Don't ask career services to help write your CV

Don't ask career services to help write your CV

The CV may be the most frequently and closely read of all the documents that candidates send. For search-committee members who often must assess 100 applications in a short time, the CV offers the kind of holistic picture few other documents can match. In each section, and in the CV as a whole, candidates must make an argument that moves from the most important evidence to the least important.

The CV is also a living and evolving document that tells a narrative in its taxonomies, hierarchies of value, and silences, and in the style and economy of its words. Through these extra-textual aspects the CV conveys instantaneously, at a look, the fundamental hireability of you, the applicant. And yet, too frequently it is entirely overlooked.

 

In comparison to other types of application materials, the CV has a reputation for being solely utilitarian. Nevertheless, I don't believe it is an exaggeration to claim that the CV is the most often and attentively examined document that applicants submit. For members of search committees tasked with evaluating 100 applications in a short period of time, the CV provides a comprehensive image that is difficult to duplicate. A copy of this document is accessible to everyone in the department, as well as anyone attending a job discussion. In certain circumstances, it may be the sole element of the program exposed to such groups.

 

Because the CV will be read so often, it's critical to pay attention to the little things like the order in which material is presented, the facts organized, the section titles, and any other apparently insignificant aspects. This is because the CV will be viewed so often. In each part, and in the paper as a whole, applicants must present an argument that progresses from the most significant evidence to the least important. The CV's rhetoric is comprised of all of stuff.

 

There is no document about which misinformation is so rife, as the academic CV. And it is the Chronicle that is primarily responsible for this sad state of affairs. The CV Doctors' advice is all too often outdated and painfully inaccurate. They are coming from a Career Services perspective, and not a hard-core academic one. Career Services are profoundly 'off' because they aren't in the thick of it, fighting through 500 applications for one TT position.

Tenure track hiring is now the equivalent of the Olympics. What was good enough at local, city, state, and national levels is reduced to.001 second differences between winning Gold and not qualifying at all.

It is impossible for someone who has never been tasked with reviewing 300-600 CVs in order to fill one academic job in a department to provide an opinion on how a CV should be written. Because it is not the material on the CV that is at question. It is the Philosophy of the CV—the aura of the CV that conveys that you, the applicant, are the genuine article, the real deal, a serious scholar, a true expert, an independent researcher, a member of the tribe— that must be spot-on, immaculate, and flawless. So Career Services, no matter where they are located or how well-intentioned they are, are unable to assess this. Someone asked me in grad school,

“Are you aware of how much damage well-intentioned Career Services people do to poor, hapless Ph.D.s on the academic job market?”

Then then, who knows? But I will tell you, since I see the result of Career Services’ advice in my student’s writing every year. Even if they are earnest, CV Doctors are fully unaware of the implicit prejudices, rigidities, and unstated standards that are prevalent in Ph.D. recruiting practices. If they actually work closely with Ph.D.s, as far as I'm aware. Anyway, they’re fundamentally ‘off.’ Because they aren't up against 500 other applicants for a single post with a chance for advancement. Many of their theories, although logical in a 'normal' recruiting setting, are lethal when search committees are pressured, with little sleep, overburdened, and compelled to be completely harsh by circumstances because of the broad variety they allow and support.

I realize this is disappointing, since in a climate where the actual tenured academics have almost fully abdicated duty for giving credible professionalization guidance, Career Services is all that many Ph.D.s have left.

But don't even think of going there. Graduate and professional students, as well as undergraduates, should be able to find assistance at the Career Services offices, which are geared toward the demands of the working world. Stay away from Career Services offices if you're in the limbo of the tenure-track academic job market and rely only on the advice of your fellow tribe members who know the secret handshake.

~JTTT

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