What should the first line of an academic resume say? It should give your current title and your affiliation, worded the way your university words them, including a named chair, an honorary appointment or the exact department. It is the first line a hiring panel reads, and it is the line researchers most often want to state in their own words.
Axe Builder, our resume builder for researchers, turns an ORCID iD into an academic resume with citations, h-index, journal quartiles and Crossref data already in place. Since 16 July 2026, both fields at the top of the resume are editable, and what you type there is final: an import fills the headline only where you have left it empty, so your own wording survives every refresh of the data.
Why the headline decides the grade you are read at
When we screen a candidate for a university, the title on the first line sets the expectation for everything below it, because a Senior Lecturer is read against one set of job requirements and an Associate Professor against another. Getting that line exactly right takes a minute, and it decides which rubric the rest of the resume is scored against.