Real CV

⬅ Return to Research

Problem space

This project was developed a few months into the Covid pandemic, when it became clear that some faculty members were experiencing outsized impacts of the disruption at work. These faculty were tasked with higher amounts of invisible and domestic labor that was leading to higher rates of burnout. This is a complex societal problem, but we observed that there was a very tangible design problem embedded within the larger situation: the CV. The restrictions around the format and design of the CV provided only a limited view of a faculty member’s contributions. This new invisible “Covid labor” did not have a place in this format.

Design Process + Solution

This project was grounded in design-led inquiry. We sought to understand solutions to this problem through a constructive creative process. I created several speculative versions of the "Real CV" to explore options. In the end, we showed the designs to academics to identify which directions would yield success. My Co-PI Dr. Rachel Wheeler and I undertook a design-centered exploration of this problem to investigate alternative approaches to the CV, which would allow for a more inclusive view of faculty labor. We partnered with Drs. Rajeev Raje (Computer Science), Jane Williams (Organizational Psychology), and Heyju Jang (Artificial Intelligence) to develop prototypes for new CV formats.

View All Prototypes

I created a website that details all of the designs that were created for this project. You can view it here: Real CV Prototypes.

Version 1 of the app provided a dashboard where academics could quickly see their accomplishments along unconventional metrics.

This version explored the use of popular social media formats as a mode of academic communication. I leveraged design conventions from Facebook and Spotify.

This version focused on providing much-needed context around a person's life outside of academia. It used qualitative and quantitative data to put a person's life into context.

This version used games as a framework and gamified many of the aspects of the CV.

Our most agonistic version of the CV runs in the background of your computer and forces the reader to live a day in the life of CV author. It restricts access during certain hours, rewords emails with microaggressions, among other 'features.'

Publications

Kahn, Muhammad H.A.†, Kulkarni, M.†, Wheeler, R, Raje, R., & Ganci, A. (2025). “Real CV – An AI-powered Resume Generator. 2025 IEEE International Conference on Electro Information Technology (EIT), Valparaiso, IN, USA. 29-31 May 2025. (Accepted, in pre-production)
Ganci, Aaron. (2024). “Faculty Wellbeing in Corporate Academia: A Critical Examination and Reimaging of the Curriculum Vitae.” in Gray, C., Ciliotta Chehade, E., Hekkert, P., Forlano, L., Ciuccarelli, P., Lloyd, P. (eds.), Design Research Society DRS2024: Boston, 23–28 June, Boston, USA. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.299.
Ganci, A. M. (2022). “Covid CV: Designing Faculty Pandemic Narratives.” Message Journal: Graphic Communication Design Research(5), 138-140. https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/mgcdr/vol3/iss5/2/
U. Raja†, N. S. Chowdhury†, R. R. Raje, R. Wheeler, J. Williams and A. Ganci. (2021) “COVID CV: A System for Creating Holistic Academic CVs during a Global Pandemic,” 2021 IEEE International Conference on Electro Information Technology (EIT), Mt. Pleasant, MI, USA, 2021, pp. 146-150, https://doi.org/10.1109/EIT51626.2021.9491917.

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