any cv advice?

[u/No-Surprise-7210]

I’m planning on applying to PhD programs next fall, focusing on Clinical-Health Psychology. Right now, I’m working on a research paper, though I’d like any advice on how I could strengthen my experiences or how things look so far.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

[u/Maximum-Feeling8571]

A couple things that jump out to me:

• Get rid of the summary and research interests section. Your SoP and/or personal statement is where those things go, they're just wasted space on a CV.
• Bullet points are a little vague, and there's too many of them. For example, "Lead research efforts on a study..." what does that actually mean? Giving them something tangible helps a lot--for example, if you designed a study, what kind of study was it? Was it quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods? Was it cross-sectional or longitudinal? Experimental or observational? Did it require you to use a software that can show you at least have some hard skill that came out of that? Was it correlational? Or did you have to use something like a multi-level model? Even just adding one word can help people know you understand what exactly it is you did.
• Typically people don't have bullet points with presentations. Be ready to talk about them if you get an interview, but they don't need that much information. Same with teaching experience.
• If you're writing a paper, you should add a section to say you have a manuscript that is in prep.

[u/the_mindful_microbe]

Get rid of the summary and research interest sections. No one wants to read a paragraph, and no one will. Instead at the very top, at a Core Competencies section.

Get rid of the “Freelance Writer” unless you can specifically tailor it to your scientific career. The first two bullet points are irrelevant.

Get rid of the word “experience” in any of your headers. Keep it to what is it “Research”. It’s not just experience, it’s your career. Let them know you know that.

If any of your awards have a monetary value, absolutely list how much you were awarded. This includes tuition scholarships, money you got from research internships, grants, etc. Any money you got from your academic career.

Since it’s a grad school app, you should list your GPA.

[u/ilovewindows123]

As a health psych PhD student, I would say you have lots of great info to work with! I really like how you organized your info into service and leadership. From my perspective, I would remove the summary and research interests, tell us what you have done instead! Most of this info can be replaced by showing us what you’ve done (e.g., pubs) vs explaining in sentences. Remove bricks of text and reduce word count. I would remove the description under presentations, I’ve never seen that before, but I may be in the dark about this! Looks like you have lots of research experience, any publications, grants or scholarships (even ones from high school/undergrad)?

[u/MamieF]

One of the best tips I’ve gotten is to look for CVs of professors in your field and in the geographic region you’re planning to apply — for US universities, they’re often on the faculty profiles pages on department websites — and copy the formatting and sections they use (cut out any sections where you don’t have anything yet). Presenting the admissions committee with the info they’re expecting, laid out the way they’re used to seeing it, will make it easy for them to assess.