Tailoring guide
Professor resume keywords and example
Faculty searches usually ask for an academic CV rather than a résumé, so check the posting first. Either way, committees read for the terminal degree in the field (usually a PhD), your teaching record, peer-reviewed publications and grants, and service, weighted differently at research universities, teaching colleges and community colleges. Below are the keywords that recur, a sample summary, skills grouped by type, and example bullets from new PhD to senior faculty.
Updated 14 November 2026. Keyword research current as of November 2026, sourced from public ATS keyword guides, not Weydr's own usage data.
Professor keywords that repeat in job postings
- PhD
- Tenure-Track
- Peer-Reviewed Publications
- Grant Funding (NSF, NIH)
- Curriculum Development
- Undergraduate and Graduate Teaching
- Student Mentoring
- Academic Advising
- University Service
Only include the ones that are true for you. A keyword you can't back up in an interview costs more than it gains.
Sample professional summary
Assistant professor of environmental science with a PhD and 4 years on the tenure track at a regional public university. Teaches 3 courses a semester from intro to graduate seminar, publishes on watershed nutrient cycles with 9 peer-reviewed articles, holds an NSF grant as PI and mentors undergraduate researchers in a field lab.
Illustrative example. Swap in your own years, domain, tools and results.
Skills to list on a professor resume
Hard skills
- Course design and syllabus development
- Lecture, seminar and lab teaching
- Research design and analysis
- Grant writing and management
- Peer review and editorial work
- Thesis and dissertation supervision
Soft skills
- Clear teaching for mixed audiences
- Mentoring students
- Collaboration across departments
- Committee and governance work
- Managing long research timelines
Tools
- Canvas
- Blackboard
- Moodle
- R / SPSS / Stata
- Zotero
- Overleaf / LaTeX
A tailored bullet, before and after
Taught classes and did research.
Redesigned the department's introductory statistics course for 180 students a term around weekly R labs in Canvas, and shared the lab materials with 3 adjunct instructors teaching other sections.
Example resume bullets by seniority
Illustrative examples: the companies, numbers and outcomes are made up to show the structure (action, scope, tool, result). Use your own real figures.
Entry level
- Taught 2 sections of introductory biology as instructor of record during the PhD, writing the syllabus, exams and lab guides.
- Published 3 first-author peer-reviewed articles from dissertation research on soil microbial communities.
Mid level
- Won an NSF grant as principal investigator, funding 2 graduate students and a summer undergraduate research program.
- Designed a new upper-division course in data ethics, approved by the curriculum committee and now taught every spring.
Senior
- Chaired the department for 3 years, leading 2 faculty searches and a program review for regional accreditation.
- Supervised 6 doctoral dissertations to completion, with graduates placed in faculty and industry research roles.
Gaps candidates miss most
- Teaching load and the course levels you have taught, which matter as much as publications at teaching-focused schools
- Grants with your role (PI, co-PI) and the funder, rather than a vague "secured funding"
- Service such as committees, advising and outreach, which most review criteria include
Common professor resume mistakes
- Sending a two-page résumé when the search asks for a full academic CV.
- Listing publications without full citations or a clear note on which are under review.
- Using the same document for a research university and a teaching college, which weigh things differently.
- Inflating a grant role, such as listing yourself as PI on a grant where you were key personnel.
- Leaving out teaching evaluations or innovations, when the posting asks for teaching effectiveness.
Before you stuff in keywords
- Does ATS really reject 75% of résumés?: what the research says about ATS filtering.
- How to tailor your résumé to a job description: what the research says about ATS filtering.
- What an ATS résumé checker can and can't tell you: what the research says about ATS filtering.
- Tailoring a résumé to a job description: a worked example: what the research says about ATS filtering.
- How to explain an employment gap on your résumé: what the research says about ATS filtering.
- How to write a cover letter for a specific job: what the research says about ATS filtering.
- Résumé summary examples, and how to write your own: what the research says about ATS filtering.
- How long should a résumé be?: what the research says about ATS filtering.
- How to write a career change résumé: what the research says about ATS filtering.
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