For PhDs looking to exit academia, it's critical to convert your CV to a crisp, industry-focused resume. Importantly: a resume is a marketing document, not an academic record. It needs to get past ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems), to capture a recruiter's attention in seconds, and to clearly translate your research into industry-friendly lingo.

Here are 5 tips to convert your CV to a resume, drawing on what I've learned guiding more than 100 PhDs successfully out of academia and into industry roles.  

Tip #1: Be a 1-Page Candidate.

For industry resumes, shorter is better.

• The Rule: Aim for a 1-page resume, unless you're hearing from folks in the role you're targeting that 2-page is more typical. 

• The Rationale: Industry recruiters, hiring managers, and interviewers are busy. Your resume will be scanned, not read. Length is a vanity metric in academia but in industry, it signals a lack of clarity and prioritization. Edit down to the essentials to ensure your core message is delivered in the first 6 seconds.

• Your Goal: Concisely describe your unique research experience and background in written form so that you clearly fit the target role and stand out from other applicants. This takes work! But start with a draft and iterate because this quick description matters.
  
  

Tip #2: Translate Your Academic Experience to Industry-Specific Skills 

Your research topic is often irrelevant; the skills you used to execute it matter more.

• The Rule: Source keywords and jargon that matter to your target industry roles, then include those key verbs and nouns in your resume.

• The Rationale: Applicant Tracking Systems scan for exact keyword matches. If you're cold uploading a resume, you'll want concrete skills like project management or statistical modeling to generate a "match" between your resume and the profile the ATS (or recruiter) is looking for. 

• Your Goal: Translate academic concepts into marketable industry jargon. In general, I've found that the more you speak with folks outside of academia about the work, the easier it gets to start using the lingo. Immerse yourself in industry vocabulary via informational interviews and incorporate what you learn as you update your resume lingo. 
   

Tip #3: Quantify Everything (Achieved Y by doing Z)

A strong resume bullet point nearly always contains concrete numbers.

• The Rule: Quantify whatever you can in a resume bullet point — whether scale (How many data points did you analyze?), scope (How much funding did you obtain?), or value (how many presentations did you deliver?) You show your concrete outputs by quantifying them.  

• The Rationale: When bullets don't contain a quantity, they read as vague and potentially fudged ("I managed some projects with some people doing some stuff…trust me!) Use concrete quantities to illustrate the real scope of the work you've done. 

• Your Goal: Focus on impact using the "action, problem, results" framing for each bullet. Get as precise as possible about where you started and where you landed. Instead of "Conducted research on protein sequencing," try: "Sequenced 25 proteins to identify a viable candidate for an HIV treatment, shortening Phase I research by 6 months."

Tip #4: Craft a Powerful, 2-Sentence Summary Statement

Create a strong summary statement to help the reader see what you bring to the table. 

• The Rule: Use a 2-sentence summary up top on the resume to make an assertion for why you're a strong fit. Ideally, the reader could move you to the next hiring stage having read just this summary. 

• The Rationale: The summary statement is your chance to "bucket" yourself for the reader and provide an immediate fit signal. Do your research upfront to understand the opportunity and what you bring — the better you do this, the better you'll be able to articulate it concisely. 

• Your Goal: Make it impossible for the reader to confuse you with a generic candidate. Choose language that highlights your PhD as a strength, not a liability.

Tip #5: Proactively Fill Perceived Gaps

Academics are unconventional job candidates — use your resume to assuage any fears a reader might hold. 

• The Rule: Identify 3 main pillars of any job description and ensure your resume addresses all 3. For example, if a job wants skills in data analysis, managing stakeholders, and delivering results on a tight timeline, ensure your summary statement speaks to all 3 and that you've got bullets backing up your summary. 

• The Rationale: Recruiters and hiring managers are trained to spot missing information relevant to the job. These gaps immediately become reasons to rule you out as a candidate ("We're not sure she can collaborate well…Let's choose that candidate with concretely demonstrated collaboration expertise.") 
• Your Goal: Learn about common blind spots for PhDs via your informational interviews (skills in collaboration and doing work quickly being a few). Address those areas concretely with bullet points that counteract them (e.g. "Collaborated with 4 international colleagues to convene a specialist conference in my field with 5000 attendees from 24 universities.")
  
  

As a PhD-holder, you've demonstrated grit, research ability, and expertise in your specific domain. You can make the transition to an industry role, even from a "niche" discipline. Your mission in creating a resume is to confidently, concisely, and clearly convey the unique value you bring to a specific type of industry job. Use these 5 tips so that your resume can open doors you might otherwise never have imagined.