CV INSTRUCTIONS

7/10/19, 11(25 PMCreating and Maintaining Your CV – ProfHacker - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education

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September 14, 2010 by Natalie Houston ProfHacker Teaching, tech, and productivity.

Creating and Maintaining Your CV

In the United States and Canada, curriculum

vitae (Latin for “the course of a life”), or “CV” in

common parlance, refers to a document that

describes an academic’s educational background

and professional experience. It’s often thought of

as something like an academic’s resumé, with the

important difference that the CV is typically comprehensive (and therefore long)

and a resumé is selective (and short). A copy of your CV will frequently be

requested when applying for academic jobs, grants, or conferences. It’s

important to note, however, that in Europe and the UK, the term CV refers to a

shorter document similar to the resumés produced for corporate contexts in the

United States. Thus many websites offering “CV advice” are actually aimed at

European jobseekers rather than academics.

If you are already employed, your institution may require that promotion or

website CVs follow a set organization and format. Your professional

organization may recommend certain formatting. But if you don’t have a set

format to use, then the following suggestions and links should help.

What is the Purpose?What is the Purpose?

The CV describes your entire academic career, which encompasses education,

employment history, publications, grants awarded, papers delivered, teaching

experience, and service experience. A CV allows an individual (or a committee)

who does not know you personally to have some understanding of the scope of

your educational background, professional career, and current research

interests. Committees are often in the position of comparing applicants and so

your CV should provide clear access to your professional information.

There are a set of conventions that academics generally use when compiling and

evaluating CVs. The more closely you follow these conventions, the more easily

your readers can locate the information they seek about you. In general, the CV

is not the place to demonstrate your creativity, your unique aesthetic, or your

free spirit. It is a professional document and you should aim for clarity and

completeness of information. You may think that small details like page

numbers don’t matter, but I’ve served on committees frustrated by applicants

who didn’t provide complete citations for their publications. Why give a

committee that kind of a reason to toss your application?

How Long Should it Be?How Long Should it Be?

ProfHacker Editors

Jason B. Jones @jbj

Jason B. Jones is Director of Educational Technology at Trinity College.

George H. Williams @GeorgeOnline

George H. Williams is an associate professor of English at the University of South Carolina Upstate.

ProfHacker Writers

Amy Cavender @acavender

Amy Cavender is a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, and Associate Professor of Political Science and interim Director of the Center for Academic Innovation at Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, Indiana.

Ryan Cordell @ryancordell

Ryan Cordell is Assistant Professor of English at Northeastern University.

Brian Croxall @briancroxall

Brian Croxall is the Digital Humanities Strategist at Emory University's Digital Scholarship Commons (DiSC) and Lecturer of English.

Erin E. Templeton @eetempleton

Erin E. Templeton is the Anne Morrison Chapman Distinguished Professor of International Study and an associate professor of English at Converse College.

Kathleen Fitzpatrick @kfitz

Kathleen Fitzpatrick is director of scholarly communication of the Modern Language Association and Visiting Research Professor of English at New York University.

Natalie M. Houston nmhouston

Natalie M. Houston is an associate professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and a personal productivity coach for academics and professionals.

Adeline Koh @adelinekoh

is Assistant Professor of Literature and the Director of DH@Stockton, a Digital Humanities Center at Richard Stockton College.

Konrad M. Lawson @kmlawson

Konrad M. Lawson is a Lecturer in Modern History at the University of St Andrews, Scotland

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7/10/19, 11(25 PMCreating and Maintaining Your CV – ProfHacker - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education

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A CV can be as long as needed in order to fully document your career. For some

circumstances, such as grant or employment applications, it is appropriate to

include your complete CV (maybe 3-5 pages for a postdoc, or 20+ pages for a

senior scholar). For other circumstances, you may be asked to submit only a

two-page CV or some other specified shorter length. Once you have your master

CV document compiled, it’s quite easy to create a shorter one that highlights the

relevant categories of information.

Many institutions require or encourage faculty to post either abbreviated or full

CVs. These can help you see what CV conventions are used in your field of

specialization.

Collect All of your InformationCollect All of your Information

The first step in compiling your CV should be to note down all of your relevant

professional experience. CVs typically include information such as:

Contact Information (email, postal address, telephone) Education (list all of your degrees including undergraduate) Professional Employment (list all of your positions, with dates and ranks) Research Experience (might be subdivided into publications, presentations, grants, etc) Teaching Experience (might be subdivided into courses taught, theses supervised, curriculum development, etc) Honors and Awards Professional Service (might be subdivided into Department, College, University, Professional Organizations)

In every category, you want to provide complete information: full bibliographic

citations for your publications and presentations; dates for all degrees, jobs,

awards and other experience; and grantor names and dollar amounts for grants.

Use Headings to Your AdvantageUse Headings to Your Advantage

Group similar items together on your CV by using headings and subheadings.

You can adjust the names and order of the categories on your CV to best

highlight your experience. (See the websites linked below for suggestions for

category titles.) For instance, if you are applying for small-college teaching

positions, you might decide to list your teaching experience before your

research experience. If you have experience in a unique area, then group those

items together under a subheading (Field Research, Digital Editing, or Stage

Performance). If you are applying for academic jobs, your CV might also include

a description of your dissertation topic and/or names of faculty who have

agreed to serve as references.

In general, most CVs separate Research, Teaching and Service items into various

subheadings. Within each subheading, list information in either chronological

or reverse chronological order (pick one and use it throughout your CV).

FormattingFormatting

Use formatting to support the organizational structure of your content, not

distract from it.

Heather M. Whitney @hbarw

Heather M. Whitney is assistant professor of Physics at Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL.

Lincoln Mullen @lincolnmullen

Lincoln Mullen is a PhD candidate at Brandeis University and a historian of religion in early America and the nineteenth century.

Anastasia Salter @AnaSalter

Anastasia Salter is an assistant professor of digital media at the University of Central Florida.

Mark Sample @samplereality

Mark Sample is an Associate Professor at Davidson College, where he also directs the college's Digital Studies program.

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7/10/19, 11(25 PMCreating and Maintaining Your CV – ProfHacker - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education

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Keep your formatting simple: pick one font; use bold and/or capitalization to

visually distinguish headings from main text; and limit your use of indenting.

ProfHacker Nels recommended LifeClever’s Give Your Resumé a Face Lift,

which offers very clear suggestions and resources about typography and page

design.

The Chronicle’s CV Doctor columns provide sample CVs and two expert readers’

critique of them. I’ve found these very helpful for thinking about how

organization and format can be perceived by your readers. See, for example:

CV Doctor Is Back (3 different examples) (2009) CV Doctor 2008 (English, Social Work, History of Medicine–and good general remarks) CV Doctor 2005 CV Doctor 2003 CV Doctor 2002: CV for a Faculty Member in the Sciences

Traditionally, academic CVs have relied less upon bullet point lists than

corporate resumés, but I think that has been changing over the past decade. Just

be sure that your selection of margins, indenting, and/or bullet points help you

to clearly present your information, rather than create unnecessary visual

clutter.

How to Keep Your CV UpdatedHow to Keep Your CV Updated

After you’ve put a lot of work into compiling and designing your CV, it’s

important to remember that the document you wind up with is only

provisionally complete, since your academic career continues to progress. In a

previous Open Thread column, ProfHacker readers have already made some

good suggestions for ways to keep your CV updated. Most of these are some

variation (whether low-tech or high-tech) on maintaining one master document

that you update regularly with new information, and using it to generate CVs as

needed for particular uses. Use file names and dates to keep track of which CV is

which.

Additional ResourcesAdditional Resources

There are lots of sites that offer information and examples of academic CVs.

Here are a few that you might find helpful.

Colorado State University’s detailed step-by-step guide to Writing a CV Rice University Center for Student Professional Development’s CVs and Resumés for Graduate Students (PDF) excellent overview, list of possible cv headings, and samples Duke University Career Center’s CV Guide includes samples from several disciplines Pepperdine University, Seaver College Career Center’s Writing the Academic CV (PDF) University of Pennsylvania’s CV Guide (includes tips and templates) Virginia Tech Career Services curriculum vitae page Science Magazine’s How to Craft a Winning Resumé includes information for scientists seeking positions in industry as well as academe. CV recommendations for art historians adopted by the College Art Association Purdue Online Writing Lab’s tips on Writing the CV

What are your questions or tips about compiling and maintaining your CV?

Let us know in the comments!

7/10/19, 11(25 PMCreating and Maintaining Your CV – ProfHacker - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education

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Louis Alfredo • 5 years ago You have just done an amazing work by describing all prospect of CV writing. You have cleared all doubt about CV writing and I found it very much helpful but I have already written my CV from professional CV writers because i am not good at writing, so took CV experts help for writing and now I am happy with my job. △ ▽

•

goethe • 5 years ago Quite helpful, worthy of bookmarking. △ ▽

•

Dale • 5 years ago This is a solid guide, but some of those additional resources are a little weak.

I would recommend the Definitive Guide to Writing an Interview-winning Resume to anyone looking to improve their resume. △ ▽

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