would appreciate course numbers. I think underlining idea here is that course numbers give you an opportunity to inform the committee about your audience, e.g., undergraduates, graduate students, etc. However, because course numbers truly are unique to a school, supplying a course number really doesn’t mean much. I would instead suggest adding subsections or identifiers specifying which courses were taught to which audiences—if you desire a distinction. An example of such a subtitle could be “Courses Taught to Undergraduates.”
that’s exactly right.
Very Wrong.
“She is giving you the secret handshake, tipping you off to the inside joke. If you want to show that you are part of the club, you might want to pay attention. This is social capital at work. Ignore at your own peril.”
Exactly why I wouldn’t want to work in her dept. Thanks, but I’m very happy where I am. I personally wouldn’t hire anyone who writes everything in all caps with 5 exclamation marks after it, but that’s must me.
If Karen and others like her really expect these types of things from their job applicants, it would only be fair to reprint this information in the actual job posting.
But if they were upfront how else would they make money selling the “secrets” of the business?
Having come out of Cultural Resource Management, where do all those reports I wrote/projects I ran fit in? It’s research, though not in an academic setting… and yes, many of them are negative surveys or Phase I/Screenings for stuff like cell towers, but there are also some good, beefy Phase III/Data Recoveries in there that I’m pretty proud of.
I would say that could go under Research Experience (a new section I added to the post). Or, it could go under “Ohter Work Experience.” And there is a chance it could go under “Other Publications”. Without knowing more it’s hard to say for sure, but I think any of those would be candidates.
Like Digger,
my background is in public history, my publications include listings on the National Register of Historic Places. My question is where do I put museum exhibits that I’ve worked on? These are team produced products of many hours of research that are public (but not published).
make a heading for that, put it beneath pubs and teaching.
PS: Your timing is fabulous; “edit CV” is near the top of my current to-do list.
This is quite useful. In terms of formatting, however, I would recommend using a 2-column table (with all borders/lines made invisible) for lists. This allows the years to be justified left (as you recommend) and the substantive information to appear neat, evenly spaced, and consistent. Then, as one earns more fellowships, grants, awards, etc, one simply adds a row above, keeping all spacing perfectly consistent, and avoiding weird things that happen when one relies on tabs.
you know, jordan, the 2 column spacing would seem to be the easy solution, i agree. yet in practice I find that it isn’t, and that column formatting ends up causing no end of difficulties as the cv grows and evolves. It’s always possible that this is a function of my relative incompetence with page layout…. but I would guess that some or most of my readers are equally incompetent, so that is why i do not recommend columns.
I also had an absollutely dreadful experience as a Dept Head with an asst prof who turned in his tenure CV that had been done in columns, and I spent HOURS miserably having to adjust and futz with it to correct for all this wonkiness that happened when moving across platforms… This ptsd also plays a role.
No, no, don’t use columns! Use a table. They’re different and behave differently. A 2-column table can be manipulated in ways two columns cannot — you’re right that columns make messes, but tables do not. Test it: go to Word, insert a 2-column and 5-row table. Adjust the column width so that the left is just wide enough for dates and the right gives plenty of space (you can do this with a cursor, just move the vertical line to where you want it). Now make the borders invisible (you’ll see them as a faint gray, but they won’t show when printed or in a pdf). Insert stuff. Now add a row. Delete a row. Position it at the end of a page so it spills over. It will retain its formatting. Try it!
Agreed. I do tables and make a new cell for each entry. I can email to friendly folks.
ah, yes, i see.
Karen,
Could you post an example of a good CV?
Thank you,
Melissa
A lot of you are probably wondering why I didn’t do that. I certainly considered it. But there are two reasons. First, CVs are very personal documents, and DO end up reflecting the “feel” of the individual writing them. I am not trying to force everyone into a single identical mold, but giving an order and logic of presentation that will ensure what you do submit works to your best advantage.
There are countless variations on good CVs, and when I actually work with clients, the starting point of each is always completely unique and distinctive. I work from that starting point, following the rules in this post. The end points are thus not identical, but still marked by the tone and feel of the original draft. And that is important to me. It would NOT be effective to have a CV that was identical to 100 others.
And that brings me to my second reason, which is that of scale. The readership of this blog is becoming rather large. I would feel awkward posting a single model as “the” authorized Professor Is In model, which might then be adopted by possibly hundreds of readers. That would be counterproductive for all of you.
So, I limited myself to a narrative description of the elements and organization. Now, to further complicate matters, I’ve recently checked out the vita models given in several major academic job search handbooks, and they are nothing short of dreadful.
My recommendation for finding models of the CV is Kathryn Hume’s Surviving Your Academic Job Hunt.
And of course, if opinions differ, follow mine!
(or, alternatively, ask a trusted expert in your field. Just be careful who you ask. There are some terribly ignorant and irresponsible senior scholars out there).
Two thoughts:
1. Put name and page numbers in the header so they show up on each page (besides the first one).
2. Writing out “Curriculum vitae” on the first page below your name seems like the equivalent of writing “Book” beneath the title of a book. Everyone who will review it knows what it is. (I’m a science-type and haven’t observed this convention before, so check your field to see if it’s appropriate.)
Re #1: YES!
Re #2: NOOOOOOO. At least for humanities and social sciences. The words “curriculum vitae” remain the default and norm, and deviation, while certainly not a job or grant deal-breaker, marks you as ignorant of the norms in their most “proper” and time-tested form.
Like many practices in academe, it is old-fashioned, like including the snail mail addresses of letter writers in References. But it continues to hold sway.
Of course if it’s not the practice in Sciences, that is another matter, and I’d appreciate knowing that.
Ok, so I just looked at the examples in Julie Miller Vick and Jennifer S. Furlong’s “CV Doctor” column on the Chronicle, and they don’t do it either for science CVs or non-science ones. So I guess the message is to check your field’s conventions.
Oh my god, those two!!!! That column is one of the primary causes of this suffering! Or perhaps I should thank them for giving me so much business. I have their book, and it is without question the source of the worst, most unprofessional, embarassingly bad CVs I’ve ever seen.
Dude, think! They work in Career Services! Are you aware of how much damage well-intentioned Career Services people do to poor, hapless Ph.D.s on the academic job market? Perhaps you are not. But I will tell you, because I see the outcome of their advice in my business every day. I don’t doubt that they are sincere, but they are *completely* ignorant of the biases and rigidities and unspoken norms and judgments that dominate Ph,.D. hiring. I know that they work closely with Ph.D.s. But they’re profoundly “off.” Because they aren’t in the thick of it, fighting through 500 applications for one tenure track position. The wide variability that they permit and endorse, the vast wordiness of so many of their models, which in a “normal” hiring context might be perfectly reasonable, are simply deadly in a context when search committees are harrassed, overwhelmed, underslept, and forced by circumstances to be utterly unforgiving.
Let me put this another way. Tenure track hiring is now the equivalent of the Olympics. What was good enough at local, city, state, and national levels is reduced to .001 second differences between winning Gold and not qualifying at all. Mistakes within the .001 realm in your job documents are enough to keep you from even being shortlisted.
Hate to be the messenger here, but….
This is an example of how a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.
A post based on this rant to follow soon.
Sure enough. With respect, I’m not interested in debating. I personally modeled that aspect of my CV on what some recent “stars” (new hirees at top institutions in the past few years) in my field did, and not one of them wrote “Curricuum vitae” under their name. That’s why I wrote what I did in my comment, and tried to point out that it’s a good idea to check what’s appropriate to your field.
This outburst was not actually directed at you personally! Sorry. You were just the catalyst for a rant. “Dude” here referred (in my mind) to all Ph.D. job candidates who are led astray by outdated advice.
For what it’s worth, I just looked through a folder I have with many law professors’ CVs, and none of them had “curriculum vitae” at the top (or anywhere else). So in that field at least, it looks like this is not required or normal.
Interesting. This may be both a field and a generational thing. I’m not yet prepared to list this item as “optional” in this post, but I will definitely be willing to listen to arguments from clients that it’s “not done in their field.”
*How do you identify the level of course you’ve taught without the course number. I included it because I thought Soc 1002: Introduction to Sociology and Soc 3010: Studies in Power & Stratification highlighted that I’ve taught at both the first & third year level. Any thoughts?
Thanks for the ‘pearls’, btw. They’re really helping me think about my job apps.
The point here is that numbers such as 1002 and 3010 are totally meaningless outside of your campus (ie, I’ve never seen 4-digit class numbers in my own teaching career). The way around this is to divide by subsections such as “Introductory,” “Lower Level, “Upper Level,” etc. Not elegant, but clear (and more elegant than yucky numbers).
Apparently including dollar amounts for grants, even if relatively small, is becoming de rigueur in my field in the US. The justification I’ve heard is that in cash-strapped times universities are increasingly expecting even humanists to bring in external income. In any case I’d say about 80% of job market CVs I’ve seen have amounts for all funding $500 and above listed (which is about the same percentage as the those who begin every line of their CV with a date).
Casey, thanks for this. Now, the fact that 80% do it is not in itself persuasive, since 80% or more of the CV first drafts I get are an absolute mess.
But, having said that, I am always aware that conventions will change with changing conditions, so I’m willing to adjust this advice. It certainly makes sense that in the financial downturn even smaller amounts of funding would carry weight.
I’d like to know your field.
And I’d like to hear from others. Thoughts on putting dollar amounts for small grants?
I’m straddling sociology and media studies/communication. (I’m also straddling the US and UK academic worlds and have had lots of fun preparing a CV for my website which, hopefully, works for both sides of the pond, FWIW.) I’ve noticed several stylistic differences between CVs from American academics in these two fields, but in terms of my comment about dollar amounts earlier, I was talking about sociology.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the lowest amount you’re likely to put down depends upon whether you’re a qualitative or quantitative researcher. All types do it, though. In fact, I’ve been following a handful of searches at R1s and prestigious SLACs advertised last fall in my various subfields, and although I have not applied for them myself, I’ve kept tabs on the outcomes. Checking now, *all* of the hires announced thus far have dollar amounts of very small grants, i.e. $500-$1000, listed.
I would say this is becoming increasingly expected in both education and public policy two fields that I deal with…
Casey, thanks. I think I’ll shift my thinking on this matter. I would prefer more voices from advanced people who actually do the reviewing before reversing course and insisting on $$ amounts, but I’ll definitely consider them optional and field-specific now. I do see a macro-economic logic to this emerging practice.
Where should consulting gigs go?
I’ve seen a lot of senior faculty have a separate section for this, but for junior people with limited experience consulting, would this go in the relevant professional experience section?
Yes, that’s right. When there are only one or two such entries, the “Related Work Experience” section would be appropriate. when it exceeds two, it probably deserves its own section.
Perfect New Year’s resolution!
I confess, Sara, I am struck that perfecting your CV would fall under the category of “new year’s resolution,” like dieting and exercising. This points to a certain psychological barrier to CV-development that I think is revealing, and might really go a long way toward explaining why the CVs I get are such an unholy mess. I think the CV might just be the very epicenter of guilt, shame, resentment, inadequacy, and fear among young academic professionals… By the way, this is not a judgment of you personally, just a helpful observation for me, arising out of your comment.
Thank you for a very useful post. I have a few questions not covered in your post.
1. I attended graduate summer programs at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens & the American Academy in Rome. Participating in the summer programs is not nearly as prestigious as being a fellow for an academic year, but considered important nonetheless. Do these go in Education (although no degree is awarded)? Do they go in Fellowships although unfunded?
2. Would blog posts for online publications (an arts journal) or for a museum be included? If so, where?
Thanks for your help.
Tricia, these are the kind of things that get complicated (I mean #1). Some people do end up putting these under Education. I am not thrilled with that, because I prefer to keep Education “pure” and dedicated to the official degrees. For those of you facing this question, I would probably opine: if you have one of these things only, put it under Education. if you have two or more of these things, create a separate section entitled “Additional Professional Training” or something like that.
Online publications are absolutely to be included. They can go under the subheading “Other Publications” or, if numerous, a new subheading alled “Web-Based Publications,” under Publications.
What if you declined a postdoctoral fellowship? Is it helpful to list under “Grants and Fellowships” as declined or does it just look like you’re padding?
thanks for this, M! A critical point that I will add to the body of the post. IF the fellowship is a major, prestigious fellowship (it would need to be external to your institution), then by all means list it, with the note (declined). That is not padding, because the review process of top fellowships is among the most rigorous in the land, so the award itself, as opposed to your condition of having accepted it, is the honor and the evidence.
I have a question about the ordering of academic awards and fellowships. Normally, we list items in reverse chronological order (most recent first), however what if the most recent awards aren’t the most significant? Is it acceptable to list the awards and fellowships in order of significance (like putting a Fulbright at the top), instead of chronologically? Or might that look too strange?
Great, great site, by the way. And I loved your book Women on the Verge.
Robert, thanks! I love hearing from fellow Japan people!
Sorry, no, you must not, under any circumstances, ever change the principle of reverse chronological order. That one act alone could definitively damage your standing and credibility. The point here, if it’s not clear, is that you should always be gunning for “the next big thing” so that you have highly prestigious grants/awards within the top 3 or so grants on a cyclical or ongoing basis. This is why academics have ulcers.
Thank you for the reply. I adjusted my CV to reflect your advice. To avoid having more prestigious awards get buried, I removed some more minor grad school awards, like travel awards. In the big picture, that stuff is less important, although at the time it was the difference between paying and not paying rent!
What if you called the section something along the lines of “Selected Fellowships and Grants”? If I read this it would imply that there are others, but these are the cream of the crop (that could just be me, I’ve never been accused of thinking like other people…)
Meta-question: how consistent are expectations for CVs and other job stuff across disciplines? Is there a way of finding out if a particular department is deviating from the disciplinary norm?
It is not typical that a department per se will deviate from a norm, or, in a related vein, demand that external job applicants conform to some odd internal model that is not public. So, as long as your CV conforms to basic expectations of format, order, organization, etc, departments WILL allow for wide variability.
The problems that this set of Rules is meant to address are rather those variations that take your CV into the realm of the unprofessional, amateurish, improper, misleading, self-sabotaging, etc. That is why I am not giving a physical model, just a set of rules. Because as long as you get the organization and the principles behind the organization, you can vary somewhat, and still have a CV that works for you on the market.
Cheers.
I’m trying to implement your suggestion to have the “year of every entry throughout cv left justified” and I cannot quite make this work. If I start with “2011″ and then tab, and then type my publication info, for example, what happens when the citation runs beyond the first line? How do you format this so the second and subsequent lines look spiffy? (p.s. just discovered your blog today and love it.)
Use a table!
Thanks jordan – tables are perfect.
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Tab those lines too.
Karen: Having a website that includes photos of fieldwork, etc. is pretty much standard in my field. Where do you think it is most appropriate to put the website address: in the CV or the cover letter (or both)?
Also, it would be great to see a post on academic websites, if you feel so inclined.
I would put it on the CV, at the top, just under the address material. It can be mentioned in the letter IF you construct a rationale–”this book examines the social manipulation of space in domestic environments (examples of which can be seen in a gallery on my website xxxx). By contrast, writing “see my website for more information” is, in my opinion, tacky.
I am at present completely unqualified to opine on academic websites. My years of departure from academia coincided with the widespread adoption of the practice of the academic website. I badly need a qualified guest post on that subject, and if anyone would like to propose one, I’d be most grateful.
My own $.02, is this: I include my website along with my other contact info in the header information.
For academic projects of mine that have (or are!) websites, I include those in the entry, just like I would publication information for a book.
Title of my Brilliant Book Big City: Eminent Publisher, Year.
Title of my Brilliant Digital Project Hosted by Big Lab (if applicable): http://awesomewebsite.com
I (fortunately) stumbled upon your blog just a couple of days ago and have been reading as much of it as possible since– I appreciate your straight-forward style and look forward to future posts!
This CV post, in particular, comes at a great time for me. I’m a postdoc and will be “officially” on the market this fall. With so much conflicting advice out there (and so many truly horrid ones circulating), I’m curious if you have an example CV or two illustrating your advice that you can share. After I give my current version a makeover, I’ll see about getting a “Quick CV Review” as well.
Annie, Welcome– I’m glad the blog is helpful. I am not posting a model CV for reasons explained in an earlier comment—mainly, some variability, while still following these rules, helps to retain the individuality of your document. Good luck!
Do you still think this is true if you know how to create running headings, i.e. there is NO danger that your “heading” will accidentally end up in the middle of the page?
I have been using the same heading as MLA requires for after the first page “Last Name Page#” and that’s it. Thoughts?
i think we may be talking about different things with “headings”. I don’t mean headers. I’m talking about when someone has a Publications section, for ex., and it goes over a page, and then they write, on the first line of the next page, “Publications, cont’d.” That is always a bad idea because different default fonts on printers can mess up the “cont’d” line’s spacing, for one thing, and of course, as you add items to the CV, the “cont’d” line moves down toward the middle of the page and you have to remember to constantly adjust it. That’s why people rarely use this method at all, and I make a point to say not to.
Headers, by contrast, are an EXCELLENT idea, and should always be included to have your last name, CV, and page number at the top of each page.
I notice you suggest condensing teaching experience when it runs above 15 courses. What about conference papers? I worry that I may be listing too many, but as someone doing interdisciplinary, transnational work, I keep up with national conferences in two fields, and often present in 2 or more countries per year. I’m proud of having my work accepted and feel the range of papers paints a great picture of my research interests.
no such thing as too many publications or too many conferences! (it’s a parallel to what my mother used to say: you can’t be too rich or too thin).
Thanks for this extremely useful post! I have one more question, not covered by the post and in comments.
I am a PhD candidate in an English department, and have been a TA for the last 3 years. In our dept., though, a “teaching assistant” is usually the sole instructor and designer of lower and (in some cases, for advanced ABD candidates) upper-division literature and composition classes. That is, we design, teach and grade our own individual sections, and don’t assist senior professors. Would these teaching appointments be ranked higher than just TAships in the “Teaching Experience” section? How can I make it clear that I have been sole instructor in these courses without resorting to verbiage? I was considering titling the section “Teaching Experience and Curricular Development”.
Terrific question, and something I’ll clarify in the post. Yes “sole instructor” always counts for more and is ranked higher than typical TA-ships. It’s complicated when depts use the term “TA” to refer to primary instructors/instructors of record.
In this case, a little bit of verbiage is necessary. Something like “(Instructor of record)” on one list, and “(Assistant to instructor)” on another list, or, if you were always the instructor of record, then in the initial status of “Teaching Assistant, U of XXXX” add “(As TA I was designer and instructor of record for all courses listed here),” or some version of this. Keep it short and sweet. No need t elaborate–i designed, taught, graded, etc. etc. Those responsibilities are understood.
Thank you so much! Editing this bit in my CV as we speak (it’s fellowship season after all).
The CV doctor post has me opening mine up and cringing at the unnecessary things! (Though, I try to keep a running list of everything in some file so that I can pull things out when necessary) As far as instructor on record etc I think some times it depends on the fields. I’m a doc student in french lit and (though, someone may prove me wrong!) I think in our neck of the words it is understood that foreign lit grads teach primarily language courses with no other instructor present. Though, I suppose it does not hurt to make it abundantly clear that you were the only one responsible for the course. When I sign up for my own CV consultation with you down the road, I’ll have questions about my fellowship teaching (we were treated like adjuncts, university with multiple campuses and individual departments at each ‘school’) as well as my concurrent professional appointment as a lecturer elsewhere.
I’ve been ABD for about two years and currently writing my CV in order to apply for my first adjunct position. For a variety of personal reasons my CV will have very few publications and no teaching experience outside TAing. Thus, I am wondering what is the best way to present a sparse CV and discuss its shortcomings in the cover letter – if indeed I should address them at all.
I also have the following questions:
- If I was a guest lecturer at a high school and community college while I was a graduate student should this be included on my CV?
- Does the fellowship I receive from my institution which covers my tuition and stipend count under the “Grants and Fellowships” category?
- The place where I currently live has very few departments in my field (film studies) so this CV will need to show that I can also teach courses in other departments which intersect with my research interests perhaps in gender, ethnic and general media studies. How should my CV reflect this?
The guest lecturer gigs can count under Community (or Public) Outreach.
Your internal fellowship absolutely counts under Grants and Fellowships
The teaching can be clarified under the heading: Courses Prepared To Teach
I am an adjunct first-year composition instructor, and I heard a rumor floating about that my involvement with my university’s adjunct instructor organization should not be included in my CV. I have done work in organizing, served on the executive committee, and gone to a couple of conferences. I’m guessing that the political climate may not look favorably on union involvement, but would it really be a bad idea to include this on my CV?
Marcus, first off, thanks for being involved in your union organizing. I wish everyone were.
Now, having said that, yes, I do hear rumors that union activity works against candidates! This makes me want to vomit. But I want readers to be aware. Sadly, I recommend leaving off.
Thank you for posting this information!
I’m wondering whether papers presented at conferences, which then also appear in conference proceedings should be listed twice; that is, once under Conference Activity>Papers Presented and again under Publications>Conference Proceedings? Or is this considered padding? And if so, I suppose the Publications section should take precedence over the Conference Activity section, right?
Thanks for this endlessly helpful post!
An interesting subtlety. I think they should be listed twice, since the first represents participation at a conference, while the second represents a later vetting process and the publication cycle.
What do you think about putting your name at the top of the page in a font that is non-traditional?
I hate the way my name looks in Times New Roman or Cambria, but I think it looks great in Lucinda – Handwriting on top of a CV in all Times New Roman. (16 pt font on top of 12).
I also think it looks more memorable – but I don’t want it to be memorable because it looks unprofessional.
Thoughts? Thanks.
Unprofessional. (sorry). Academics can be dreary sometimes, I know. But don’t do it.
It came to my attention recently that some folks are listing job talks under Invited Talks in their CV. I suspect that you agree with me that this should absolutely not be done but perhaps you want to talk a bit about what an Invited Talk actually is and isn’t.
I hope the good doctor addresses this point, because I had the same question. What to do with job talks? I’ve been including them, with the thought that reviewers have no way of knowing the context of the lecture. (Does this make me deceitful???) So, Dr. Karen, what’s your opinion on job talks on the cv?
I confess, I avoided responding because to tell the truth, I’m not 100% sure. I know! The Professor is unsure! I guess now that there are two comments about this question, I will crowdsource it to learn what the prevailing view is. I see totally persuasive arguments on both sides.
Where is a good place to include my work as a tutor at my university’s writing center? It forms most of my departmental work and, as a potential doctoral student in rhetorical composition, it is a strong selling point.
Under the “Related Work Experience” heading.
Hi Karen. Just found your site, and I love it.
I added an unconventional section to my CV this past job season (finishing my PhD in ’12) and wanted to hear your take on it. Since many of the schools to which I applied were teaching-oriented, and my TA reviews and adjunct teaching reviews are stellar, I put a short section summarizing my average 5 point ratings on a few questions, and maybe four student comments. My reasoning on this was that most places didn’t ask for student reviews as part of the application materials, and I wanted this info in front of them.
Your thoughts? Amateurish or helpfully innovative?
Amateurish. Sorry, but deviations like that make you look desperate and unprofessional. It’s not so much that the committee doesn’t want the informaiton; it’s that they most want to know that you’re the real deal, a legit contender and “player” who understands the rules of academia and is successful within them. Deviations tell the opposite story. Put that information where it belongs, in the teaching portfolio, and let your record calmly speak for itself.
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Hi Karen,
I am a new immigrant in Canada. I’m having a lot of challenges in writing a good academic CV measured to Canada standard. I have gone through most of your correspondence online and I feel you can be of assistance.
Can you please be of help?
Thanks.
Thank you for posting this.
Do you have any advice for how to present creative work on a CV? Many programs in my field (Theatre) expects faculty to be active as both artists and scholars.
Excellent question, but one that requires an answer from an expert. Please do start gathering the cvs of senior faculty in your field, and follow their general practice.
Karen-
I know what your mother said about “too rich or too thin,” but I wonder if your comment about publication lists applies in my case. I am a recent Ph.D, hitting the job market soon, and I have some good publications, but I’m also a poet with a few dozen poems published in various journals. Should I list them on my regular CV? Is ‘a publication a publication,’ or should I only do this for jobs that ask for creative writing teachers?
Thanks for this site, MW
Oh, excellent question! A couple of considerations. If your Ph.D. field is English or Writing, Theater, etc., then the poems will count for more than if your field is Mathematics or Sociology.
In the first case, you will want to have a heading “Creative Work” and list the poems under that. That should follow behind all of your academic/scholarly publication headings.
In the second case, if the poetry is going to be seen as a weird distraction from your ‘real’ work, then I’d either leave off entirely, or make a heading called “Creative Writing” and put it down toward the end, near “Other Work Experience.”
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At what point in one’s post graduate school career does listing the courses assisted as a TA begin to be unnecessary? As a full time instructor I’ve taught/designed about a dozen courses, so it seems like listing the ones I served as a TA is just adding superfluous length. Would you recommend just listing my position as a Graduate Teaching Assistant and the years held, and leaving off the list of course titles? Or keep ‘em on there forever?
Actually, I recommend removing TA courses as soon as you have a any kind of record with sole-taught courses—i suppose if i had to quantify it, I’d say, at the point you have 3-4 sole taught courses, the TA stuff can go, never to return. TA experience does pretty close to nothing for you on the market.
thanks!
Where does a book under advance contract go in the order of publications subsections? What exactly should the subsection be called? I would assume that logically it would it be in the “Manuscripts in Submission” or “Works in Progress” (if the ms is not done) subsection, listed as “*title,* Under contract with X Press”?
However, is there any way to make it stand out more instead of burying on the second page of my CV between book reviews and “other publications”? It seems like a book contract should be worth more than a book review. Any ideas?
Thanks so much!
There is variability here, but my advice is that a book goes under a heading labeled: “Books.” Even if it’s just under advance contract, you write, in paren., “(In progress; Under advance contract with U of X Press)” I realize this contradicts the clear subheading division between “in progress” and “published” that I maintained for articles and chapters, but that is because books are “monumental” and get a standalone category that includes those in progress as well as those published. Others may disagree, and I would accept their logic, but this is what I did and suggest others do.
thanks for the answer, this makes sense. it seems like the lack of a date on the left and the note in ()’s should make it clear I’m not pretending it’s already published.
Hi Karen,
Great website!
I have a question and a comment.
1) For all your concerns about formatting changing across platforms and computers, can’t they just be solved by distributing your CV in PDF format only? Obviously you would keep your own working copy in non-PDF format, but that one would not switch computers and platforms all that frequently.
2) Do you have any advice for CVs of junior graduate students? I’m only in my Master’s, and my CV (which, although I’m not looking for a job, I still need for grants, scholarships, etc…), if I follow all of your headings, looks very depressing. I know that, in many ways, no one is expecting as much from me… Obviously, if I don’t have anything to put under a heading, I don’t list the heading. But would stuff such as the following look unprofessional or like padding in an MA student’s CV?
-giving a guest lecture in a course in which you are a TA
-teaching swimming lessons (i.e. under Teaching Experience)
-listing research interests (since I do not have enough publications to make those clear)
-listing my (tentative) MA thesis’ title
-undergraduate awards
-funding/grants under $500
Thanks!
1) Yes on PDF. But it has to look great before you convert to PDF, and that’s where the rub is.
2) Guest lecture: yes.
Swimming: Absolutely not!
Research Interests: yes.
MA Thesis title: yes.
Undergrad awards: Yes, for now. When you have more stuff, remove.
Funding/Grants under $500: yes, but don’t list $$ amounts.
thanks!
Thank you for your Web site.
I’m a 6th year ABD grad student, defending in the fall. I’m kind of stuck on the teaching section. I have a lot of teaching experience, because I have taught since my first semester in grad school. However I have also taught several courses multiple times. Do I only list the first year I taught it, or do I list the last date I taught it? Do I mention how many times I’ve taught these courses? Any recommendations would be appreciated.
People do this differently. Since you’re still just ABD, you probably want to indicate the true scale of your teaching, so you can list the name of the class and then in paren. you can write “(Fall 2011, Spring 2011, Fall 2012)”
Karen, I love your blog and you will definitely be hearing from me in the future, as I get closer to the job search! As a fellow anthropologist, I was surprised you didn’t mention how to add fieldwork to the CV. Would it go under Research Experience? Does it get its own subheading? I’ve also been struggling with how to represent the amount of time spent in the field. If I was in my field site for a summer, do I include the months and years in the date column on the left, or do I include the duration, e.g. “3 months,” in the entry on the right? What should the entry itself say? Right now mine says, “Dissertation pilot research, Middle of Nowhere” and “Dissertation research, Middle of Nowhere.” But maybe this is all redundant since these field trips were funded by grants that are already listed on my CV. Thoughts?
It goes under Research Experience. Do list it there. The grants are a separate thing, even if they funded the research.
Never include anything but year in the column on left. Put the months (not days, and not duration) in entry. Your proposed research wording si fine.
Last year I was an alternate/honorable mention for a prestigious dissertation fellowship, and had listed this on my CV under “grants and fellowships”. This year I reapplied for the same fellowship and just found out I’m an awardee! Is it appropriate to leave the line for “alternate/honorable mention” or should I remove it? Thanks!
This is actually a good question. My recommendation is that you remove the earlier “alternate” listing, since you’ve now been awarded the fellowship. If you hadn’t been, you could leave it on. Others might disagree and argue you can keep the ‘alternate’ previous year listing on, but to my eye, that looks a little tacky and sad (sadder than you need to be, since you did eventually get it!).
Hi Professor K, I’m back with another question!
I read that bit about how you can never be “too rich or too thin” or “have too many conference presentations,” but what if you presented more or less the same paper in 2 conferences, say a major national one and a minor university-level/statewide one? The titles would of course give it away that these are similar presentations you are making, even if the content is not exactly the same in both cases (my research may have evolved between presentations, say). In such an instance, should I just not mention the smaller, less-important venue presentation because I don’t want to seem repetitive and like I’m flogging the same horse over and over again, or should I list *all* of these conference presentations? Is choosing to selectively present information on your CV unethical?
No, actually you continue to mention each and every one. I personally recommend not recycling the identical title each time. But some people do. And it’s viewed as basically ok. Many fine, fine works are that way because they benefited from repeated presentation and discussion at academic venues around the country/world.
Any thoughts on discrimination of publications based on your position in the author list? This may be particular to the physical sciences, but it is common in my field to have papers with 50 or more authors. Readers of your CV will naturally give less weight to your inclusion on those publications than, say, being the first of three authors.
I’ve seen CVs that divide the publications list into sub-headings with “First Author Publications” or “First and Second Author Publications,” and then something like “Other Publications” to catch everything else.
Alternatively, I’ve also seen some CVs that use bold text to highlight the CV writer’s name within each author list (I know you’re not a fan of bold font). When truncating long author lists, some people use a snippet of descriptive text like
Author, T. F. et al. (incl. K. Kelsky) 2012
This latter practice seems unnecessary (it’s your CV after all, we know you’re on every publication).
Good question, and worth addressing in the post. After a lot of work with clients in the sciences, I’ve come around to recommending a single list, with the author’s name bolded. I do see the appeal of the subheading route as well, but given you already have subheadings for in press, in submission, and so on, that seems like it’s going to get impossibly complicated.
Hi Professor,
How should one list a “major” or “multiple” book review? I.e., a review of more than one book that is 4,000-4,500 words long. Should it just be listed with the rest of your book reviews, along with other non-refereed publications, or in its own section? Thanks!
This is called a Book Review Essay. It’s still not peer reviewed, so it would stay with Book Reviews, but you would clearly list it as: “Book Review Essay, xxxx” If it has a title, be sure and include it.
Thanks!
Should a cv list graduate students supervised? If so, what is the suggested format? Thanks.
I suspect there are disciplinary and situational variations here. My feeling is in general, that one does not put a list of grad students supervised on your general, multi=purpose CV. It’s more often seen for “internal” CVs used for competitions within your university. Now, I have seen a handful of senior CVs that list the names of students supervised. But my feeling is that it just seems mildly inappropriate and off-point. My feeling is—we ALL supervise students, so listing them by name seems like padding and putting peoples’ names on a public doc where they shouldn’t really be.
As I said, I’d be open to hearing whether other fields have other conventions in this. Or any other opinions about this question.
Hi Karen,
Thanks for your site – I just discovered it today, along with your article in the Chronicle (Graduate School is a Means to a Job). Much food for thought in both, but I can’t help thinking, why didn’t anybody tell me this stuff BEFORE I signed up for Grad School??!! It’s only now, having submitted my thesis and starting the job-search in earnest, that I realise how much stuff I SHOULD have been doing already! Don’t get me wrong, along the way I’ve presented at conferences, TA’s, sole-taught, published a couple of essays (in the dreaded edited volumes – NO ONE TOLD ME!), applied for jobs, heck, even had a couple of interviews, but most of the time I’ve been, well, trying to finish the damn thesis. Any suggestions as to how to “catch up”?
Thanks too for the post on the difference between US and UK approaches – very helpful for someone schooled in the colonies, now attempting to make some headway in both job markets.
Miriam
how does one site a publication of theirs when they are one of multiple authors?
Hi Karen,
I’ve only recently really started digging into your site, and I really appreciate all the time and effort you’ve put in to make so much great information available for free!
I have a bit of an odd question, perhaps. I received a large amount of media attention of my work a few years ago, and am about to be on the job market. I’m unclear as to how many/which of these media interviews I should list. Certainly, the national and recognizable ones, but what about the local, regional, and somewhat obscure international ones?
I’ve gotten two different types of advice on this. One advisor says I should put *everything divided into “notable” and “other” media categories because that makes the list complete and more impressive. Another says I should only list the major interviews so as to avoid looking pretentious and possibly distracting from other sections of the resume. What would you suggest?
Thanks!
Amy
I agree with the latter advice. Stick with the notable ones, and label the heading itself: “Media Coverage (selected)”
Thank you!