7 Essential Tips for Drafting a Compelling CV for Psychiatrist Jobs

Are you a psychiatrist looking for a new job? A compelling CV is vital for an optimal job search and securing prized interviews with employers. A well-crafted CV provides a detailed illustration of your accomplishments, skills, and experience. To help you navigate this task we have collated seven essential tips that the most successful psychiatrists have used in their CVs.

Upon starting a search for a new job, three documents must be carefully drafted: CV, cover letter and list of referees.  The most important is the CV. Crucial for showcasing achievements, experience, expertise and credentials, it must succinctly address the requirements of each job application whilst highlighting potential and career goals.

Psychiatry is an unique medical speciality, fascinating and challenging in equal measures, and it requires distinct skills which differ to some degree from those of other branches of medicine. The CV must demonstrate the awareness and mastery of these skills and the interest to develop them further with career progression.

1. Define Your Career Goals in Psychiatry

Start by defining your career goals in psychiatry and show how the job for which you are applying will help you attain them. Employers prefer candidates who have a clear idea of where they are headed and the motivation to achieve their objectives. A good alignment of job and career goals provides the incentive to strive for excellence in performance.

Whether you are aiming for a clinical leadership position, a career in psychiatry research or education, a subspecialist field of practice or just experience of a broad range of psychiatric practice, highlight these aims on your CV. This helps to differentiate you from other candidates who may be less focused.



2. Detail Your Psychiatry Training

Psychiatry residency or vocational training varies considerably across the world, the degree of variation exceeding that of all other medical specialities. In the countries of the Anglosphere (UK, Ireland, Canada, USA, Australia and New Zealand), psychiatry training forms a similar pattern with an emphasis on basic training in adult general psychiatry followed by training in subspecialist fields such as old age psychiatry, child psychiatry, forensic psychiatry and others. At the end of a structured program, a board certification or fellowship exam marks the end of specialist training and the right to work as a psychiatrist or pursue higher training in fellowship programs.

In other countries, psychiatry training is pursued as a speciality of neurology and often focuses exclusively in sub specialist fields with little or no general psychiatric training. A qualified child and adolescent psychiatrist in Europe, for example, may have no training in adult general psychiatry and may therefore not be eligible for a licence to practice psychiatry in some jurisdictions.

When applying for jobs in different countries it must be acknowledged that employers may not understand the course of specialist training in your country of qualification, hence you must explain it. We recommend drafting an outline of psychiatry residency or vocational training programs with brief information about modules and time frames in each field, ideally covering basic and advanced levels of training. This provides a framework of reference which an employer can use to assess your suitability for a particular job and category of medical registration.

3. Describe Your Scope of Psychiatry Practice

As with specialist training, scope of practice in psychiatry is variable. In some countries it is combined with neurology, in others confined to a subspecialist field and in most is broad and general. A list of jobs and hospitals where you have worked is not sufficient information to allow a prospective employer to evaluate your experience and skills and hence aptness for a job. You should include a summary of your current and recent jobs including duties, responsibilities and case types managed. You should briefly describe the following: 

• patient demographics
• out patient and community psychiatric duties
• in patient management
• acute and chronic condition management
• on call cover
• participation in medical education of residents and junior doctors
• continuing medical education and structure of program ie. formal or informal

 4.  Identify Your Strengths

Having identified your career goals and summarised your experience in terms of training and scope of psychiatry practice, it is time to identify your key skills and strengths. Are you an excellent listener, skilled analyst and diagnostician and an outstanding communicator? Are you resilient and adaptable? Can you persevere with patient management in the face of setbacks? Are you an able researcher or skilled medical educator? Recognise what you have achieved in your career so far and where you want to go, what sets you apart, and highlight these well honed skills on your CV. 

5. Emphasise Your Legal and Ethical Practice Framework

The clinical practice of psychiatry often requires involvement with the legal aspects of medical practice in two circumstances. The first is the assessment and detention of patients under Mental Health Acts when the patient's mental state is deemed to pose a threat to the wellbeing of self or others. The second is the role of the expert witness in describing the impact of a patient's mental state on behaviour which has brought the patient into contact with the law.

It is essential to demonstrate in your CV that you have acquired a sound understanding of the law and its application to mental healthcare as well as the rights of the patient and are able to assume a balanced and objective position. You may wish to highlight skills and experience in the preparation of expert witness reports and evidence.



6. Assert Patient Advocacy

The role of the psychiatrist goes beyond the traditional boundaries of clinical practice and extends into advocacy for the well being of patients afflicted with psychiatric disorders, improvements in their mental health services and a reduction in the social stigma often levelled at them. Your CV should display any significant efforts and achievements to this end which may include:

• Influence on mental health policy
• Public education programs
• Collaboration with other professionals and advocacy groups
• Education of patients and their families and carers about their rights

7. Show Interest in Clinical Research

Clinical research is the source of new and improved treatments and the better understanding of diseases which powers the development of the speciality. If you have experience in research, this should be documented in your CV showing the topic of research and any publications and presentations which resulted from it. Large lists of publications are best placed in an appendix attached to the CV with a reference in the CV to their location so that they do not add excessive length to the CV and detract attention from other sections.

If you have not made a contribution to research, you can show that you at least have an interest in its progress by detailing associated activities such as attendance at conferences, meetings and educational events and mentioning any prospective interests.

From CV to Job Application

The journey does not end at this point. Creating a winning CV is only the first step. The key to successful job searches lies in strategic planning and the regular updating of your CV, adapting it to the nuances of each job. The best CVs are the ones which are continuously evolving, just like careers in psychiatry.

Summary

• A well drafted CV prepared in accordance with the above seven tips will ensure that you have an outstanding template CV ready to be edited and adapted for each job application.
• Outlining career goals, defining the scope of your training and practice, summarising your skills and their alignment with the job impresses employers and assists their evaluation of your application.

These seven tips are not exhaustive, but they are the major principles which guide many successful and respected psychiatrists whilst drafting CVs. If you are a psychiatrist seeking new opportunities, or a junior doctor looking for training jobs at registrar or house officer level in psychiatry, please contact us to discuss potential opportunities. You can browse advertised jobs and upload your CV to get started.

Useful Resources

While you continue your job search, Odyssey Recruitment provides useful resources to keep your career moving in the right direction. Begin the application process now, and then learn more about how we can help you.

• The 4 Stages of Medical Education in Australia and New Zealand
• New Zealand | Residency, Visas and Citizenship for Doctors and Dentists
• New Zealand | Understanding Medical and Dental Employment Contracts
• Practise Medicine and Dentistry in New Zealand - A Guide to the Healthcare System