Career and Life Planning Guidebook for Medical Residents

transparency while still upholding the highest levels of confidentiality. Not to mention, it’s just easier to manage this enormous paper trail online. It’s actually more likely that you’ll be asked to share your CV digitally versus providing paper copies. As you share yourself digitally, here are two critical recommendations: 1. Follow Instructions It’s not that hard, really, to just follow instructions – search committees and others rely on you to do just that. If they want three recommendations, send or upload three. Never sendmoreor less than requested. Upload documents with recognizable file names, typically using your last name, followed by document type: Dokks_Imma_CV Dokks_Imma_Coverletter 2. Share only PDFs of your Documents Your CV is a grammarian’s worst nightmare. When search committees open your Word document, anything might show up with a green or red squiggly line. Those red and green lines send messages to your brain – ERROR! Your CV is formatted to the nines. Glue everything in placewith a PDF. You’ll be grateful you did. When not sent as a PDF, the formatting can become distorted and difficult to read. R E A D : Ethics and Integrity Honesty during the job search is imperative. Consider your career GAME OVER if you’re caught embellishing the truth. Search committees are under greater pressure and more scrutiny than ever to make sure that the physicians they’re hiring are who they say they are. After a series of scandals in the early years of the new millennia you can be pretty certain that just about every detail of your application materials – from dates to deeds – will be double checked by someone. Never forget this wise adage shared by a faculty member: “If you crawl out on that branch someone is going to cut it off.” Don’t go there. There are some trees you just shouldn’t climb. You’ve come this far. You only have one chance to make a good first impression – whether it’s format on paper or in person. The Art of Professional Storytelling: CV Building for Physicians 189 WWW.PHYSICIANCAREERPLANNING.COM