Your CV: Your first, best shot at bolstering chances of promotion &/or

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!