Preparing a Resume/Vita

The Vita is a concise summary of your academic, research and clinical experiences. It is similar to a Resume but may be much longer and does not include elements such as your occupational goals, salary requirements etc. You must always include a Vita, even if your program does not require one.

Some General Points

1) Maintain a consistent, logical organization

2) Do not include graphics

3) Do not include unusual or unreadable fonts

Major Sections of the Vita

Personal Information

Name, Address, Telephone Numbers and e-mail address

General Goals and Objectives

This section is used to state your career objectives. Do not include this section if you do not have a specific psychology job in mind. This section is usually not included in the Vita of a graduate school applicant.

Education

List all your educational experiences in chronological order, starting with the most recent and list them backwards. List Dates of attendance, University/College name, major or area of study, and degree earned. Some of these experiences may not be completed degree programs. For example, you may have attended a semester abroad, or taken courses in the summer at another college. List the title of these experiences and a brief description. Do not list your high school experiences. Since evaluators only trust the GPA presented on a transcript, do not present your GPA on the Vita. Chances are that it will be slightly different from the number on your transcript and you do not want an evaluator to think you made your GPA look better by estimating or rounding the number.

Employment

List relevant job experiences in chronological order, starting with the most recent and list them backwards. Include name of the employment site, address, dates of employment, your job title and the name of your supervisor. Write a short, concise description of your job duties. Do not include salary information or your reasons for leaving the position. Include volunteer positions as employment settings but make sure to indicate the volunteer nature of the position in the title and description.

Internships and Practica Experiences

Report these using the same format as employment settings. Since these are important for your application, you should explain your duties in more detail. Include the clinical populations served, specific therapy and assessment services provided and any other details that will help the evaluator understand the services you provided in the clinic. Describe any special education experiences that were included in the position, such as workshops, lectures or specialized training in therapy or psychological assessment.

Workshops and Special Lectures you Attended

Describe the major special lectures or training workshops you attended. These should be special events that were independent of your school courses and job training.

Research Experience

List each major research project or research position as if it was employment. Explain the study population, hypotheses of the study and your duties in detail. Since most of the people who will evaluate your application will be academic psychologists, you should explain research projects and positions in greater detail than if you were applying for a job. Research experience can compensate for other problems in your application. Make sure to elaborate this in your Vita and Personal Statement.

Publications

If you have produced research publications and other articles then you have a major advantage over the other applicants. Only a small percentage of applicants have publications. List these using APA style for references.

Special Skills

Here you itemize any special skills you have that are not apparent from the description of research and clinical experiences. These include knowledge of statistical analysis software, programming languages, web design, interview methods and specific therapy methods.

Teaching Experience

It is unusual for applicants to have any teaching experience. However, such experience will help your chances of admission. List any courses or workshops you have given.

Conference Presentations

This section refers to presentations given at professional conferences. These are usually research presentations and not workshops or training presentations.

Awards and Scholarships

List these by their titles. You may also list these under Education.

Professional Society Memberships

List all academic and professional societies in which you are a member. These include Psi Chi, The American Psychological Association (APA) and the American Psychological Society (APS).

References

List the names of the people who have written letters of recommendation for you.

Sample Completed Vita

The following is a Vita that has items for each section in order to have an example. Of course, you may not have something to include in each one.

Curriculum Vita

Jane Walters

Home
143 Fillton Ave
Jamison NJ 08045
(703) 456-7694

Work
Baycroft Clinic
256 Market St.
Jamison NJ 08045

Email Address: jwalters@home.com

Education

September 1998-present
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA, Bachelor of Arts expected June, 2001, Psychology Major, Anticipated degree with Honors and Distinction.

January 1999-June 1999
University of Pennsylvania, Study Session Abroad Program. The semester was spent studying Cognitive Development at the University of Geneva in Switzerland.

September 1997-June 1998
St. Joseph University, Philadelphia PA, Bachelor of Arts, Psychology Major. Twenty credits were taken at St. Joseph University before transfer to the University of Pennsylvania.

Employment

June 1999-September 1999
Hillcrest Residential Treatment Center, 1400 Green Orchard St., Philadelphia PA 19130. Supervisor: Janet Bernstein, PhD.

Position: Volunteer

Worked as a tutor and counselor for adolescent male offenders. Duties involved some case management conducted with the unit social workers. Volunteers also participate in staff meetings, family counseling sessions and pretrial evaluations.

June 1998-September January 1999
The Greenway School, The Devereaux Foundation, Devon PA 19830, Supervisor John Sears, PhD

Position: Counselor (20hrs/wk)

Worked with autistic children in a residential care program that included a variety of therapy approaches, including behavior therapy, play therapy, education programs and daily care. Duties involved working with four children for an eight-hour shift. Interventions included positive reinforcement and response-cost procedures. Treatment was designed to increase language abilities and social behavior.

Practicum/Internship

September 2000-present
Kennedy Community Mental Health Center, 1100 Broad St., Philadelphia PA 19103. Supervisor: Susan Pimental, MA. Position: Counselor

The Psychology program sponsors a part-time internship for Psychology majors planning to study Clinical Psychology. The student spends 10 hrs/wk in a mental health setting as part of a training experience. Duties included outpatient counseling, case management, organizing recreational therapy programs and crisis counseling. Internship didactic training included a specialized workshop series on Substance Abuse counseling.

Research Experiences

September 2000-present
Research Assistant. Family Adjustment Project. Department of Child Psychology, Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia PA 19034. Director: John Hagan, PhD. My responsibilities were to interview families using a standardized structured interview developed by the project, manage data entry and conduct some of the data analyses. Participation in the research project involved training in interview techniques and the administration and scoring of the Comprehensive Family Adjustment Scale, The General Scales of Psychological Adjustment and the Wilson Family Communication Scale. I was also trained to use The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). My knowledge of statistics, experimental design and data management were greatly improved by participation in the project.

June 1999-March 2000
Research Assistant. Social Psychology Study of the Relationship of Anger to Helping Behavior. Project Director: Bruce Gaertner, PhD. Department of Psychology, The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA. Responsibilities included serving as a confederate in a study in which subjects were involved in a situation that instilled anger. They were then exposed to conditions in which they were required to help a person who had previously made them angry. The situations were constructed using confederates who acted-out parts in a scenario that instilled anger in the actual subjects and a scenario in which the actor who made the subject angry was placed in a situation in which the actor needed the help of the subject. Involvement in the study required extensive training in the design of social psychology experiments and statistical procedures such as analysis of variance.

Publications

Johnson, D. , Walters, J., & Bostwick, R. (1999). Anger, Ethnicity and Helping Behavior. Journal of Social Psychology, 12, 121-128.

Special Skills

Trained in Structured Interviewing Skills, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, Microsoft Excel and Claris Filemaker Pro. I was also trained in Functional Behavioral Analysis and a number of specific Behavior Therapy Interventions.

Teaching Experience

June 12, 1999, Relaxation Training for Children, Workshop presented to the Wheaton Child Development Center.

Conference Presentations

Walters, J., & Brockman, C. D. (1999). The role of debriefing in Social Psychology studies involving deception, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association.

Awards and Scholarships

PsiChi, Phi Beta Kappa, Walters Scholarship for Exceptional Academic Performance

Professional Society Memberships

Student Member, The American Psychological Association
Student Member, The Philadelphia Behavior Therapy Society

References

John Sears, PhD
The Greenway School
The Devereaux Foundation
Devon PA 19830

John Hagan, PhD
Family Adjustment Project
Department of Child Psychology
Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia
Philadelphia PA 19034

Bruce Gaertner, PhD
Department of Psychology
The University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia PA 19025