Workshop on Writing Effective

CURRICULUM VITAE

Hassan Bashiri

Hamedan University of Technology

April 2009

Outline

Definition of Resume and CV Resume vs. CV Cover Letter Parts of Cover Letter Types of CV The Anatomy of CV Tips and Pitfalls to Avoid Reviewing Samples Questions

What is a Résumé?

The French word resume means “a summing up.”

It is a concise, written summary of your work experience, education, accomplishments, and personal background

Self marketing tool to highlight your uniqueness

Personal Ad

Job skills showcase

“Value Added” to future employer

Usually 1 or 2 pages length

What is a Résumé?

Positive profile of your personal, educational and experiential qualifications for employment or admission.

It cannot get you a job

A good resume can help you get an interview.

A good interview gets you the job offer

The rest is up to you.

It is a written representation of you!

What is a Curriculum Vita?

Comprehensive biographical statement

Not limited to 2 pages like resume

Emphasizes teaching and research activities

Should address faculty roles such as teaching, research, service, professional associations and presentations

Publication is prominent section

How is a Curriculum Vita used?

Often used in the field of higher education and concentrates on academic pursuits

Used when applying for grants, fellowships, scholarships and/or other academic awards

Competitive academic admission

Resume vs. CV

Resume:

From French «to

summarize»

Focus on job skills

1-2 pages long

Used to apply for a job in a

business world.

You can scan it by 10 – 30

second

CV (Curriculum Vitae):

From Latin «the course of

[one’s] life»;

Not held to any particular

length;

Used for academic activities,

certain professions (Ph.D)

Includes papers published,

memberships, etc.

What is a Cover Letter?

To cover your resume. To introduce yourself along with your attached

resume to a prospective employer. To obtain an interview appointment or

application. Creates a desire for employer to read your

resume and urges employer to talk with you. Informs employer of your communication skills.

2 Types of Cover Letters

Letter of application

– Targets identified positions

Letter of inquiry or interest

– Not directed at any specific job vacancy.

– Directed at a school district or school.

Writing and effective CL has some guidelines like

resume, we are not going to discuss in detail

Types of CV

Chronological – Reverse Chronological

Functional– SUMMARY OF QUALIFICATIONS

• An accomplishment that directly relates to the objective.

• A quality or characteristic of yours that supports this goal.

• Number of years of experience.

• Another accomplishment or characteristic.

Combination Electronic

e.g www.irantalent.com

How do I get started?

Be familiar with the comprehensive anatomy of CV

Think about categories of the resume or CV Customize your resume for the job you are

applying Brainstorm what you might want to include

– Professional, Vocational, Research Objective

– Research Experience and Research Skills

– Qualifications, Laboratory Experience

– Publications and Presentations

– Computer and Technical Skills, …

The Anatomy of CV

Heading or Personal Information

Objective

Education

Experience

Teaching

Research

Professional

Publications

Honors & Awards

The Anatomy of CV (Cont.)

Special Skills & Training

ProfessionalMemberships

Presentations & Invited TalksResearch

Interests

ReferencesActivities & Hobbies

Student Advisement

Name (Usually Bold in Title) Address – If you have a permanent and local, put

both. Phone number – it’s okay to use your cell phone

number. Email Address – be careful of trendy email

address names such as hotstuff@hotmail.com. Using of academic email address is suggested.

Website address Not add military service status, weight, height, …

Heading and Personal Information

Personal Information: Example

Mohammad Mahdian 90 WoodAvenue, Apartment #23

TeacherHill, MA 01832

978-212-64447

e-mail: mahdian@cc.mit.edu

First Name: HASSAN

Last Name: BASHIRI

Date of Birth:

Home Address:

Work Address: Lecturer of Computer

Engineering Department, Bu-Ali Sina

University, Shahid Fahmideh Avenue,

Hamedan, Iran

Home Phone:

Cell Phone:

Home Page: http://home.basu.ac.ir/~bashiri

E-mail: bashiri@basu.ac.ir

Tells the employer:

– what kind of work you are interested in,

– what you are hoping to do

Be specific about the job you want.

– To obtain an entry-level position within a financial institution requiring strong analytical and organizational skills.

– To engage in advanced research and teaching programs of a top ranking university

– To work in a Student Assistant position in Info Technology Services.

– To become Marketing Assistant in a public relations firm

– A research position, preferably in the area of Politics and International Relationships

To obtain, To acquire, To utilize, To design, To Become, A position

Objective

Research Interest

Categorize and specify your research interest Area of research should have enough coverage Don’t expand it so much Example:

– Information Retrieval• IR Models and Ranking

• Matrix Processing (SVD, SDD, LSI, PCA)

• Search Engines

• Question Answering Systems

Education

Describe your academic accomplishments:

– Degree you expect to earn, university, and expected date of grad, Institution name and department

– Overall or Major GPA

– Related course work (if it is reflective of a specialization or is particularly relevant to the position you are pursuing)

List institutions attended in reverse chronological order.

DO NOT INCLUDE HIGH SCHOOL.

List GPA if 3.0 or better, can be in major or overall

Thesis Information (if relevant to the job)

Education: Example

M.Sc. (2001-2004): Software Engineering Student, Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

– CGPA:17.22 out of 20

– Dissertation

• Title: Implementation and Evaluation of Latent Semantic Indexing Model for Persian Text Retrieval

• Grade: 20 out of 20

B.Sc. (1997-2001): Computer Engineering Student, Isfahan University, Isfahan, Iran.

– CGPA:16.68 out of 20

– Dissertation

• Title: Analysis and Design of an Instance System with UML in RUP Software Process

• Grade: 19 out of 20

Education: Example

Awards and Honors

Combinational is a good method (Chronological and Functional)

2005

– Champion of the 3rd American Open RoboCup Competitions (USOpen05), Jul 2005, Atlanta, USA.

– 5th Place of RoboCup WorldCup 2005 Competitions, May 2005, OSAKA, Japan

2004

– 2nd Place of the 3rd Iranian Open Robotics Competitions, May 2005, Tehran, Iran.

– Award of doing effective efforts in ICT Incubator Center of Bu-Ali Sina University as Assistant Director of Center, given by: Vice President of Research and Technology of Bu-Ali Sina University

Experience

List work history in reverse chronological order.

Begin descriptive statements with an action verb.

– conducted, managed, supervised, determined, implemented, developed, Improved, documented

DO NOT INCLUDE reasons for leaving, past salaries, complete

address or phone number for employer, or past supervisor’s name.

Internships and non-paid employment can be listed in this section.

It is not necessary to note if they were unpaid.

In CV it is better to classify in:

– Research Experience

– Teaching Experience

– Professional Experience

Experience: Example

Research Experience

– Head of Persian Information Retrieval Research Group at the Department of Computer Engineering, Bu-Ali Sina University (2003-Present), List of achievements:

• Design and Implementation of an Automatic Indexer for Persian Text

• Design and Implementation of New Crawling Method named Regional Crawler

Teaching Experience

– Lecturer of Modern Information Retrieval, Department of Computer Engineering, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran, Spring 2006, Spring 2005, Spring 2004

Professional Experience

– Project Manager and Analyst of Xagross e-Commerce Project, Xagross Company, Hamedan, 2003-2004, www.xagross-IT.com

Publications

Categorize them– Book, Conference Paper, Journal Paper, Technical Paper,

…

– Subjective

– Reverse Chronological

Publications: Example

Information Retrieval

– H. Bashiri, F. Oroumchian, Assessment of Query Expansion based on Rocchio Approach in Persian Information Retrieval, 3rd Iranian Journal of Information and Science, September, 2006 (in English)

– H. Bashiri, F. Karbalaie, S. Mousavi, Design and Evaluation of Automatic Farsi Indexer for Persian Text, In Proceedings of 11th International CSI Computer Conference Tehran, Iran, January 2006, (in Persian)

RoboCup (Intelligent System)

– H. Bashiri, M. Rafaei, RoboSina2006 Team Description, In Proceedings of the 10th International RoboCup Symposium (RoboCup’06), Beremn, Germany, July 2006 (in English)

– H. Zarrabi-Zadeh, H. Bashiri, RoboSina2005 Team Description, In Proceedings of the 9th International RoboCup Symposium (RoboCup’05), OSAKA, Japan, July 2005 (in English)

Skills

List your related skills Computer and Language skills are usually

required– Computer:

• Microsoft office (Good)

• Internet and Search (Expert)

• SPSS (Expert)

– English Language:• Reading, Listening (Good)

• Speaking (Fluent)

• Writing (Expert)

Membership

Member of American Mathematical Society, 2004-present.

Member of Computer Society of Iran (CSI), 2001-

present.Member of Meshkat Cultural Association, 1997-

present.

Member of Student Council, Department of Computer

Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, 1998-1999.

Student Advisement

List thesis or research you have advised Example:

– A. H. Jadidinejad, Design and Evaluation of Fuzzy Clustering Method in Persian Information Retrieval, Department of Computer Engineering, Bu-Ali Sina University, In Process, (in Persian)

– A. Rezvanian, SABA Crawler: Focused on Persian Web Characterization, Department of Computer Engineering, Bu-Ali Sina University, September 2006, (In Persian)

– M. Shokouhi, Regional Crawler, A New Method to Crawling the Web, Department of Computer Engineering, Bu-Ali Sina University, March 2004, (in English)

References Available upon request. Dr. Farhad Oroumchian

Associate Professor

Wollongong University

Dubai Branch

oroumchian@acm.org

Dr. Tom Hayden

Dept. of Communication

University of Hawaii at Manoa

Honolulu, HI 96822

(808) 956-2222

hayden@hotmail.com

Tips and Pitfalls to Avoid

Avoid tables, paragraph borders, columns, and fancy fonts.

Avoid trying to indent or center text using the spacebar. Keep all lines left justified against the page, and use line breaks to separate headings and sections.

Make sure all dates are correct. Be prepared to explain any gaps.

List your education and experience in reverse chronological order – from the most current back.

Use key words and action words.

– Key words are words used in “professional jargon”.

Use quantifiable numbers.

– Wrong: “Helped increase sales substantially while in position”.

– Right: “Increased sales by 35% in nine months”.

Tips and Pitfalls to Avoid (Cont.)

Check & double check for content flow, grammar, punctuation, redundancy, and spelling

Have a top, bottom, left and right margin

Print on quality white or off-white paper

Have your CV and resume reviewed by expert people

– Seek others’ opinions

– Proofread– then have someone else proofread

Keep length right (resume: 1 or 2 pages, CV has more)

Always:

Be relevant. Stay focused on specifics that relate to the job for which you are applying.

Be positive. Emphasize your strengths, accomplishments (not just responsibilities), and experience.

Be accurate. DO NOT exaggerate or mislead.

Be factual

Be neat. Go for eye appeal. Not too fancy, no colored paper.

Be brief: Don’t be general

Scanned in 10 seconds – make sure important information stands out

Be organized: Create section by section so it’s not overwhelming

Write long on first draft – edit later

Focus on accomplishments, not routine duties

Don’t use without proofreading

Don’t let someone else write it for you

Common Resume and CV Mistakes

Including a heading such as "Résumé" or "Curriculum Vitae": not necessary

Including irrelevant information: personal details (age), high school etc.

Format/Style: lack of white space, too narrow margins, loud gimmicky paper or font use.

Ordering of information: not in reverse chronological order.

Excluding information such as phone or email: include on  résumé

Attention to detail: spelling mistakes, grammar and use of consistent tense. 

Take a look to some samples …..