Thursday, July 25, 2013

Bulletproof your CV

Your CV will be read by people who are experts at detecting misrepresentation. It's important that all your claims be absolutely true.

Hence, if you have published a book, list the publisher and the co-authors, so that we are sure it is a real book. If you have published an article, do much the same.

If you have had an appointment, but no longer hold it, don't list your former title where it might be construed as your current title. (You were once chair of your department, but now are not chair, for example.)

If you did postdoctoral work, make sure it is not merely post-doctoral work (that is, a postdoc is advanced research training, while you might well have gotten another degree after your PhD but those years are not considered postdoctoral work). If you list your consultancies make sure they are distinguished from scholarly talks.

Etc.

Were you the PI, the co-PI, or a recipient of some of the funds from a grant?

Etc.

The problem is that one such misrepresentation devalues your whole CV. If you mention how many citations you have, someone is bound to check Web of Science (Google Scholar is not considered reliable). If many of those citations came from when you were a postdoc, and in effect worked in X's lab and X's name is on all publications, it's not clear that the citations should be attributed to you (alone).

Etc.

If a book or article is "in press" it should be coming out in the next year or so. Contracted but not in-press books are best listed as manuscripts.