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How do I explain two years of doing nothing to a university for masters? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Ever since I've graduated on September 2022, I've not had a job. Maybe a crappy internship, but I wasn't provided with a 'certificate', or letter that proves if I've worked for them. That was around October 2022, and I quit voluntarily at the end of January 2023. Since then, I've not worked anywhere as a software dev, be it internship or full-time, because the job market is so fucked up in India.

Now, how do I explain this to avail scholarship? I have yet to read other scholarship docs from other countries in Europe, and I'm already shitting solidified blood-clots reading this from the DAAD Helmut-Schmidt announcement document:

a curriculum vitae in reverse chronological order including the date of issue (format: europass, please note: the europass template does not include a date, please add it yourself) with exact information about your studies and practical experience; gaps of three months or more must be explained

(Update: And I just realized that I am an idiot for not reading that this is only for non-STEM folks. Well, it looks to me that DAAD for STEM is also almost the same, with more stringent requirements.)

In my college, there was no research programs - I mean, you know the typical 'Indian colleges encouraging academic plagiarism', so I didn't learn or do shit. And obviously, I have no job experience. I did contribute to open-source from GitLab, a few Ruby gems, a new unknown front-end framework for JS, then Nixpkgs and now Guix, but that's it. Honestly, I wouldn't even call it contribution, because only a few patches were merged - most of it was just me interacting with those folks. After that, I've done nothing since September 2023, because my laptop broke and there were no spare parts. Maybe a little bit of playing around with Nix and Guix, writing package expressions and that's it.

How do I explain this? CVs are supposed to be at least 2-3 pages, but this? I can't even write half a page with this.

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[-] [email protected] 51 points 3 weeks ago

I worried about this a lot back after uni, too.

I studied 8 years for a diploma that was supposed to be done in 5, and I had done nothing with the extra time. I just wasn't in a good place to be done any faster.

However, it turns out to just not be a problem. Companies generally could not give a flying fuck about what I did at university, and as soon as I had been at one company, they only cared what I had done before in the industry.

Now of course, going for a masters is different, but I wouldn't worry too much about it, it probably matters less than you think it will. If you want to explain gaps, I'd just cite it as "personal reasons". If they ask - which is kinda not-okay - you can always say you had family matters that precluded you from focusing on your studies until now.

[-] [email protected] 45 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Just say you signed an NDA and can talk about it in 20 years. Yes, that is dishonest in some sense and I hate it, but then again you owe these companies nothing and they are not family.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I'm not legally allowed to tell you what I did without lying to you

[-] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

This is the way. And it is waaaay better than “I could tell you… but then I would have to kill you”

[-] Ziggurat 37 points 3 weeks ago

CVs are supposed to be at least 2-3 pages

Where is it the case ? I always heard CV are expected to be kept short, and stay on one page unless you're one of these senior experts with a crazy experience. A young graduate sending a 2-3 page CV sounds at minimum pretentious and would go direct to the garbage.

Now, it seems that "Not being able to find a job" is a great reason to pursue further education.

[-] [email protected] 14 points 3 weeks ago

College CV's are different and are meant to go more into detail regarding specific accomplishments.

[-] [email protected] 12 points 3 weeks ago

Cv vs resume. Different.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

Not outside of the US

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

I'm in Australia

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

Obviously not discounting your experience but most things I can find online indicate that CV and resume are synonymous in Oz.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

K. They're not but I can't account for what you've read online

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

These are the first two results I found for "Australia CV":

https://www.visualcv.com/international/australia-cv/

Australia CV Terminology: The terms ‘resume’ and ‘CV’ are used synonymously in Australia - they refer to the same document. The word ‘resume’ is used more commonly, however, so if in doubt, use that one.

https://www.resumestoimpress.com.au/career-resources/how-to-prepare-an-australian-cv/ - this seems to imply a "true" CV for specific acadaemia purposes as well but also implies this is not what most people mean

Is it ‘CV’ or ‘Resume’ in Australia? A CV, short for Curriculum Vitae, is a detailed document outlining an individual’s educational background, work experience, skills, achievements, and other relevant information. In Australia, the term ‘CV’ is often used interchangeably with the term ‘resume’. In this article, we’ll discuss it in that context. However, there are some industries in Australia where a true ‘CV’ is required, such as academic positions at universities. True ‘CVs’ are expected to be longer and include more detailed information about a candidate’s experience

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

So see your last reference.

Over 20 years I've worked in the federal and local governments, for academia adjacent organisations, NGOs and commercial companies, retail and hospitality, health services - as both a hopeful candidate and a hiring manager.

Different industries require different things and the distinction between the 2 is relevant. It's the white collar roles that expect CVs or will actually make that distinction in the job advertisement. In retail etc they might ask for your cv but they mean a resume. More commercial companies I've worked with just want a resume and they mean a resume. If I submitted a resume for one of my most recent gigs, they'd say that's not enough and ask me for my long form cv.

There is a distinction, it just depends on the industry.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I do appreciate that, I do recognise the term is used differently in different contexts and cultures but the point is that it is at odds with your blanket statement of "Cv vs resume. Different.". OP mentions some stuff about European unis so I assume that is what they are going for and, at least within the UK a CV literally is, in all contexts, what other people may call a Resume. We might make a distinction to specify an "Academic CV" to make sure a longer format is understood but generally the right format is based on context rather than terminology.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

The way they're referred to being interchangeable does not alter the fact that they're different.

It's worth knowing they're different and checking with a recruiting manager which one they mean. I check because I know people do, incorrectly, think they're the same thing.

It's wise to have both on hand and up to date.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

But the point is that in many places there is no such thing as a Resume so calling them different things is factually incorrect. There are just different lengths of CVs for different purposes.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

I was taught that resume's are experience-focused and cv's are education-focused. Obviously there's a lot of overlap but the latter is used more in academia, and by recent graduates with little work experience.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

If that's the case you should update Wiktionary which currently claims that they're synonyms: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/resume#Noun

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

YOU'RE A SYNONYM!

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Um, ok...?

[-] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

To validate your perspective: I am a hiring manager in tech in the US. I will greatly discount any resume over 2 pages (especially for a higher level candidate). For entry level candidates, one page is sufficient for me. I'm also less concerned about gaps in resumes and more concerned with ability to learn - so I look for things that demonstrate that.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Agree - I’m mid 40s with both deep and broad experience, US based so no picture or irrelevant biographical bits, and I still absolutely cringe at the idea of sending out 2-3 page resume/CV.

Could I reasonably fill that space with relevant and compelling information? Sure.

Do I think anyone would read it? Not a chance.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

In my experience a Resume is a one page. A CV is 2-3.

[-] [email protected] -2 points 3 weeks ago

CV's are expected to be wall-of-text and as long as you can make it. They can easily go for 6+ pages. You are probably thinking about resumes

[-] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago

How do you explain it? You tell them the truth. If that truth isn’t good enough for admission, you ask them what you need to have in your recent history to get accepted, and then when they tell you, you go do that thing.

If their admissions aren’t satisfied by whatever the truth is about your situation, then the program wouldn’t be a good fit for you anyway.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Mention any projects, programmes, self-learning you've participated in (inflate the importance of these somewhat) to at least break it up. Now, assuming that you've broken up the big gap into smaller gaps, write a simple and straightforward explanation about your situation at the end talking about all the gaps in general. Just write what you wrote here about the job market but more professionally. Don't overthink it, some random professor will most likely spend 2-3 minutes looking at it. If you're applying to some mid uni (I mean any uni that isn't a cutthroat uni in the US or UK) and your bachelor's GPA was like 3.2ish+ then you'll be fine. You'll just be in the middle of the batch, and depending on how many students applied that semester you'll have an alright chance at the least.

this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2024
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