Preparing a Curriculum Vitae
Peter Wenderoth
Professor of Psychology
Macquarie University
Sydney, Australia 2109
http://vision.psy.mq.edu.au/~peterw
...
A CV generally will have one of three major uses:
• To apply for a position or a promotion
• To document qualifications for some award
The very first question which needs to be answered before starting to prepare a CV is:
• What is the intended use of the CV?
• To maintain a database of whom you are and what you have done
Each of these uses of a CV has a different aim.
The aim of the first use-maintaining a database-is to keep an up-to-date record of everything about you, what you have done and what you are doing so that any information you need to supply is easily extracted.
Obviously, this kind of CV will be a relatively large document and will get larger as you get older and more experienced.
The complete (database) CV should have these (or very similar) sections:
• Personal Details (Name, address, phone, fax, email, web URL, date and place of birth, perhaps marital status)
• Educational Qualifications (Reverse chronological order; qualification, date and institution)
• Prizes, Honors etc (Prizes, medals, invited addresses, scholarships etc)
• Work Experience (Reverse chronological order; include all jobs, even menial, part-time, vacation etc. Use your judgment as to whether to include more menial jobs in a shorter CV.
Sometimes they can add “humanity”, other times they can sound trivial and irrelevant)
• Developed skills and abilities (Include here items such as teaching evaluation, grants, committee work, research experience, programming skills, software experience etc.)
• Interests (Include here activities you undertake in your own time. Be specific. Again, use your judgment depending on the aim of the CV)
• Publications (Use the DETYA, or your university’s, publication categories like B: Book Chapter or C1: refereed journal article.)
• Referees (List names, addresses, phone and fax numbers and email addresses of persons who could be referees for you and whom you will ask beforehand if and when you wish to name them.)
Aside: Don’ts in documenting Research Performance
• Don’t neglect to show your CV to a senior colleague before applying for some award or position. Carefully consider any advice given-e.g. “This looks premature”
In particular, you can very easily alienate referees or promotion committees if you try to dress up your CV to give a false impression. Thus,...
• Don’t try to dress up your CV. People who will read it are highly trained and skilled at reading between the lines.
Aside: Don’ts in documenting Research Performance
• Don’t mix up journal articles, conference papers, book reviews, newspaper columns, in-house reports etc. to make the publication list look longer. This infuriates readers who then have to try to categorize the publications themselves.
• Don’t cite a paper whose true authors are “Clifford C, Smith S and Wenderoth P” as “Wenderoth P (with Clifford C & Smith S)”.
The reader wants to know the order of authors.
• Don’t list any book reviews other than very significant ones.
• Don’t list anything as “In preparation”. Referees/assessors will completely discount this and you will merely have made a negative impression
The aim of the second use of a CV-documenting qualification for an award of some kind-is to provide the judges or assessors with evidence of your academic (and perhaps non-academic) achievements.
In this case, some items such as Work Experience or Interests may not be relevant depending upon the type of award.
In general, however, this kind of CV will be shorter than the database CV because only certain kinds of information will be relevant.
The aim of the third use-applying for a position-is not to get the position. Rather, it is to get you from being just one of many applicants to being a short-listed candidate selected for interview.
Consequently, you need to make a good impression immediately. The reader of your CV may have many applications to wade through so that the precise details in your CV may not be the most important items at the first stage. You can help to create a good initial impression by...
• Keeping the CV as short as you can without losing essential information
• Using highly readable fonts (12 point minimum), high quality paper and generous margins
• Using headings and bullet points to break the CV up into easily digestible chunks
• Sounding enthusiastic but also plausible
• Being totally truthful and clear in what you say, including indicating why you are interested in, and why you are suitable for, this position
Finally, do not neglect to update your CV every time there is a new item. Otherwise, you will forget to enter items and will have to spend a long time re-doing the CV
If you update as things happen, it takes only a few minutes and you can always be confident that your CV is up to date and complete
A CV generally will have one of three major uses:
• To apply for a position or a promotion
• To document qualifications for some award
The very first question which needs to be answered before starting to prepare a CV is:
• What is the intended use of the CV?
• To maintain a database of whom you are and what you have done
Each of these uses of a CV has a different aim.
The aim of the first use-maintaining a database-is to keep an up-to-date record of everything about you, what you have done and what you are doing so that any information you need to supply is easily extracted.
Obviously, this kind of CV will be a relatively large document and will get larger as you get older and more experienced.
The complete (database) CV should have these (or very similar) sections:
• Personal Details (Name, address, phone, fax, email, web URL, date and place of birth, perhaps marital status)
• Educational Qualifications (Reverse chronological order; qualification, date and institution)
• Prizes, Honors etc (Prizes, medals, invited addresses, scholarships etc)
• Work Experience (Reverse chronological order; include all jobs, even menial, part-time, vacation etc. Use your judgment as to whether to include more menial jobs in a shorter CV.
Sometimes they can add “humanity”, other times they can sound trivial and irrelevant)
• Developed skills and abilities (Include here items such as teaching evaluation, grants, committee work, research experience, programming skills, software experience etc.)
• Interests (Include here activities you undertake in your own time. Be specific. Again, use your judgment depending on the aim of the CV)
• Publications (Use the DETYA, or your university’s, publication categories like B: Book Chapter or C1: refereed journal article.)
• Referees (List names, addresses, phone and fax numbers and email addresses of persons who could be referees for you and whom you will ask beforehand if and when you wish to name them.)
Aside: Don’ts in documenting Research Performance
• Don’t neglect to show your CV to a senior colleague before applying for some award or position. Carefully consider any advice given-e.g. “This looks premature”
In particular, you can very easily alienate referees or promotion committees if you try to dress up your CV to give a false impression. Thus,...
• Don’t try to dress up your CV. People who will read it are highly trained and skilled at reading between the lines.
Aside: Don’ts in documenting Research Performance
• Don’t mix up journal articles, conference papers, book reviews, newspaper columns, in-house reports etc. to make the publication list look longer. This infuriates readers who then have to try to categorize the publications themselves.
• Don’t cite a paper whose true authors are “Clifford C, Smith S and Wenderoth P” as “Wenderoth P (with Clifford C & Smith S)”.
The reader wants to know the order of authors.
• Don’t list any book reviews other than very significant ones.
• Don’t list anything as “In preparation”. Referees/assessors will completely discount this and you will merely have made a negative impression
The aim of the second use of a CV-documenting qualification for an award of some kind-is to provide the judges or assessors with evidence of your academic (and perhaps non-academic) achievements.
In this case, some items such as Work Experience or Interests may not be relevant depending upon the type of award.
In general, however, this kind of CV will be shorter than the database CV because only certain kinds of information will be relevant.
The aim of the third use-applying for a position-is not to get the position. Rather, it is to get you from being just one of many applicants to being a short-listed candidate selected for interview.
Consequently, you need to make a good impression immediately. The reader of your CV may have many applications to wade through so that the precise details in your CV may not be the most important items at the first stage. You can help to create a good initial impression by...
• Keeping the CV as short as you can without losing essential information
• Using highly readable fonts (12 point minimum), high quality paper and generous margins
• Using headings and bullet points to break the CV up into easily digestible chunks
• Sounding enthusiastic but also plausible
• Being totally truthful and clear in what you say, including indicating why you are interested in, and why you are suitable for, this position
Finally, do not neglect to update your CV every time there is a new item. Otherwise, you will forget to enter items and will have to spend a long time re-doing the CV
If you update as things happen, it takes only a few minutes and you can always be confident that your CV is up to date and complete
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