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How To Write A Perfect Academic CV

Posted on by Chidiebere Onuoha

An academic curriculum vitae, commonly referred to as CV, is a part of your application that shows your academic and professional achievements. Much concentration is usually placed on the education section as it determines your eligibility for a PhD research. While It is quite easy to structure an academic CV in your understanding, nonetheless, you must learn how to write a perfect academic CV to give your application an extra edge.

Crafting a CV for your PhD application is an important part of the process. A CV for a PhD application must be an academic CV. This differs from traditional CVs in several notable ways. They provide a great opportunity for you to display your education background and any relevant research experience in a short and concise way.

What is an academic CV?

An academic CV is similar to a regular job CV. It is follows the same guidelines. All information should be kept professional, up-to-date, relevant, clear and concise. Additionally, it should also be presented in reverse chronological order (most recent first).

Your perfect academic cv should be tailored to fit your application and the most relevant information should be kept at the top. Nevertheless, you must understand that an academic cv is different from a job cv. An academic cv for a PhD Application must be focused on your academic accomplishments. Do not add irrelevant information to this CV.

An academic cv is oftentimes backed up by PhD cover letters.

How long should an academic CV be?

The number of pages for an academic cv is determined by the relevant experiences you have. Two pages is recommended in order to make the cv easy to read.

Sections in an academic CV

An academic CV has sections that are quite different from a general cv.

  • Contact information
  • Personal profile and research interests
  • Published works
  • Research experience
  • Teaching experience
  • Honors and awards.
  • Professional affiliations.

1. Contact information

Start writing your CV by putting your contact information at the top right corner. It should include your name, phone number, and email address. Adding your physical address is unnecessary. Add only your city and country. Your contact information allows the head of the department to reach out to you for an interview. You can also include your personal or professional website address if it features research and publications related to your application.

2. Personal profile and research interests

This section is usually a short summary of your research experience and your specific interests. This should directly address the research application. This could be in the form of bullet points, short sentences, or a short paragraph.

It is better to show, not tell, when writing a PhD cv. Give evidence of skills, interest and enthusiasm where possible rather than just stating it. If you are deeper into your academic career, and have lots of publications and research experience, you may not need to have a research interests section.

2. Published works

This should include any journal articles, books (or chapters), reports and patents. Again, these should be in reverse chronological order. Ensure the referencing style is consistent and embolden your name where there are several authors. You can include works in progress if necessary. Just ensure this is clearly labelled. If this is a long list, it may be better suited as an appendix.

3. Research experience

This includes invited research projects, talks, conferences attendance / participation, and other presentations. It could be arranged by project or by experience. You can include your current research as it could be worthy of greater detail. It may be useful to focus on the expert and technical skills involved in this experience, especially if they are relevant to the application. Include the names of supervisors for each research project / experience, plus a brief summary of each (highlighting relevant or impressive aspects).

Research experience is the most important part of an academic CV. It’s what many project supervisors will look for and could be a deciding factor in the application process.

4. Teaching experience

Teaching is an important part of academia, and teaching skills or experience is quite useful to have on an academic CV.

Show any teaching, training, demonstrating, mentoring and supervision experience. Include the level of the students (undergraduate, postgraduate), and additional activities you did to accompany this such as marking, planning or organization.

5. Honors and awards

List any honors, grants, awards, bursaries, scholarships, and fellowships you may have. This may be for things such as:

  • Conferences.
  • Research projects.
  • Academic posters.
  • Travels.

Honors and awards are competitive and demonstrating your ability to succeed with them is an important skill in academia. Ensure to list these in reverse chronological order, and include the award or funding monetary amount.

6. Professional affiliations

Being a member of a professional society is a good way to show enthusiasm and commitment for a research area. Always include the dates of your membership. Professional affiliations show that your skills and experiences are valid, these professional affiliations should be able to attest to your membership.

Other sections to include

1. Title

This should include your name, fairly large and clear, at the top of the page. Add your contact information below this, such as your address, phone number and email.

2. Education

For an academic CV, this is an important section and usually is found near the top of the CV. List by degree, plus titles, with the most advanced first (i.e. PhD, Masters, Bachelors.).

It is acceptable to include your current degree, clearly noted. This section is vital to show the hard skills necessary to be eligible for the position. For instance, if a PhD project description stipulates the necessity of a Master’s degree, it follows that your pertinent Master’s degree should be emphasized in this context.

If useful to the application, you can include individual courses on a degree with their marks. But, give course titles and do not include course codes.

3. Other relevant skills

Research and teaching skills may already be included in specific sections, but this section may serve for any other relevant skills. This can include things like administrative experience, professional development, additional training, and languages.

4. Referees

For an academic CV, you should have referees, not references. This section will be at the bottom of your CV.

Check the application information regarding the number and nature of referees to include. There are usually two or three referees, at least two of which are academic. Non-academic referees may be included if specified or required, particularly if you’ve taken some time out of education before applying for the programme in question.

Keep the referencing style consistent. Check that your referees are aware of their inclusion on your CV and have given you permission.

Structure of an academic CV

For all CVs, the most important parts for the application are placed at the top. Follow this PhD CV template when arranging the sections of your resume:

  • Name and contact information.
  • Education.
  • Publications.
  • Research experiences.
  • Teaching experiences.
  • Honors and awards.
  • Professional affiliations.
  • Referees.

Note: You can adjust this to suit the nature of your application.

Tips for writing an outstanding academic CV

While writing your academic CV for your PhD application, there are important things to bear in mind to make sure that you give a strong impression to those reading it. These are strong tips for writing an outstanding academic CV:

  • Ensure your cv is clear and concise: This implies that the most important and impressive information should be obvious. Do not allow the admissions officer to struggle before discovering that you are a brilliant candidate.
  • Don’t allow sections to be split across two pages: Ensure that all sections are fit and do not run across two pages at the same time.
  • Avoid unnecessary words and repetitions
  • Proofread voraciously: Allow experienced people to read your work to identify potential errors.
  • Avoid too many unnecessary ornaments: You should avoid unnecessary font sizes and styles.