How to Start a Corporate Executive Career After Being a College Professor

It's never a simple process to move from theout your accomplishments. The accomplishments
academic world to a corporate system. These worldsstatement absolutely has to be strong--this is vital to
can be vastly different, requiring different things fromyour chances of getting the position. You wouldn't
their high-level counterparts.allow your college students to get away with brief,
However, being a go-getter, it shouldn't be difficultinconsequential and unproved statements, and so you
for you to make the shift from professor toshouldn't use this vital section of your resume to only
executive if you so desire. It's just a matter ofdiscuss your responsibilities in your job as a professor.
feeling confident that you can get the job done onTherefore, use this space to show real
either side of the fence.accomplishments that make you a viable, interesting
But if you're still not sure about how to do it, herecandidate.
are some tips to help you make the transition.How do you get this done? Again, you want to
Try a Functional Resumeprovide a sense of continuity between your
While some recruiters and employers dislike theacademic and prospective corporate career, so look
functional resume because they feel it doesn't tell thefor experiences that line up between the two. If
whole story, this is still a good route to take whenyou've been a board committee lead, this is a good
making a shift from the academic to corporate world.time to not just say you led a committee, but say
Because you're basically changing your industry, youexactly what you accomplished on the committee
might lack the experiences of competitors in your(talk about the committee's hardships, how you
new field even if some of your basic skills are thehelped pull it through, how many people you led,
same.what goals you had and how you fulfilled them). The
With a functional resume, you will be able to placeidea is to dig down deep, and to find anything that
the majority of the resume's focus on how you areyou can that shows your superior qualifications for
specifically aligned with the executive position you arethe executive position. Again, being a professor and
going after. Regardless of how much experiencefuture executive, there's no excuse for you not
you'd had in your professor job, you've probably gotputting your best foot forward.
a history of calculating figures, budget management,Probably one of the most difficult aspects of making
team building, management, and projecting outcomes,the switch from one industry to another is being so
and these are vital experiences. The more you takesettled in your current field that you have no clear
corporate terms and align them with your academicperspective of how you can make a difference in a
experience, the better your chances will be ofnew industry. However, now is the perfect time to
proving that you are the right person for the positionlearn more about how your abilities and personalities
you want.can help you go from professor to corporate
Make Your Accomplishment Statements Strongexecutive.
In your resume, there will be opportunities to spell