Should departmental talks be included on a CV?

Question

This might be more relevant to early career scholars since the CV isn't quite long enough to start filtering, but should departmental talks be included on a CV?

In my department we have weekly meetings where students and facility will give updates on their research, early findings, or talks based upon recent publications. I've heard some differing opinions as to their relevance on CVs since there is only a minor degree of filtering to do one of these talks. According to the principle of peer review I get the impression that such talks are of minor value, but is there value to early career scholars included them, or are they perceived as padding?

Answer 1

As you suggest they likely have minor value, but not no value. If you include them, use a separate section. Of course, if the topics of the talks are interesting in themselves they might be useful to include, depending on the type of position you are interested it. Having done a lot of talks might be especially interesting to an undergraduate institution. Having done a lot of research talks, especially on different topics, would likely interest a more research oriented institution.

But if your CV is solid overall you needn't worry about padding. But you have what you have and you need to present yourself in the best light possible.

Answer 2

To add to Buffy's good answer, although departmental talks don't add a lot of 'prestige points' to the CV, they serve other purposes. Departmental talks demonstrate you are engaged with your department and are able to adapt your research for a variety of audiences. Presenting papers on niche topics at big, impressive conferences is great for the sake of research dissemination and professional reputation, but being able to rework that research for, say, a graduate student seminar shows you can adapt your work to an appropriate teaching context.

This might be particularly useful if you're in a field that doesn't have a lot of obvious overlap between what you research and what you teach. Departmental talks illustrate that you are able to present ostensibly niche research to a more general audience.

Keep them under their own heading (I use 'Internal Talks' to contrast with 'Invited Talks') and there's no need to leave them off the CV unless you've got to cut something for length.

Answer 3

You can include those for completedness but any regular activity “internal” to the department will carry little to no value and may be seen as padding. At most include them in a separate sections with some low key heading, v.g. “Other presentations”.

Remember that any application to a position is likely to involve reference letters, and any referee from your institution would know the value of such presentations, so make sure the everyday is not overemphasized if faculty considers those to have minimal importance.

The situation changes if you gave a particularly memorable presentation, or if you get some sort of “best grad. student presentation” or any such recognition that distinghuishes your efforts compared to your colleagues.