Your Career Now

Your Achievements to Date

How would you describe what you have done and achieved in your career to date? In this section we review your CV, assess your current skills and identify recent highlights and successes.

In this section:

Your Curriculum Vitae (CV) and Resume

Activity

When did you last read through your entire Curriculum Vitae (CV) or Resume? Often we spend time only looking ahead to what we need to do, achieve or prioritise; sometimes it is helpful, for many reasons, to check where we’ve been as it can inform where we do or don’t want to go.

Take a moment to look at your CV and note:

  • What did I do?
  • When did I do it?
  • What did it lead to/result in?

If your CV or Resume is out of date – correct that as soon as you can by checking out these references and exploring other advice avenues.

Additional resources:

  • 38 tips on writing an academic CV

    A useful article from Nature about writing a CV suitable for academia.

    Read article

  • Creating an effective academic CV

    General guidance on creating your academic CV.

    Read article

  • Academic CVs: 10 irritating mistakes

    Short guide on common pitfalls to avoid that are commonly found in academic CVs.

    Read article

Transferable Skills

At each stage in your career you acquire skills and experiences. As your career progresses you can build on these, apply them in new settings and demonstrate your flexibility and expertise. Undoubtedly your resume shows that you have, what are often termed transferable skills – skills that are useful across different roles and occupations.

Activity

Take a moment to again review your career to date and identify your transferable skills/experiences.

What are transferable skills?

Use this worksheet to help identify your current skill set.

Your Career Timeline

If you view your notes from the Your Curriculum Vitae (CV) and Resume section above as a timeline – what does it show you? No doubt it suggests that you’ve made progress - please take a minute to acknowledge this, to yourself at least, and then consider the following activity.

Activity

Draft your Career Timeline to date. Make sure you extend the timeline from today for another 5 years.

  • What are the highlights for you?
  • What hurdles have you overcome?
  • What does this suggest about your strengths?

Career Timeline Worksheet

Download and print out the worksheet to plot your career timeline.

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