How to Tell Your Professional Story

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All of us have a professional story to share. We have come from various backgrounds that make us different and allow us to link unique contributions from our professional journey. Some of us dedicate our careers to academics, many serve in private practice, and others have a combination of career experiences. Unfortunately, many of our humble colleagues have incomplete stories in their curriculum vitae (CV), their résumés and their personal statements.

Academic colleagues tend to be better at telling their stories because academic promotions rely on a current CV; they document their contributions well regarding teaching, presentations, research, committee work and even volunteer activities. Many clinical colleagues contribute significantly to their hospitals, clinical settings and the community, but do not document this well.

Often, ACR/ARP members and mentors want to nominate colleagues for academic promotion, award recognition, committee membership or even job opportunities, but this can be problematic for the nominator if a CV or résumé is incomplete. Professional contributions and community work are relevant to our stories, and this brief article highlights how you can optimize your CV, résumé or your personal statement to better tell your story.

Optimize Your CV

Dr. Poole

Many places of employment have a suggested standard format for CVs/résumés. The format may or may not tell your story, and you may need different versions. Whether you are applying for a job, fellowship, research position, pro­motion, award, committee membership or other position, start by reading the description and/or criteria. These may be general or very specific. Your CV/résumé should have sections or categories that reflect the criteria. If the instructions say “highlight contributions,” then do that. It’s also a good idea to send the guidelines/criteria to the people who are writing letters of recommendation or nominating you.

Even with vague guidelines or criteria, have sections or categories on your CV/résumé that correspond with those in the guidelines. The easier it is to find information on your CV/résumé, the happier both your nomination letter writers and reviewers will be.

Highlight Leadership Roles

It is important to highlight and reflect significant leadership roles in your CV, résumé or personal statements when being considered for a new position, committee or an award nomination. Professional titles, such as department chair or dean, convey many predictable leadership roles and experience. However, other positions don’t imply leadership experience or potential. For example, a staff member may have led an initiative for faculty development in the department or even at the hospital level that would be unappreciated unless uniquely highlighted and labeled as chair, lead, etc.

Other roles could include chairing a curriculum development initiative, managing finances for a clinic, taking on quality assurance roles, mentoring students/trainees at any level or leading patient education initiatives in the community. Even leadership volunteer roles in primary and secondary education as a parent, in a sports league or in your church community reflect expertise in communication, team building and executive skills.

Mentoring is another aspect of leadership to emphasize. For a mentoring award, the CV/résumé should showcase what type or level of people were mentored (e.g., undergraduate or graduate students, residents, fellows, interprofessional students, faculty, staff). Describe the outcomes from the mentorship, such as presentations, publications, scholarship, awards and acceptance for position (e.g., post-doctoral academic, practice).

Volunteer Roles