Information Awareness Report

A. As my time at the Kent School of Library and Information Science begins to wind down, with my coursework finishing in September, I have begun to turn my attention to the arena of finding employment. As I began to educate myself about job searching strategies and pinpointed the job searching sites that I've begun checking daily, one serious gap in my knowledge became apparently. What in the world is a “CV”? And how do I get one? Because apparently, this is something that is important to have.

I realize now that I had somehow missed an important step in being a professional adult. Was I simply out of the room every time someone mentioned a Curriculum Vitae? How could I have never come across such a ubiquitous part of the professional toolkit? I still have no answers to these questions. Suffice to say, I somehow missed ever hearing of a Curriculum Vitae and I had no idea where to begin. But since quite a few job postings I was interested in required the submission of a CV, it became apparent that I was going to need to create one.

B. My first step was to call my parents and indignantly exclaim “Why did you never tell me about CV's?” As this was not a productive line of questioning, the conversation soon turned to what this strange and mythical document was. They explained that it was a documentation of your professional life and accomplishments thus far, beyond the scope of what can be contained in a resume. Skills, qualifications, publications, and relevant experience should be included in this document. They offered to send me a copies of their CVs so that I could see how they were formatted. Somewhat mollified, I thanked them and hung up the telephone.

My second step was a Google search, which turned up an enormous number of hits. As many people are searching for employment during this recession, a multitude of resources have sprung up detailing how to make a CV and what should be included, complete with sample CVs to show users how it is done. It was a little difficult to wade through these resources to pinpoint the “best” ones, but after I had read through a few of them I began to recognize common recurring steps for CV creation and maintenance.

C. My search query, for both in person and online searches, was the same. “What is a Curriculum Vitae?”. This query to both my parents and Google turned up so much information that I did not need to formulate a second query. At first I feared that it was too general and that I would have to refine the search term, that I had too many results. But after going through the first ten search hits, I found that most resources had both the answer of “what is it” and “how do I do it?” Many resources also focused on how to make your CV competitive for a tough job market, which I did not think to query but gladly learned about.

D. My first resources consulted were “My Parents”. My Mom is a public speaker who runs her own business and trains corporations on topics such as “Dealing with Difficult People” and “Balancing Work and Family”. My Father is a high school religion teacher. Their CVs both covered different aspects of professionalism, with my Mother's focusing on publications and committees that she's been affiliated with, while my Father's focused on different kinds of training that he'd received. Looking at their CVs gave me a basic template to start from, a general understanding of what I was trying to learn about.

The first hit that Google turned up for me was on jobsearch.com. (http://jobsearch.about.com/od/curriculumvitae/Curriculum_Vitae.htm )It outlined how to write a CV, when it was appropriate to use a CV, and included many templates and examples. The domain “jobsearch.com” made me more likely to see if it was a reputable source of information, and the step by step guides were very helpful in breaking the process down into smaller chunks.

The wikipedia article on CVs also proved to be helpful. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curriculum_vitae) This focused more on the history of CVs and how they are used in the job market. It also details many different CV practices between counties, alerting me to the fact that I should look for information from sites in American domains and not from, say the UK.

I then came across the following pdf from MIT: www.mit.edu/~career/guide/cv.pdf . I was interested in seeing what this guide has to say, as MIT is a very respected school that turns out many professional graduates each year. It provided a short checklist of all of the items that should be included in a CV, and also provided several links for more information. Many of these links seem to have a science career emphasis, which does not apply to my situation, but some of them may be useful.

Dartmouth also has a page about how to create a CV. (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~gradstdy/careers/services/vita.html ) I found this one more helpful as it does not simply list elements that should be included, but gives a description of what those elements are and how best to display them. I felt that this was a detailed and secure guide to follow, now that I had a better idea of the basic structure of a CV.

E. I was very satisfied with the results of my search. I felt that I had found 5 resources that explained to me how this process was accomplished and what its goals should be. I felt that I had a list of items to include and a step my step method for creating my CV. I understood the why, when, and how of the Curriculum Vitae. Now I simply had to undertake the daunting task of summarizing my life's experience in print.

F. At this point in my search process I decided to cease because I felt that I had the information that I needed to get started. I understood what a CV was and I had a battle plan at the ready. I felt that I could follow the steps outlined in several of these resources and come out with a working CV. I also planned to make an appointment at the Kent Career Center to give me a critique when I have finished, so that I can have a second opinion about anything I may have missed. I felt at this point that I could proceed with my project and do it well, and thus I ceased my search.

E. My first instinct was to consult people that I felt would be familiar with my information gap – in this case, my parents. Having gotten a basic idea of what I did not know, I was then able to strike out online and find it. Because of the nature of the information gap (in this case, a fairly well known document that most professionals have to create), there was an abundance of easy information available to me online. Had it been a more obscure topic, I may have consulted more print sources. But I think that my age has reinforced a belief that information found online is reliable providing that it comes from a reputable source. By being careful which sites I relied upon (and by looking for agreement between the resources), I felt that I had amassed information on my knowledge gap that I could trust. It was a fairly quick process and enabled me to get to work on a very important part of my job search.