CV writing woes
Vicki from Recruit Ireland just posted a nice blog about her top CV writing tips. I thought I’d distill her post into a list of tips and give some insight of my own.
First, make sure that your spelling is correct. I remember writing a funding application a couple of years ago with a line like, “I will be leveraging a number of research institutions”. Well so I thought. A week or so later, I came across the pdf and decided to have a look over it with a fresh eye, to get some perspective on how successful I thought I was going to be. On second reading, I realised I had written ‘intuitions’ instead. Well, I laughed at the time, spell check obviously had great faith in my research intuitions. Fortunately I got the funding, but now remember not to trust the spell checker. One trick is to read the document in reverse which means that your brain doesn’t automatically fill in the blanks.
The second recommendation is that it is essential to sell yourself, particularly in the first couple of lines in your CV. Presentation is also pretty important for pimping yourself out. Over the last couple of years of writing and rewriting my own CV, I’m slowly getting the hang of this. I guess it’s an inherently Irish thing to be modest, or at least try and not seem like you are blowing your own trumpet. This is the wrong attitude when it comes to selling yourself. You need to push yourself, each section should be full of bang. Personally, my initial push comes from a personal statement, but this might not be necessary in some domains.
Which brings us to the next tip: relevance. I couldn’t count the number of CVs that I’ve reviewed for friends who include their Leaving Certificate results despite many years of education and experience in between. I’m sure there are some government jobs that still want to know how you got on in Geography at 17, but frankly, leave it out. If you don’t have anything better to put in you probably won’t get the job.
Vicki talks about keeping it short and sweet. There is a common consensus that two pages should be the max. This is a good start, but when you’re in academia, sometimes it’s necessary to use more pages in order to include a personal statement, and a list of publications and project participation. This doesn’t mean that you should write a short novel revealing in your academic exploits. Keep it as short as possible. Condense condense condense, and push the important tools and abilities that you brought to each project. Don’t be afraid to use italics and bolding in order to catch the readers eye. Finally, she talks about the order in which you present the information in your CV. This is very dependent on your audience. Things like hobbies can be left out, but even if they don’t seem too relevent I think that they can add depth to your charachter. Especially if you can show that you have worked at them persistently and have competed.
Those are my two cents on the tips. I’d also reccomend doing a number of drafts of your CV. First time around fill in all the technical details, then work on displaying what techniques/abilities you brought to and learned from these jobs/projects. Work this into their description, what was your role, how you were key. Then rewrite and rewrite, get advice from others, and rewrite again.
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 12th, 2009 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Personal, PhD, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Joe Drumgoole February 12th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
You CV should focus on your achievements thus avoid the classic CV criticism “did she make it happen, or was she there while it happened”.
For example “developed and deployed a new sales plan that increased net sales by 50%”.
You are looking to denote a situation or challenge, the action you took and the resulting (positive outcome).
Avoid “I was a member of a team…” or “I contributed to..” statements.
The CV (if they are any good) should be looking for clear evidence of a set of competencies that are aligned with the role they are hiring for. Your job as a candidate is to make sure you indicate those competencies in your CV.
This will lead to an interview.