The U.K. CV and Its Idiosyncrasies

Order of items:

1. Contact Info

2. Education

3. Languages [if in medieval or early modern only]

*

4. Pedagogical Training

5. Teaching Experience

*

6. Academic Service

7. Scholarly Affiliations

8. Grants and Awards

*

9. Research Interests

10. Work In Progress

11. Research Assistantships

12. Conference Papers

13. Publications

*

14. References

Teaching should go up front; research at the end, and the other stuff in the middle. The idea is that even though UK schools will expect you to have and to maintain a research profile (and a strong one, since to keep their RAE (research assessment exercise) ranking they want everyone to generate a book every five years, forever!), the actual post that they’re hiring you for is a Lectureship, and so by rights you should begin by showing your teaching qualifications. Research, then, gets saved until the end to pack “a final punch” — even to the extent of ending with publications rather than leading with them. And then the rest of the runaround of life goes in between.

Professionalizing pedagogy is a hot issue in the UK right now, so put a spotlight on pedagogical training, such as THE500, TATP certificates, etc.

Make no mention of your citizenship if it is not EU/UK (why trouble them unnecessarily by drawing attention to the paperwork to follow?), and cut any sections on Graduate Courses Taken and Seminars Attended.

The list of Teaching Assistantships should be more compact than the North American version; streamline comments about my teaching duties.

A few more things:

– a course instructor is equivalent to a “sessional lecturer” (and that’s the title they’ll understand)

– a TA is called a “postgraduate tutor”

-they do not understand the acronym “ABD” (since PhD programs there only involve writing a dissertation, all PhD candidates are ABD the moment they begin)

-titles of publications and papers should go in single quotes, not double

Irene Morra and Linda Hutcheon