The adjunct professor resume that gets you hired

An adjunct hiring committee is reading dozens of applications for a single course section, often in 60 seconds each. They are not evaluating a tenure-track scholar — they're answering three practical questions:

1. Can you teach the specific course we posted? Match the course catalog number or topic in your resume's first ten lines.
2. Do you have the credential? 18 graduate credit hours in the discipline, terminal degree where required, professional license where applicable.
3. Will you actually show up and be reliable? Prior college teaching, even one course, beats any other qualification.

This is why an adjunct resume should be 1–2 pages — not the 10-page academic CV you'd use for a tenure-track search. Everything that doesn't answer one of those three questions gets cut.

The seven sections, in order

1. Header — name, email, phone, location, personal site or LinkedIn
2. Teaching experience — first, not last; list course numbers and titles
3. Education — degree, institution, year; highlight relevant graduate coursework
4. Industry / professional experience — only if it makes you more credible for the course
5. Publications, talks, or media — optional; prioritize public-facing work over academic citations
6. Certifications and licenses — only if relevant (CPA for accounting, RN for nursing, etc.)
7. References — "Available on request" or list two; never include a long list

A real adjunct professor resume

Below is my actual working resume — what I submit when I apply for adjunct positions. I currently teach at Northeastern (Oakland campus), University of San Francisco, and Stanford Graduate School of Business. Steal the structure.

Section-by-section guidance

Header

Name, email, phone, city/state, and one professional URL — a personal site, LinkedIn, or Google Scholar. Do not put your full mailing address. Do not put a photo. Do not put an objective statement.

Teaching experience

This goes first, even if you have only one entry. List the institution, your title (Adjunct Lecturer, Adjunct Professor, Visiting Faculty, Instructor of Record), the course number and name, and dates. Two to four bullets per role describing what you actually did — preferably concrete, like the example above: "facilitated 15 industry guest lecturers," "redesigned syllabus around case studies."

If you have no formal teaching experience yet, list adjacent roles: graduate TA work, guest lectures (my own resume lists 50+ guest lectures at universities before I had a formal adjunct title), workshop facilitation, training delivered at your day job. Frame them as teaching, not as professional development.

Education

Degree, institution, year, and any honors. If your discipline-relevant graduate coursework isn't obvious from the degree name, list 3–5 specific graduate courses you took — this is how you demonstrate the 18-credit-hour accreditation requirement most universities check.

Mention TA-ships or fellowships here briefly; the substantive teaching belongs in the teaching section.

Industry / professional experience

Include this section if it makes you more credible for the course. A working CPA teaching Auditing, a sitting attorney teaching Business Law, a director of engineering teaching Software Engineering — that's gold. A retail management role from 2009 when you're applying to teach English Composition — cut it.

Publications, talks, or media

For adjunct hiring (not tenure-track), public-facing work often beats academic citations. A widely-read essay on Substack, a popular Medium post, a podcast appearance, a conference talk — all signal you can communicate the subject. List them in reverse-chronological order. Skip the 15-citation publication list.

Certifications and licenses

Include only if directly relevant: RN/MSN for nursing adjuncts, CPA for accounting, JD with bar admission for law, PMP for project management, certified clinical supervisor for social work field instruction.

References

"References available upon request" is fine. If you list them, use two or three — name, title, institution, email. Prefer references who have seen you teach.

Five mistakes that get adjunct resumes rejected

1. Leading with your dissertation topic. The committee cares whether you can teach Intro to Psych on Tuesday at 9am, not your post-structuralist reading of Foucault. Lead with teaching.
2. Hiding your terminal degree. Put it in the first ten lines of the page. If you have a PhD, MFA, JD, MSN, or MBA, the committee scans for it before reading anything else.
3. Listing every workshop you've ever attended. Professional development is fine in a one-line aggregate. Don't itemize 30 webinars.
4. Generic, transferable-skills bullets. "Strong communicator. Team player. Detail-oriented." Cut it. Use space for course numbers, enrollment counts, evaluation scores, syllabus changes you made.
5. One generic resume sent everywhere. Rewrite the first half-page for each application. Match the course number, the textbook, and the institution's language (some say "Lecturer," some say "Instructor of Record," some say "Adjunct Faculty" — mirror their posting).

One last tip for online and remote roles

If you're applying to online adjunct roles specifically, add a one-line note under your most recent teaching entry about your experience with Canvas, Blackboard, or Moodle — that single line moves you up the pile for any remote-eligible posting.