Your CV
Your Best Friend & Handiest Tool to
Obtain Promotion / Tenure
Debbie Rissing
Director, External & Faculty Affairs
Dept. of Psychiatry
For P/T application
CV’s Primary Function:
A clear snapshot of achievements and abilities
Scholarly Activities
Teaching
Service – clinical service, service to Dept,
College, University, Profession, Community
Recognition in the field
Weight given to each varies by track, rank. Norms @:
http://www.uic.edu/depts/mcam/fa/faptdocs.shtml
Importance of your CV in
Promotion/Tenure Application
• Most external referees rely heavily on CV
• It may be the only document an external
referee looks at before writing evaluation
• External letters weigh heavily in internal
reviews, from dept through campus level.
• Update, organize, and polish your CV.
A strong CV begets…
Positive External Letters
Positive Internal Reviews
Promotion &/or Tenure
Major elements of a P/T application
• Scholarly Activities
• Teaching Abilities and Achievements
• Service
Structure of CV should correspond to
structure of promotion application
Scholarly Activities
• Grants
• Publications
– Peer-reviewed journal articles
– Other articles
– Chapters in books
– Review articles
• Scientific presentations
– Peer-reviewed, Invited, International/National
Teaching Abilities, Achievements
Show depth, breadth, effectiveness of teaching
• Note institutions, range of trainees, courses/
lectures
• Role, and dates if not too cumbersome
• Consider presenting info in a table -- clarity,
organization, “skimability”
• Concrete measures of teaching effectiveness:
Course eval summaries? Former trainees’
remarkable success(es)? Awards?
Service
•
•
•
•
Patient care
Service to Dept
Service to College/University
Service to Profession – editorial reviews, grant reviews,
acad. or professional orgs, etc.
– Leadership service (board member, appointed/elected officer, etc.)
– List memberships separately; they don’t constitute service
• If appropriate, consider Service to Profession subsections - Internal / External, or Local, Regional, National, Internat’l
Tips
• Abilities & achievements not noted = nothing
done. When in doubt, include
• Scrutinize CV. Make sure all relevant info is there
• Scrutinize for appearance: Clear, “skimable,”
organized
• Scrutinize for consistent formatting, spelling.
Tips
• Imagine your CV is one of 8 an ext ref must assess
quickly. What first impression does yours make? Is it
confusing, daunting? If so, revise, reorganize.
• Aim for clear, organized, readable
• NOTE: Internal reviewers will see 4 – 80 packets
• Use white space, bold face type, tabs, categorization to
improve readability, organization
• Clinicians, don’t include license numbers
Tips
• It’s ok to include personal info, but why expose
that info? It’s not professionally relevant; it adds
to risk of identity theft
• Paginate – it brings order
• Use a “last updated” feature
• Keep a “self” file. Record: presentations, (note if
invited), lectures, memberships, committee
service (search, research, program, educ,
residency recruitment, etc.)
Common Mistakes
• Missing academic title
• Listing proposed title, rather than current
title; confuses ext refs, irks internal refs!
• Failure to update title after accepting a
new position or role
• Typos
• Sloppy, inconsistent formatting
Common Mistakes
• Failure to list all grants. Include pending
and not funded. If you applied, didn’t get
funded and don’t list that, it looks the same as
not trying.
• Poor organization
• Misrepresenting non-peer-reviewed
publications as though they are peer-reviewed
Common Mistakes
• Mixing all pubs together - hard to discern
peer-reviewed, non-peer-reviewed,
abstracts, chapters
• Overkill with underwhelm Ex: listing many
individual radio and consumer press
quotations. Go with: “Quoted
professionally more than 60 times on
radio, and more than 30 times in
consumer print media.”
Common Mistakes
Padding: Do NOT:
• List old, irrelevant info. For ex, high school
or college extracurricular activities, nonacademic activities such as hobbies
• Double-dip, double list –
if in doubt clarify with an explanatory note
Final Tip
• Do NOT Mix Type Fonts
… they make your CV look like a
ransom note!