Another example of terminology-inflation in academe (see
Reason 35) is evident in the “curriculum vitae.” What in most other walks of life is referred to in standard American English as a résumé (an already pretentious three-syllable French word) is in academic professions referred to by an even more pretentious six syllables of Latin. (The former term, incidentally, is much older than the latter.) But the inflation does not end there. In most real-world contexts, résumés are as brief and to-the-point as possible, but the typical professor’s CV is pages and pages long. It is so long because it lists every paper that he has ever presented at a conference, every article, book chapter, or book that he has ever published, every class that he has ever taught, every grant that he has ever received, every honor with which he has ever been bestowed, and often every professional organization to which he pays a membership fee.
Of course, this means that there is now an expectation that a strong CV will be many pages long. Graduate students with an eye on the academic job market, therefore, have to start worrying about collecting items for their CVs early in their graduate programs. In fact, you will spend far more time in graduate school doing things for the sake of putting them on your CV than you will ever spend pondering what you are studying for its own sake. Unfortunately, if you want an academic job, you really don’t have a choice in the matter.
CV is the standard term for this in other English speaking countries such as the UK and Australia. And they are longer than the American resumé in those countries too. Good CVs are not neccessarily that long though. But there is a problem in academia of publications just to make the CV look current rather than waiting to develop those ideas better.
ReplyDeletewhat really is the point of the CV besides landing you that "postdoc/tenure track/adjunct" interview??? fellowships? grants? it might help but if you write a killer proposal, your (very long, accomplished and unappreciated) CV will go unnoticed. like a resume i suppose, but CV sounds too pompous. do HR folks really read 5-10+ pages of "published and presentation" topics? probably not. they skim the first half page. and that's probably all. (from an insider) and judge based on this education (where did you go, who did you study and is your research area what we are looking for?) otherwise, if you are "overqualified" or have produced more research and books, they may still disregard your application because you are overqualified and may not be "compensated" appropriately because of all your "accomplishments" thus far and does not fit .. the image of a young, easily abused recent phd grad who will take anything at any price.
ReplyDeleteHello hello,
ReplyDeleteI find this blog very entertaining as an undergrad still thinking about doing grad school despite everything. Here is a link you might be interested in:
http://www.economist.com/node/17723223?story_id=17723223
I'm just wondering why the Res Gestae Divi Augusti is the picture for this. Augustus' CV is not criticized for it's length; it is viewed as a beneficial historical source.
ReplyDeleteThe worst thing about the tyranny of the CV is that you will believe the lies people tell you about it. You'll go to profesional development workshops your department runs and look at sample CVs of grad students from your program who are supposed to be model job candidates. You'll still be finishing up your comps or writing your prospectus, but you'll look at those CVs and tell yourself that you're going to do everything you possibly can to make your CV even better than the models. You're going to have more and better publications and more and better conference presentations and more classes independently taught and more awards.....
ReplyDeleteAnd you know what? Five years later, your CV WILL be better than the models! You'll be getting ready for your defense, and your DGS will ask if s/he can use YOUR CV for this year's workshop. Awesome!
Of course, this year's crop of bright-eyed graduate students won't know anything about you. They won't know you're still an adjunct (becuae adjuncts are mostly invisible to new grad students) in the department and have no tenure-track (or even nonacademic!) job prospects.
True story. I shold've just said no to my DGS -- or, yes, you can use my CV, but you have to tell them that, in spite of everything that's on it, no one wants to hire me. You can do everything right, have the perfect CV, and still not get a job. Show them my CV, but tell them the truth. Wish I could've said that, but this person is also one of my references.
Stranger doesn't quite have it right. No one in HR looks at a CV; this isn't an accounting job at a firm. Rather, search committees in an academic department do, and believe me, as someone who has hired 40 faculty in a 25-year career, what's on it absolutely matters.
ReplyDeleteYeah, what's on your CV does matter to search committees, but for the great majority of us for whom the PhD is the end of a career in academe rather than the beginning, all of that fluff just disappears on the resume -- and what's left...well, I'm sure there are some HR people who had a good laugh when they got my resume.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, it totally shows when you've padded your CV, even to us naive undergraduates. The people with really impressive CV condense the information to fill as few pages as possible; a CV over seven pages from someone under forty clearly says "I am full of bullsh*t - and you do not ever want to be stuck in my class because my head does not fit through the door."
ReplyDeleteRather like collecting treasures in World of Warcraft.
ReplyDeleteAnd to think that the relevance of all of those pages and pages of presentations, publications etc. amounts to absolutely squat in 'the real world'... currently in the process of making mine more applicable after quitting my PhD program. This blog has saved my life!
ReplyDeleteWorst:
ReplyDeleteThe CV is also used frequently in support of the fallacious "argument from authority". That is: When someone says that what he says is true only because it has the authority (or an extensive CV) or when a group of ignorant believe to be true what they say just because someone is an authority with an extensive CV. No matter that you show and build a good argument, if your CV is small or you do not have one you can wait 100 years or more for others at school to realize that, for example, the Earth revolves around the Sun.