Listing interview talks on CVs - an ethical dilemma...

[sensaes]

...or just pointing at another elephant in the living room?

Interesting blog post from FSP:

"On CVs, it is common to include a list of invited talks given at other universities, research labs, professional organizations, or companies...Should you include interview talks? You don't have to indicate them as such of course, but should you even list

Comments

[tyopsqueene]

Why...would you bother in the first place? Are invited talks/conferences honestly that prestigious that it's worth using job interviews to pad that section out? Surely any really prestigious talk will be flagged as such (at the blah blah exclusive conference, plenary talk at the whatever, so-and-so centenary address) so there's no point sliding in job talks just to make up the numbers. (Unless you want your CV to be some sort of 9 volume epic, I guess).

As per, I don't get it.

[max_ambiguity]

An invited talk is especially prestigious when you're so famous in your field that people will call you up out of the blue and offer to pay you money to come speak, as opposed to applying for the privilege and footing your own bill like the rest of us schlubs. I don't consider job talks in the same category as that, although the term "invited talk" certainly invites confusion.

[tyopsqueene]

I think that as the person [1] who's done most of the inviting at two different departments for the past six years I now know it's much more to do with whether some random woman saw your presentation at a conference and thought you were a half-way competent presenter
and/or whether you're her friend who she hasn't seen in a while
and/or you just happen to be working on a topic someone she's trying to suck up to is working on and she wants you all to go out to dinner on work expenses and schmooze.
than being 'so famous in the field'...

I dunno, maybe everyone else is more ethical about it ;)

[1] Oh! Hey! I'm female and competent, bring me thine admin and huddled masses.

Let it all out.

[sensaes]

That felt good, didn't it? ;o)

[max_ambiguity]

Oh, sure, that too - but it's still different from being picked from a pool of applicants.

[tyopsqueene]

Honestly, I think I'd be more impressed by conference papers than invited talks - unless it's a particularly prestigious invited talk. At least with a conference you've probably had to have your abstract vetted by a small group rather than being dependant on a seminar organiser and their whims.

Although - this might just be exceptionally the case for a small country and a small, incestuous sub-discipline.

[the_lady_lily]

But surely being someone who is attractive to the whims of a seminar organiser is still something you'd want to show off? 'I have a research profile that gets me invited places, love me!', sort of thing? I'd say that it's proving a different sort of quality than conference papers do.

[tyopsqueene]

Not really. I'd be more interested in the range of topics presented, and the diversity of the sites presented in (e.g. couple of big conferences, small intimate workshops, public audiences etc) than the quantity. Which is precisely because I know how/why people can get invited to give these things.

[tyopsqueene]

No, obviously they aren't; I'm just pointing out that disciplines/countries/departments differ by being an arse about it.

[poldyb]

not like the job process involves rather detailed screening and the speaker is one of three or four picked from hundreds.

[coendou]

Yeah, reading this thread I was thinking that getting picked for a job talk actually sounds far more prestigious than some of these other invited talk situations.

[poldyb]

I can see how it promotes confusion to include a section on the CV titled "invited talks."

[sensaes]

This is where FSP's reasoning collapses, because whilst they are different from other invited talks, it's the nature of that difference which produces the ethical ambiguity. (Why can't she see it? No idea.) In most cases they are merely required, non-elective parts of a specific process (the job interview), and using them as evidence that "a place is interested in your research" has as much validity as someone asking you at a party what you do for a living, and feigning rapt attention as you answer them in detail. Furthermore, flagging that particular interview talk as the one that got you a job is in as questionable taste as using said hypothetical "party victim" as a reference. "Oh, but they were interested in my research!" is a highly dubious defence. ;o)

[new_kid16]

I've seen people include "invited talks" on c.v.s when they're at a very early stage in their career, and often they're "invited" to speak in someone's class at the school where they're working/getting their degree. It's so not worth including things like that, unless you really have nothing else to include.

[max_ambiguity]

I would refer to that as a guest lecture rather than an invited talk, and I have included a couple on my CV. The point was that the person inviting me to speak did so because it was my area of expertise rather than part of my teacher training.