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[monsterx]

This is related to a grant application rather than a job application, so I've put it here.  I'm supposed to turn in a 2 page CV with a grant application, and I'm wondering what to leave off.  What would you do?

There is another part of the application for my publication list, so that'll get left off.

So far what's left is:

1. Personal contact info
2. Degrees
3. Positions held
4. Courses taught
5. Grants managed and fellowships held (long list)
6. Presentations (conferences, seminars, talks, but nothing major)
7. Professional activities (journals reviewed for and conferences organized, really)

So far this puts me over 7 pages. My idea is to reduce (4) to a two-line description, leave out presentations entirely (saving 2 pages), reduce my personal contact info to 1 line of essentials (right now it is ½  a page).  The professional activities can also go since I don’t have anything really important there. 

The essentials seem to me to be degrees, positions held, grants and fellowships.  Or should I take a more balanced approach, by reducing the less important aspects of each category?

I am in a social science discipline.

[lorelei]

I have had to complete similar applications, with the 2 page CV requirement.

Presumably contact details are on another part of the application, so remove them (I think I just put a heading line of My Name - CV).

Degrees: reduce to one line each. BA - University - Year.
Positions held: likewise.

I ditched the "courses taught" - I assumed for research funding they don't care. Of course this depends on what you are applying for.

Grants, fellowships, and presentations: again find a way to reduce space. Depending on how advanced you are, I have seen CVs that just contain what the person has done in the past 5 years or so. Unless it was a MacArthur prize, that grant you got in 1978 doesn't matter much now.

If you still need to skip anything, the "service" stuff (reviewing for journals etc) try to remove or minimize.

MTA: PS. I got the funding.

[msparticularity]

The advice I got on doing this was to focus upon what was relevant to the grant I was applying for. Complete contact information is needed (I was told), but I was able to keep that to two lines and still have it look decent. Degrees took up three lines--one for each. In my case the courses I taught were a part of my expertise and figured into my grant activities, so I kept them listed but didn't include anything beyond the course title since the description was in my project description. I also got rid of almost all of my conference presentations, except the two current ones that were directly related to the proposed project. Publications and grants managed are very, very important--with both reduced (if needed) to those related to the grant. No service stuff should go on at all, again unless it is related to the project.

I don't know yet if I've been funded, but my CV looked much like those of colleagues who had been funded in prior years.

Also, have you read the RFP closely to see how much guidance it gives on CV preparation? The NSF gives very explicit directions for what it wants, for example.

[svenc]

I've had to do this a few times, and find that summary statements are very useful.

You can cut grants to the last two or five years, or just funds currently held, and then include a summary line along the lines of "Previous grants totaling $XXXX, from agencies including MajorFunder, FederalAgency, CoolNGO, etc."

Presentations can be similarly summarized in a single line with total counts of invited, selected, and seminar presentations (for example).

You can also cut service to just the most relevant items, and include the phrase "selected" or "(partial)" in the section header to clarify that you're not listing everything.

And it's probably obvious, but you should make far more use of paragraphs in a two-page grant summary format than you normally would in a regular CV.  Formatting that relies on white space is your enemy.

[monsterx]

There doesn't seem to be much consensus on some issues; drop contact info, leave it but abbreviate; drop service, just keep the essentials and so on.

But I guess grants, publications, and positions held are what really matters. 

I'll (1) drop courses taught altogether, since it is not a teaching related propoal (2) take off the publications since they ask for a separate list, and they can get it from there (3) only give selected presentations from the past 5 years (4) drop service (5) give as extensive as possible (in the small amount of space) descriptions of funded projects (6) drop contact info since they get that from the grant form. 

Probably I am over analyzing this. 

[larryc]

OP you have it right but do include your most important publications.

[dellaroux]

Bookmarking.

[monsterx]

OP you have it right but do include your most important publications.

But what do I do when ALL my publications are extremely important?  On reflection, I think your right about this, but darn, it is going to upset the delicate balance I'd just achieved.

[obprof]

I would drop the presentations and keep the publications; presumably you presented work that was eventually published.

[ucprof]

The national science foundation requires a two page biosketch with a very specific list of items.  If you are writing a generic "two page" cv for a different agency and are at a loss for what to include on it, I suggest to look at the NSF guidelines and see if this will work for you.  NSF requires up to ten publications/preprints, typically listed according to 5 most relevant (to the proposal) and another 5.  NSF also now wants synergistic activities and requires a list of people who are conflicted - namely phd and postdoc mentors, collaborators on papers within the last 4 years and collaborators on conf proceedings and similar stuff in last two years.  They also want all the students and postdocs you have ever supervised.  For active scientists this does not leave much room for anything else, but of course one is required to list one's degree year and employment history.  I note that NSF does not have the PIs put grants on their two page biosketch.  Rather they go on a separate page of "current and pending support".  NSF does not require reporting of past grants, however if you had prior NSF support it has to be mentioned in the body of the proposal, according to the GPG.  If the current agency wants to know your grants - you might inquire as to whether it wants current grants or prior grants relevant to the research area.  There are different reasons for each - the former to establish your available time and the latter to establish your credibility.

[tee_bee]

Excellent summary, ucprof. I think NSF's format is quite good. I'd also leave off the usual contact information, etc.  The contact information will be elsewhere in the proposal.

If this proposal is for NSF, remember that violating the 5 most relevant/5 other publications rule will often earn a "return without review." You can list fewer, just not more, and some junior faculty may not have a bunch of pubs yet.

If you have more than five relevant pubs, list the most recent first.

[monsterx]

My grant proposal is to the European Research Council grant scheme.  The CV instructions are not explicit, but the  seem to imply that past and current grants should be detailed there.  Looking at it in context, it is becoming clear that I need to find out closer to the source what they expect.   They have a reputation for having very specific expectations which nonetheless are not always clearly enunciated in the instructions.

Once I've listed my grants, degrees and positions held, however, I don't have that much room to play with, anyways.   

[ucprof]

If you can, get a copy of a successful proposal to the ERC, including the CV.  Then think about using that format.