A scholarship applicant submits a three-page CV with a passport photo, date of birth, marital status, hobbies listed as “reading and travelling”, a five-line career objective, and, on page three, the undergraduate dissertation. First-round reviewers often spend under a minute on a CV. The most important item sat exactly where they never got to.
An academic CV is not a job resume with a few extra sections. It reorders your information to match the way academic panels assess people: education first, then research, then outputs, then everything else.
How an academic CV differs from a resume
| Aspect | Resume | Academic CV |
|---|---|---|
| First section | Profile summary, experience | Education |
| Emphasis | Business results, skills | Research, writing, presentations, teaching |
| Length | 1–2 pages | Students: 2 pages; established researchers: longer |
| Personal details | Minimal | Minimal; no photo or date of birth in most Western contexts |
| Language | Action verbs, commercial metrics | Precise description, consistent citation style |
Some countries and government scholarships still require a photo or a set template, such as Europass for certain European programmes. If a template is specified, use it exactly.
Recommended section order for students
- Contact details: name, professional email, phone, ORCID iD or personal page if you have one.
- Education: degree, institution, dates, grade with its scale (for example 3.6/4.0), dissertation title and supervisor.
- Research experience: role, project, supervisor, and two or three bullet points on what you did.
- Publications and work in progress: in one consistent citation style, such as APA, with your name in bold.
- Conference presentations: conference, location, year, format (oral or poster).
- Awards and scholarships.
- Teaching or tutoring experience, if any.
- Relevant work experience.
- Skills: languages (with test and score), software (R, Python, SPSS, NVivo and so on), methods.
- Service and outreach related to your field.
If you have no publications yet, do not create an empty heading. Fold manuscripts in progress into the research section, or leave them out.
Writing research entries
Weak: “Took part in a research project on climate change.” Strong:
- “Research assistant, drought resilience among smallholder coffee farmers (2024–2025), supervised by Dr [name].”
- “Designed a questionnaire and interviewed 85 households in two districts; cleaned and coded the data in R.”
- “Wrote the literature review, around 40 sources, for the funder report.”
Each bullet is an action you took, with a concrete scale. Readers want to know what you personally did, not how large the project was.
Listing publications honestly
- Published: full citation with DOI.
- Accepted: mark as “in press” or “accepted”.
- Under review: mark as such, and follow your field's convention on whether to name the journal.
- In preparation: only if a real draft exists.
Inflating a paper's status is a serious mistake. Panels can check, and one false line undermines trust in the whole document.
Skills: make them checkable
The skills section is where many student CVs lose credibility, because they list what everyone lists. A panel will not believe “proficient in R” unless they can see what you used R for. The convincing approach ties each skill to an output:
- Statistics: R (multilevel regression, used in dissertation), Stata (basic).
- Qualitative: semi-structured interviewing, thematic coding in NVivo (25 interviews).
- Languages: Spanish (native), English (IELTS 7.5, year taken), Portuguese (intermediate).
- Research tools: Zotero for references; LaTeX on Overleaf.
Three to five lines like these persuade far more than a dozen coloured skill bars rated at “80 per cent”. Self-assessed percentage bars mean nothing to an academic reader, and they eat space you need for evidence.
Common mistakes
- Photo, date of birth, gender or marital status when not requested.
- A long career objective; that is what your statement is for.
- Vague skills like “proficient in office software” or “good team player”.
- Grades without a scale, leaving readers unsure whether 8.2 is high or low.
- Messy formatting: several fonts, inconsistent margins, dates written three different ways.
- An email address you created at fourteen.
Try this: cutting four pages to two
- Delete any personal information not requested; that alone saves four to six lines.
- Remove the career objective and hobbies.
- Merge unrelated extracurricular activities into one line, or drop them.
- Limit each experience to three bullets, each no more than two lines.
- Use a sans-serif font at 10.5–11 points, 2 cm margins and even spacing between sections.
- Reread as a panel member would: in the first thirty seconds, can you see the dissertation, research and methods skills? If not, move them up.
One master version, many tailored copies
You do not need to rewrite your CV for every application, but keep a full master version and cut tailored copies from it. For a quantitative programme, push software and methods higher; for a scholarship focused on social impact, bring community projects forward. Name files clearly, such as FirstnameLastname_CV_Programme.pdf, and always submit PDF.
Something to do now: open your current CV and count the line on which your dissertation or first research project appears. If it is below line fifteen, reorder the document using the sequence above before you change anything else.
Câu hỏi thường gặp
Should I put a photo on my academic CV?
For most universities in the UK, US, Canada and Australia, no; photos are generally discouraged. Some scholarships or countries use templates that require one, and in that case follow the template.
How long should an academic CV be for a master's application?
Two pages is sensible for most students. Established researchers have much longer CVs, but at this stage clarity and focus matter more than length.
What if I have no publications for my academic CV?
That is normal at this stage. Highlight your dissertation, research projects, methods skills and any presentations. Avoid an empty publications heading.
Should I include my GPA on my CV?
Include it if it is solid, together with the grading scale so international readers can interpret it. Even when a transcript is required, a brief GPA line helps.
How do I list a paper that is under review on my CV?
State its status as under review and keep it accurate. Never present a draft as accepted, because panels can and do check.
