Converting A CV Into A Resume

• Try to think about your research in broad terms. Your willingness to wade through a stack of British periodicals from 1823 can testify to your ability to process information quickly, and produce written synopses of that information.
• Completing a dissertation indicates your capacity to independently manage a complicated, long-term project.
• Your dissertation can also be a testament to your talents in writing, grant-getting, and managing complex relationships (between feuding committee members, for example, or between yourself and the individuals who are the subject of your research).
• You may have presented at international meetings or organized panels, conferences, or speaker series. You may have been active in graduate-student government or on other campus committees. Such experiences can indicate leadership potential, public-speaking skills, initiative, and organizational ability.
• Use your teaching experience to your advantage. Many people outside academe do not realize the intense amount of work that goes into college teaching. Be sure that your resume makes clear that you have gained excellent public-speaking and organizational skills through your teaching. Use numbers to support your claims. For example: I taught British and American literature twice a week to two classes of twenty-five students each.
• If you have a specific non-academic career in mind, pick up a bit of related experience to put on your resume. If you are interested in teaching at the high-school level, volunteer at a local museum to work with students from that age group. If you would like to put your science skills to work in intellectual-property law, seek out an internship with your university's technology-transfer office. Those types of experiences can make your desire to change fields credible to employers.
• Read other people's resumes when you can. Find out how they articulate their skills and accomplishments.
• Conduct informational interviews to get a sense of what hiring managers in a particular career are looking for.
• Finally, look carefully at job postings in the non-academic fields that interest you. How do employers phrase both the responsibilities of a given job, and the qualifications they are looking for in candidates? be mindful of that language as you craft your job-search materials.

Adapted from Mail Call / 17 May 2007 / Chronicle /
By Jennifer S. Furlong and Julie Miller Vick