The Official CV Review Thread

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IndustryPharmD

IndustryPharmD

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It's that time of the year again, when normal people are thinking turkeys and pumpkin pies, and graduating pharmacy students are thinking CVs and/or resumes. And I have been getting a few requests to review their CVs. I am sure there are many others, seeking residences, fellowships and internships, who would like to have their CVs reviewed by someone trustworthy and with relevant experience. Therefore, with support and agreement from the pharmacy mods, I am starting the official thread for CV review.

IndustryPharmD
Best way to contact: PM me, and I will tell you the e-mail address to use
Timing: Please allow up to one week; if urgent, I can try my best for faster turnaround, but can't guarantee it.
Reviewing: CVs for applicants seeking industry fellowships only (and, I guess, resumes for industry job or internship seekers, but no clinical positions).
Qualifications: Completed an industry fellowship some years ago and have been working in industry since, participated in the hiring process for several fellows as well as employees – always on the commercial side, though.
CV philosophy: Your CV is your tool to showcase your best skills and experiences, so you should tailor it to reflect them. Think of it as your personal sales ad, in a way. However, you should always be truthful! And prepared to talk about any project or paper you list on your CV in detail.
Review philosophy: I will not sugarcoat anything, and will comment on anything I see. However, I will not be offended if you disregard my comments – after all, I am just one person, and opinions may vary. I will not rewrite your CV for you, but I am willing to work with you as many drafts as necessary until you (not I, it's not representing me, after all!) feel great about the final product.
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Let me preface by saying that the APhA’s guide to pharmacist CVs, resumes and interviewing (can be purchased from APhA, or borrowed from your college of pharmacy) is a good starting point for writing your first CV.

A good time to write a CV would be at the start of your rotations. Then you can update it after each rotation while the information is still fresh. It should also give you an ample time to edit it and get it reviewed before you actually need to use it. Some of you may have written a CV or a resume to use when seeking a rotation outside those normally offered by your school or when

What makes a CV (or a resume, for that matter) great as opposed to good? That’s a damn good question. And I am afraid I cannot answer it any better than the Supreme Court has answered the question about what is pornography. “I will know it when I see it.” :) A great CV makes a reader excited about the candidate. It showcases his/hers best experiences, skills and achievements in a very clear fashion. It should also be something the candidate him/herself feels great about, because a good CV provides a confidence boost for the interview.

General Format

  • Start with your personal information at the top
  • Objective (optional): some people include it, some don’t. I personally don’t see a great value in a newly minted student seeking a postgraduate program including an objective, since it is rather self-evident.
  • Education: since your expected PharmD is the qualification upon which your admittance into the fellowship hinges, education should be on top.
    [*]GPA: I would definitely include the GPA if it is above 3.5 and definitely not include GPA if it is below 3.0. Be consistent with including GPA for your pharmacy and undergraduate degrees – either include for both, or omit for both.
    [*]Relevant courses: if there are particular electives you have taken during your pharmacy or undergraduate career that are directly relevant to the position you are seeking, it may be an option to include them, otherwise, don’t bother.​
  • Work experience: I would go for chronological order. And I would not include positions such as waitressing you did during high school – unless you want to highlight specific (and important for the position you are applying for!) skills you gained during that time, such as customer service. Only relevant experience should be included. Internships should go here as well.
    [*]When listing your activities at work, try to highlight those most relevant to the position(s) you are applying
    [*]A good idea to put key achievements on there as well​
  • Pharmacy clerkships: should be a separate section. Including what you did during your rotations is optional and highly dependent on what rotations you did. If they were all, or nearly all run of the mill clinical and retail rotations, probably not – these experiences are fairly obvious and not directly relevant to the fellowships. If you did several industry-related rotations, including detail is advisable.
    • DO NOT include IPPEs. Once you start APPEs, your IPPEs are irrelevant.
  • Include any important publications or presentations. For presentations, it may be a good idea to list when, where, and to how large an audience they were presented. Hopefully they were not all just in-class ones.
  • Organizations/ Leadership experience: very important to include any leadership positions and key achievements in those positions, preferably in quantifiable fashion (i.e. organized a fundraiser dinner attended by 500 people, raised $10,000 for the class trip). Do not include irrelevant detail such as “attended an MRM” (who cares?) or elaborate that you “attended all regular meetings of the school’s APhA chapter”, just list “APhA-ASP member (dates)” and leave it at that, if you have nothing to highlight about it.
  • Volunteer experience: generally a good idea to include, especially if it is healthcare-related or allowed you to develop a particular skill, such as project management, teaching, etc.
  • Awards and scholarships: now, in this section it is OK to list every single one of them, no matter how small
  • Other skills: include other things that may sway things in your favor, such as fluency in a foreign language, or knowledge of computer programming or database administration, etc. Microsoft Office package skills are assumed to be there, no need to list unless you are an absolute wizard in a particular program and everyone always comes to you for things no one else knows.
  • Leave plenty of white space – it improves readability
  • Put your name as a header or footer on all but the title page of your CV – the pages tend to separate, unfortunately.

5 CV tips for pharmaceutical industry fellowship seekers
  1. Longer is not necessarily better. I can understand the desire to “beef CV up” by putting every little detail on it. I have done it myself, when I was writing my very first CV as a P2. However, having read a lot of them, and having heard many a snigger “look at it, not even out of school yet, and already an 8 page CV!”, I am much more in favor of highlighting the important information and not overloading it with irrelevant detail. Your interviewers will only have a couple minutes to scan your CV, if you boggle them down with a separate bullet point for everything you have done in retail pharmacy or every pharmacy organization meeting you have attended, the readers will never get to the really important project you did that you really want to talk about. Especially for commercial positions, where people are used to reading short and sweet resumes, length and irrelevant detail are a detriment.
  2. There is no “one format fits all”. Every student’s pharmacy school experience will be different. For some, it will make sense to have a separate section for presentations, for others, it will be better to list presentations with their corresponding rotations. For some, it will make sense to provide several bullet points of activities for every rotation, for others, just listing rotations will be best. Some students may have relevant work experience from before pharmacy school they may want to highlight. Think about what experiences are the most relevant and important to the positions you are seeking and let that be your guide.
  3. Target your CV to the position(s) you are seeking. Think of what in your past experiences you would really like to discuss in the face-to-face interview, the ones you think will greatly improve your chances of getting the position or make you stand out from the crowd of other applicants. Then make sure you include that on your CV to intrigue the interviewer and make them ask you about it. Which, of course, means they will have to invite you for the interview first.
  4. Be prepared to provide a great amount of detail about any position or project you put on your CV. Basically, if you have nothing to say about it other than “My preceptor asked me to do this little piece and I did it and have no idea what happened with it later” it may not be a good idea to have it feature prominently in your CV. On a non-CV related note, have copies of the projects/presentations you do have highlighted in your CV and really want to discuss during interview.
  5. Do not list your references on the CV. Type up the names, positions and contact information for your references and bring several copies with you just in case, though I honestly don’t remember ever being asked (or asking) about references in the fellowship interviews (job applications are a different deal).

This is all I can think of right now. I will update it if I think of something else.
 
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Thank you IndustryPharmD for such a great thread! If anyone with the relevant experience would like to contribute to this thread (advice, offer to read CV's, ect.), please feel free to do so.
 
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We need someone who has done a residency or is/was a residency program director to volunteer to review CVs. I am getting quite a few requests from students seeking residencies, and I can't offer more than general comments to them. :)
 
Just a friendly reminder that now is a good time to start working on your CV to have it polished and ready to go for Midyear.
 
anyone mind taking a look at a P3's CV who will be applying next year? I still have time to make up for any deficiencies i suppose. Thanks!
 
tungsten87 said:
anyone mind taking a look at a P3's CV who will be applying next year? I still have time to make up for any deficiencies i suppose. Thanks!
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As a P-3, it's probably a bit early since most P-3s don't have too much to put on one yet... but if you are setting up some of your own rotations, you would need a CV for those. If you want, I can take a look at yours - PM me for the e-mail address.
 
I am glad to say that I am working through my e-mails. Everyone who e-mailed me their CV for review before this week should have heard back by now. Everyone who e-mailed me this week - I plan to get back to you by the end of the weekend.

There is still time if you want me to take a look at your CV, but Midyear is just around the corner. :)
 
All CV requests sent to me prior to today are done. If you haven't heard from me - I have not received your e-mail (or you have not received my reply).
 
These things always felt obvious to me, so I did not think to spell them out before, but now that I have ground my fingers down to the bone typing them over and over again, there they are:

  1. Words "Curriculum Vitae" at the top of the first page are not necessary
  2. Paragraphs are bad, bullets are good. Especially when describing your duties at work or at a rotation site in any amount of detail.
  3. It's better to put dates on the right because in English we read left to right and most important information should come first.
  4. Avoid formatting that leaves 3/4 of the page empty - that makes your CV needlessly long and that is just plain annoying.
  5. Licenses, organizations, honors belong at the end unless the licenses are an absolute prerequisite for the positions you are applying for, or honors are extraordinary (no, Dean's List, a scholarship or Best Pharmacotherapy Student of the Year do not count as extraordinary).
  6. DUH things do not belong on the CV. Why don't you throw in that you know how to read, write and count to ten while you are at it...
  7. Fluff does not belong on the CV. You can SHOW your cheerful attitude and so on in the interview. Seeing all that "serve patients with compassion" "build loyalty through cheerful service" etc. is at best laughable.
  8. The first page of your CV is the only one that's guaranteed at least a quick glance. Therefore, it is the place for the most important things. if you are a typical graduating student looking for a typical post-doc program, that means your education, your work experience and/or your clerkships if your work experience is not pharmacy-related. Your licenses belong on the first page in one case only: if you are seeking a job for which the licenses you already have! are a requirement. Such as your pharmacist license (not an intern license) if you are applying for a job that requires a license.
  9. Avoid weird and unusual fonts. There is nothing wrong with Arial and Times New Roman. Some fonts I have seen are just plain annoying to read. You should use content (and phrasing, to a lesser extent) to stand out, not creative fonts.
  10. The same thing applies to formatting. Weird formatting is just that - weird and annoying. And often wastes a lot of space. Simple "where/what on the left, dates on the right" works perfectly well.
  11. A thesaurus is a great tool when used appropriately. Writing your CV is not when it should be used. At least, not for finding fancy words. Especially not when you are not sure what those words really mean.
  12. *DO* try to target your CV to positions you are applying for. Not doing so is an equivalent of data dumping, a mortal sin in quite a few quarters. Besides, if you have twenty irrelevant details and one detail that you really, really want the reader to notice - do you think they will? As opposed to when you have five interesting and relevant things?
  13. Do not seed your CV with buzzwords. It doesn't have to be "paradigm shift" to be facepalm-inducing.


I am afraid I will keep populating this list as I keep reviewing. I have meant to start it for a while but I kept forgetting.
 
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Only two weeks left until the Midyear. If you are applying for a residency, you still have time to work on your CV since applications are due sometime in the first or second week of January. If you are applying for a fellowship, you pretty much have to have it ready to go when you arrive to the PPS.

For those who have sent me their CVs - I am working through them, and you should be getting them back by the end of Thanksgiving weekend at the latest, though really I hope to do them before the holiday. My plans for the Turkey Day do not include reviewing CVs. :)
 
Whew, all CVs that I have received, I have reviewed and sent back. Happy Turkey Day, everyone!
 
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Hello,

Your posts have been a great help!! I really appreciate all the advice that you provide students that are interested in a fellowship. I was actually wondering if you would be able to look over my CV before next midyear next week sat. I know this is very last minute so I understand if you will not be able to. Thanks and have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Take care.
 
Questions CVs for PGY1 residency:

do we include drug info questions? if yes, do we just write out drug info question: " ? " and give a couple of bullets on answer?
can we list journal article discussions? or strictly journal clubs? if so, do we cite the article in our CV? do we write a couple of bullets under each article we've reviewed, discussed and/or presented?

i won some pretty known awards before freshman year, coca cola scholar, mercedes benz scholar, elks lodge, etc? do i include these? i really don't have any pharmacy related awards unfortunately

also! im in a non rx sorority...held vp and fundraising chair position. do i include this in as well? what heading would it be under?
i also emceed a popular event at my school 3 years in a row. a multi cultural show in front of 300-500 students? include?
more questions to come... thanks!
 
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Everyone should have heard back from me by now. Happy Holidays, and Good Luck to you all!
 
Not sure if this goes here...
 

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I have a somewhat extensive work history before pharmacy school. I truncated it and only included the last 10 years. Should I truncate it even more and only include the non-pharmacy related job I held during pharmacy school?
 
Thank you for posting such a helpful thread IndustryPharmD! I am actually trying to PM you in regards to my questions, but I am not able to. Could you please PM me an email address where I may be able to contact you with my questions?

Thank you
 
I have cleaned my PM box a little... though I have decided against offering to review CVs this year mainly because I am too busy to promise a decent turnaround time on those... Besides, in the years I have done it, majority of CVs submitted for comments were from residency candidates. While I applaud their efforts, I am personally much more invested in helping those who pursue industry fellowships, since that's where I can offer the best advice - and where I am most interested in helping people. So I may still review an occasional CV for a true fellowship candidate, but I am really not planning on doing a few dozen. :)
 
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Those of you who sent me CVs for review prior to November 13th should have received my comments. If you did not - then I have not received yours. The rest will be coming over the next few days.
 
Everyone should have received their CVs back by now. I am not accepting any new CVs for reviews at least until YE 2013. Happy Thanksgiving and good luck!
 
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I would like to reiterate that I will consider reviewing CVs ONLY for candidates pursuing positions in pharmaceuticals industry. I will NOT review any CVs for residencies or clinical positions. This is not my area of expertise. You will get more useful feedback from your clinical faculty members. After three years of pharmacy school, surely you have built good relationships with at least a couple of your professors, who you could turn to for professional development advice? All the general comments I could provide I have already outlined in this very thread.

I know I have reviewed some in years past, but I no longer have time or energy to spare on something where I will not be providing value that other easily accessible reviewers could not provide.
 
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Hi IndustryPharmD

I am currently updating my CV to include my 4rd year rotation experiences thus far but I am having trouble figuring out how much detail to add. Is listing my rotations and preceptor sufficient or should I go into detail of all of my roles and responsibilities? To what extent do fellowship interviewers look at that?
 
I am a PGY-1 at a large academic cancer hospital and I am more than happy to review CVs. Please PM me if you are interested =]
 
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tungsten87 said:
I am a PGY-1 at a large academic cancer hospital and I am more than happy to review CVs. Please PM me if you are interested =]
Click to expand...
I want to send my resume but I don't see any link to attach in conversation for Private messages. Any ideas?
 
edit: Whoops, meant to post in your other thread, will copy it there
 
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hellofellow said:
Hi IndustryPharmD

I am currently updating my CV to include my 4rd year rotation experiences thus far but I am having trouble figuring out how much detail to add. Is listing my rotations and preceptor sufficient or should I go into detail of all of my roles and responsibilities? To what extent do fellowship interviewers look at that?
Click to expand...

I was wondering the same thing. And would you put on your CV what projects/JC/case presentations you have done for each rotation?
 
It depends on your rotations. If all or all but one of your rotations are bog-standard boring retail/hospital/clinic rotations, then just site and preceptor are enough. You can list major projects presentations you have done in the projects/presentations section. There is nothing more mind-numbingly boring than reading 6-8-10 lists of "filled prescriptions/counseled patients/went on rounds". Knowing what's important and what's not is key to effective communication, so I would actually count pages of obvious and irrelevant detail against you.

Now, if you have done several rotations that are unique and/or directly relate to the position for which you are applying - then by all means provide additional detail for each rotation. Such as, if you are applying for a regulatory fellowship and you have done a rotation at the FDA - that warrants a few bullet points. Your standard rotations can have just one bullet point, no need to expand them just to make them seem "more equal".

I would certainly not put journal clubs or case presentations on your CV. Everyone does them all the time, it's boring and obvious. It's like listing every class of medications you have prepared in the IV room in terms of value.
 
Hi IndustryPharmD

Thank you so much for your help so far! Your responses are really clearing up a lot of my questions. I have another one for you. With the application, should I include a cover letter with my CV along with an letter of interest?
 
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Only if the program explicitly asks for one. Letter of intent is pretty much the same as a cover letter anyway, I can't imagine a situation where one would have to send both.
 
Hello!

I tried to search around forums for an answer, but I couldn't find anything that would exactly answer my question, so here it is:

I am a P4 student who is planning on applying for fellowship, but unfortunately did not get any industry rotations (put all of the few ones my school offers on my preference list though, :arghh: randomization) and so here I am, going to all of the fellowship information sessions, asking questions, meeting up with fellows, and actually have a shadowing day opportunity coming up at a pharma company. My concern is that is this enough, and can this be put on a CV? For example, "I shadowed a company/met up with fellows" under a heading of "Industry exposure" or "industry experience"?

I'm thinking of putting a small little header titled "Industry exposure" with a description, underneath a big header of "APPEs" (since it is during my P4 year) and hoping that this shows interest and that I didn't just randomly decide to apply for fellowships.

Thoughts? Too much? It's possible I could put this in a cover letter, I just hope it's not skimmed over...

Thanks!
 
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I wouldn't put any shadowing or any such meetings on the CV, it just looks silly. However, you can certainly expect a question during your Midyear interviews - why did you decide to apply for a fellowship. That would be the perfect time to mention your industry exposure and to explain that you tried to arrange an industry rotation but were not successful.
 
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What is your opinion on including professional meetings attended on a CV (e.g. APhA annual, ASHP Midyear, etc.)?
 
Is anyone available to review a CV for a P4 interested in applying for PGY1 Community Pharmacy residencies with an ambulatory care focus? I'm in the process of updating mine based on previous feedback at my school and would love some additional insight. Thanks!
 
I may have posted it in the Industry 101, but I think it should be here too...

If you are preparing your CV for the fellowship interviews at the Midyear, don't sweat them too much. ing

Most people who will be interviewing you at the meeting will not have a chance to read your CV in detail. It is far less important in that specific setting than in most other employment situations you are likely to encounter. So make sure you are really prepared for your interview. And make sure your CV will help, rather than hinder, your interview, because most of us will be idly thumbing through the CV while the candidate is answering a question since you cannot really maintain eye contact for 30 minute straight, it's just weird. Especially if the interview is not going great, a good CV where something stands out and grabs interviewer's attention can really give your conversation a fresh start... just like something sloppy that stands out in a negative way can compromise the first impression. Other than that, a CV is probably not going to affect your Midyear performace all that much... and any decisions regarding onsite interviews will be made on the basis of the Midyear interviews, with CVs only coming into play if there are a couple candidates who are very close and the company is trying to decide which one to bring on board.

Good luck!
 
I may have some limited capacity to review CVs now through Thanksgiving. If you are a serious industry fellowship candidate, PM me for details. Please do make sure any CV you are sending me has been proofread, and follows the advice I have posted in this thread. I am tired of having to make the same comments over and over again and may send back your draft with one comment - to read this thread and edit accordingly before resending.
 
I have four CVs left to review as of right now and expect to get them out to people before 11/24. I can review a couple more, if there are any last-minute requests, but then it will be it for the year.
 
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I am not accepting any more CVs for review this year. I have about as many as I can reasonably expect to review before the end of the Thanksgiving weekend.

I am also a bit... displeased that majority of people who PMed me their requests are not established members of these boards - no posts and registered just before PMing me. When I started this thread, I intended it as a service to my fellow SDNers, but instead I am starting to feel like a sucker for being a free alternative to resume review services that charge upwards of 100 bucks. Going forward, I think I will only review CVs for established posters, or at least those who have been in touch with me via PMs for a couple years on different industry-related questions.
 
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I am a clinical specialty pharmacist at a VA hospital, having finished a PGY-1 residency at a VA hospital. I have experience reviewing CVs for PGY-1 programs in the past year, due to my involvement with the ASHP CV review program, as well as involvement in the candidate selection process for the residency program I was in last year as a current resident back then.

Please PM me if you are interested in having your CVs reviewed, especially for clinical PGY-1 residency programs. Good luck to you all who are applying!
 
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Hello,
I have a particular question about listing volunteering events. Since I have many events, if I listed them all by months (assuming I kept a good record of them all), then there would be many pages on my CV. What format do you recommend? Also, on PhORCAS, do you list all the months that you volunteered throughout 4 years of school?

Thanks!
 
I have a question about listing clinical rotations on a CV. Where should I list future rotations? Or am I better off not listing the 4 months of rotations I have in 2015?

Thanks!
 
Seeker5 said:
Hello,
I have a particular question about listing volunteering events. Since I have many events, if I listed them all by months (assuming I kept a good record of them all), then there would be many pages on my CV. What format do you recommend? Also, on PhORCAS, do you list all the months that you volunteered throughout 4 years of school
Click to expand...
I am not a fan of including single events on the CV. It looks like cheap resume padding and it doesn't differentiate you because everyone and their dog has participated in some kind of a walk/fundraiser/whatever. I would only list committed, recurrent activities, such as evenings at a charity care clinic once a week for several months/years or highlight a few events for which you really had to DO something, rather than just show up.
 
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asc05 said:
I have a question about listing clinical rotations on a CV. Where should I list future rotations? Or am I better off not listing the 4 months of rotations I have in 2015?
Click to expand...
Most people separate their APPEs (I think I have already written more than once that IPPEs do not belong on a CV of anyone who has completed at least one APPE!) into a separate category, and it is perfectly fine to list expected rotations and their dates in that section, be it in chronological or reverse chronological order. They can be really helpful if you were unlucky in your rotation assignment and rotations that would be most meaningful to the position(s) for which you are applying are rotations you won't complete until Spring. By listing them, you can at least show that you tried your best to get that experience and will have completed it before you start your fellowship or residency.
 
Hello fellow SDNers,

I am P4 at the moment and planning on doing residency. I was wondering if anyone would be willing to reveiw my CV?

It would be greatly appreciated!

I know Industry PharmD Said he only prefers ones written for fellowships.

Please let me know.
Thank you all!
 
I am sure this is buried somewhere in this thread. Anyone have any tips of how to construct a CV to apply to PGY2? Any tips to what it should and should not include, advice on what would help one stick out, differences in comparison to a PGY1-CV?

Thanks in advanced. Feel free to message me privately or here. Comfortable either way.
 
I have debated whether I should volunteer to review CVs now that the new fellowship application season is upon us, and there are no other volunteer reviewers. If interested, PM me.

I have worked in industry for 10+ years on the commercial side. I did a fellowship myself, but I haven't really been involved with them much in the last five or six years... I have seen plenty of CVs and resumes (including from non-pharmacy people).

I cannot tell you how to add all the bells and whistles or even if bells and whistles are wanted, but I can tell you if your CV captures attention or not, if it drags on and bores me to tears, if there are too few or too many details about something that should or should not be highlighted... I am not a proofreader (I lose concentration quickly if I try to read for details, I am a big-picture person), but I can tell if something needs one!

And good luck to all the P-4s considering industry fellowships!
 
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