I'm Dr. Anita Blanchard in Psychology and
Organization Science
and I've put my e-mail address up here because
sometimes students will send me their vita
afterwards.
I'll give you a quick look through of what
looks good and not.
Particularly formatting and any information
or words you need.
So this is going to be a workshop on creating
application packet.
We are going to be focusing mostly on PhD's
and creating CVs, curriculum vitas, for people
who are going into the academic market.
That said, much of the information I'm going
to go over is going to be generalizable also
for Masters Students going into the applied
market but I am covering information on both
topics.
So for the academic market, I've also highlighted
in red the really important bits of information
that you will always be sending out when you
apply for an academic job.
Your CV and a cover letter, as well as information
about your research program.
You may also have to include teaching philosophy.
It depends on what university or college degree
you're applying for.
As well as some letters of recommendation,
which are kind of out of your hand but folks
are doing that too.
For the applied market, the two things that
are most important are your resume.
It's a different word because it looks different
and is actually structured differently.
As well as your cover letter, which is still
very, very important.
Those are both highlighted in red.
So parts of the job application package that
you'll be sending out.
Some parts are mostly standard, so you can
make your CV and your resume generally once
and then be sending it out to everyone.
That's going to be standard unless you're
applying for very different jobs.
If you are applying for a teaching job and
a research job, you might want to highlight
certain things differently or if you're applying
for a postdoc or an application for an applied
job, you'd want to have different resumes.
So that's mostly standard.
Usually standard would be your teaching philosophy
and your statement of research program and
then in red highlighted and underlined is
the part that says you need to tailor specifically
to the job.
The cover letter must be tailored to the job
because a standard cover letter makes you
look like someone who's just applying to everything
and not a serious candidate for the job that's
there.
So we're going to talk about what you need
to put there to make sure you look like the
best candidate for the job.
For the CV, it's like a resume but it is for
academic and research jobs.
I have talked to some of my hard science folks,
physics folks, chemistry folks.
Some of their resumes look more like CVs,
so it may be applicable for you to create
a CV instead of a resume.
And it contains basic information.
Your name and contact information, education,
professional appointments, publications, research,
and grants, your teaching, industry, and service
experience.
And I would encourage you to search out your
discipline's orders.
In psychology, in the social sciences, this
is the order we put them in.
I've asked some of my friends or colleagues
in physics.
This is the same order too.
But as I've been trolling around other professor's
vitas, I've seen them in different orders.
So make sure you have someone in your program,
make sure that this is the order that you
would put it in if you were sending out a
CV.
It is slightly different if you were sending
out a resume.
So what's important for your CV?
In red is what I know is important, blue might
be important, and then the standard information.
Name and contact information.
Education and professional appointments are
very important on the CV, as well as your
publications and research.
Teaching may or may not be important.
It depends on if you're applying to a teaching
college or you're applying to more of a research
university.
Industry and service experience are just the
standard information you may or may not have
on your application.
For the resume, the most important things
are your education, your degree, what experience
you have in industry before or during your
degree.
And I have up here in blue classes because
some places when they're hiring people out
of a Master's program, they know you may not
have a lot of experience, but they want to
know that you've have exposure to particular
classes.
So that would be something that depends on
what job you're applying for and I'd talk
to your advisor, someone in your field about
whether you need to include that in there.
We're going to go through each section, information
you can include, you should include and you
should not include.
The name and contact information should be
centered at the top of your vita.
You put your full name; you put your snail
mail address up there.
You put your phone numbers that you can be
reached at.
I would also encourage you when you go on
the job market to change your voicemail reception.
That it's professional and it's not music
playing.
Or it's not you being kind of cool.
That it just says, "Hi, This is Anita, or
Anita Blanchard.
I can't take your call right now, please leave
a message."
Make sure it's professional because you don't
want to wait until you've already gotten a
message to realize that the music you're playing
before you answer your call is nonprofessional.
And your e-mail address.
I would encourage you to either use your UNCC
see one, although if you graduate, they kind
of cut your email off pretty quickly here.
So you might want to have a Gmail account.
But you do not use the unprofessional redhotmama@yahoo.com.
I say that and I still tell you that I get
the people applying for jobs where they're
using the one they created in high school.
Do not use that.
Make sure it's some basis of your name that
is appropriate and is somewhat professional
sounding.
Next, your educational history.
You start with your highest education and
the expected, either the date or your expected
date of graduation.
You put your dissertation and/or your thesis
topic or name, as well as your major advisor.
For some programs, they really want to know
who you've worked with going forward and I'm
pretty sure some of the applied jobs, they
want to know who the contact is that they
have back with you at UNC Charlotte.
For academic appointments that you can put
up there, for a CV that would come next.
So you have your name, your educational history
and if you've taught before.
So that's for a CV particularly, if you taught
before.
And you could put UNCC lecturer, or adjunct
lecturer, or adjunct faculty from the year
you started until present.
That's what it would look like.
And at this point you don't want to put the
actual classes that you taught.
You put that later on.
But you want to put if you've had any academic
jobs on your CV because that does give you
some credibility and shows that you been doing
since teaching.
It makes you look attractive to prospective
hirers.
The next section is your bragging section.
So we have so that they can look quickly look
through and see where you are on the list
just a little track that we choose to kind
of help you stick out, education, academic
appointments, this is for the CV.
And then where you get to brag.
And this is where if you have any grants that
helps you stand out as a graduate student
applying.
Any awards you've received.
This is really the thing that you want to
highlight, that's really important, that's
different than what other people may have.
So grants, fellowships, recognition, awards.
This is your bragging part.
It really does stand out.
Not everybody will have them and that's okay.
But if you do have that opportunity you want
this up here right now.
After that, research.
I have a long list of research options.
This is not because I expect you to have these.
This this is because I expect you, I want
you to think about creatively what you can
put up there.
I also have them in order of fanciness, your
fancy pants part.
So if you've written a book, that comes first.
Second would come peer-reviewed journal articles
and I would actually use that as the title
for each section if you have these.
What journal articles you have, any peer-reviewed
book chapters you have, invited book chapters
that you have, any encyclopedia entries.
At this point I might be starting to talk
about things you might actually have.
I hope you have some of these.
Encyclopedia entries, published conference
proceedings, conference presentations, research
reports, research under review, conference
presentations under review, and then research
in progress.
I don't think you have any books, but if you're
going on the market, you certainly have some
research in progress.
And I will tell you that this looks attractive.
When we were just hiring some folks, we did
a faculty search last spring and we had folks
who are doing the research that they have.
And they had a few things on review.
That looks good.
A few conference presentations under review,
a few things in progress.
With also, this was nice and this is something
that we picked up last semester, they put
where they were targeting, the journal they
were targeting it to.
And aim high.
Even if you really think it's going to be
in a B level journal, when you put it on your
vita, you're going to be saying, "I'm going
to submit this to the best journal in the
area."
People be like, "Oh yeah, she's going to submit
this to the Journal of Applied Psychology.
Oh, that's fancy."
Aim high.
It looks good for your application.
So I assume you'll have quite a few of these
going on the market.
That's okay.
That's fine.
We expect that.
I don't expect a lot up here, but it looks
good if you do.
Okay, any questions on this part?
I would be thinking about this before you
start putting your CV together so you have
some ideas.
And in highlighting your own research, chronological
order depends on the discipline.
I like to have the most recent at the top.
I've seen other people, usually more senior
people because then they just add it at the
bottom.
But I think you should look at your discipline,
troll around on your site, and ask your advisors.
But usually put the most recent at the top.
And bold you name so that they can quickly
look through and see where you are on the
list.
It's just a little trick that we use to kind
of help you stand out a little better.
Also do not at this point explain your research
and what you're doing.
You're going to do that in your research statement.
I've seen some people do this, more senior
people.
This is not the time where you're doing that.
You explain research in your research statement.
Then you can put a list of the classes taught.
So you've got, after you've put your research,
courses taught and/or courses interested in
teaching.
Now this would be a place, if you didn't want
to highlight this in your cover letter or
you might want to put it in both.
If someone says they're hiring for someone
to teach research methods, what should you
put in your cover letter on your vita that
you'd like to teach?
Research methods.
Be a little clever about this.
If they say they want this, say that's what
you want to do.
Think about that.
So if they're asking for particular interests,
you can put that in this section.
For the CV, you may or may not have industry
jobs.
It's certainly not that important if you're
going into an academic job.
It might be interesting to think, 'Well why
did they take four years off between their
undergrad and graduate when they worked somewhere?'
That's fine but it's really not as important.
For the people who are Master's, this is the
most important part: where have you worked
in industry?
You may or may not, that's fine.
In fact I would encourage you if you're getting
your masters and you don't feel like you've
been straight out of undergrad to think about
some of the responsibilities you've had- if
you've worked in a lab or any projects you've
worked on to think about what responsibilities
you've had and list that as part of your job.
That counts as a job.
I've even advised undergrads (this is not
the case for you) that even babysitting is
a job and you had to manage people in that
experience.
So you can be creative about some of those
things- responsibilities you've had.
Service looks good.
It's not going to help you get a job; it may
help you stand out in an academic job, but
it's certainly not going to-- So if you don't
have much service, that's okay, but if you're
thinking about an academic job, now is the
time to start getting involved in some of
these things.
I do a workshop on what to do at professional
conferences and it's a great way to get some
items for your vita to make you stand out.
So things that you could think about doing
or have already done: have you been a reviewer
for any conferences- put that on there.
Usually journals don't like reviewers for
grad students unless they're little bit more
advanced, but if you've reviewed for a journal,
certainly put that on there.
Have you done any other volunteer activity
at a conference?
Again if you have, put it on there; if you
haven't and you're thinking about an academic,
volunteer at the next conference you go to,
to get some exposure and some experience.
Any other reviewer activity, any professional
positions that you've held.
We have the grad student counsel here so you'd
want to put that on if you've been involved
in that.
And also your membership organizations, and
you'd want to keep those active.
So I assume you're going to be a member in
the primary conference organization for your
discipline.
Hints for your CV: this is just for your CV,
okay.
Update everything as soon as it happens.
So when you submit a conference or journal
submission, you go immediately to your CV
and you put it on there.
If it gets rejected, you just take it off
and put it somewhere else.
If it gets accepted for an R&R, you revise
that but you keep it on there so your activities
are always on top of mind.
When you get accepted to a conference, then
you can just move it up to a conference presentation,
call it impress or coming up.
Any job responsibilities, if you take on any
project or any responsibility at your lab,
go ahead and update your vita with that.
Research opportunities, any grants that you
applied for, certainly if you've applied for,
you can put that under applied for grants
to NSF for NIH or whatever.
Teaching opportunities- even if you do a guest
lecture in a class that counts as teaching
experience.
Put that on your vita because it's so easy
to forget it when it goes time to update it.
So every time you do some professional activity-
I want to get this in your head, you're updating
your vita.
A speaking engagement, any membership you've
done- if you do it immediately, every time
something happens you update it, when the
job opportunity comes up, you've got it there
and you have it so you aren't forgetting something
that's going to make you shine.
Check out what's going on with your department
if they have different standards than what
I've told you.
I tried to go for the maximum, but there might
be some differences.
Ask your dissertation chair to review this.
That should be part of his or her responsibilities
in mentoring you.
I put in blue because the career center has
workshops, although the grad students are
different from the undergrad population and
sometimes it's not as fruitful there as it
is elsewhere.
So we also have the opportunity here at CGL
to have a faculty affiliate review your vita
or your resume and I've done that with students.
It takes me a little while to get into the
loop of things and do, but I can review your
vita for you too.
Now the cover letter.
The next option- you have a professional salutation,
if you have some letterhead that looks nice.
The first paragraph is something along the
lines of Please accept this package as my
application for the blah blah blah...' job;
put it all on there.
And make sure you've got the correct name,
the correct job, and if you have multiple
applications that you change the name all
the time throughout your letter.
You'd be surprised, folks.
We just did a faculty search last spring;
you'd be surprised what we were seeing coming
through.
People had not changed everything.
That's not enough.
Please accept this- that's not enough.
The cover letter is really your opportunity
to say why you are interested in that particular
job.
That is your one time to sell yourself specifically
for that job, whether it's a cover letter
to an applied or industry job or to academia.
And it behooves you to read in detail what
the job posting was, to do a little homework
on the organization, so that you can say I'm
serious about this, as well as any characteristics
they're looking for.
Okay and I'm not kidding you; it really makes
a difference.
We're reviewing dozens, hundreds of applications
for one job.
Make sure that you stand out appropriately.
Okay, specifically why you're a good match
for that job specifically.
If they say they want somebody to teach some
classes, you say you can teach these classes.
If they say someone who has this research
experience, you show that 'As you'll see in
my research, in my vita, I have this research
experience.'
Same thing if they're looking for and applied
job.
This is why I match with what you're looking
for.
You want to show how your skills and abilities
match their needs.
Okay, you should briefly highlight important
aspects of your research, teaching that's
noted in the job.
Also if you're applying for a job that's not
in the most desirable location, it also is
a good idea to say that you'd be happy to
relocate.
If you're doing a national job search, 'I
would love to move to South Dakota, I've heard
it's a great place, I have family in this
area,' you know.
Some places are concerned.
Now Charlotte isn't.
I lived in Los Angeles before I came here.
We knew everybody wanted to move to Los Angeles
and Charlotte's certainly a fun place to live
too, but other places you may be applying
to, they may be concerned-- I don't want to
pick on anyone's state, but we'll pick on
the Dakotas, okay, that you really would be
interested in moving there.
So that would be important to say that.
It'll help you stand out.
Also in our program specifically, if someone
had not done their homework-- I'm in psychology
and organization science.
If someone had not done their homework, they
wouldn't know that yes, it's a bachelors program
in psychology, but we have a PhD program that's
interdisciplinary and the people who stood
out in our applications were folks who said
'Oh I'd like to teach in the PhD program.
I see it's communication, sociology, management,
blah, blah...' it you're applying to 100 different
positions and were just one on your list.
No job wants to think that that's what you're
doing.
With your research program: so we've got the
vita, we've covered your cover letter, and
now let's talk about your research program.
What you've done, what research that you've
done, what you found, where you've published
it, and also it looks really nice when we're
reading through to say 'I worked on this project,
it was at this conference submission and this
publication.'
It's nice to just go ahead and repeat that
in your research program.
As well as where you think you're going with
your research.
So we're not hiring you just on what you've
done but also where you think you're going
to go.
You could have several streams of research.
That's fine, that's not a problem, or you
have one overarching theme-- they really don't
care about it.
You're likely going to just do this once,
but it's possible that organizations or universities
are going to be looking for specific things.
You might need to tailor it a little bit.
But generally this just can be something you
just do once and hand out.
Cover letter you do for every job you apply
for.
Many universities and colleges want to know
what you think about teaching, so it's called
a teaching philosophy.
And they want to know that you've thought
about it and that you have some way of approaching
your teaching so that you know something like
not along the lines of 'I like to talk the
entire time and ever let anybody else say
anything.'
That would not be the good way to do this.
So there's some things you should talk about.
It would be important to think about this
beforehand.
What's your teaching style?
If you're very interactive, if you're very
dynamic, if you like to make the students
engage in group activities, that's something
that's really popular.
You could talk about your teaching style and
how it meshes with your philosophy of teaching.
Probably this is only going to be created
once and sent out.
Some places don't need it, but most places
do want to know that you can both teach and
do research.
Letters of recommendation: you definitely
have to ask your dissertation chair.
If you don't have your dissertation chair
or your thesis advisor write your letter of
recommendation, that sends a very strong and
bad message.
So you want to have some other committee members
write letters too or lab directors you've
worked with.
I don't know how you can do it, but sometimes
certain people write horrible letters of recommendation
and you want to avoid them.
I don't know how you find that out.
Find out from other people.
If they kind of hedge a little bit when you
ask them, then maybe that should be a sign
to go to someone else.
I've heard of people who've applied to jobs
who someone on their committee was writing
a horrible letter, they never got interviews.
Finally a friend took them aside and said
you need to avoid this person; they got that
person off of it and they got the next job
they interviewed for.
So it can happen.
Generally it won't.
And try to keep your radar open to that possibility.
I also recommend because the last year I had
a student apply to literally 100 positions.
That's a lot.
And the organization skills were still kind
of a problem.
What you want to do is give your recommender
what due dates or if you could have a spreadsheet
or what I actually finally said is, 'Tell
me everybody who's due in November and who
I'm supposed to send it to, then send me a
list of everybody who's due in December and
in January and February.'
For your folks, give them the due dates, the
program names and positions, particularly
if you have a degree that could go into a
couple of different departments.
You want to make sure that you're not sending
your communications application to a psychology
department, so make sure that's true.
And give them at least two weeks' time to
write it up and get it out.
If they are ready have one written, then perhaps
they don't need as much time to send it out,
but you need to give them at least two weeks
for the first letter you write.
Alright, thank you guys very much.
I appreciate it and I hope you got something
good out of this workshop.
Okay, thank you, bye.
