Educational resumes are typically written by people seeking entry into academic careers, either as learners or teachers. If you are, for instance, applying to study at one of the top notch universities in your country, chances are that you will be required to furnish it with your education resume, with the resumes that the universities receive in that way being the basis on which they decide who gets in and who doesn't. This is because the best universities typically receive more applications than the number of academic places they have, and a sorting criteria therefore has to be applied in deciding who gets in and who doesn't.
In a similar manner, if you have just finished your graduate studies (masters or doctoral) at a particular institution, and are now looking for an academic or research position, you will typically be required to furnish the institution where you are looking to teach with an educational resume if they are to consider you for a teaching post there.
Now an educational resume is different from an ordinary resume (the type people write when seeking for employment in the corporate sector for instance), because the corporate sector and the educational sector look for different things in the people they consider working with. In a nutshell, the corporate sector is basically looking for an history of work-related accomplishments (how you improved performance in a department, how you raised a company's bottom-line, how you improved sales for a company and so on), whereas the educational sector is typically looking at one's academic accomplishments, things like what grades you attained in what units, what research and internship projects you took part in and so on, of course in addition to how you have gone ahead to apply the education so acquired in the real world 'out there.'
Consequently, you might find yourself having to create a chronology of educational achievements, and a clear one at that, if your educational resume is to be termed as well done.
Before starting out in creating an educational resume, it is essential to first do a bit of soul-searching, work out why it is that you are actually developing it (whether it is an academic position, say a studentship, fellowship or professorship you are looking for) and ensure that the educational resume you finally come up with reflects you as just the right person for that. This is in line with the well proven success principle of 'starting with the end in mind' and it more often than not determines who wins or fails in a particular endeavor.
Don't look at the educational resume as 'just a formality' even if you have been assured of the academic position you are applying for beforehand, because even if that is the case, you still have to keep it in mind that the document will be filed in your record with the institution in question, and should it - going by the educational resume you filed - later turn out that you were apparently ill-qualified for the position you are eventually granted, then you could see yourself getting stripped of whatever it is (whether a studentships or professorship) that you are granted through the educational resume you so write.
Needless to say, your educational resume needs to be in 'language of academia' just as your corporate resume has to be in 'business language.'
Brevity, while not sacrificing important details, will be a good reflection on you in your educational resume, as will be orderliness in your presentation of information.
