The Interfolio Blog

Writing your CV can be one of the most stressful and difficult parts of applying to academic jobs. In Inside Higher Ed, Teresa Mangum offered job seeker's some great advice on how to compose a successful CV. Here, we share her thoughts, and compile four more resources to help you put together the best CV possible!

• Inside Higher Ed offers a comprehensive look at how to go through the CV composition process, and the author opens with an amusing relation of the CV to Dickinsonian poetry! It is worth checking out the comments on the article as well, where search committee members weigh in on do's and don'ts and tackle some of the trickier questions.

• Wondering where to start and how to navigate the strange feeling of dissecting your life and putting it all on paper? The Chronicle of Higher Ed answers questions and walks you through the process of deciding how to start, what to include, and what to omit.

• Purdue's OWL (Online Writing Lab) offers a brief overview on how to write a CV for those just looking for some quick advice. They also list a couple of outside resources to consult for more information.

• The University of Virginia's career services center offers another comprehensive look at how to write a CV. This guide is downloadable, so you can keep it on your desktop and refer back to it when you need it.

• Sometimes you just need to see some examples to get you started. This site gives four good examples of academic CVs from a variety of disciplines. These are a good place to start in getting an idea for content and format!

This week, we're highlighting five blogs that focus on faculty and student career development. 

Inside Higher Ed Career Advice Section: IHE has devoted this section to cover topics on career advice and job searching.  They talk about everything from finding a faculty position to how to teach during the summer.

Higher Education Weblog: Geared towards graduating seniors, the Kellog Forum offers a slew of information for students entering the "real world," and they have an entire section on transitioning to graduate school.  The information is useful at any level.

Personal Branding: While not 100% focused on higher ed, Dan Schawbel gives a lot of very insightful advice on how to position yourself and your assets to best compliment your ongoing career goals.  He has several great articles on the education space.

Higher Education Management: This blog has an interesting twist.  Most of the content's ideas come from a pre-established LinkedIn group with the same name, and it focuses on "the people, organizations, and issues that operate at the intersection of business and higher education."

Chronicle Careers: Not only does this site contain a ton of discussion on career progression in the higher ed space, it also provides a pretty dynamic platform for readers to exchange thoughts, search for jobs, and even determine salary ranges.  This is definitely a full suite of useful resources.

You should check these blogs out if you're interested in career information in higher ed.  They offer a lot of useful and timely information for students, professors and alums.

What are your favorite places to read about careers in higher ed?

With a new, simplified and easy-to-use website to offer its users, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation's iBridge Network continues in its mission to provide a "vibrant online community for sharing ideas, research and knowledge" for researchers and scientists around the world.  Having identified that some, if not most, of the best research in the world comes out of the university setting, their "objective is to drive transparency and access to university developed innovations that are available today as well as to field experts, ideas and information."

They do so by offering a platform that centralizes information on early-stage technologies, offering users an easy search tool to find useful resources, a newsfeed that can be personalized for each user based on their areas of interest, and the ability to share and collaborate on information or enter into licensing agreements directly from the site.

Much of the research is of the type that is already offered for free or for a minimal charge by institutions, and thereby facilitates the transfer of this information.  It includes research on cell technologies, software, animal models and bio tech, among others.

The interface of the site is pretty slick, and easy to navigate. Check it out, and let us know what you think.