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Time to Talk CV

- Tuesday, May 23, 2023
OAA Handbook webpage

Most recently these pages have focused on telling your story. First was a focus on the 3-page narrative for A&P educator promotion. A more in-depth approach involves the OAA faculty dossier and a faculty-type dossier. The former is required for all OSU faculty, the latter you might use in a faculty job search. As promised, this post goes one step further and talks about a CV (acronym for curriculum vita).

Unlike the “dossier” (listed 81 times in the most current version of OSU’s Office of Academic Affairs (OAA) Policies and Procedures Handbook - Volume 3), the “CV” is mentioned only 3 times. Fittingly, while your OAA dossier could very easily span 81 pages, your CV looks right at home contained in just 3. The CV should be brief. It should quickly and efficiently illustrate the focus of your efforts. It is perfectly happy being the bearer of “selected” accomplishments, activities, funding, etc. Sounds like a 3-page narrative, but it is different.

Like the 3-page narrative, your CV is the polite response to the question “so, what do you do?” It is the snapshot of how you spend your time and who you spend it with. It is your response to a typical interview prompt, “tell me a little bit about yourself”… but it is done in outline form.

How much do you share? Like so many other of life’s questions, the answer depends. In some circumstances, a potential funder may require that you provide a CV of a certain length (e.g. 1 or 2 pages). The CV you create and maintain to inform potential collaborators or your supervisor should be long enough to be useful and brief enough to quickly illustrate what you are about.

Starting out in your Extension career, you may find it difficult to cover 2 pages. However, over time you may be challenged to limit yourself to 3 pages. We do so much that we are excited to talk about! What I have found fun is to identify what can be dropped to make room for something better (or higher value) that more effectively tells your story. Yes, it happened and yes it mattered. Then, it mattered enough to earn a place in your CV. Now, it knows and you know that it helped you get better. Whatever that item currently under your scrutiny might be, it represents yet another building block under which this new accomplishment rests.

Growth over time is the goal. As you gain more recognition, more impactful or focused scholarly contributions, larger or more targeted funded projects, etc you will begin to see how those previously cherished entries enabled you to achieve these more recent accomplishments and contributions. But here is not the place to list them all (perhaps another post on another dossier-type). Here, we are building a story that fits nicely on (say it with me) just a few pages.

In short, creating and keeping your CV up to date should be fun. You have done the work. You are growing as a professional. The CV grows along with you (and like you, it gets better over time). Exercise your creativity in its layout and what you list (think resume). Find a look you like and copy it. Not sure where to start? Go here to see others.

You can also attend one of the virtual office hours focused on the topic of preparing a dossier noted below:

 

Posted In: A&P, Faculty
Tags: CV, curriculum vita

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