CV guide: Getting your foot in the interviewer's door

A resume or curriculum vitae is key to getting the position you want. Here's how to best put your accomplishments on paper.

By Robert Kazel, AMNews staff. April 26, 2004.

As the physician recruiter at Columbia Park Medical Group in Fridley, Minn., Judy Brown looks at hundreds of resumes and CVs every year. They range from excellent to abysmal, and some are just plain odd.

Brown still chuckles, remembering a makeshift CV she was handed while waiting for a flight at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. She was chatting with a man at the gate who turned out to be a family physician, and the more she described her group, the more he grew interested in working there. The doctor asked Brown for something to write on. She searched her purse, and the doctor proceeded to hastily scrawl his work history and accomplishments on a series of blue sticky notes.

He didn't get hired.

A resume can greatly help or hinder a doctor's chance at getting an interview. But experts say creating a winning resume can be challenging for doctors, who typically are proud of their achievements yet shy about elaborating on them. Consultants say writing a resume successfully is like finding just the right amount of acrobatic balance to walk a tightrope: The resume should be concise but not overly brief. It should call attention to strengths without bragging. And it can be sufficiently creative to stand apart from the stack, but not so over-the-top that it seems weird or wacky.

There are few strict rules when it comes to preparing your resume or CV. Younger doctors recently out of school more often produce resumes; more experienced physicians, especially those seeking research-oriented positions, tend to turn out full-scale CVs that might consist of dozens of pages recounting achievements that can include awards, research projects and journal articles.