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How to write a Student CV

Called a resume in the US and a CV almost everywhere else — the same document, and these are the rules it gets judged by.

The conventions below are the ones this field actually uses. They are what the builder applies when you pick Student / Fresher, 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 — Education leads while you have little work history. Include scores.
  • Projects — Projects are your evidence. Coursework counts if you can describe what you built.

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.

  1. Objective
  2. Education
  3. Projects
  4. Skills
  5. Internships & Part-time Work
  6. Certifications
  7. Achievements
  8. Languages

Section by section

  • Objective — One or two lines. Say the role you want and what you can already do.

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:

team size · participants · rank · score · duration

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:

Built · Led · Won · Organised · Analysed · Volunteered · Presented

Length

One page is the norm here.

Build a Student CVSee a worked example

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

Common questions

What should a student CV include?

A student CV has to carry education and projects. The order this field expects is objective, education, projects and skills.

What goes first on a student CV?

The objective. That is where this field's convention puts it, and it is what the builder applies when you pick Student.

How long should a student CV be?

One page is the norm here. Going longer does not add weight; it moves the thing being looked for further down.

Is a student CV the same as a student resume?

For applying to a job, yes - the same document under two names. Resume is the usual word in North America and CV almost everywhere else. The one real exception is the academic CV, which is long-form and lists publications.

Is there a free student CV template?

Yes. ihatejob builds one to this field’s convention for free, with no account and no upload: the section order, the section names and the rating all come from the student pack described on this page. It exports to PDF, Word and plain text.

Related fields

General