What's considered to be CV padding? How can people tell?

[coralfangs]

Just got off the phone with my mom (she too is a physician) and boy did we have an argument. I am still in my research block and have been working on various projects and she thinks I'm just wasting time and CV padding.
I am just pissed that my parent would think that. That's all.......

Anyway, what's considered CV padding?
What's the difference between CV padding and significant work experience?
How can the residency director distinguish between the two?
Would too much items in your CV come off as pretentious and insincere?

Yes, you need to work on stuff that you truly care about and that's what I am doing. Over the past couple months, I have been working on various health care education and management stuff because I was given the opportunities through my main project (ie. you are working with a department and they need help with designing a new patient scheduling and data collection system, which would in turn benefit my main project, or you realize that the residents working with ya enjoy a particular aspect of the education and you want to promote and propagate upon that, etc)

Am I going to mention those in my CV? Absolutely, especially most of my work have been approved by the different departments. But the question is... would it run the risk of coming off as CV padding or bull****ting?

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[Mr hawkings]

Just got off the phone with my mom (she too is a physician) and boy did we have an argument. I am still in my research block and have been working on various projects and she thinks I'm just wasting time and CV padding.
I am just pissed that my parent would think that. That's all.......

Anyway, what's considered CV padding?
What's the difference between CV padding and significant work experience?
How can the residency director distinguish between the two?
Would too much items in your CV come off as pretentious and insincere?

Yes, you need to work on stuff that you truly care about and that's what I am doing. Over the past couple months, I have been working on various health care education and management stuff because I was given the opportunities through my main project (ie. you are working with a department and they need help with designing a new patient scheduling and data collection system, which would in turn benefit my main project, or you realize that the residents working with ya enjoy a particular aspect of the education and you want to promote and propagate upon that, etc)

Am I going to mention those in my CV? Absolutely, especially most of my work have been approved by the different departments. But the question is... would it run the risk of coming off as CV padding or bull****ting?

I'm going to guess yo mom works in private practice and not in an academic setting. You should see some of the CV's of the physicians in the hospitals, especially the once who also run basic science labs.

I say put everything on there and let the reader decide whats padding and whats useful.
I know for sure that i got my previous job mainly because i spent a 1 month rotation in grad school in a lab that studying the same thing as my new boss even though i did nothing more than run gels and clip mouse ears for 4 weeks.

Bull**** or not, if you think it was meaningful, then throw it on there. I dont think it would hurt. What would hurt is if you missed out on something because a reviewer thinks you dont have a specific experience they are looking for only cos you left it off your CV

 

[majahops]

Totally agree with this, OP. Don't leave anything that you think might be even remotely worthwhile to mention out of there. By the way, your "padding" may be the equivalent of the "core" substance of other peoples' CVs, it's all relative.

I say put everything on there and let the reader decide whats padding and whats useful.
I know for sure that i got my previous job mainly because i spent a 1 month rotation in grad school in a lab that studying the same thing as my new boss even though i did nothing more than run gels and clip mouse ears for 4 weeks.

Bull**** or not, if you think it was meaningful, then throw it on there. I dont think it would hurt. What would hurt is if you missed out on something because a reviewer thinks you dont have a specific experience they are looking for only cos you left it off your CV

 

[typhoonegator]

Many people make the mistake of having just one CV with all of their experiences on it, and just give that one to anyone who asks for it. This is not the way to go. My CV is getting very long, and who wants to look through 2+ pages of just abstracts? They'll get the point after a few of them, and they might miss a juicy one in the middle if they get bored.

Keep a master CV with all of your activities, experiences, and publications on it. You can then tailor that version for different audiences. I would never apply for a job with the whole thing -- I'd just select the most important stuff, high profile publications, etc, to make it easier to focus an interview.

For your application, I agree that at your stage almost everything could be important. Also, game theory states that you're going to have to put lots of stuff on your CV because everyone else will too. Just make sure the top few items in each section are the most important or impressive -- don't just go by chronology. If you gave a talk on something, even if it a lab talk, put it on there. Poster at an intra-departmental meeting? Sure! Fifth author of an abstract at a conference you didn't even go to? Fine!

 

[Raryn]

Mine goes in strict reverse chronological order (most recent first) within every section, but the most important sections are at the top of the CV.

The general rule of thumb is to include everything as long as your CV is less than 2 full pages long. After that, you prune or change the formatting. (This does not seem to apply to professors, some of which I've seen have CVs that are well over a dozen pages long)

Also, most important rule: Proofread your CV. Multiple times. A typo on a CV is deadly.

 

[njbmd]

Just got off the phone with my mom (she too is a physician) and boy did we have an argument. I am still in my research block and have been working on various projects and she thinks I'm just wasting time and CV padding.
I am just pissed that my parent would think that. That's all.......

Anyway, what's considered CV padding?
What's the difference between CV padding and significant work experience?
How can the residency director distinguish between the two?
Would too much items in your CV come off as pretentious and insincere?
Yes, you need to work on stuff that you truly care about and that's what I am doing. Over the past couple months, I have been working on various health care education and management stuff because I was given the opportunities through my main project (ie. you are working with a department and they need help with designing a new patient scheduling and data collection system, which would in turn benefit my main project, or you realize that the residents working with ya enjoy a particular aspect of the education and you want to promote and propagate upon that, etc)

Am I going to mention those in my CV? Absolutely, especially most of my work have been approved by the different departments. But the question is... would it run the risk of coming off as CV padding or bull****ting?

Exaggerating your role in any of the things that you did would be considered "padding". Most academic physicians know the things that you are likely to have legitimately accomplished and stuff that just "fluff".

If you are saying that you "helped" do something, then state specifically what you did rather than just "assisted". Assisting can mean taking on a significant role or correcting spelling in a document. Be as specific and as accurate as you can rather than just listing a bunch of general things.

If you have specific duties listed, it's less likely to come off as fluff.

 

[Knicks]

Totally agree with this, OP. Don't leave anything that you think might be even remotely worthwhile to mention out of there. By the way, your "padding" may be the equivalent of the "core" substance of other peoples' CVs, it's all relative.

I like this.

 

[coralfangs]

Exaggerating your role in any of the things that you did would be considered "padding". Most academic physicians know the things that you are likely to have legitimately accomplished and stuff that just "fluff".

If you are saying that you "helped" do something, then state specifically what you did rather than just "assisted". Assisting can mean taking on a significant role or correcting spelling in a document. Be as specific and as accurate as you can rather than just listing a bunch of general things.

If you have specific duties listed, it's less likely to come off as fluff.

Some very fine points all of you have addressed. really appreciate all your input

This one in particular does concern me
I have actually been thinking about the choice of wordings in some of the descriptions in my CV.
For instance.... for the new scheduling and data collection system. Basically, I sat down with a hospital admin and we brainstormed for hours on how to approach designing the new system (just me and him), and we spent hours thinking about different scenarios that might affect the system, then we talked to different physicians in order to troubleshoot, blah blah
How would you describe it?
Would you say you designed the system, troubleshoot it, etc
However, wouldn't you come off as arrogant if you claim that you, merely a med student, have designed a system? You know what I'm saying?

 

[sunset823]

I think the longest CV I've seen (from an old physician-scientist) was close to 100 pages long (not kidding), and I've seen several in the 30-40 pg range, including a table of contents.

That being said, we're not wizened gray haired physician-scientists. But, I have tons of stuff on my CV, a lot of it not medicine related, but that were important to me. Obviously I didn't put odd jobs shelving books at the medical library, and I'm probably going to cull my web design/computer programming skills when applying to residencies, but I do want to show programs the whole picture of me and all my interests, including those outside of medicine. Also, I really want to go into academics, so I've organized my CV into research, teaching, and internship experiences, and include all my publications, even though only one of them (so far) is a peer-reviewed journal article.

If some programs think that's overkill, so be it. But I think it's worth it being on there. I think the risk of someone thinking its 'padding' is offset by the benefit of having more to talk about in an interview and maybe finding something that piques the interest of high-ups.

P.S. How about 're-designed?' I don't think that's too far from what you describe.

 

[coralfangs]

Ha, I decided to shamelessly ask my PIs and co-workers to write them for me or at least edit them for me. That way, there won't be any surprises when the residency programs contact them and we would have mutual understandings on my contributions to the projects.

 

[mmmcdowe]

I think my life story fit in like 8 pages during undergrad when I made a packet for my letter writers, and that was double spaced with 2-3 pages of nothing but my transcript. My resume was 1 page and after a year in medical school it is still one page (then again, I dumped everything that I haven't done since medical school)