presentation - When should I stop including talks on my cv?

When I was applying for grad school, I felt that my CV was pretty empty and so I included all my research related presentations (posters/talks) from conferences/competitions/etc (11 of them at the time). However, I am not sure how much of a role they played in my acceptance at that time (I feel I mostly got accepted based on my papers and two very strong reference letters).

Now I keep a semi-complete (semi- because of infrequent updates) list of presentations on my website; this is mostly so I can post slides. However, I feel the list has gotten too long for a CV (~25 items; about a full page) and other more important parts of my CV (such as publications) have grown to need that space more.

When should I start omitting or shortening the talks on my CV?

If I include a 'selected' talks section: How many talks should I select? Should I select them based on prestige of venue, or uniform-covering of my interests, or uniform-covering of my time (show that presentations are a regular activity)?

More context: I am at the graduate-student level in my academic progression. A related question: Do presentations given during interviews count as invited talks?

Answer

First of all: note that there is a difference between an academic CV and a resume.

• An academic CV typically lists everything you've done related to academia; every talk, every conference paper, every award, every grant, every mentored postdoc, grad, and possibly undergrad.


• A resume is a two-page document that summarizes your work/academic experience.

(Terminology may differ, some may refer to the first as a resume also; semantics aside, there is a distinction between the two documents.)

That being said, the answer to your question depends on which document you want to complete. The first should have everything, no matter how old. The second should list your most important, more recent accomplishments, in the interest of space. Regarding the second, the answer to "when should I remove stuff" is simply "whenever you have newer and better things to put in it's place".