The C.V. Doctor: C.V. For a New Ph.D. in Applied Sciences

We find this a fascinating vita, in terms of the information presented and the author's impressive accomplishments. As a paper or continuous document, it's long, and hard to skim quickly. Sometimes the same material appears in two different parts of the vita. The original is posted to a Web site. It might be useful to post a shorter version that gives selected lists of items in each category, highlighting the most important, and having a "more" button for those who wish to continue to browse in a category.

As a paper document, it will be stronger if it is shorter. This vita could probably come down in length by at least a third, if not more, through a combination of condensing and reformatting. We've devised a revised version, to give more prominence to items likely to be important to hiring committees.

-- Mary Morris Heiberger and Julia Miller Vick

Examples:

• C.V. for a new Ph.D. in the humanities
• C.V. for a new Ph.D. in applied sciences
• C.V. for an administrator

1.) It's not usually necessary to put degrees after a name, but since this candidate may want to highlight both his computer science and pharmacy expertise, having degrees listed here makes sense.

2. Shorten this section by removing all headings, including "personal." Using half a page for contact information is unnecessary. The information should be divided into two columns so the reader can get through this quickly and move on to content.

3. Omit "Professional and Undergraduate."

4. The location of educational institutions named here should be included. Omit "Received from" wording. There's no need to put space between a degree and the institution from which it was earned. For the Ph.D., the candidate's dissertation title and adviser should be indicated.

5. Beginning each item with "teach" is monotonous. Courses could simply be listed.

6. Apparently, the Ph.D. is listed twice, once here, and once under "Professional and Undergraduate." It should be removed from this second category.

7. The description of the residency is too long. Pick the highlights and cut it by at least two-thirds. In general, beware of giving a lot of detail about a program, rather than about yourself. The program isn't applying for the job!

8. The C.V. offers too much detail here about short seminar presentations given during the residency, which are now five and six years old. Condense into a few lines.

9. Rather than the bland "Special Projects" heading, the title could be revised to showcase content; for example: "Medical Information Network Development."

10. Faculty members are generally presumed to know or be willing to learn the software they need to do their jobs, so this level of detail about software isn't necessary. It might be useful for a nonfaculty position. However, in that case, omit software that is no longer currently used.

11. Italicize the name of this journal.

12. Grants and projects would usually be treated separately. If you're listing a grant, it's common to say who gave the grant and for what amount. When you have a long list of items, putting a space between each item makes the list more readable. For consistency, do that throughout the vita.

13. These headings are lower case but don't appear to be subcategories of a main heading. Be careful to watch for graphic consistency. Also, omit colons after headings -- they're not necessary and add an element of visual clutter. Lastly, some citations end in periods here, and some don't. Be careful to treat information consistently.

14. Separate university service from public service. Consider eliminating purely political activities. Political affiliations may make readers uncomfortable -- what are they supposed to make of the information? The candidate could provide a summary statement, such as "Active in county and state politics." People will appreciate the tactfulness of omitting the details. This is also true of activities with religious groups, except in the case of applications to institutions run by the religious group with which a candidate is affiliated.

15. "Creative works" should be omitted as a category and the content redistributed. Everything potential faculty members do could be construed as creative.

16. The Virtual Health Center" is one site at Drake. No need to cite each separate page on the site or to list its creator. We think this would be better subsumed under a broader category, such as "Web Site Creation and Development."

17. It's not clear what's meant by "consulting with" students in this category. If the students were performing class assignments, it's not appropriate to list all their sites here. The present tense, "consulting," is used even for sites dated as far back as 1997. Be careful about tense. Another possibility for treating all this material is to list the Virtual Health Center, which is a single site, once, and to refer to its constituent parts in summary fashion; for example, "served as consultant to x number of students to develop separate sites for y medical conditions."

18. As in the "Education" section, the unnecessary spaces within items should be eliminated. Less detail can be given about old nonacademic work experience.

19. Under "Honors," put only honors from scholarly and professional entities. Omit inclusion in general-purpose volumes, or at least don't put it in the "Honors" section. If there were an "Additional Information" section, it could perhaps go there, along with political activity.