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Putting Zoom talks to online groups on CVs?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Al writes:

People are forming all kinds of zoom groups. Suppose it’s wildly unlikely that you would have been brought out to a campus setting for some event but a group of people invited you to speak or present something to their department zoom group or these people are reading something of yours and they invite you join in that week. This doesn’t feel CV worthy to me but I also can’t see why not exactly… it’s a lot like a department or research group inviting you to their campus for a colloquium in a way… just no plane ticket. I’m tempted to add a “Covid/online activity” section to my cv. Any thoughts?

I haven't been a part of any of these groups, but I've heard a bit about them. People increasingly seem to be getting invited to provide guest-talks to other people's classes (including graduate seminars), as well as to reading groups of various sorts–some housed primarily within a department and others including scholars from other universities (particularly universities in the surrounding region). In response to this query, another reader ('Appearances') wrote:

You can put what you want on your cv. But the lower grade the stuff is that you list, the lower you are pitching yourself. I advised someone to take their computer skills off their cv…and then they got a permanent position. They were pitching themselves in a way that made them look like …

This seems right to me. Appearances matter, and it seems to me that the more you include stuff like this, the more 'desperate' you may look. In addition to being quite a bit of a lottery, the academic job-market has always seemed to me a lot like dating: you want to look confident and accomplished rather than insecure and 'making up accomplishments' to pad your CV. While it may be tempting to think of being invited to present to one of these online groups as a genuine accomplishment, the real question here is how it is going to look. As 'Appearances' noted, they don't think it looks very good, and I suspect they are not alone. Might there be counterexamples? Suppose that some Famous Philosopher invites you to give a guest lecture to their grad seminar. Could that look good? I guess it could–but in that case, instead of creating a Covid/online activity' section, I'm inclined to think it may make more sense to just change the 'Invited Talks' section of your CV to something like 'Invited Talks and Guest Lectures', or some such. 

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours? 

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11 responses to “Putting Zoom talks to online groups on CVs?”

  1. Derek Bowman

    Yes, it would be very unseemly if you showed any indication that you desperately need a job in order to secure reliable access to food, shelter, housing, medical care, and/or the basic comforts of living.

    Reply
  2. Michelle

    I would add these to invited talks. This is what they are after all. I think we also need to reassess the status we give to in person talks given the Carbon emissions associated and the short window to get to net zero. Refusing to relegate low carbon presenting to a lower status is one part of changing the culture. And while those inviting you might have not had to spend money for you to attend, there are still only so many slots for a staff seminar and you’ve been chosen for one of them!

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  3. Marcus Arvan

    Derek: come on, the claim wasn’t that there is anything unseemly about it. There’s nothing improper about it. But let’s be real: we live in the real world where (for better or worse) appearances matter. It’s fine to rail against it, I suppose, but for my part I don’t think it is very helpful in terms of giving people good prudential advice.

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  4. Michel

    Like Michelle, I would have thought ‘Invited Talks’ was a fine section for that sort of thing. Some invitations are more prestigious than others, of course, but I wouldn’t have thought there was any harm in listing them there.
    (Not that I would know!)

    Reply
  5. anonymous person

    I have a separate section later on my cv for ‘invited talks in seminars, reading groups, and summer schools’. If a zoom talk is one of those things, I put it there. If it is a normal talk (like a colloquium talk or something like that), but just delivered virtually, I put it under the more standard heading.
    I think this is a good solution because it makes clear that some of these talks are more informal teaching-style things, but it’s not like we shouldn’t value teaching-style things or think that it says something when someone is invited to do them. Indeed, it’s often evidence that someone both finds your work interesting enough to teach/discuss, and thinks you will be a particularly good presenter/teacher for their undergrads, grad students, reading group, etc. So I don’t think there’s any reason not to put it on your cv.

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  6. Andrew

    (1) I think Derek is actually right. CVs that make it seem like you’re just looking for a job or are desperately on the edge are deeply unattractive to committees looking for professional philosophers with the appropriate achievements. (same thing with dating: dates that reek of desperation don’t scream good life partner).
    (2) I don’t agree with anonymous person. A this point, it looks either like padding and winding up with a tediously long CV or if the CV is still short, a section that would immediately raise questions about whether this should or should not be included and does or does not count for anything.

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  7. Derek Bowman

    Marcus,
    You’re right that you’re offering useful advice while I’m just venting. But I think we’re both being real. You’re right that in applying for a job (and in dating) appearing desperate makes you unattractive. But I think I’m right about what we’re doing when we judge people that way. The reason those appearances are so important is that we don’t like to be reminded about the ways in which we are all deeply vulnerable and dependent upon others to meet our basic human needs.

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  8. anonymous person

    Hi Andrew–maybe you’re right–I wasn’t really thinking clearly that this is mostly about what is at stake for people without TT jobs (I am going up for tenure shortly and my cv is pretty full–so I don’t have to worry about people judging me for potentially padding, since my cv serves a different purpose for me than a cv does for someone looking for a job).
    Though, just anecdotally I don’t think this would bother me on a job candidate’s cv–of course, I could be wrong about that, might be implicitly irked, etc. so take everything I’ve said above with a grain of salt!

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  9. Prof L

    I just invited a person to give a talk to a group I’m running, and he delivered an excellent paper. I didn’t pay him anything, and I would be bummed if he thought this was too “low grade” to put on his CV. It was less costly and less of a hassle to do it over zoom, but the philosophical and professional value of it very much the same. The conferences that have moved online I’ve included under presentations with ‘online’ in parentheses. Invited talks I would do the same.
    Guest teaching seems like a weird thing to put on a CV in any case. Sometimes people have done that as part of a visit (“Hey, while you’re here, teach my class!”) but I’ve never seen it on a CV, except in cases of graduate students who have very little other teaching experience. Online guest teaching I would think of similarly—weird to put it on a CV.
    Reading groups are also done primarily for one’s own edification—I’m thinking of a scenario where people take turns leading the group? If so, yes, also weird to put on a CV, whether online or in person.
    In general, if it’s not original research, don’t put it on the CV under “presentations”. If it is, yes, put it on the CV.

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  10. SEC postdoc

    I think the padding worry is legitimate, but I could also see a candidate who gets invited to speak to classes or whatever as being pretty attractive to some departments. In conjunction with good research, it could show that a junior scholar is good at connecting with others and produces interesting work. Not quite the same as publishing good public philosophy, but something that similarly fuses teaching, research, and service.
    If not on a CV, maybe this is the sort of thing to bring to letter writers’ attention?

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  11. Amanda

    I’d just have it under a different section than regular invited talks (unless it is an actual colloquial invitation. many are online because of COVID, and that shouldn’t make these colloquia any less valuable than they would be in a non-covid year.) If it is not a colloquia talk but speaking to either a class or a reading group, then I would have a different section that I either put with the teaching part of my CV or the community service part. i think it might look good for some teaching schools, as long as you don’t try to present it as an invited colloquia talk. That is a bad idea, as it could devalue the rest of colloquia talks listed, because a search committee members sees it there and immediately thinks, ‘I can’t trust this list.’ All of that said, I suspect it is pretty small potatoes either way. Invited colloquia talks even, typically don’t make much of a difference in a search. Well, that has been my experience.

    Reply

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