Counseling and psychology students should begin writing a Curriculum Vita early in their careers, preferably during their undergraduate studies. As Curriculum Vitas are descriptions of your life’s work, if you begin keeping track of your academic and professional accomplishments early, you will have a running document that is easily updateable as you progress through school. It is also much easier to continue to add, delete and edit your Curriculum Vita and have it ready for applying to graduate school and for professional jobs.
While there is not a rigid standard way to format your Curriculum Vita, and you can tailor contents to highlight your interests, strengths and specific areas you plan to study or pursue career-wise, there are typical items that should be included into your Curriculum Vita. Curriculum Vitas should be broken down into sections, and it is helpful to highlight or put in bold the title of each section (e.g. Education, Teaching, Clinical Experience).
Name and Education:
First, place your name, current or mailing address, phone number and email address at the top of the page. You can choose to either center this information or place it flush to the left, depending on your style. Next, your educational achievements should be highlighted. Always put the most recent accomplishment first. You should first write the type of degree (e.g. Ph.D., M.S., or B.A.), then the institute and date received. If your degree is in progress, indicate when you expect to complete the degree (e.g. anticipated September, 2008).
Licenses, Certifications, Qualifications:
Here you will want to list any license or certification you hold, including the license number and licensing body. This section is good for state licenses, national certifications and special qualifications such as Child Abuse Recognition and Reporting Certification or advanced studies certifications. Again, list the most recent accomplishment first and date received.
Honors Held:
Next, indicate any honors you have been awarded with. This is a great place for honor society membership, dean’s list or other academic accomplishments you have achieved. Leave this section out if you do not have any.
Awards:
You can consider combining this section with awards if you have few and entitle it, “Honors and Awards”. The Awards section is especially good for doctoral level students and professionals to highlight grant monies they have been awarded, included grant funded dissertation or research awards (employers love to see you can bring money in). Graduate assistantships, tuition stipends and professional development awards to attend conferences can be listed here. Include the name of the award or grant, the amount and date received.
Professional Memberships:
This section is a good place to list professional organizations you belong to, such as American Counseling Association, American Psychological Association and state organizations. Graduate schools and employers like to see that you value your profession, belong to organizations that encourage ethical practice and that you are active in your field.
Next, depending on what type of school or position you are applying to, tailor the next few sections accordingly. If for example you are applying for teaching positions which want to see research experience, the next few sections of your C.V. should be in this order, Teaching Experience, Research Experience, Publications and Presentations, then Clinical Experience. For research positions, or for those students without teaching experience, start with the Research section. For schools who are more clinically oriented, begin with the Clinical Experience section.
Teaching Experience:
If you have taught courses, been a teaching assistant, invited to give a lecture, talk or presentation, list them! Everything you do counts! Provide the course name if applicable, the university, college or organization the course, training or presentation was given at and the date (another good reason why starting and keeping a C.V. early is helpful is because you have dates readily available and later on do not have to run around trying to find dates when you need them!) Provided titles of talks or trainings. Within each section, you can consider breaking information down into sub-sections, such as, “Courses Taught”, “Teaching Assistant Positions” and “Invited Lectures, Speeches and Trainings”.
Research Experience:
Graduate schools and positions in academia typically want to see research experience. Begin with your dissertation or thesis as a sub-section. Provide the title and then highlight some of the findings or what the study is about. Next, any research experience you have had, whether it is as a Research Assistant, making phone calls to obtain study participants, distributing flyers for research studies, conducting literature reviews or actually running experiments, be sure to list everything, particularly if you have little experience. Again, you can consider using sub-sections. For example, “Dissertation”, Masters Thesis”, “Other Research Studies” and “Research or Graduate Assistantships”. For each research study you are part of, whether you are the principal investigator or not, list the name of the study, the supervising professor or thesis advisor and highlight using bullet points the type of work you engaged in, or what your study was about. For assistantships, include the name of the professor you worked under, the university, and the dates. Using bullet points, highlight work you did. For example, “Administered neuropsychological battery to patients undergoing substance abuse treatment at State Hospital of NY”, Conducted literature searches on traumatic brain injury and substance abuse”, “Recorded and analyzed data using statistical software packages”.
Publications and Presentations:
Graduate schools and employers also like to see that you have given presentations on scholarly work, and been published in journals, particularly for doctoral level students. Listing authors names first, then date, the title of the article or presentation, then journal name or conference name. Use APA style for this. Undergraduate Research fairs or Graduate Symposiums are great places to get in presentations. If listing, also list the name of the school the research fair or symposium was at as well as the date. You can also have a sub-section entitled, “Work in progress/under submission”, in which you can list articles or presentations you are in the process of writing or that you have submitted. Indicate the title of the project and if submitted, where. Do not include work you wish to do, only currently being worked on or submitted.
Supervision Experience:
If you are planning for a teaching or clinical position and will be supervising people, it is a good idea to have a section for Supervision experience if you have any. Omit this section if you do not have any. Indicate, your title (e.g. Practicum Supervisor), place you did the supervision, name of your supervisor if you have one, and years. Using bulleted points, you can list the type of work you did (e.g. Evaluated students for counseling and conceptualization skills during weekly supervision sessions and through reviewing video taped sessions). You can also include peer supervision experiences. Most masters and doctoral level programs have a peer supervision component. Remember, any training or experience you have had, even though it may seem small can be the difference between being accepted into a graduate program or obtaining that academic position just out of graduate school.
Clinical Experience:
This section will highlight any clinical work you have done so far. Again, include title, place, supervisor and dates. Using bulleted points, highlight what you did in the clinical work (e.g. Facilitated 12 week childhood sexual abuse group for adult clients within the XYZ community). Be sure to include practicum and internship experiences here. This may be the only type of clinical experience you have if you have not worked in the field. You want to showcase the fact that you have actually worked with people! For titles, you can state “Practicum Counselor”, “Intern” etc.
Professional Development:
This section is a great way to show your involvement in your field. Include conferences you have attended, continuing education, scholarly activities you have engaged in such as competitions, essays written for national organizations for competitions, grant and fundraising experiences (particularly important for academic positions) and finally, public service/volunteer work. Use sub-sections to highlight your experiences, showcasing your strengths. For conferences attended, include titles of conference, sponsoring organization is appropriate, city and state of conference and date. I like to list conferences by year, using year as a heading. This helps to keep the Curriculum Vita organized. This section is also a good place to highlight special skills or test administration/assessment experiences and skills you may have.
Remember, a Curriculum Vita is not the same as a resume, and you want to give a little more detail than you would in a resume. C.V.s can be quite long, and as you progress in your career, you will find that you will remove some earlier experiences such as internships and replace them with bigger and better experiences. It is not uncommon to a C.V. to be several pages long, and as long as 20 pages for those who have been in the field for a while. You do not want to embellish or make simple experiences grandiose just to put them on your C.V. Be as straight forward as possible, give some highlights and be prepared to discuss what is listed on your C.V. in an interview. If you are a counseling or psychology undergraduate student, begin your C.V. immediately, even if it is only half a page to a page long. Having one can make a big difference during application time, can set you apart from other students and is a wonderful way to begin organizing your accomplishments for later on when you will need to show an employer what you have done. Keep the Curriculum Vita organized, neat and in chronological order with most recent activity listed first. You should also use high quality paper when you print it and experiment with different styles of font to give it a signature look. But, always keep your Curriculum Vitae professional and easy to read.
