What makes the perfect psychologist’s resume?

Finding a job in the field of psychology is not always easy, but there are tricks that help.

Unemployment figures affect everyone, but to careers that issue year after year a large number of graduates, even more. This is the case in the world of psychology.Although it has many professional opportunities that are becoming more and more varied, it is not particularly easy to generate the jobs needed to absorb the graduates.

Moreover, as ironic as it may sound, as much as psychology deals with the actions and ways of perceiving the world of human beings, people trained in this field do not always know how to make their application for a job. do not always know how to make their application attractive in the eyes of recruiters. recruiters.

How to make a resume if you are a psychologist

Fortunately, there are always ways to maximize our options for making our candidacy stand out in the form of a paper or digital resume.

Some of these rules on how to make a resume are practically universal and work for any profession, while others are more specific. In fact, the most general ones can be found in this other article: "10 tips to improve your Curriculum Vitae".

As for the tips for creating a resume in the field of psychologythese are the keys to take into account:

A clear and coherent structure 2.

A resume cannot be just accumulated information about oneself, even if that information is well filtered and totally relevant to the purpose we have set for ourselves.

That is why its structure must be clear, showing the data of each type together and in its own section.The most relevant information should be placed at the top of each category, creating hierarchies within each category.

Thus, the contact details should be all together and very close to the name, since these are the elements that allow us to identify and contact us, while the academic and work experience should be separated and be in reverse chronological order, from the most recent to the most distant in time.

2. Include short courses

Psychology is a very young discipline, and between that and the fact that there is a lot of research done annually in this field, constant training is very necessary in order not to remain outdated..

When it comes to making a resume to apply for a position in psychology or related fields, this means that you should have no qualms about adding the courses and workshops you have taken. They not only inform about our skills and knowledge, but also indicate our philosophy of constant training. And yes, free courses are also welcome: many of them are of very good quality.

Now then, should all these complementary courses be included in the CV? It depends, if they are few (less than 3, for example), we can put them without problems. But if there are more, it is better to filter and include only those that we believe are more related to the job you are applying for, because a long list of workshops and courses can give the impression that you just want to inflate your CV.

3. Choose what to prioritize: training or work experience.

If the parts closest to the top of the CV do not convince the Human Resources staff or the recruitment technicians, it is very likely that they will not continue reading. That is why it is important to put what we emphasize the most at the beginning.

This, applied to the structure of a psychologist's curriculum vitae, means that when establishing the order in which the work and academic experience appears, it is always necessary to put first that section in which we Excel the most. put first that section in which we show off the most..

In the case of a student looking for an internship, for example, putting first the university education and the short courses she has taken is a good option, since her working life in the field of work she is applying for is probably very brief or non-existent.

4. Indicate as soon as possible what we focus on

Psychology has many branches, and between some of them there is little relation. Therefore, it is good to "sharpen" as much as possible the profile we want to give, eliminating ambiguities and making it clear from the beginning what we do or want to do.

To do this, first of all we must indicate whether we are engaged in research or intervention on individuals or groups. on individuals or groups. This means that if in recent times we have collaborated with research even though we are primarily engaged in psychotherapy, it is worth including that collaboration in a separate section below our experience in intervention.

Once this is done, we do the same for our chosen field, writing in a well visible place the specialization that we have done and placing the mentions to and placing the mentions to punctual and not very representative collaborations of our trajectory in a more discreet place than the rest of the functions performed, below them.

5. Include publications and mentions

Almost all psychologists are clear that it is good (and sometimes essential) to include the name of the publications in which they have participated, whether journal articles or books. However, it is not so frequent to take into account the mentions.

This last point is important, because those who have a small web page or personal blog may be surprised to find that they have been mentioned in some digital and print media, using information we have published.using information that we have published.

In fact, these situations are not infrequent: many journalists seek to support the topics covered in their texts with the points of view of professionals in the field, and sometimes, instead of arranging interviews, they simply quote without warning.

6. Include a specific place for certain technical skills

There are certain technical skills that, although they are mentioned in the description of the workshops and jobs held, deserve to appear in a place where they are highlighted. For this purpose, it is good to create a module or section separate from the work or professional experience and include them there. and include them there.

For research positions, this text, in list format, should emphasize the data collection methods that are mastered, both qualitative and quantitative: structured, semi-structured or in-depth interviews, psychological tests, etc.

Skills related to data analysis should also be mentioned: experience with statistical software such as SPSS, mastery of programming languages or programs such as R or ATLAS.ti, etc.

For intervention-related positions, you should also indicate the data collection methods with which you have experience, as well as the types of individual or group treatment or intervention with which you have worked.