How to write a Academic CV

The conventions below are the ones this field actually uses. They are what the builder applies when you pick Academic / Research, and what the rating checks a finished CV against.

What it must contain

Leave any of these out and the CV reads as incomplete to someone who hires in this field:

Education
Publications — Full citations in a consistent style. This is the section that is actually read.

The order to put them in

Order is not cosmetic. What sits at the top is what gets read before someone decides whether to keep reading.

Research Interests
Education
Academic Appointments
Publications
Grants, Awards & Funding
Projects
Skills
Licences & registrations
Certifications
Languages

Section by section

Research Interests — Two or three lines on your research area, not a marketing pitch.
Grants, Awards & Funding — Grants with amounts and funding body, awards with year.

What to put numbers on

The single most common reason a CV in this field reads as weak is that nothing in it is measured. These are the figures that mean something here:

citations · h-index · grant amount · cohort size · sample size

Verbs that carry weight

Openers like “responsible for” and “worked on” describe a job description rather than a person. In this field these do the work instead:

Investigated · Published · Supervised · Secured · Presented · Peer-reviewed

What gets one rejected

An academic CV is judged on its publication record. Do not omit it.

Length

2 to 8 pages is normal for this field.

Build a Academic CV See a worked example

Free, no account, and nothing is uploaded — the builder runs in your browser and the CV never leaves it.

Related fields

Teaching