The academic job market is tough. You need to stand out among your peers if you want to get noticed and land a tenure-track faculty position at an institution of higher education. Writing a strong cover letter, CV, and research statement is just the beginning of what will likely be many steps in this process. Here’s how to optimize your chances for success:
1. Update Your Current Resume
Take out old jobs that are not relevant to academia. Remove the dates, unless required by the hiring institution, and list your duties instead of your actual job titles. If you are still within the first five years of employment since receiving the Ph.D., you do not need to put post-secondary education on your resume. However, it’s important to include in your CV maker the institution where you earned the Ph.D.
2. Highlight Your Transferable Skills
Academia is all about transferring knowledge, so it’s crucial that you have experience in this field. Do not include in your cover letter and online CV maker things like being organized or working well on a team—these are expected of every employee and will not help you stand out. Instead, focus on being able to communicate well with others and having the ability to solve problems. If you have experience working in a lab, stress your laboratory skills.
3. Do Not Include Irrelevant Work Or Extra-Curricular Activities
In your CV maker online, only list jobs that are relevant to academia—this means no fast-food, retail, or babysitting jobs. Only include work that you did for an extended period of time and that required advanced skills and/or training. You don’t need to mention volunteer activities that did not involve teaching—although it’s great if you have these types of accomplishments, they are unnecessary on the resume.
4. Use Key Words Strategically
Think about the position you are applying for and include words that would be found on a search in that particular field. For example, if you are going to apply for a job teaching high school students biology, include words like teaching, biology, high school, science. If your resume is full of keywords from many different fields, it will not only look messy but it will also be impossible to find the relevant information.
5. Be Specific With Your Accomplishments
Listing generic statements like “wrote research reports” or “managed lab” is not going to make you stand out from other applicants. Instead, list exactly how many reports you wrote, the number of people that worked under your supervision, or how much money you saved your company. If you do not have enough information to provide specific numbers, try to include as many relevant details as possible. For example, instead of writing “wrote several blog posts” write “wrote 10 blog posts per month for three consecutive months.”
6. Customize Your Resume For Each Position
Although it’s a good idea to have a resume specifically for academia and a reliable and free CV maker, it’s also important to customize your resume for each position you apply for. Focus on highlighting the experience and skills that match up with what they are looking for and leave off anything that is not relevant. Make sure your resume is free of spelling and grammar mistakes (hire someone if necessary), and use bullet points to highlight your most important qualities.
For easily customizable resume templates, check out Venngage.
7. Include The Subject Line Of Your Email With Your Resume
Make sure that hiring managers can decipher between emails and resumes by including the title of the position with your name in the subject line. You can also include relevant course titles or modules if you are applying for a job with teaching requirements.
8. Include Your Availability In Your Email
Hiring managers want to know that you are available for an interview, so be sure to include it in the opening line of your email when writing your resume in a CV maker free. Your best bet is to say something like “I am available for a phone or Skype interview at a time convenient for you,” followed by a sentence about how you heard about the position. This is also a great place to mention when you are available for interview travel if necessary.
9. Apply With In-Demand Skills That You Have Mastered In Grad School
Now that it takes an average of five years to get a faculty job, many people think it’s too late to return to graduate school once they are already in the workforce. This is not true—there are many skills that you can master in graduate school that will make you more desirable to hiring managers, such as programming languages, data analysis, and grant-writing. Keep in mind that you may need to take a class or two before applying for a job—try searching for certificate programs at local universities.
10. Don’t Forget Mechanics And Appearance!
Finally, it’s easy to get carried away with the details of your resume, but don’t neglect the basics like spelling and grammar (hiring managers routinely weed out applicants who do not present a polished resume). Also, avoid writing generic statements like “interested in finding a challenging and rewarding position.” It’s fine to mention that you are enthusiastic about the position if it is true, but don’t say anything that could be considered insincere.
In Summary
Some of these tips may seem like common sense, but they are worth mentioning because many people don’t know the best practices when it comes to writing a resume for this field. I hope this post will help you with your application process!