On this page
- Guide to a college professor CV
- Resume or CV: what a faculty application actually needs
- How to write a college professor CV
- Include your contact information
- Make use of a profile or research summary
- Right vs wrong: the same profile, twice
- Outline your teaching and research
- List publications the way a committee reads them
- What the shape of the profession means for your CV
- List the education and credentials that carry an academic application
- Choose the right CV layout and design
- The academic job market
- What you can expect to earn
- Key takeaways for a college professor CV
- Related education resume examples
- FAQ
A college professor application does not use a resume. It uses a curriculum vitae, and the difference is not a matter of naming. A resume is a one or two page argument that leaves things out. A CV leaves nothing out, runs to whatever length your record requires, and is read by a committee of people who do your job.
If you have been sending a two-page resume to faculty postings, that is very likely why you have heard nothing back.
Guide to a college professor CV
This guide and the corresponding college professor CV example will cover:
- Why academic hiring uses a CV, and the full document set it asks for
- How to write one, section by section
- Three adaptable versions: ABD, assistant professor, and full professor
- What changes between a research university and a community college
- How to list publications the way a committee reads them
- What the academic job market looks like and what you can expect to earn
Resume or CV: what a faculty application actually needs
Almost every faculty posting asks for four to six separate documents. The CV is only the first.
| Document | What it is for | Length |
|---|---|---|
| Curriculum vitae | The complete record: appointments, publications, grants, teaching, service | No limit. Two pages as a new PhD, twenty as a senior professor |
| Cover letter | Why this department, and how your work fits its needs | 1 to 2 pages |
| Teaching philosophy | How you teach and why, with evidence | 1 to 2 pages |
| Research statement | What you have done, what is next, and what it will need | 2 to 3 pages |
| Diversity or inclusion statement | Requested by many institutions, particularly public ones | 1 to 2 pages |
| Letters of recommendation | Three or more, sent directly by the writers | Not yours to write |
| Teaching portfolio | Syllabi, evaluations, sample assignments. Often requested at shortlist stage | Varies |
A one or two page resume is right for exactly one part of this field: administrative and staff roles at a college, and some community college teaching posts that say "resume" explicitly. Read the posting. When it says CV, it means CV.
Order the CV for the institution, not for yourself
The order of your sections is the argument you are making about what you are for.
At a research university, put research and publications above teaching. At a teaching-focused college or a community college, put teaching, courses taught and student outcomes above publications. The content barely changes; the order changes completely, and a committee reads the first page as a statement of priorities.
Sending an R1-ordered CV to a community college is the most common reason a strong candidate gets passed over there. It reads as someone who will leave.
How to write a college professor CV
Sections, in the order a research-focused application wants them: contact, education, academic appointments, publications, grants and funding, invited talks and conference presentations, teaching experience, advising and mentorship, service, and professional affiliations.
Two rules carry most of the weight.
Everything is reverse chronological within its section. Newest first, without exception, so a reader can see trajectory at a glance.
Nothing is summarised. A resume compresses ten years into four bullets. A CV lists every peer-reviewed article. Summarising reads as having little to list.
Include your contact information
Name with your degree, your current title and institution, an institutional email if you have one, city and state, and your ORCID iD.
An ORCID iD costs nothing and takes five minutes. It disambiguates you from every other researcher with your surname, which matters more the more common the name and the more you publish.
Make use of a profile or research summary
Three or four lines naming your field, your subfield, your appointment status and your central research question. Some disciplines expect it and some do not, so check what your field's CVs look like before adding one.
ABD or new PhD adaptable profile example
Assistant professor adaptable profile example
Full professor adaptable profile example
Right vs wrong: the same profile, twice
The right-hand column is what a committee counts. The left-hand column asks them to take your word for a number they will look up anyway.
Outline your teaching and research
Teaching entries need the course number, the title, the level, the enrolment, your role, and the terms taught. "Instructor of record" and "teaching assistant" are different jobs and a committee reads the distinction immediately.
- Instead of
Taught undergraduate psychology courses
UsePSY 2300 Developmental Psychology, instructor of record, 4 semesters, enrolment 60 to 110, mean evaluation 4.6/5 across 312 students
- Instead of
Assisted with research projects in the lab
UseCoordinated a 4-year longitudinal study of 240 participants across 3 sites; managed the data pipeline and trained 9 undergraduate research assistants
- Instead of
Presented research at conferences
Use14 conference presentations including 4 invited talks; SRCD 2026 symposium organiser
- Instead of
Mentored graduate students
UseChaired 3 dissertation committees and served on 7; supervised 14 doctoral students to completion, 11 now in tenure-track posts
Adaptable academic appointments and teaching example
Assistant Professor of Psychology, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 2023 to present
Research on attention and early literacy in bilingual preschoolers. Principal investigator on an NSF CAREER award of $412,000. Direct a lab of 2 doctoral students and 6 undergraduate research assistants.
Courses taught as instructor of record:
PSY 2300 Developmental Psychology, undergraduate lecture, enrolment 60 to 110, 4 semesters, mean evaluation 4.6/5
PSY 4890 Research Methods in Developmental Science, undergraduate seminar, enrolment 18, 2 semesters
PSY 8820 Advanced Topics in Cognitive Development, doctoral seminar, enrolment 8, 2 semesters
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 2021 to 2023
Ran the second wave of a 240-participant longitudinal study across three sites and rebuilt the coding protocol now used by the lab.
List publications the way a committee reads them
Group by type, in this order: peer-reviewed journal articles, books, book chapters, peer-reviewed conference proceedings, then everything else. Within each group, reverse chronological.
Mark your role, and never inflate a status
Bold your own name in each citation, and mark first or corresponding authorship if your field cares about it, which most do. In fields with alphabetical authorship, say so in a one-line note so a committee outside your subfield does not misread the order.
Use only the real statuses: published, in press, accepted, under review, in preparation. "Submitted" and "in preparation" belong in a separate clearly labelled group, never mixed in with published work. Committees check. A paper listed as in press that turns out to be under review is the kind of thing that ends a candidacy rather than costing a line.
Adaptable publications example
Peer-reviewed journal articles
Tanaka, Y., Okonkwo, R., and Lindqvist, M. (2026). Attention allocation during joint reading in bilingual preschoolers. Developmental Science, 29(4), 411 to 429.
Tanaka, Y., and Reyes, D. (2025). Vocabulary growth and shared book reading: a four-year longitudinal study. Child Development, 96(2), 188 to 205.
Book chapters
Tanaka, Y. (2025). Bilingual attention in early childhood. In R. Okonkwo (Ed.), Handbook of Early Cognitive Development (pp. 214 to 238). Cambridge University Press.
Under review
Tanaka, Y., and Feldman, N. Cross-linguistic transfer in preschool phonological awareness. Manuscript under review at Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.
What the shape of the profession means for your CV
Most faculty posts are not tenure-track
About 68% of faculty members in US colleges and universities held contingent appointments in fall 2023, and about 32% held full-time tenured or tenure-track appointments. In 1987 the split was 47% contingent to 53% tenured or tenure-track (AAUP, Data Snapshot: Tenure and Contingency in US Higher Education, fall 2023).
That is the single most useful fact for planning your documents. Most of the postings you will answer are not tenure-track, and they are read differently: a non-tenure-track teaching post wants course coverage, enrolment numbers and student outcomes on page one, and treats a long publication list as evidence you will leave as soon as you can. Keep two orderings of the same CV and send the right one.
List the education and credentials that carry an academic application
Degrees in reverse chronological order with institution, field, year, and your dissertation title and committee chair. Include the defence date if you have not finished, stated precisely.
Adaptable education example
PhD, Developmental Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 2021
Dissertation: Attention allocation during joint reading in bilingual preschoolers. Chair: Professor Rachel Okonkwo.
MS, Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 2018
BA, Psychology and Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 2016, with high honours
If you are ABD, write it as "PhD expected August 2027, dissertation defended June 2027" or "defence scheduled March 2027". Vagueness here is read as a problem, because a department hiring for a September start needs the degree in hand.
Choose the right CV layout and design
Plain. A CV is a reference document, not a designed one. Single column, one standard serif or sans-serif face, consistent headings, page numbers, and your surname in the header of every page after the first.
Do
- Number the pages and put your surname on each one, because committees print these and pages get separated.
- Keep one section order for research-focused applications and a second for teaching-focused ones.
- Give every course its number, level and enrolment.
- Mark authorship position in your citations.
- Use your discipline's citation style throughout, since a psychologist reading MLA notices.
Don’t
- Do not use columns, colour, icons, a photo or a skills bar; a CV with design on it reads as someone who has not seen one.
- Do not cap it at two pages, which loses the record the document exists to hold.
- Do not list "submitted" work among published work.
- Do not pad service with committee memberships you attended once, because your field is small and your reader may have been in the room.
You will need a genuine one or two page resume as well, for administrative posts, industry roles and grant biosketches. When you build that version, check its ATS score for free, because those applications do go through parsing software while faculty searches do not.
The academic job market
Postsecondary teaching is growing faster than the average occupation, which sits oddly beside how competitive individual searches feel. Both things are true: the openings are real, and most of them are not the tenure-track posts applicants picture.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Postsecondary teaching jobs, 2025 | 1,378,200 |
| Projected change, 2025-35 | +7% (much faster than average) |
| Projected annual openings | ~103,300 |
| Typical entry-level education | PhD at four-year institutions; a master's is often enough at community colleges |
What you can expect to earn
The median annual wage for postsecondary teachers was $85,330 as of May 2025 (BLS). Institution type moves that figure more than seniority does at the start of a career.
| Setting | Median annual wage (May 2025) |
|---|---|
| State colleges and universities | |
| Private colleges and universities | |
| Local junior colleges | |
| State junior colleges |
Field matters as much. Law teachers had a median of $128,500, economics teachers $123,920 and engineering teachers $109,270 in the same data. Those gaps are set by what the discipline pays outside the university, not by what the university values, which is worth knowing before reading a departmental offer as a judgement on your work.
Key takeaways for a college professor CV
- Academic hiring uses a CV, not a resume, and a two-page resume sent to a faculty search is why you heard nothing.
- Expect to write four to six documents, of which the CV is only the first.
- Reorder the CV for the institution: research first for an R1, teaching first for a community college.
- Give every course its number, level, enrolment and your role, and distinguish instructor of record from teaching assistant.
- Group publications by type, mark your authorship position, and never list submitted work as published.
- State your defence date precisely if you are ABD.
- Keep the design plain, number the pages, and put your surname on every one.
Build your academic CV in Rezoom and keep a one-page resume version for administrative and industry applications.
Related education resume examples
Take a look at our other education resume examples:
- Adjunct professor resume
- Academic resume
- Research assistant resume
- Teacher resume
- High school teacher resume
- Academic librarian resume
- Instructional designer resume
- Principal resume
- Assistant principal resume
- School counselor resume
- Graduate school resume
- PhD resume
College professor CV questions, answered
Should a college professor send a resume or a CV?
A CV, unless the posting says resume. Faculty searches expect a complete record with no page limit, alongside a cover letter, a teaching philosophy and usually a research statement. Administrative and staff posts at colleges, and some community college teaching posts, do ask for a resume; read the posting rather than assuming.
How long should a college professor CV be?
As long as your record. Two to four pages as a new PhD, six to ten as a mid-career professor, twenty or more as a senior one with a long publication list. Length is descriptive rather than persuasive here, which is the opposite of how a resume works.
What order should the sections go in?
Research first for a research university: education, appointments, publications, grants, talks, then teaching. Teaching first for a teaching-focused college or a community college: education, appointments, teaching and courses taught, student outcomes, then publications. Keep both versions and send the one that matches.
How do I list publications that are not published yet?
In a separate group, clearly labelled, using only the real status: in press, accepted, under review, in preparation. Never mix them with published work. Committees verify, and a paper listed as in press that turns out to be under review costs more than the line was worth.
What should I put on a CV as an ABD candidate with little published?
Put teaching and the dissertation forward. Give every course you were instructor of record for, with enrolment and evaluation data, list conference presentations in full, and state the defence date precisely. Two first-author papers in press outweigh a long list of talks, but four semesters of independent teaching outweigh both at a teaching-focused institution.
Does a professor CV need to be ATS-friendly?
Faculty searches are read by committees, often through Interfolio or a similar academic system, not by the parsing software that filters corporate applications. Plain formatting still helps, but do not compromise the record to satisfy a filter that is not there. Keep a separate one-page resume for the administrative and industry roles where parsing does apply.