Academic Resume Example: Complete Guide & Tips

If you are looking for resumes of other academic career roles such as Italian teacher, music teacher or teaching assistant and more such resume examples (and more), you may check out our resume example, template and resume writing guide collection.

Now, coming back to the academic CV, we will tell you all about writing a perfect academic CV in this article. From describing various information in sections to some bonus tips to increase your chances of getting the position you want. Let's dive in!👇

What is an academic resume?

An academic resume is a resume that is suitable for people who have academic career. Every professional has had academic aspect of life where they pursue education and higher education, every professional resume format has an education section.

The education section describes the educational background of the professional. An academic career means completing education and then joining the education area as a professional. Starting and making a career in the academia either as a teacher/professor or a researcher or other such relevant roles.

An academic CV talks about academic background, education section and also academic projects, fellowships, teaching experience, awards and honors, publications such as peer reviewed journals and may be some community service even!

An academic resume or rather an academic curriculum vitae is not just about key achievements and professional experience but also about professional appointments, real contributions in the area of expertise or career (sciences or arts or such).

(Source: https://www.unesco.org/reports/science/2021/en/dataviz/researchers-million-habitants)

What does a perfect professional resume look like?

👉A perfect professional resume meets below guidelines that are important and defining:

• Past tense, third person, active voice
• Avoid pronouns for formal language
• Use any many numbers and action verbs as possible
• Simple label for the document: First Name Last Name Resume or CV
• Compatible document format: Microsoft word or PDF
• Proofread twice and remove every spelling mistakes, grammatical error and ensure factual accuracy as well

Now a perfect professional academic resume follows the above guidelines and in addition has a perfect format as well as certain other aspects:

• Relevant attachments or portfolio links
• Mention of publications and details
• In depth details of certain projects
• Longer CVs than other professions' resumes
• More textual content than other professions' resumes
• The layout includes more than summary, experience, skills, education section and contact information

Where to begin?

Before writing a resume for any profession, one needs to do some research. As an academic professional, you probably have a lot of experience with research perhaps as research assistant or PhD scholar or even postgraduate as most postgraduate degrees require you to do a research project in last semester or such.

However, we are not talking about that kind of exhaustive research. We are talking about a bit of internet surfing and exploring. So don't worry, you do not need to do conduct a full blown professional research to write your academic CV.

All you need to do is explore your particular role and other relevant or similar roles, the usual responsibilities, potential employers, your industry of expertise and the current scenario of the industry as well as the job market.

All this will give you some insight into how you can stand out and ensure your resume is able to impress recruiters with the information as well as the presentation of your personal profile.

After the research you need to choose the right format, as a professional with an academic background and academic career, you are likely to have extensive work experience or history and lengthy personal profile that will be presented well with the reverse chronological order resume format.

So let's talk about how to write your perfect academic CV!👇

Academic resume example

The header

The header should include your name, your contact information such as your mobile phone number with area code, your professional email address and any other details such as your home address, your portfolio link, link to your LinkedIn profile and such.

Ensure the information is accurate. Your email ID should be formal, your home address is not mandatory so it is up to you if you want to include it or not. Mention the portfolio link and LinkedIn platform profile link only if they are carefully curated and you are active on the platform.

Profile Summary

The profile summary should be short, crisp and written in bullet points. You should mention your role, your experience, exceptional and remarkable aspects of your experience and relevant skills. You can also mention what kind of opportunity you are looking for going forward.

Education section

For many professions, education is often irrelevant or holds lesser value than you'd expect on the resume. An academic CV however, needs a very impressive education section to impress recruiters who are looking for academic professionals.

Your education speaks a lot to your overall academic capabilities. You need to mention your degrees, the education institutes, the time period and you can also include additional details such as relevant courses and subjects, dissertation details, majors and minors and so on.

Professional experience-appointments

Your professional experience includes your teaching experience, your professional appointments section which may include experiences where you taught course, designed courses and such. You should only mention the relevant parts of your experience and leave out any irrelevant ones.

You need to mention your job title, the department and institution, the dates of employment and most importantly the details of what you did and how you did it.

You should highlight your key achievements and skills while also including usual job duties and other aspects of your employment history.

Publications

Publications are any literary work that you authored and published on any platform in professional capacity. Your academic experience is backed by such publications because they speak to your capabilities and skills that convert to contributions in the academic world.

You need to mention any papers, articles, books and any more relevant work that has been published. You need to mention the details such as the title of the publications, publications platform or medium and the year. If you have authored books, you may want to mention ISBN numbers or such other details as well.

You can also include literary work that you have co-authored with fellow professionals, you need to mention that you co-authored with xyz person and mention who they are briefly if you want, as well.

Grants & Fellowships

Any grants or fellowships from your professional experience profile should also be included as it speaks to the validity, value and potential of your capability and work in professional capacity.

Getting grants or fellowships is not easy which means that if you have acquired any, it means you have something to offer or perhaps you have already offered and contributed substantially in your field, academic career and the past jobs.

Awards & Honors

In case you have received any awards and/or honors in your professional career, you need to mention that as well. You should note the award or honor title, the medium (education institute, organization or such) from where you acquired the award or honor.

You should also include the year and perhaps a bit of detail of why you received the award or honor, for which contribution and in which field.

Invited talks & Conferences

In the year span of your professional experience, you might've been invited to talks or conferences in professional capacity where you presented your ideas or views in academic context and capacity.

Having had such experience and exposure speaks to your ability of public speech, presentation and argument of ideas and views, key accomplishments that led to your value as a professional and the value of your contribution. Mentioning such aspects in separate section is very important for your academic CV.

Research experience

Obvious and important, you need to always include your research experience, not just the research for degrees but also research experience as research assistant or PhD candidate or in any other capacity. Research is inseparable part of academia and most roles in academic field require experience with research.

You should include your research experience especially if your role is centered around research or requires research capabilities, skills and knowledge.

References

Last but not least, your academic CV may benefit more if you include references. You may include 3 references from of professors or mentors or colleagues and such other peers.

References add great value because they indicate the positive review and feedback of your professional experience and personal profile. You need to make sure the references you choose to put on your resume, should have positive views about you so that recruiter received positive feedback about you from the people you have referred.

Keywords

Relevant keywords of your role, responsibilities, experiences, industry and expertise area should be used throughout your academic CV. Your resume or CV is going to be scanned and filtered by various applicant tracking systems used by recruiters across the globe.

These software work on the relevant keywords so all you need to do is include these keywords throughout your academic CV.

Avoid jargons

As much as formal and professional you need to be, you also need to avoid unnecessary jargons. While your role and responsibilities, along with your work has always been complex and heavy, you need to present it without the complexity, you need to simplify the presentation in order to ensure a balanced professional resume that reads well.

Whenever necessary, use the terms of your industry or expertise area and so on and at the same time, avoid the jargons whenever possible and use simple language.

Target audience

During the resume writing you may not think from the perspective of your target audience. Most professionals write their resumes with the regard of an average hiring manager's perspective. However, an academic resume needs to be written from the perspective of the particular target audience.

You need to keep in mind who is going to read your resume, which aspects will be their priority in your resume and what they are looking for.

The usual -extensive experience, degrees and skills- will not be enough for an academic CV, you need to consider many aspects such as publications, research experience, institution from where the degree was obtained and much more.

Conclusion

In conclusion, your academic resume may be very different from an average standard professional resume. What's important is to be thorough in describing your profile on your academic resume. You need to include all the important aspects of your professional experience and journey. Your academic CV should be prepared with attention to detail and proper targeting of the potential audiences.

Having read this article, you are likely to be ready to write your own academic CVs. You can also check out our resume examples collection along with resume writing guides and templates. Good luck!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How long should an academic resume be?

A standard professional resume is usually 1 to 2 pages long however an academic resume can take up to even 10 pages. Due to the important details of profile that cannot be left out you may take more than two pages. Make sure you manage to balance the important content amount and avoid including unnecessary content at the same time.

Should I include references on my academic resume?

Yes, references can be a good value addition for your professional academic resume.

How to optimize my chances of getting a good academic job with the academic resume?

You need to keep in mind some of the important tips that we have discussed in this article above. Especially, the tips regarding the target audience and various sections to be included on your academic resume.