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Resume, not CV

A CV is a history of what you did. A resume is a marketing document that answers one question: why should I hire you?

4 min read · By Marc Sleiman

A CV is a history document. It lists everything you have done, in a format a hiring committee of academics knows how to read. A resume is a marketing document. Every line on it should answer one question for a busy reader: why should I hire you? Most PhD CVs are unreadable to a hiring manager outside academia, not because the work is weak, but because it is presented for the wrong audience.

One page

For industry roles, write a one-page resume. Readers outside academia are short on time and will spend well under a minute on a first pass. They do not need your undergraduate activities, every conference you presented at or a list of working papers. They need your most impressive and relevant accomplishments, in the order they care about them.

There are exceptions. Research economist roles, government agencies, central banks and some consulting firms recruiting through the AEA job listings may expect or accept a CV. Read the posting, and when in doubt, ask. Keep both documents up to date.

What to cut and what to translate

Cut the things that only matter to academics: full paper titles with every co-author, journal names and citation counts, every conference presentation, every grant and its amount, coursework lists and comprehensive exam details.

Keep, and translate, what you built, analyzed or delivered, and what came of it. State your tools and methods plainly, in words a hiring manager uses. “Causal inference” can stay, but add what it was for: “estimated the effect of price changes on demand.” Give each project one line using the formula below.

The bullet formula: action, task, outcome

Start each bullet with a strong verb, say what you did, and end with the result or why it mattered. Numbers make a bullet credible; use them whenever you honestly can.

The order that works

Header

Name, email, phone, city, and links to your LinkedIn, portfolio website and GitHub.

Summary

One or two lines stating who you are and what role you are targeting. “Economist with expertise in causal inference and pricing experiments, seeking a data scientist or economist role on a product team.” It tells the reader immediately where to place you.

Education

Your PhD featured prominently, with your expected date, fields and a one-line, plain-language description of your dissertation. The PhD helps you pass the first screen against candidates with only a master’s degree, so do not bury it. Add your master’s and bachelor’s degrees briefly.

Experience

Internships, consulting, freelance and any non-academic job go near the top, because they show you can operate outside a university. This includes work before the PhD, even in another field. Research and teaching assistantships belong here too; they build real skills, but expect them to carry less weight than work for an outside client.

Projects

Two to four projects, each with a bullet or two covering the context, what you did and the result, with a link to the portfolio version.

Skills

Programming languages and tools (Python, R, SQL, Git, Tableau) and methods (causal inference, experimentation, forecasting, machine learning). List only what you could use in an interview tomorrow.

Interests

One short line at the bottom with a few genuine interests. It sounds trivial, but it gives interviewers something human to ask about and can make you memorable when candidates are otherwise similar.

Layout

Start from a clean template, such as one from your university career center. Readers scan from top to bottom and left to right, so the most relevant items go at the top. Use the full page; resume-screening software rewards relevant content and keywords, but keep it readable with clear headings and consistent dates. Avoid tables, graphics and columns that screening software cannot read. Save and send it as a PDF named with your name, for example “Firstname-Lastname-Resume.pdf.”

Tailor by industry, not by job

Different roles value different parts of your background. Make a version for each type of role you are targeting, for example tech, consulting and government, rather than rewriting the resume for every single application. In the tech version, lead with experiments, SQL and product work. In the consulting version, lead with modeling, client work and writing. Then make small adjustments for the jobs you care most about, using the language of the posting.

Get feedback, more than once

Expect two or three rounds of revision before your resume is good. Ask your career center, people working in your target industry and friends who are not economists. A one-page resume takes a few minutes to review, so people are usually willing. The non-economists are especially useful: if they cannot tell what you did, a hiring manager cannot either.