A Model of Productivity: How to Build Your CV

A Model of Productivity: How to Build Your CV

Today’s post is another Special Request post, this time for Gracie, who had a question about CVs. What is the best way to organize and write an academic CV? she wonders. She also asks if I know of any special tech tools for create a kind of “master” CV that could then be tailored to jobs, grants, etc. I have to admit that I do not know of any such tools. But what about you, my readers? Have you found an app or some fabulous geeked out system for collecting and organizing your CV material? Kind of like Endnotes for a CV? 

Please comment below if you have a good organization system. We would all like to know!!

What I do know is that so many years ago, when I was a young grad student, I received a piece of wisdom from a respected senior professor. That colleague was a model of productivity, and she liked me, and wanted to see me succeed.  This piece of advice was not a trick for organizing CVs but rather a trick for thinking about them.

She told me, early in my first year in the department, “make sure that each month you add another line to your CV”

Each month I add another line to my CV? GOSH. Really?

That sounded impossible. But she did it, sure enough, and her CV was a thing to behold.

She said, "this is not going to be hard for you" - and she was right. By the time I added on the national conferences and other events, I had 9 new items a year to add to my CV (she didn't count summers.) The key was to keep my material in mind all the time. This piece of advice was not a trick for organizing CVs but rather a trick for thinking about them. CVs are not just records that passively reflect the things that you "happen to do" They are records that you actively, consciously, and conscientiously build.

Take charge of your CV and nurture it. You ask, is it where it should be right now, this month, related to the goals I want to reach this year?  I helped out colleagues.  And that goal was tenure.

It wasn’t that hard.

The secret was to always have my cv in the back of my mind. When I had to make decisions about how to spend my time, which offers to accept, when to say no, and so on, I thought about my c.v., and thought about the line. Did I want the line? Was the line really necessary? Was that a clever line? Was there a superior alternative line? It has been an extraordinarily illuminating process.

Sure, I did stuff to be collegial, things that didn’t convert into CV lines. I assisted out colleagues. I went the additional mile for pupils (occasionally) (sometimes). I was an honorable member of the team. But I was focused. I knew what my aim was. And that aim was tenure.

As my career moved on, I got the chance to watch numerous CVs of many colleagues from my own and other schools. And I understood that few of their classmates had gotten this type of counsel. They most clearly had not been adding a CV line each month.

And a lot of those colleagues were suffering. No one was hiring them because of this. They weren't receiving any funding. They weren’t gaining tenure. Their reasoning didn't appear to go beyond the obvious.

Take charge of your CV To me it matters less how well-tailored it is to this application or that. What matters is that it is a document that shows your pride in your work, your passion, and your motivation.

Take control of your professional portfolio by improving your cv. It doesn't matter as much to me whether it is specifically designed for one purpose or another. What important is that it is a document that demonstrates your pride in your job, your enthusiasm, and your motivation.

~JTTT

 

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