Psychologist Resume Example + Best Writing Tips and Resume Template

Psychologist Resume – Writing Tips & Best Practices

Are you starting your career as a psychologist or planning to change your job? No matter where you are – it’s time to write a resume that will catch the recruiters’ eye! 

A properly written psychologists job application will not only help you to stand out from other applicants. An effective Resume can significantly shorten the job search time. 

What should a good psychology resume contain?

Below you will find practical advice on how to write an effective CV for psychology area.

Research shows that most recruiters spend less than 30 seconds on each resume! Unless they find the one that catches their attention.

How to make sure that it is your application that catches the recruiter’s eye for a longer period of time?

First of all use the effective Resume template that attracts attention and perfectly highlights the crucial skills and experience. 

You don’t know how to start? Use our ready to go resume sample. Just download, fill in with your data and apply.

You are not a fan of cv templates in Word? No problem, use our resume builder and create your psychology curriculum vitae in seconds. 

Second of all – study carefully the job offer. Try to understand who is the perfect candidate that the company is looking for. Read between the lines. Pay special attention to: 

• what are the key skills that your future employer is looking for
• what is the minimal experience required
• the job offer language as well as keywords and phares that it contains. You should reflect them in your resume

1. Start with Strong Resume Summary or Career Objective 

Writing a resume most people associate with providing information: where, how long, and what position they worked in. Even some CV templates limit themselves to just filling in the work experience and personal details fields.

However, just listing your career path will not stand you out from other candidates.

That’s why you need a good resume introduction. 

Many hiring managers decide whether they want to keep on reading your resume after having a look at the resume summary. That’s why it has to be strong and convincing.

So how to write a good resume summary that will capture a HR manager’s eye?

It should prove that you have a required experience or specialty, key skills, effectiveness and additional value. That is the recipe for a perfect resume summary.

As for effectiveness, mention your professional achievements from previous jobs. There is no better way to demonstrate that.  

When it comes to additional value, this could be soft skills or your career goal for the future. 

Psychology Resume Summary example:

TIP: Add a resume Summary if you are a candidate with extensive experience. If you are a fresh graduate with no experience, or  you are just looking for your first job as a psychologist, include a career objective. Instead of experience, describe who you are, add information about your profile and skills. Mention which areas of your work as a psychologist are particularly important to you, or what are your professional goals. You can also describe projects that you carried out during your studies, e.g. as part of student clubs.

Both your professional summary and your career objective should be short, (about 2-5 sentences) catchy, precise and specific.

Remember – personalized message is more effective and draw more attention.

2. Psychologist Experience – how to describe it in your Resume?

After an effective introduction, it’s time to describe your experience.

First, write down all the places and job titles you have been working in since the beginning of your career. Pick those that are relevant to the job offer you are applying for.

Start your description with the most important duties of the psychologist position. 

Take a look at the example below!

TIP: Important! Remember to match the scope of your responsibilities to the job offer you are applying for. It is not always worth describing every position in detail. Focus on those that are relevant to your future employer expectations

Ok, but what, you are looking for a job as psychologist without experience?

Are you doomed to fail? Not al all. Just do it smart.

Instead of highlighting duties and responsibilities, underline your education level, skills, any finished trainings, courses, certificates, or awards.

For example if you were a school psychologist intern, mention that, especially if you had any accomplishments from that time.   

3. Skills Example in a Psychotherapist Resume

There are some soft skills, that a psychologist should have. They are for example:

• empathy,
• patience,
• active listening,
• proficient communication skills, 
• excellent judgment and decision making skills
• and more.

Do you have such skill set? Great.

This is valuable, however quite obvious and commonly used.

That’s why focus first on those skills that are required in the job offer, because this is exactly what the hiring managers are looking for. Pay special attention to hard skills and knowledge that is need for this position.

If you have those skills, place them at the top of your skills section in your psychology resume.

What about other skills that might be in desirable in psychologist position? Here are the examples:

See the example of skills that might be included in a psychologist cv:

• Psychotherapy
• Abstract reasoning
• Leadership
• Educational And Mental Health Assessment And Diagnostics
• Conducting  Research
• Individual and group therapy
• Driver’s license
• Foreign languages skills

TIP: Besides interpersonal skills and hard skills, your future employer probably will require relevant education, completed courses or trainings, certificates, accreditations etc. Proven education and skills might be crucial in the position of psychologist, so make sure to highlight that in your resume. 

4. Use Important Keywords and Phrases

It is important what words you use in your resume. Above all try to use keywords from job oppening. Since the employer included them in the job description, they will catch his attetion in the first line. 

Apart from that, using keywords from the offer will help your resume to pass through scanning software like ATS – in case recruiters use ones to preverify resume applicattions.

As for psychologist resume, here are the examples of such keywords: clinical psychologists, providing psychological consultation, patient care,  counseling psychology,  comprehensive psychological services, provide crisis counseling  and intervention

5. Summary

Today’s job market is really competitive. Expectations from candidates are high. Therefore you have no other choice like grab the HR manager’s attention from the first minutes.

Apply with an appropriate resume template. You don’t have to start from 0. Write your application with resume templates in word or use one of resume builders.    

Isn’t this resume template convinient for you? See our different resume examples.

It may sound obvious but run the spell check before you send your job resume. Recruiters admit that the great number of applications they receive, contain errors and this can destroy even perfectly written resume.  

Remember to carefully read the job posting you are applying for. Some employers require your CV as well as a cover letter. Then you can also use the cover letter creator. 

Psst. Don’t forget to check your personal and contact information. Even a perfect CV will be ineffective if you forget to add your contact details. 

Good luck!

In case of any questions, doubts or whatever, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below.