Good afternoon my name is Teresa gable, and I'm with the office of research and economic development and I'd like to welcome you this afternoon. This is our first seminar as part of our graduate Zimmer seminar series that we do each fall each spring.
And I think it's a really good seminar to start with today and we have that for differently from the library here at Mississippi State. That certainly has done this before for us.
But, you know, I always learn something new when I come to the session and listen to her and it's important that you have a CV that will grab attention. And that will get you the job that you're looking for.
And so, Dr Lee is going to talk to this afternoon, just give us some tips on how to write that winning resume. So I do appreciate actively taking time this afternoon.
And just so you all know tomorrow morning, we will email those of you who have signed in we will email you the PowerPoint slides from today. So, in case, you don't get everything written down today? You'll have those tomorrow morning. Okay.
So with that, please send me welcome Dr desperately. Well, good afternoon. My name again is actually, and I am.
The associate dean for public services in the library, and I teach a workshop on research techniques for graduate students and for faculty and so this is one of a series of workshops. So this is I have really wow.
I'm assuming you guys can really, really hear me. Right? This is one of a series of workshops that we teach because building out your professional toolkit is an important thing to do whether your faculty member, your graduate students.
This is one of the things you want to do to have success in your career, there are certain skills and aptitudes that you can can build upon. That can help you with that. I also try to keep slides from these workshops on our website.
So, when you get this, this PowerPoint slide, you'll see the here, we do keep a version of the survival skills and the practical professor workshop.
Materials up there I'm also always happy to share materials. So, if you see something that you want feel free to ask me I'm more than happy to do that. We are recording the session. So if you ask a question, I'm gonna repeat it.
And I'll probably repeat your answer or some of the information just a little bit, but that's why, so we can capture that information on the recording. This is just a screenshot of the website.
So you can kinda see some of the things that we have.
That's her available to you and I do want to remind you that the library does offer this is the commercial part of the presentation the library does offer a host of different workshops that are always free of charge and available to her and she community so feel
free to browse through our website and take those any of those that might be of interest to you.
What we're gonna talk about today,
though is a CV or curriculum,
or used to say Vita and the Latin experts,
and the university corrected me,
because it's in the singular,
but I'm gonna just say CV.
And so I avoid that completely. We're gonna talk a little bit about what's the purpose and role of a CV in your career and it will serve different roles as you go throughout your career.
But it's a document you're going to come back to over and over again. So, it's something that's worth putting a little time and effort into to begin with because the pay off for that can be really big.
We're gonna talk about some kind of do's and don'ts with the understanding. That the perfect CV for you is the one that gets, which you want to get it to do for you accomplished. So there's, there's just a few hard and fast rules.
The rest of it's are sort of recommendations and you use them to the extent that they serve your purpose because that's the point of a CV CV as a marketing document.
It represents you for some purpose that means there's a reader involved, not you, you don't write a CB for yourself right? You know, this stuff already. You're writing the CV for somebody else and you have a purpose for that.
You're never gonna put that purpose on the CV by the way but you, you have a purpose for it. So maybe you want to get into graduate school.
You want the fellowship you want the post doc, you want the job, the grant, the, whatever it is, you're trying to get with that. Cv.
There's a reason why that goes into the design elements itself and so,
whatever I say,
here feel free to use or disregard as as appropriate to your discipline and the purpose that you're gonna use it for the first thing that's important to realize.
Is that a CV and a resume are not the same documents.
They do,
do some of the same things they're both kind of autobiographical documents about who you are,
and a lot of folks will have both,
especially as they go onto the job market you may find and I know a lot of faculty and researchers who keep a resume up to date as well,
because they do consulting jobs and they do work in the,
the,
for profit sector and in the for profit sector,
you are almost always talking about a resume.
And so that's one of the real big differences is to make sure you're using the right document for the right purpose.
If you are applying for a tenure track position,
a post stock position in the lab,
you're probably talking about a CV if you're applying for a job in a for profit sector,
even in their lab,
you're probably talking about a resume and so you want to make sure,
that you're using the white document for the right thing for two reasons one these are vastly different documents in terms of how they're formatted CDs in general have no limit online.
Unless the instructions tell you otherwise resumes almost always for people who are coming out of graduate school or one page for people who are at the pinnacle of their career, and maybe two or three pages.
How how big is a CV for somebody who's at the pinnacle of their academic career?
Anybody want to guess I have seen them a hundred and fifty pages long. Okay.
Now this was a very prolific writer, but still, it's not uncommon to see people who routinely apply for deans positions or upper administrative positions to have ninety and a hundred page. Cvses.
It's very, very common, because these people have been in the field for a long time. If you're just starting your career, nobody expects you to have a ninety page CV. And if you do, they're gonna be a little suspicious like what's in here?
So resumes often restricted, and it's primarily used for employment. See, these can be used for a lot of things and higher education.
So you're going to be able to come back to this document over and over again as I said, there's no one, right or wrong way.
There are some expectations that people bring to something that you call a CV and so if you're going to break those expectations, you need to have a really compelling reason. Why you're gonna do that.
It's generally accepted rules of how you're gonna do that. But and here's the big box here if there are instructions that exist that tell you, this is how you should do your CV, you've never go back and say, well, that woman in the Union.
Tell me, I could do it this way that woman in the union told you to follow the instructions. So sometimes if you're going through the job search for your professional association, they have all the graduate students format to see these in a similar way with a restriction on length.
It's very common for funding agencies to have restrictions on the length of the CV.
And the big ones now, and a staff or an age, actually, they've trashed the CV, and they use a biographical statement that they format on their own for that. So you always want to follow the instructions if they exist.
But if they don't, then you want to make sure you're following good practices for it.
So, what do you use a CV for? Well, a lot of people use it for the first time to get into graduate school a lot of graduate applications now, ask for people to prepare a, which is kinda tough if you're just coming out as an undergraduate.
But it's very common for grants wards fellowships to do that. A lot of people will really work on their CV when they're getting ready to go on the job market.
Because that is a very common element of the employment package that you send out when you're job seeking. But I've even had people say, oh, you know, when I was.
Being taken on an editorial position for a journal, send me a copy of your CV. It's not an uncommon thing to have somebody say to you when you're at a conference and, you know, these are potential collaborators.
These are potential people who are going to work on with research projects, having an up to date copy of your CV always comes in handy. So, this is not a one and done document. You're gonna come back to it over and over. Again.
You're going to update it as your career changes, but you do want to keep one on file and indeed.
Most programs,
including Sachs require for accreditation purposes that we keep copies of our faculties CDs on file,
and a lot of departmental or disciplinary discipline specific accreditations also require that.
So it says document that you're gonna be asked for a lot, but for many people, the big use of CV is when you go on the job market and that's the high stakes use. Right? That's the one you're really kinda sweating out.
So that's the one you really want to put some thought into, in terms of how you're gonna put it together. Think about it for you is your first introduction in most cases to the hiring committee.
And if you think about the hiring committees in some fields, the applicant pool is gonna be really small. But in some fields that huge, I had a friend who was.
Who is the department head in economics? My background is in economics, and I had a tenure track position open and I asked him because I teach these workshops on a regular basis. How do you make the first cut? What do you do with that?
Because I knew he got a lot of applicants. He got over four hundred applications for that one tenure tracked job. So I was really curious. How do you attract? How do you start waiting through four hundred now? You would think that it would be something really weighty.
He was like, well, and obviously they look for people with degree in hand in that field. In that area, you were not competitive in the job market.
If you weren't already having a degree in hand for people who had published to look for people who had gone into certain types of activities, all of which you expect to see on a CV and then he tells me. Oh, and I really don't like aerial font.
And I'm like, excuse me, and I was like, are you telling me that somebody might be a potential future Nobel laureate in economics and you're not going to hire them?
Because they did aerial instead of times New Roman. But the field does have a preference for times New Roman. So part of what you're showing when you use a font, that's not expected in your field, is that you don't understand your tribe.
And so that was a surrogate for him. That was a signal in the marketplace to him. This person is somebody who doesn't understand the norms. And so that's what you wanna do you don't want to do anything on your CV that makes you in the first cut.
So that's that's rule number one there you don't want to do that for the search committee, it is a screening tool. It's something they're using to kinda willow down who doesn't want to invest more time and effort with.
It's also gonna be a potential source of interview questions. So, that's why you have to think really long and hard about everything you put in there and the ramifications of it and we'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment.
Well, well, I guess I asked that don't go that fast.
So we're going to back up,
just a little bit here one of the big mistakes that people make when they go in the job market is they try to put too much into the CV and the CV doesn't have to do all the heavy lifting in the job search process so
your CV is just one component of an application packet that you're gonna submit,
especially for a post doc or tenure track position.
You're gonna have a lot of other things, and they can do some of that heavy lifting to. So you're gonna have a cover letter, you're gonna have probably a research statement. You're really seeing a lot of physicians require research statement.
Some physicians want a teaching philosophy, or even teaching portfolio, depending on the institution, what you're seeing more and more places are asking for diversity statements. That's kind of a new piece since I went through the job search process.
So there are all kinds of things that you can do. And as part of your applicant, your your packet as an applicant, don't squeeze stuff like a transcript or narrative content into your CV.
Because that's not where it goes and you're going to keep your CV from being able to do its job. If you're trying to put other things in there.
There are some preparation considerations that generally speaking you should do, it's written an outline form. This is not a narrative document. So, there should never be huge chunks of text and think about your reader.
What you want your reader to do is be able to easily find all the information he or she is looking for to come to a positive and to the outcome.
You're after whether it's to get the grants, whether it's to get the, the job, whether it's to get the interview whatever the purpose is for this, you want to make it easy for the reader to get to that conclusion. So you don't want to bury stuff.
You don't want to have a format that makes it hard for people to figure out what's going on and if you've got a lot of narrative built in, it causes the reader to stop. They're not able to move as writers.
We talked some time about flow.
It impedes the flow of the documents and so you want to be sure that you have built in an outline form and you've given a lot of thought to what the spacing looks like and the visual representation because it is as much a
visual document as it is a written document.
Both of those things have an impact on the reader. It should go without saying but will say it anyway proof, read everything and then have somebody else proof, read it because, you know, sometimes we look at a document.
So, long that we know what it's supposed to say, and that's not exactly what it says. It also can be kind of helpful, depending on the purpose of your CV, to have somebody from outside your field.
Look at your CV, because we make a lot of assumptions and especially.
One of the purposes you use your saving for if you take a tenure, if you get into the tenure track position is promotion and tenure. It's it's one of those documents that helps people that becomes part of the promotion and tenure process.
A lot of times they're people looking at your CV at your portfolio, who are not part of your field, who are not part of your specific sub field.
Even if you are applying for a position in a department, or the search committee is composed of people who are directly aligned with your field and people who aren't. So you need to be able to speak to both of those people.
Because they're all going to be your colleagues when you apply for a job so you want to be able to proof read everything and make sure it's saying, and telling the story. You want it to tell it's going to tell a story.
But is it the one you want, or is somebody going to pick up your CV and go? Oh, this person didn't proof read. This person doesn't pay attention to details is that somebody we want? And that can really hurt you in the long run with that.
And this is really I know there's a thousand fonts inside word. Okay. Don't use nine hundred and ninety nine of them. All right. It's just not the place to be cute.
I have served on over a hundred search committees, so I have been through this process a lot. I have actually seen emoticons on CV. Don't do that. There should be no smiley faces anywhere in the application packet.
I don't care what field you're in. I'm pretty sure given that. It's just not the place to be cute. Okay.
In general unless you're in, I'd say an arts field if you're in some kind of art field, then you have a leeway and maybe even an expectation to break out the mold.
But if you're not in one of those highly creative, artistic fields, even if you're in the humanity, they expect things to be pretty conservatively formatted. They expect things to be pretty conservatively presented.
You don't know what the pet peeves are. The people on the search committee. So you don't know if somebody's going to discard your application, because used aerial and so times New Roman, but there could be somebody on there.
Why give them that option play it safe? This is a play it safe kind of document.
There is a guide on campus it is really hard to find good how to guides on a CV. There's a lot of things that tell you how to write a resume. And in fact, the career center on campus can work with you on writing a resume.
But there's not a lot of things that really give people good information on how to do a CV. And so the office of research and economic development worked with the provost office to put together a guide. Now, this is a guy here at Mississippi State.
This is not policy, so it's not Val shout format.
Your CV,
this way,
the same caveats apply to it that just applied to what I said you want to do,
what is a good fit for the purpose of your CV but it does give you and it covers a lot of the same information that we're using here,
one of the things that takes so long to do as a CV is this it takes some real time to actually write the CV do not under estimate how long it takes to do.
That part of it is that, I don't know what it is about academics, but we do like passive construction to our sentences.
You wanna have really strong, active verbs that describe what it is you do, and you're gonna do that and really short phrases. A lot of times people won't even use complete sentences on their CV.
You want to be consistent. However, if you start out with phrases.
More than two paragraphs, and then go back to phrases then that starts to be a problem. So, consistency is also something you're really trying to get, but think about what statements accurately reflect what you have done now.
Sometimes you don't need a lot of narrative. If you're a professor of English, your professor of English, you don't really need a narration to that to explain what that is.
If you're the associate director of some center that people have probably never heard of. They don't know what that is. Right. So, if you're an associate director or something, you may have to spell out.
You may need some additional verbiage spells out what it is, what that involves and be sure.
You give yourself uses really powerful verbs you coordinated, you budgeted you administer you supervised if they're applicable to you. Okay.
The components very, depending on the purpose of it. But there isn't expected order. A lot of people keep multiple CDs. One of the ways a couple of people have people who have done it a couple of different ways.
One is they've had.
Different versions of their CV so they had a teaching centered version and they had a research centric version. Other people have known.
I have found this kind of useful, have all the different parts in different files, and they pull in the parts that are appropriate for what they want. So, it may be that there's some CVSes.
You want to have everything in there especially a save imposed limitation on the number of pages. You have to make some real hard choices about what do you want to put in and what do you want to leave out?
There is a core set of expectation of of information that you're going to include and if you leave that out, that starts to raise questions.
Other things are more optional and we'll talk about those most people start with their contact information. I, this is front and center up at the top. This is how people are gonna get in touch with you.
This is where you start building your impression as as a professional. So, everything you're gonna put on the CV needs to be professional in nature.
So, if you are going on the job market, and you're gonna put your cellphone number on your CV, I'm gonna ask you, what does it say on your, your voicemail message?
Because you would not believe some of the messages I have heard as a member of a search committee, when I call somebody, okay, this is not the place to be cute is not the time to be cute. Some people legitimately don't want to put their work number.
Okay, they don't necessarily want their current employer to know they're on the job market. That's fine. But whatever you're including here needs to be professional in nature and it also goes for social media information.
Social media is actually part of who we are now as as academics as researchers. So if you are seeing a lot of people put things about their, their Twitter account, their LinkedIn account on this on their CV.
That's fine. But realized that again, it needs to be professional in nature, because you put something in there was the first thing people are gonna do, they're gonna go to it and they're going to look at it. And so you what are they going to see? So make sure that you're providing that?
The other thing, especially for the graduate students in the room that have run across more than one occasion is people go on the job market before they graduate they put contact information on here. And then they move now with cell phone numbers.
It's not such a big deal because usually you take your cell phone with you, but we have had applicants in in it for positions that I have worked with, where you can't find them.
Alright, they graduated, they didn't update their CV and so we can't find them to invite them for an interview. I'm not gonna play detective in that case.
I'm gonna go to the next person in the pile,
so make sure that whatever you've got there is up to date and this,
it changes you need to change,
make sure that whoever has that CV gets an updated copy of that typically,
education is the next section there is an exception to this,
once you have been in the field of higher education for a certain length of time,
and you start applying for administrative positions it is quite common to see somebody push their education.
It doesn't go away. But it's not on that first page because that first page is valuable.
Real estate is what people are gonna see first when you're just starting out the education section is expected to be on that first page and really follow after your contact information.
Notice what we didn't have in between contact information and education. We don't have a purpose statement. It is very common to put a purpose statement on a resume. You never put a purpose statement on a CV.
There's very few. Never that I can say with, but I can say that one there should never be a purpose statement on a CV.
You probably have one, you should have one, but you don't type it out on the CV itself in the education section.
You're gonna start an expectation of how the reader is gonna find information that you want to carry through your document. And so most people will start their education in reverse chronological order.
And that's because for most people that will put their highest their highest degree first. And it's entirely possible. You haven't finished the highest degree. So, maybe you're hoping to graduate in May. That's fine.
You can put that on there just make it very, very clear that you haven't got degree and hand that the degree is expected in May of twenty, twenty because you don't have it. You can't say you have something you don't have.
Because one of the things you want to maintain from the very first is the integrity you have with the reader,
if you violate that integrity,
if you make the reader suspicious of the information,
you're providing he or she will question the entire document,
you will erode any kind of authority you had that you had built up.
So one of the common things we see in the job search processes, people claim degrees. They don't have.
Never claim you have a degree,
you don't have never claim you have experience you don't have you wanna be absolutely honest in this document and so that means providing only information about degrees you actually have,
or anticipate having in the very near future.
Yeah. Most people do not go past their bachelors. Okay unless you do something truly spectacular at the high school level. You're gonna stop with the bachelor's level.
Occasionally, some people go back and if they had an associates at the community college level, they will put that in there that actually could be a talking point in your cover letter. So it can be a way. You kind of tie your experiences together.
That may be a case where you want to put that in there a lot of times when people are just starting out, they will include a title of their dissertation.
And sometimes they will actually put the dissertation advisors name in there. That's fine. But a, you're gonna probably edit that stuff out as you get further along your dissertation. A lot of times we'll get you your first job and never get to your second job.
So it becomes less relevant as you stay in the field. And two, if you put somebody's name down as your advisor yes. Who has to be a reference.
Absolutely. Have to be a reference for you if you put your committee down, they probably need to be on your reference list. And one of the real red flag is, if you've got somebody who's an advisor, but they're not on the reference list.
I tell when I teach the graduate student sessions of that person really needs to be dead. Okay. Because that's a legitimate reason to not be an advisor anything else.
A reference anything else is is a red flag that she will have to address very early in the application process. If you don't keep going there.
And at any time, if you have questions feel free to ask with that, what you put next is really up to you.
Okay, those are the real expectations that people expect to get first the contact information and the education remember that, especially if you've only got a couple of pages. It's not a big deal.
If you've got as you stay in the field, and your CV gets longer, people are gonna pay a lot of attention to the first page and people will probably, depending on the institution going to flip to the research section.
And so they may not pay as much attention to everything else. So think about what you're gonna put on that first page what are you gonna take up with that real estate?
A common area, if people will start talking about their professional experience and remember that you have a lot of professional experience, it doesn't have to have been your primary responsibility. So sometimes graduate students are like, wow.
I haven't got any professional experience. I'm brand new in the field, and I will say, well, did you give a guest lecture where you a research assistant a teaching assistant a lab assistant?
Have you done any kind of internships or field? Practically all of these things are experience that can count.
And so this is where you can really start to bring out the different types of experiences that you have if you've done anything with Grant whatsoever, it needs to pop in here somewhere.
Because part of what you're trying to do with your CV,
especially in the job search process is draw a distinction between you,
and the other applicants in the pile,
what makes you distinctive in there so if I write on my CV,
well,
I know how to use PowerPoint okay.
Good for me, how distinct is does that? Make me from every other member of that applicant pool?
Not much,
but if I have a really specialized programming skill,
or I have gone through a a specialized set of training experiences in the lab,
or I have been certified,
we have a preparing future faculty program on campus for graduate students.
If I've gone through something like that, then that starts to distinguish me from other people and it's a way for me to kind of bring that out. Now all of us have those filler jobs right?
Those jobs that we took to get a paycheck and no other ways. So, if you are bagging groceries at Kroger, this is probably not where you're gonna wanna put it. It's entirely okay to have a second section.
That says other employment later on that covers that. Because what you're trying to do with this is also plug any holes you want to account for the time for your time.
All right, and so if you see an applicant, and it looks like he or she fell off the earth for two years so they weren't school and they weren't employed. Where were they that raises a question on the part. There's a way to take that question off the table.
Generally you do that in the cover letter, but the applicant the cover, the CV is not necessarily going to do that but if you can avoid.
So you do want to include date with this so, if you had a a research assistant ship for two years, have a brief description of what your responsibilities were in those two years. Okay.
So claim that you administered a three million dollar Grant as a graduate student. You didn't do that, but you may have had a certain role. You may have supervised the undergraduates. You may have been responsible for some aspect of the project.
Give yourself credit for what you deserve credit for. So you want to be sure that you're including that information. You also typically are gonna put information about your teaching and research experience or preferences.
So let's say you're applying for tenure track position and you have not taught anything. Okay.
Well, it's certainly okay to say these are the areas that I anticipate teaching yet.
Okay,
here's my teaching interest for those of you who have experience and you want to say this is my teaching experience,
but remember,
even if you put that down,
if I say,
I taught eleven,
thirteen,
that means nothing outside,
unless you environment.
So, if you're gonna talk about the courses that you've had responsibility for use of course, titles, typically, people who have a good deal of experience will actually separate this out into undergraduate and graduate.
Because it's a different teaching experience to teach graduate students. And it is to teach on your graduates and you wanna be sure you're giving yourself credit for that. Here's where you've got to be really careful a, you don't want to appear needy. Okay.
So you don't want to go in there and say, I will teach anything you give me just give me a job. Okay you may be thinking that, but that's not what you want to put down on your CV.
But if you say, oh, I have a teaching interest in macro economics I have known of situations where somebody who puts that down and then got into a telephone interview or an on campus interview.
Somebody turns to them and said, okay for an intro to my macroeconomics. What textbook would you use how would you assess learning in that situation?
So,
remember everything you put down,
can be a question in the interview process is think about how to think about the context of what you're putting down and how you're gonna answer those questions before you put that information down the same thing for research areas.
A lot of times people will put a research areas that they're interested in. This is not the same as a research statement that typically you have to include as a separate part of your your application.
If you are in a lab focused as subject area. Typically, as part of that research statement, you're putting requirements for your lab in there that means you need to know what it takes to startup a lab.
And if you're if you lowball it, that looks as bad as if you say I need five million dollars. Okay.
So you've got to have some experience you've got to network with people in your field as you build these components in there because there is a right and wrong way to do that you also want to be sure that you are
fully using these sections to their best advantage for you,
if I'm applying for job at a research focus department at Mississippi State University,
a research one institution I'm probably gonna put the research section higher up.
Alright. I want that to be front and center. I wanna get that if I can on that first page.
If I'm applying and I used to, I can use this example, because I used to work at millsaps a long time ago at a four year liberal arts institution. If I put research higher up for them. What am I telling them?
I'm telling them. I don't understand the ethos of your institution, because I'm coming from there already, especially because you're coming from a research institution.
So, in that case, I would wanna put my teaching experience and my teaching interest higher up this is where you start, including the same information.
Because both of those institutions care about you as a teacher and care about you as a researcher, but they're gonna look at this sections differently.
So you want to tailor how you're presenting this information to that purpose to make sure that you're making that a good fit publications and presentations or the reason why.
Higher Ed CDs get as long as they do,
I,
we publish and and that's part of how you get ahead in this field,
is you engage in research and a lot of cases,
and so presenting that research is vitally important.
Remember that you set a precedent when you listed your education as going reverse chronological order.
Now, some people argue against this, but I would argue this is just my advice that you keep because of that flow issue. Everything needs to flow in the same order.
So because you start with the most recent first and education, I would start with the most recent first with your research don't make your reader hop back and forth and try and figure out what it is you're trying to do again.
Be very, very accurate with the information that you provide. And I, when I was first starting out, I did a lot of single so we'll author publications, but not all of them were.
And it looks kinda repetitive to have my name there and so I started playing around with the format and I would say with,
you know,
David with Mark and listen that way,
as somebody pointed out to me,
you know,
that's not the citation style we using this field and I can't tell who's who's the lead author when you do that that matters and a lot of fields it's really going to matter whether you're the lead author or not.
So you want to use the citation style that the readers in your field are,
who are gonna be reading your CV are gonna expect generally that's gonna be the citation style that that's accepted in your discipline and it needs to be a complete citation.
It needs to be page numbers. It needs to have if it's available at least have it needs to be just like, you would have put it in a research paper. It needs to be complete in that regard.
Now, in general, the more things you publish, you start to break them into sections.
You don't just have publication, you start to categorize them and as a general rule, you wanna put first whatever is most valued by your field and that varies tremendously by field.
So, for example, in computer science, computer science, they have some really prestigious proceedings.
It's really hard to get into if you got into those proceedings, you'd want that to be the very first section that you had under publications and other fields proceeding are the least prestige publication.
You can do it and in this field, you would want present proceedings publications to fall further down in some fields. Like, in the humanity they need the book. They need to have publications as books.
That book was gonna come first in other field.
The journal article is the primary means of scholarly communication that whatever is the,
the most prestigious form of scholarly communication in your field is,
what should appear first and then you go from there in most fields book reviews come dead.
Last right? I've done over fifty book reviews, right? It eats up a lot of space. It's to the point. Now I'm a full professor. It makes no sense for me to list all those book reviews on my CV. I do have a comprehensive list of them.
I do have that somewhere, but in most of my versions of now, I just say I've been over fifty book reviews on these topics and these publications and I just have a sense.
I don't list them all anymore because it just drug out that. And because you don't want the section, that's not prestigious to swap the section.
That is one of the red flags when you're reviewing applicants for promotion and tenure.
As you look at the at the CV as it's presented, and you see a lot of presentations and no publications, that's a red flag. And I know that person thought they were doing a good thing by listing all of the presentations that they have.
But it doesn't necessarily work out that way, because it, it starts to look like, okay, you got all these presentations and none of them translated into publications. That starts to send the message that I bet the writer of that.
Cv didn't intend to set. So be careful about how you do that also be careful about how you put things that are in progress or under review. It does show a pipeline. Right?
And that's an important piece of information to convey, but means you have to update it more often. I could say that I have something under review at the top Econ journal in my field. Right?
That's not the kind of research I do. And it wouldn't be under review real long, but I could get it on my list. I could do that. I'm not fooling anybody when I do that. Now.
One of the smart tips that somebody told me they did is they actually post when they set something under review and so they will say, you know, submitted on this date or second review on this date.
So they do include those things that they pull them into a separate section.
So, they had a works in progress section where they pull that stuff separate. And so, you know, the first thing that people saw on their CV was not stuff that had no commitment to get published yet. And that was actually, I thought, a pretty smart way to do that.
And if you put something on your CV again, you should always be able to answer questions based on it.
One of the worst interviews I ever saw with somebody who was doing a presentation and in a department, and he had Co, authored a bunch of research.
Somebody had in the job talk,
had asked him about one of the articles and the methodology they had used and he said,
oh,
I'm not the stats guy I didn't do that part of the article I wrote the lit review and I'm like,
whoa,
how to not answer that question,
even if you're not the stats person,
if your names on it and you're putting it on your CV,
you need to be able to answer questions about it at the least at the very least read the article and be able to answer from that perspective and certainly you should have copies of anything you list on your CV,
one of the things that typically happens.
Now when people do include things, that are forthcoming things that have been accepted for publication. But aren't yet out is sometimes the search committee will turn around and say, can you send us a copy.
Because they want copies the things, they cannot get out in the research realm. And so you should have copies of all of that.
So, if your names on it, even as a CO author, you need to have a copy of it for your files and be able to provide a copy to somebody who sees it on your CV and asked about it.
Just like, with with publications.
Presentations are not all created equal and so generally, as you get more of these things you're going to want to separate them out and typically you're gonna have the things that carry the most weight.
That's gonna be international publications, first national publications, all the way down to state level publications in general estate presentation at a state conference isn't as prestigious as, when you do at the national.
So you want to give yourself that distinction there for both the publications and the presentation. It should be clear what's peer reviewed and what's not and if it's not find a way to include that information. Yeah.
Sometimes, once you get build a recognition in a field, you will be invited to present a conferences. Those are not peer reviewed presentations.
But invited this cool. Okay. So if you're invited be sure and include that information in there as well.
Now, having said all that I remember my first CV and I remember I had a book review and article and a presentation and that was it.
Now, if I had broken those three things down into three separate areas, it would look kind of puny and I didn't want to do that.
And it's perfectly okay when you're starting out to mix some of these things together, but be sure that you're providing the information. So that people can unclearly understand what's the presentation? What's the publication?
Where was it published and has it valued in the field? So you want to provide the reader that information that makes sense yes. Okay.
For a paper TV that upset him. That's fine. Paper.
My name, right?
Okay, that's a really good question. I'm gonna repeat it the question and this comes up a lot. When you're a research assistant. The question is as an undergraduate. You worked on a research project. There was a publication. That resulted as a part of that research but your name's not on the paper.
So, if somebody goes to the paper, they're not gonna see that. I would hope they were nice enough to thank you and a note on that paper, but maybe not but it's okay.
I would not put that under publications because it's not your publication and you don't want to imply that you have something that you don't have what you can do though is list that,
as a research experience under your experience,
and you can even include that says,
this research this,
this project that I worked on,
resulted in a publication by such and such,
and here's the citation.
So that's a way to a back door way to kinda put that information in there without claiming something that you can't claim. Yeah, that's that, that happens to us all.
Any grant experience that you have any,
that you have experience whatsoever,
it's worth putting on there it's such an important part of higher education now and the person that's going to be nodding up and down here,
but you want to provide complete information.
It's one of those areas that people kind of fudge,
sometimes when they're putting their CVSes together so don't say,
don't lump everything you've done together and say,
I'm responsible for three million dollars worth of grants when you weren't the pie when they weren't external fund externally funded grants you want to be very careful about those overarching dollar amounts when that's not true,
but give yourself credit for the experience that you do have with Grant bring that out on my CV.
I have, and I've been in the field a long time. Okay. So this was a very, very long time ago. Normally this would have fallen off my CV, but I still have a research experience.
I did in my first graduate program, where I was a research assistant on an NSF grant, because a, I was a research assistant on NSF grant.
I did statistical analysis and translation services for something that, for research that was conducted in Venezuela that doesn't show up any place else from my CV. And so I've never had something else that could replace it. If I had done that repeatedly and other grants.
I probably would have let that fall off, but that's something unique. And again, that's what you're looking for. What distinguishes you from other people in the field. Certainly. Everyone is looking for people with any experience with grants.
That is I can't imagine.
That would ever be seen as a negative,
but be careful if one of your ambitions is to be the Pi on an NSF grant,
and you're applying to a four year liberal arts institution,
they're gonna get nervous that you're gonna be chasing research and you're not.
So this is where you want to start tailoring the content as you're presenting it.
Four year institutions care about grants too,
but you gotta be really careful about how you present that information to the reader and what's the reader gonna walk away with in terms of that service and professional activities are certainly important but one of the things as you're in higher ed,
for a while this section can overpower other sections.
If there's one thing we do, and higher education really well, it's committees and so you certainly want to show that you have an understanding of that.
If you are going up for ten years, everybody wants to tenure a good colleague who pulls his or her fair share of that service.
So you want to give priority to that work that is most prestigious,
or that brings out some aspect of your work in my field is actually quite common to pick up certain skills serving on professional committees in our professional association.
That might not be part of your job.
So, we're a really big field and librarian ship and so we have really big conferences. You can pick up some really good conference skills in terms of organization budgeting.
You know, when you're working with a committee and a professional association, you are not the boss of those people. Okay. You can't tell those people what to do, you have to build a team and you have to move towards a goal.
And so it starts to be some of the skills you can talk about that you've developed. So that's where service can really start to enhance other aspects of your CV.
If you are submitting a publication or a paper to a conference.
Typically, you are also going to be asked to be a discussion on a panel that's kind of giving back to the conference when you're presenting your research that are reading your paper.
That is research when you're serving as a discussion, that service. So that's almost a, to, for if you think you've had it for, for those kinds of activities, be careful how you include community and volunteer service.
It can be really important and in some context, it's highly value. So going back to my experience at millsaps community service was a big thing. We were expected to be involved in the community. You reported on community services part of your annual review.
It's something they looked at it was something they would look at very favorably if you are applying to a research, high research production department in a research university, and you had two pages of community service they might get nervous.
So be careful about how you present your service there. Certainly anything just like, with every other section that you present should be professional in nature. The other thing in this day and age. But you have to be a little careful about is political affiliations.
So some people feel that that's part of who they are, and they're gonna put it on there. Other people are kinda hesitant and leave it off.
You don't have to do that's part of the personal decision you make about the story you want to tell, but just be aware that some people have, you don't know who's reading your CV. You don't know how they're gonna respond to it.
So, I just put that out, there's something to think about as you list that the other thing you're gonna have is professional memberships now. Generally speaking to be a member of a professional society requires.
That you write a check, I mean, basically, that's why it requires. It is important to show that you are building those connections that you understand the associations that are important to your field and that you're starting to get involved in those.
But that's not something you would want to take up space in the first page with is just not that prestigious. Now if you were a fellow in a field, right?
If you were an elected fellow in your field for a professional association, that's entirely different. That becomes an award or an honor you want to highlight that in a separate section.
So that's one of the ways that you can bring that out again honors and awards are certainly things you want to include and you've had and they can range from.
We have a several opportunities on this campus for graduate students to present their research and to participate. And so if you're recognized, if you win one of those awards, that's that's the kind of thing you want to put in there.
A lot of professional associations also have an award for the best graduate student presentation. That's the kind of thing you want to put in there. If you want any kind of travel grants that certainly worth putting in there.
So, put the things that help and enhance the understanding of who you are and what you're gonna be in there but you do want to provide complete information. You know, who gave you the award. What was the date? What was it for?
Be clear about that information because a lot of times.
Is it's a Fulbright everybody knows what a Fulbright is, but a small travel award awarded locally at the university level. People may not be aware of what that is. You may have to spell that out. Just a little bit more.
There are other sections that people sometimes choose to put in their CDs, but you don't have to. So, one is military service in some situations service, as a military in the military actually gives you preferential treatment.
And so it's definitely worth putting in there. In other cases. You may have been deployed. That's where some of your holes may be coming from and so putting those deploy that information about your deployment. Can be really an important part of that. Other people.
Don't choose to disclose that. That is up to you to do that. Typically, if you are applying for a job, these questions will also be on the application that you have to fill out.
And if the questions on the application, you have to respond to it. But you choose what you're gonna put on a CV or not same thing. For immigration status, some people choose to disclose their immigration status and their CV.
Some people choose not to it is a question. So it's something you could take off the table. If you've already got a green card, if you've already, if you're not gonna have to be sponsored for Visa, and you can take that off a consideration that might be worth it.
But you don't have to do that as part of your CV people often times. We'll list their skills.
As they'll have a skill section, and again, I use the example, and I went back and looked at my CV and I actually have this on there. So I need to take it off. If you put on there. Well, I'm profficient word.
I can do Excel PowerPoint. And word, how does that distinguish you from anybody else? In the pool? Not at all. Right?
But if you say, you have a proficiency in data, or you have a proficiency in, that starts to be a little more distinctive if maybe you have a particular skill that you have been licensed for.
Sometimes there's a networking or computer science or programming skills that you can actually get a license for that that certainly is worth putting in there. So the skills should be things that you actually have a skill.
And I have seen cv's where I suspect the students saw this technology once in a classroom.
Okay, that does not mean you have the skill, so just because you were a student in canvas does not mean you have a skill and building a course in canvas. That's an entirely different skill. Be careful about claiming a skill you don't have.
Because then what's gonna happen in the interview process. People are gonna ask you questions about that, that you can't answer. And that starts to look bad same thing for languages. Don't claim a language that you don't have.
If you say, your proficient in Spanish and you go on the job interview, and they pop off a question in Spanish, you better be able to answer because otherwise you just show that you lied on your CV.
And once you break that face with your reader, you've broken that faith, it's really hard or impossible to get it back. So you don't want to create a false impression in the United States. It's assumed that English is one of your languages.
So, you never put a proficiency in English. Hopefully that has come across in other aspects. If you have a native proficiency in another language. That's perfectly okay. To put here.
That might actually be a selling, selling point for, you know, typically, you're going to end with references. When you're on the job search process itself, the references are a separate letter, a separate sheet.
You don't keep going, you have you break it into a separate sheet. In other cases when you're not on the job search. Maybe you're using the CV for some other purpose. You end with references available upon request. That's the last thing.
You put down there. This is not a job search session, but never list somebody as a reference. That you haven't talked to ahead of time. And that knows you're listing them.
I have been in interview situations where we have called the reference, and she said, oh, she listed oh, I don't know. And basically told us if you hire this person is the worst thing you ever do. Alright. Gave him a horrible reference.
I I was like, this person didn't talk to you beforehand no, no, we never I was like, okay, that told us all we needed to know and the search committee, right?
So, if you're gonna list a reference down there, make sure it's somebody who knows, you're gonna list them every field handles references differently, some fields and it's an annoying habit in some fields.
You have to send letters as part of the application process, whether you're on the shortlist or not but people who are in that field, expect that and expect you to ask them they're gonna complain on Facebook.
I can just tell you right now they're gonna complain on Facebook about writing the letters, but it's part of what we do as faculty. We do it, but be sure that if you're gonna list somebody that you have talked to them ahead of time, they are things. There are a few things that I can.
Yeah, you had a question you're in how many people should read your CV beforehand.
The theory that is, you should always have at least three that you're not gonna find that written anywhere. But I would have at least one of those three not be somebody in your field.
And so that gives you, because every person's can have a different perspective, all three people are gonna tell you to do different things.
Ultimately, you have to make the decision about what, what's this is your document what, how best tells your story, but if all three people point to the same spot and said, I didn't really understand what you were trying to do here.
That's a red flag. Right? And that tells you that you're, you're not telling the story the way you want to do that, and it can be for different things.
So, maybe, if you're working on a a teaching centric CV, and you've got somebody who's a master teacher in your department, that would be a great person to look at it.
From that perspective, if you've got somebody who's already an elected fellow in a research society, in your field, having them give you feedback on your CV from the research side would be very good.
So you can use different mentors and different people to provide input on different aspects of it is not everybody has to be perfect or or know everything about the entire document. Yes, we can do that.
How many references you have to follow instructions because the job will actually tell you how many references you need to have three is the standard,
but I have seen people was job as that one of five and it's never a problem to provide more.
It's always a problem if you provide less, so you can always provide more references and is required, but you can't provide less because that is not a complete application. Yeah.
No idea what I do. Okay.
So,
yeah,
the question had to do with what,
if you're working independently,
I would say there's gotta be a relationship there that you can pull on and so you would ask people for different relationships.
And so, if there's somebody that you've worked on with, in terms of of research, I would work with that. If there's somebody you have some experience with with teaching. That can be that they can be on the same level as you.
They don't always have to be a supervisor for references, so it can be a number of different things. Okay. Other things you never, ever put on your CV. It's personal information in a different era.
People would say I'm married with three kids. Alright that's an extra. And you still like that, but it's an extremely.
I see extremely dating thing to do. So don't don't put that on there. Okay. You do not have to do that. I have there's a trend here lately about doing pictures on CDs and I don't know how I feel about that to be honest.
I would say my, my gut instinct is to not do that, but it it is something I'm starting to see more.
And more of I would, I would be hesitant to do that but I certainly would not provide any information about disability or your personal life. That you do not have to disclose whatsoever, don't put your social security number on your CV.
I have seen this before that. What's happening to your CV when you apply for anything? They're gonna make copies of it and hand it out to everybody on the committee. You don't really know we're a copy of that is gonna go.
I would not put anything private like that on there. So do not put your social security number on there. You do not provide salary requirements or salary history on a CV.
That is something that sometimes appears on a resume and so for resume, you might need that. But for CV, you would not need that. And you don't list the courses that you've taken. Now.
Typically, I see this with people who are just out of graduate school, and I think there are a little.
Nervous about how short their CV is and so they're trying to fill it out, you know, that paper that you were trying to write and as an undergrad, and you had five pages worth of information and it needed to be eight pages.
And,
you know,
that filler that you put in to make it eight pages,
it's always obvious when they're similar and so on a CV,
it's always obvious when somebody's trying to fill out and make their longer than it really needs to be,
if you want to provide information about courses,
include a transcript and informal transcript and talk about it in your cover letter.
So I would not list courses per se.
Now, again, if you went to some specialized certification or process something different than just taking a course, then build that in somewhere either as an experience as an award in some way, put it in there.
But don't just list your courses. That that's generally not expected.
I have a case study of a guy named who I totally made up and who is getting his paci and mathematics, and he's going on the job market and he's looking at for possibilities.
One is in the private sector, and a pharmaceutical company wants a post stock at a major research university once a tenure tracked job at a research university.
And once the tenure tracked job at a four year liberal arts college, and he put together and let me tell you, it's really hard to make up the CV. So, that's what I was doing here. Look at the CV. What's the first thing that she did wrong?
Don't look at the formatting look at the font. What's the what's this font?
This is comic sans. This is so the red flag to the bowl and the academic world. Okay. I have seen people, put their CVS and their entire application packet in comic sans. Trust me.
There will be at least one person on the search committee who will kill your application for that alone. It doesn't matter what else you have on there, but look at how he has has put this this top part of what's wrong with what he's done.
It's a CV, he's a PhD candidate. What is this doing on his first page?
It's taking up a lot of real estate telling us things that are we already know you don't have to tell people to see you have to tell people it's a CV. You've not done it right? Okay. It should be immediately obvious. It's a CV.
You don't have to tell people you're a pH. D candidate. You're gonna tell them that the education section. So don't waste that. I mean, this person's wasted about this top twenty five percent of the page just doing that information.
And then, of course, a tenure track position and mathematics that may be the purpose that maybe the true goal that you don't put that actually on the CV itself. And then I tried to make every mistake I could, as I was going through here.
What else would you not do on this?
Do it yeah married with children? That's that's something you wanna do. I really appreciate it when applicants tell me if the phone number they're providing is a cell phone number or not.
It really helps me as somebody on the search committee to know that. What about the education?
Yeah, right. Why why is he putting at his high school down there? Generally speaking you wouldn't do that, right?
This is not something you would do. And the other thing I talked about different sections here. You would never say teaching experience. None.
Okay, if it's really none, then they'll put it on their list don't draw attention to the fact that you don't have that experience.
I would challenge that and say that we can find some, but I would not do that a couple of other things in terms of publication. Look at what he's done here.
Hi, this, first one.
Alright,
that first of all,
he doesn't tell me,
I can't really tell from his citation style who his who his,
his,
who's the major author who's the primary author the lead author here,
and he's gotten things mixed up one of the things you have to be really careful about is do not you don't want to publish a research and a predatory Journal,
and you don't want to list a predatory Journal.
On your CV, that is something that people are very sensitive to it's an issue right now that's really hot and the sciences, and in all of education higher education.
So you want to be sure that whatever you're listing here you don't wanna do yes, that's a really good question. What do I mean, by predatory Journal a predatory journal is the journal that exists so way to get your money.
Okay. It's not there to bring forth research. It's not there to help you grow as researcher.
They just want money from you to get published and it's got really complicated because there are quite legitimate open, access journals that have a fee attached to getting published.
And then that are not predatory journals, but our predatory journal is a journal that does not have usually a very strong review process. And that exists solely to get you published and to get that check from you.
Okay. So, it's, it's paid for play paid to get published is essentially what it is. Okay so that's all. Okay.
Right. Okay. There is a list. We don't recommend people use it. There was a list. They had to do about there.
There is such thing as as list of predatory journals, but you're probably referring to is Bill's list.
Yes, and first of all bill is no longer updating that list and so it's out of date and there were always some real problems associated with that list.
So, what we can do in the library is help people evaluate where they're publishing and ask the hard questions about where who was sponsoring this journal, who's on the editorial board.
Is this a legitimate journal as an index and databases that you're going to consult?
So and that's not going to get on my soapbox about Google scholar that I like Google scholar but Google scholar indexes, predatory journals.
And so if you do not understand the difference, then sometimes it's easy to kinda get confused in that particular database of legitimate research database. Should not index the predatory Journal? Do I? Yes, I will. I will though.
At the end there will yes. And here, because I could not make up an abstract about mathematics.
I just cribbed some stuff in Spanish,
but you can kind of see why you don't want to put something a huge chunk of text notice how this,
this huge chunk of text takes your eye away from the flow of that document.
This is why, when you're talking about what the title is of your dissertation or your thesis, you don't put the abstract it.
Okay, this is not the place to put it in your CV you can put those things in a research document that goes in as part of the application packet, but I would not put it in your CV itself because it really Disrupt that flow.
And then he also does a lot of other things. He shouldn't do. He says languages, English and Spanish. Well, I was helping, which was one of his. You just never do that. You don't list your courses and his grants are kind of all over thing.
So, it's just kind of illustrating some of the things that that can really sabotage your CV, depending on what you're trying to do with it. This is my contact information again.
I'm doctor generally, and ideally at library de, and I'm always happy to answer questions.
I cannot necessarily review CV just because of time constraints, but I can sometimes point you in places of people who can. So this is where I will open it up for you guys have had some great questions. I'm gonna open it up for others.
Yes.
All that more, in terms of templates, you can use the template. If you want to.
My problem with templates is that does it really? Is it flexible enough to meet the needs of what you want it to do?
They can absolutely work and I know people who can do that. I would say one of the problems is sometimes it's very obvious when people have used templates and then it doesn't look very original from that perspective. Sometimes they do things. I don't recommend.
So, one of the things that this kind of debated back and forth is should use bullet points as part of your CV. It can be really overwhelming for somebody to see a lot of bullets in a document.
A lot of the people I have consulted say, no, don't do that, but I have seen some very successful where people did use it in a very selected way.
So, I would say whatever format you use and I always look at people CV. I look at the people I work with I look at, you know, when I get to a conference a lot of times they'll have a CV up.
I'm always looking to say, how do people handle stuff and I have no qualms about saying, Ooh, I like how they did that. I'm gonna do that in my CV. So, you start paying attention to other people see these see how they put it together what you liked a reader and what you didn't like.
And that will change how you write it yourself yes.
Little party or other people will be pitching. Okay. I didn't quite catch the first part of it.
For example, I have to create and Mark various here. Right? So all of a sudden objects that was my walk through. Oh, okay.
Okay. So what happens if you didn't finish the degree and she moved on but you okay. That's a good question. And that actually, I have that situation where I have two years and a masters program. I didn't finish and what I sometimes have put it on.
And sometimes I don't but it actually needs to be on because for two years, I was there.
Right, that's that's part of my timeline and so, and when I put that on there, I say in roles, and I give the dates have enrollment, but I never claim I have a degree.
I make it very, very clear that I was enrolled in that program for that time, but I did not walk away from that program with a degree because you gotta be very honest about that. Yeah.
Similar question, right?
When they look at my,
and that's where the question was,
what happens if you do have a legitimate break in your graduate program,
or your work history and it's not clear from the CV why that was and that's where other parts of your application packet come into play so,
if it's not clear from the CV and it might not be,
then that's something you can bring out in the cover letter.
They are looking for that they are looking for that so,
if it looks like,
and some people have very,
you know,
maybe somebody needed to take care of an elderly parents or somebody needed women a lot of times when we or men will leave the workforce to to raise children up to a certain point,
and then come back in.
That's perfectly okay. Just put that in the cover letter. That's one of the things you can take off the table. Okay.
I was not actively involved in academics during this time, period, because I was dealing with the situation, but I picked up my studies and such and such and here's what I've accomplished now. And so you can, you don't have to dwell on it.
You don't have to provide a lot of but you can just kind of account for any gaps. That might exist there.
But again, that's where different parts of the application packet are doing things for you to CV doesn't have to do all of it. Yeah. Okay.
So, how cool but is the pool focus the question? How would you apply for a CV if you were applying for a pool of positions?
So, like, is it like a lecturer position in a particular department? Okay, so the question would be I, I would look for the common elements. Hi. So if it's a research position, they're probably interested in research skills.
And so,
that's what I would focus on,
but also,
you know,
if if there's a chance you're going to be supervising somebody,
bring that into it think about what are the skills that people who are going to that pool are gonna be looking for and how can you reflect them what of those skills that you have and how can you reflect it and your CV?
I was pretty raw. Okay. You're gonna have to pick a stream. Okay you can see these are never one size fits all documents.
And that's a big mistake that people who go on the job search, they'll create, they put a lot of time and effort into creating a CV. And then they try to use it for every.
And I see, I have the same complaint about cover letters, because I have gotten as a, as a chair research committee. I have gotten applicants that I actually went back and said, okay, are we sure they applied to my job did we say something in the applicant?
Did we say something in the job announcement that sent this person down this way and I went back and looked at the job announcement because it was not my job that they were applying for, you know, and I'll just be honest. That Mississippi State.
I've got people who write and say, I'm looking forward to working at the University of Mississippi, and I'm like, good for you, but you've got the wrong and so you're gonna have to pick.
Some, the person, ideally, you want to hire you and I would tailor it to that position. That would get you in that door. Whatever that position is that you're trying to get. You gotta have something in mind.
You can still do it pretty broadly, but you're going to have to have some focus to it. Yeah. Other questions. Good questions. Alright.
Well, that is the the really fast presentation on how to do a CV and I can tell you, it will take much longer to write it and it took to to thank you all so much. Thank you. Dr Lee. We appreciate it. She did a great job. Didn't she?
I think so.