Following yesterday's advice on responding to reviewers, today I saw someone on academia.edu post this rough guide to conference speaking for graduate students.
Generally, I think it's all pretty sensible, with perhaps a couple of caveats. He doesn't think much of graduate conferences. I agree they're not much of a CV boost. Moreover, at somewhere like Oxford you can probably get better feedback from presenting in some of the internal seminars on offer. I think they are worth going to just to meet fellow students, who could be future colleagues, though.
Also, this one: Apply to conferences even if you don’t intend to go. Being invited to speak is still worth having on your CV, even if you ultimately don’t attend. Declining an invitation due to ‘unforeseen circumstances’ will not cause offence. Of course, don’t do it too often, you might get a reputation! rankles with me a bit. It just sounds cynical and I'm not really sure that putting an accepted but declined presentation on your CV is any real boost either.
I have the same view as you on this one. First, I think any conference experience is good experience. I know of no one who was offered a job over another because candidate a spoke at a 'professional' gathering while candidate b only spoke at a 'graduate' conference.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I think it is bad form to apply to give papers at conferences that you do not plan on attending. Clearly, the writer of this piece has never organized a conference: it can take up a lot of time. Delegates who pull out last second -- only agreeing to speak to add a line to their CV ahead of sending it out in a job application then deleting it as soon as it is in the post -- disrespect the organizers at the very least.