Presenting yourself in your CV and motivation letter by Marieke Hohnen

Apart from research, it is important to think about the next career step after you finish your PhD or postdoc. Your CV and motivation letter allow you to make the first impression on HR manager and get your foot on the door of the company.

In the 3.5-hour on-campus workshop on “Presenting yourself in your CV and motivation letter”, Marieke Hohnen from Hakuna Matata gave tips on how to structure and tailor CVs and motivation letters to a particular job offering to the VU PhD candidates and postdocs. There were a lot of group discussions where the participants could learn from each other´s experience of writing CVs and motivation letters. More importantly, in this workshop, the participants had a unique opportunity to get personalized written feedback from the trainer.

You can read more about Marieke Hohnen at: https://nl.linkedin.com/in/mariekehohnen

“I liked the structure of the workshop and the variation in listening to the trainer and talking with the other attendees.”
Anonymous participant

“I gained some valuable tips for tailoring my CV/motivation letter”
Anonymous participant

Your CV and motivation letter can be a make-or-break factor in a job application. PhD candidates and Postdocs are in a position where they likely have to apply for different positions.

In this on-campus workshop on “how to showcase yourself”, dr. Laura Norci from Appathways taught Early Career Researchers how to showcase their work as a PhD or Postdoc through their CV and motivation letter. During the workshop, participants learned to tune their CVs for a certain job within and outside of academia. Also, they discussed what to write in a motivation letter and to identify strenghts and skills. Participants shared their opinions with each other about what matters in applying for a job and actively asked Laura for tips and tricks in the application process.

You can read more about dr. Laura Norci at: http://www.appathways.nl/

“It is nice that it is oriented towards researchers instead of a general course”
Anonymous participant

“I have more of an idea what a research-related CV should look like and how it should be composed. So the explanations regarding different sections with examples were nice”
Anonymous participant