How do you list your research experience?

[livetosail]

---

Members do not see this ad.

I have recently found myself gainfully employed in various research projects for multiple researchers. As I try to add this to my CV, however, I find myself wavering between listing the job and dates (which, in some cases are only a weekend), and listing the projects and my duties...

So, what do you suggest? Should I mention that I collected cups of people's spit to measure cortisol changes to stress for 12 hours a day?

 

[deadmau5]

if it was just a weekend, maybe make an "Additional Skills" section and put as a point "experience in running cortisol samples and running analysis"

 

[whypsy]

I'd avoid the weekend research stuff. However the other things if they involved a significant amount of effort, I'd just say: research assistant, data gathering, lab assistant, etc. These things all basically mean that you're familiar with thankless grunt work.

However if in the field you're applying for, collecting "cups of people's spit to measure cortisol changes to stress for 12 hours a day" is a seriously impressive and essential skill to have, then yeah I'd specifically put it. Somehow I doubt it though.

 

[livetosail]

These things all basically mean that you're familiar with thankless grunt work.

Are you kidding? I am in the military! 😀

The weekend stuff is spread out over an entire year, so it adds up. They only do this research on the weekends, and it is vital to my CV.

Somehow just putting "Research assistant, data collection, blah blah blah" sounds so vague and generic to me. The research is very broad and involves multiple different studies, so part of me wants to expand more than just listing "I've been swabbing samples and collecting surveys for nine months..."

 

[whypsy]

Then I would definitely put it down. If you're having trouble noting the times of your work, maybe you could estimate how many hours you have spent in the lab.

It's true research assistant (etc) is generic. You can put swabbing samples and/or survey collection if you'd like. I mean when I interviewed for a clinical program, a few professors noted my research experience but simply in passing. I suppose I'm saying put down what you're comfortable with. Grad students have a bad habit (myself included) of focusing on details that carry some but not lots of weight.

Just make it clear that you worked in that lab and helped and as a result are familiar with research. Put "9 month mouth swabber."

 

[livetosail]

Just make it clear that you worked in that lab and helped and as a result are familiar with research. Put "9 month mouth swabber."

Good advice! I think you are right about overstating our importance, etc., sometimes. That's actually what I am trying to avoid, but in the process I ended up deleted what seemed like 80% of my research experience. I guess I just have find a happy medium.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[chasingadream]

I am a little unsure of how the weekend stints took place so i may be way off in my suggestion. Since you are in the military, were the short term projects things you volunteered to conduct through a military hospital or something? Like many projects within the same institution? If they were, you may be able to list it in a way that does not require you to list dates for each individual project.

I coordinate many studies and had different titles in my time at my current employer so I listed institutions (in reverse chronological order) as the main headings on the left, then where, and dates lined up on the right. Under the institution you can list your title and all the responsibilities you had and even dates for the separate protocols.



COOLEST PLACE EVER, City,State: Current Title, Department Date.
.Description.
.
.
OR



COOLEST PLACE EVER, City,State:
Current Title, Department, Date.
Older Title, Department, date range.


. Description of your general responsibilities here. Something like "On weekends when not on dudty volunteered as reserach assistant on several on going protocols. Responsibilitites included saliva collection on several hundered subjects to examine cortisal levels yadda yadda, subject interviews. Learned fundamentals of clincal research proceedures and intricacies of lab operations" Or something to that effect that summarizes what you did and what you learned.

Then list all the protocols an PIs
.

Even thought it may have been grunt work so you can say what you learned without padding too much. Don't undervalue your grunt- work we all start somewhere. You can say "In an effort maintain continued engagement with the fieild of psychology during my service...." Hope that helps!

 

[livetosail]

That is an excellent suggestion.

To answer your question, yes, the weekend events were volunteer, but not for the military. Being in the military has made getting research experience tremendously difficult. For one, I am not affiliated with a university anymore. For another, I have been deployed to Iraq and haven't had enough time to really get in tight with any researchers in my area.

So, one way I was able to do this was to find a group of researchers that do studies every weekend (or various weekends throughout a given quarter), and they were willing to let me tag along and help out. The group was working on several different studies, but all focused around stress changes and its various effects on memory, coordination, etc. So, cortisol levels, eye movement, recorded times on skill tests, recorded questionnaires, perspiration levels... and so on and so forth. You name it, I measured and logged it.

My problem is, to separate out each and every activity I was involved in takes up an entire page. Also, I was technically volunteering for seven different docs.

So, you can see how putting it into a nice looking CV presents a few problems. It's not your traditional lab setting, nor is it your traditional research assistant scenario.