Writing Curriculum Vitaes

[raj2002]

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This is one strictly for the English students but it would be nice to see what our brothers across the water think.
I was looking at some sapmple CVs the other day and I noticed a striking difference between the way people create their medical curriculum vitaes.

Like there are those who put down every qualification under the sun that they got -even GCSEs!
How is this relevant to a job you apply for when you are 24, I ask?

I was wondering if its a good idea to put them down at all. The only thing I learned form a CV like that is that the candidate involved went to a specialist school where every candidate gets 10 A stars.....surely thata a detrimental fact to put on your CV?

What do you think?

 

[13538]

The biggest mistake people make when writing a CV is they don't tailor it for the job/post they are applying to. If you are a applying for a medical post...there's no need to put down your GCSEs and A Levels...at a push you could put down where you went to school and between which years for completeness sake. Your medical qualification is the most important along with any intercalated degrees, higher degrees, royal college memberships etc... Same goes for work experience, only put down stuff which is relevant to the job for which you are applying...i.e. electives etc.

Anything longer than 3-4 pages is really pushing it...unless the application stipulates differently.

 

[FionaS]

Hey raj

I was once advised to put what grades you got for GCSE (unless they were a little dodgy 😉 ) but not the actual subjects, and then put the A level subjects with there grades up until about SHO, and then just put the year and number of GCSEs/A levels for higher jobs ie

For PRHO/SHO

1998 9 GCSEs, 7 A* grades, 2 A grades
2000 A levels in Chem (A), Bio (A), Physics (A), Gen Studies (A)
AS levels in Maths (A)

For SpR/Consultant

1998 9 GCSEs
2000 4 A levels, 1 AS level

For me I would err on the side of too much info so long as its clear and not too long. You'd be surprised how many consultants still proudly put their O level results on the CV, let alone A level results! (For Americans: O levels came before GCSEs, they don't exist anymore)

 

[raj2002]

Thanks Trinners and Fiona from Birmingham!
Thats an interesting clash of views. Pistols at dawn, perchance?
But how does that weigh with, for instacne, mature medcial students, who might have a set of GCSEs with only the odd few A grades?
Yet they would have put in the same amount of work and inteleect to get those grades back in 1989, or whenever..! Surely we can't count on our employers to know things like this? A case of unintentional age discrimination, perhaps?

More to say about the rest of the CV, I'll be back when I've looked into it more...hope I'm being useful here

 

[13538]

GCSEs and A-levels add nothing to a CV if you are applying for a medical post - they aren't relevant. It's not as if it's an indicator of your clinical competence and all that... You wouldn't put down your exam results for each year in medical school because it's not relevant...same thing...

If you're a mature student and have dodgey school grades put down your degree result... I wouldn't worry about school grades too much...I seriously doubt they factor in selection for jobs 🙂