5 CV mistakes you didn’t know about

We have already talked about CV for academia and industry. Let me remind you briefly: academic CV is used to show your research background, and industrial — ti list your work experience (surprise, haha). Each of us was faced with the need to draw up a CV at all stages of a career from a bachelor or a specialist to a PhD and even a professor. Structurally, it consists of sections with education, laboratory/working experience, achievements and publications.

It is important to understand that there are general guidelines for compiling a CV, such as the sequence of blocks, sections in addition to those already listed, size and formatting. The exception to the rule is the fixed CV form from the program, when you download the template and fill it out in accordance with the points presented there. However, in most cases, you can edit the CV to your liking and indicate what you think is appropriate and relevant to the program/job. At the same time, when writing a CV, regardless of its format, it is important to keep in mind a few common mistakes that everyone makes without exception in order to prevent them from happening!

Mistake #1: Underestimate Your Achievements

On the Internet, you can find articles on the topic of common mistakes in CVs, but for some reason this one is not mentioned. Despite frequent discussions of the prevalence in the scientific community of the “Imposter Syndrome”, not many real tools are used to assess its presence. CV perfectly reflects your attitude to your achievements. This will probably be most common among bachelors and graduate students. For the bachelors, because they have not yet achieved anything, and for graduate students, they still have not achieved anything. However, this approach is wrong. From students of different levels, no one expects articles in high-ranking journals, the Nobel Prize and columns about saving humanity along with the Avengers. In a CV, it is important to show your motivation, which is supported by real achievements, albeit small ones:

• Have you been teaching biology to preschool children since school? — Write!
• Do you have activities and hobbies in which you have achieved something? — Write!
• Have you submitted an abstract for a small conference? — Write!
• Have you asked and realized your personal scientific questions during practicum ? — Write!

By listing everything that comes to your mind, you will see the structure of the CV, what is important for one application, and what for another. Such a CV, where you list everything — master CV — will allow you not to forget and objectively evaluate your achievements, instead of shrugging off the fussy thought: “Shall we point out that we won a prize in a group biology olympiad at school? no?” Be sure to write this down too!

Of course, depending on the level, you will be expected to achieve time-displaced achievements. The bachelors have a school and the first undergraduate courses; for masters — the entire bachelor’s degree; graduate students have bachelor’s and master’s degrees. If necessary, you can always delete the section with school achievements or early minor bachelor’s. The main thing here is not to discount them!

Mistake #2: Not Spend Enough Time Checking Your CV

The next mistake that We want to sort out is insufficient time devoted to CV. Despite its apparent simplicity, preparing a CV well takes a lot of time. Misprints, errors, incorrect terms, an uninverted sequence of events — all this will be evident to a person who, when selecting candidates, can look at up to several dozen CVs at a time. Such inaccuracies, which are acceptable in life, are unacceptable in a highly competitive environment.

“Is the candidate serious in his intentions? Is he willing to spend enough time on the tasks assigned to him? How accurate is he overall in completing these tasks?” — all these questions will necessarily arise from the admission committee in the presence of such errors. And their answer will be an unequivocal “no”. It is possible to avoid such a situation by spending more time on checking.

There are several ways to proofread your CV especially carefully for typos, errors, and inaccuracies.

1. After writing a CV, put it on the table, let it lie down. In a couple of days, your eyes will wean from it, and you will see what you used to miss.
2. Give your CV to your family, friends, colleagues. Different people pay attention to one thing while ignoring the other. Someone will find an error in date formats, someone will find a typo in the title, someone will love commas. For example, we immediately see double spaces and remove them. Use your contacts to minimize CV errors.
3. Print it out. Our eyes perceive text on the screen differently than text on paper. The method will not only allow you to assess the distribution of text on the sheet, but also whether the font is small or whether you see typos. Take a pen and mark all the inaccuracies you find so that you can correct them later in the electronic version. And then print again. And again, if needed.

Another little tip: create a CV before submissions, spending time on it while you still have it. You will have the opportunity to put it on the table and show it to your friends. Moreover, structuring everything in one place will help you identify the weaknesses of your CV and develop a strategy to close them.

Mistake 3: Bad Formatting

Since we are talking about text distribution, the next mistake is bad formatting. You can make a classic CV in Word, or you can use PowerPoint, Canva, LaTeX and other programs for this. On the net, you can even find sites that generate your CV according to the selected template when filling out the lines. The choice of a program for working with CV is entirely up to you. Choose the option that is most comfortable for you. However, in any of them, carefully make sure that the text does not jump, the fonts and colors do not ripple, so that the lines do not move anywhere when opened on another device.

My experience. My master CV is made in Word (not advertising). It’s easy for me to work in it, I don’t spend a lot of time on it. The sections are made in the form of separate tables with white lines so as not to overload the sheet with objects, but at the same time align everything and make it identical. Also in tables I can easily add new cells when articles or achievements appear. Plus, I like minimalism.

You can make the CV however you like: use infographics where appropriate; different colors, but not to dazzle; you can make a field and put some information there so as not to inflate the CV for several pages. The main thing is that everything should be readable, relevant, competently and without errors!

Mistake 4: do not read the requirements from the university for admission

We already mentioned above that the university can offer its own CV form, in which you simply collect the requested information from your version. In addition, you may be asked for your version of the CV, but with additions / changes from the university. Perhaps one of the frequently encountered requests is a separate list of publications. You may also be asked to include only specific paragraphs, limit the size of your CV, or be asked to attach a photo. Or vice versa, ask not to apply.

Be sure to read the terms and conditions carefully. Sometimes there is an application form instead of a CV. TYou should enter all the information in the questionnaire in the University personal account. Therefore, be careful, register on recruiter sites and see the internal structure of your personal account in order to be ready for anything.

Mistake 5: send the wrong CV that was prepared

It’s possible. If you create multiple versions of a CV during development or for different applications, there is always a chance that you end up submitting the wrong version. Disaster? Maybe. You can always write to the admissions committee and attach the correct document, but not the fact that they will answer you. So check everything before sending.

Life hack: make different folders for different applications, which will contain the entire package of documents for each specific submission. If you have any doubts while uploading documents, you can simply delete everything, open the folder and upload the documents again. Let some documents be duplicated, but the main goal will be achieved — you will send the correct document to the vacancy. Don’t forget to check the documents in the folder a couple of times to be sure!

To summarize: write down all the achievements, check your CV systematically for errors, quality of formatting, mark yourself the submission conditions and structure documents in folders. Good luck!

Author: Alena A. Kozlova

Edited by: Timofei Ryko