Your curriculum vitae, or CV, is a living document, and it’s often the first impression you make when applying for a role or award in research or academia. Check out these tips from an entomologist and lab leader synthesizing advice from close to a decade of workshopping CVs. (Photo by Rob Morrison, Ph.D.)

By Rob Morrison, Ph.D.

Rob Morrison, Ph.D.

In my lab, we have an annual curriculum vitae (CV) workshop that all lab members attend as well as students, postdocs, and scientists from neighboring labs. This has been happening for the past eight years at the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) Center for Grain and Animal Health Research in Manhattan, Kansas.

Each time there is consistent feedback that folks receive, which I have centralized into a Morrison Lab CV Guide, focusing on CV creation, formatting, and maintenance. It’s a 5-page guide; below are some highlights for easy accessibility.

Before we cover those, why should you care so much about CV formatting? Formatting can greatly ease or hinder the digestion of information on your CV and how favorably someone views your application. It also communicates more than you might think to an employer, both the use and misuse of formatting or punctuation. This is a good read by employers on a candidate’s attention to detail. When a CV is put together well in every or most ways, it will be a delight to read through because information is presented in an accessible way that makes logical, intuitive sense.

Now, enjoy these tips from close to a decade of workshopping CVs:

1. The CV is a living document.

This means your CV changes with you as your experience changes. Create new headings to accommodate new experiences, and create new subheadings to categorize items where different kinds of things have become jumbled. Maybe remove undergraduate items once you are in your Ph.D., because you will have many more relevant experiences by this point. It will behoove you to regularly update your CV as you go instead of waiting until you go up for a new position or award, because by that point you will have forgotten many of your accomplishments, and it will become overwhelming. If you felled a tree in the forest, and you didn’t record it on your CV, did it even happen? I generally add something to my CV once I commit, which also helps me to not forget my upcoming obligations.

2. Order headings by relative importance.

Education always comes first, usually followed by professional experience. There is more flexibility after this, but usually publications and grants go near the front, talks in the middle, and skills, affiliations, or mentorship near the end. This of course will be informed by the kind of position to which you are applying (e.g., teaching positions would prioritize teaching experience near the front).

3. Include the basics for every entry.

Every entry should cover the questions who, what, when, where? This includes presentations, publications, outreach, and extension items. Do include some primary responsibilities for your main positions so future employers can know whether your experience is relevant.

4. Consistency is everything.

A CV or resume must be internally consistent in the formatting of every element. Thus, if you format one kind of entry in a certain way, that is how all similar entries throughout your whole document should be formatted. This includes consistent formatting of author names on entries (periods, formatting and placement of initials, placement of commas, etc.), as well as titles. (Is everything in sentence case? Title case is often harder to adhere to because of the many exceptions in capitalization.)

5. Use the en-dash (–) for numerical ranges.

Most people mistakenly use a hyphen for numerical ranges, but this is incorrect. A hyphen (-) is the smallest punctuation and is typically used to set off prefixes and suffixes, while an en-dash (–) is longer and is used for numerical ranges. Em-dash (—) is the longest punctuation and is typically used to set off an independent clause from another thought.

6. Use strong verbs and past tense.

Typically, “I” language should be avoided wherever possible, and phrases should begin with a strong verb in the past tense. This is even true for entries that run to “present” on your CV.

7. Balance negative and positive space.

As boring as a CV might be to some, it is also an aesthetic document, and even though there is no page limit, CVs should have a good balance of negative (blank) space and positive space (writing) to make information more accessible.

8. Steal formatting ideas from established professionals.

Although comparison with peers is almost always bad, I do recommend that folks starting off in their career review the CVs of established professionals in their field (usually accessible on lab websites) to determine what is appropriate for their discipline and to steal especially effective ways of formatting or displaying information.

9. Edit your CV using consistent tools.

Avoid native Microsoft Word tables (these will eventually corrupt your document and they make things inconsistent) and spaces with the space bar (it will drive you crazy trying to line things up, and it won’t work). Instead, always use the “tab” key, and leverage the ruler, tab stops, and indents in Word for consistent formatting.

There are more tips in the full guide; please check it out if you are interested: Morrison Lab CV Guide.

One final thought to leave you with: It is easier to make these changes to your CV when you are earlier in your career, and it becomes progressively harder as you go on and your CV lengthens. As we like to say in my lab, when you know better, do better!

Rob Morrison, Ph.D., is a Research Entomologist at the USDA-Agricultural Research Service, Center for Grain and Animal Health Research, in the Stored Product Insects and Engineering Research Unit, in Manhattan, Kansas. Web: www.ars.usda.gov/pa/cgahr/spieru/morrison. LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/rob-morrison-96604a45/. Email: [email protected].