Tps for Your Higher Education Resume

Those pursuing careers in higher education need the right professional documents to land the job.  This means using an academic resume.

Whether you call it an academic CV or an academic resume, this job search document highlights your qualifications and experience to help you land a position in your field of choice. But there are a few tips for your higher education resume you must keep in mind, especially when editing it to pursue tenure-track professorships and other positions in higher education. 

7 tips for your higher education resume

Continue reading to learn seven powerful changes you can make to your academic resume to help you stand out from the crowd. As you review each tip, refer to the example resume below to see how to apply and incorporate each. 

1. Add your LinkedIn profile

Much like the resumes of professionals outside of academia, your higher education resume should include your LinkedIn URL in the contact information section. LinkedIn is an extremely important job-search tool, and you should always include it on your job application documents. 

But before you add your URL, make sure to polish up your profile and customize it so that it is easily identifiable as yours. From optimizing it with keywords to using a professional profile picture, make sure your profile stands out for all the right reasons.

2. Swap out your skills summary section

When it comes to your academic resume, your experience, education, certifications, publications, and other relevant contributions speak for themselves. Therefore, including a title, core competencies table, and a skills summary section is unnecessary. 

Instead, an effective academic resume leverages the “show-not-tell” approach. This means making sure the education, experience, and contribution sections of your resume use action verbs and other strong language to describe and quantify your achievements in a way that helps you stand out. Simply put, your key selling points will be in the critical and concrete details of your academic, teaching, and research contributions, so let them do the talking.

However, the exception to this rule is if you are targeting a specific or unusual position or a position outside of your core area of expertise. An example would be if you have been a researcher for most of your career and now wish to move toward lecturer or professor positions in the classroom. 

In that case, edit your academic resume like any other professional going through a career change would. This means including sections, like a core competency table or skills summary section, that can help to fill in skills gaps to effectively lead the reader toward the conclusion that you possess the skills and experience for the job – even if you've never worked in that capacity.

A core competency list would go near the top of your resume under the summary. Here is an example someone in academia might include:

Core Competencies

Lectures | Research | Humanities | Curriculum Development

Psychology | Learning Strategies | Faculty Committee Support

3. Lead with your education

Unlike other professional resumes, an academic resume typically starts with an education section before getting into your professional experience and accomplishments. This is because the basis of your competency in your field starts with your education and the degrees you have acquired in this area of study. That is why it is important to highlight it at the top of your document.

You can also reverse the order and list your professional accomplishments first — especially if there are relevant accomplishments you want to highlight that will help you stand out from the rest of the applicants. 

Typically, however, the order starts with education, followed by professional experience. Next, include the sections for any relevant certifications, training, publications, presentations, committee contributions, research, grants, and other pertinent details or experience.

4. Break up your work history

Suppose you've had several positions ranging from research to teaching or even positions outside of academia that are relevant to your area of study. In that case, it is best to break down your work history into smaller sections. 

For example, if you are a professor and researcher of chemistry who also has freelanced in the pharmaceutical sector throughout your career, you should break it all up into three distinct work history sections: Teaching Experience, Research Experience, and Industry Experience.

However, this should only be reserved if you have extensive experience that requires organization. If you are just starting out and only have a handful of experiences under your belt, stick to one experience section. 

5. Focus on your recent work

While all of your publications, presentations, experiences, etc. should be listed on your academic resume, you still want to focus on your most recent work to avoid revealing your age or dating yourself. This means removing details that are more than 25 years old. 

However, the fact that you should remove them from your document does not mean you should forget about them entirely. Instead, create your own list to keep in a portfolio and bring with you to your interviews

6. Organize your contributions

When it comes to your contributions section, this will take up the bulk of your academic resume. Make sure you list your relevant certifications, training, publications, presentations, committee contributions, research, and grants under their specific categories (i.e., publications under publications), number them, and place them in reverse chronological order.

The key? Keep it consistent. If you format the information in a category a certain way, make sure each addition to that category follows the same format as the others.

7. Remove your references

Last but not least on the list of tips for your higher education resume, just like other resume formats, you do not need to include a list of references on your academic resume. If a prospective employer wants to see your references, they will ask for them – no need to add more bulk to your document.

Make your higher education resume stand out

It is true that writing your academic resume takes a lot of organizing, planning, and editing before it is ready to get you in the door.  Fortunately, you now have some valuable tips for your higher education resume that can help you create or update your resume so you feel confident when submitting it to prospective employers.

Not sure where to start with your academic resume? Consider talking to one of our TopResume writers or submit your draft resume for a free resume review.

This article was originally written by Danielle Elmers. It has been updated by Ronda Suder. 

Recommended Reading:

• How to Write an Academic CV

• Ask Amanda: How Do I Convert a Resume to a CV Format?

• 10 Impactful Changes for Your Senior-Level Resume