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What is a CV?

CV stands for curriculum vitae (Latin for: course of life). A CV is a comprehensive document and often spans 5–15 pages. CVs are typically used for academic job searching, grant proposals, and other professional academic documents. A CV is an active, mobile, and growing academic self-presentation, addressing your scholarship, teaching, service, and other professional activities. A good rule of thumb is to try to add a line to your CV (on average) two times a semester or five times a year.

Please note that a CV is very different than a résumé. A résumé is designed to be extremely brief, one to two pages, and is commonly used in industries outside of higher education. A CV, on the other hand, is meant to be comprehensive and list your accomplishments and skills. These should be separate documents and they have separate conventions and purposes.

What sections does a CV include?

Professional Employment* 
Education* 
Publications* 
Awards and Honors
Grants and Fellowships
Invited Talks
Conferences*
Departmental Talks
Teaching Experience*
Teaching Areas/Courses Prepared to Teach

Research Experience
Service to Profession*
Departmental and University Service*
Extra-Training (optional)
Community Involvement/Outreach (optional)
Related Professional Skills (optional)
Languages (Optional)
Professional Memberships and Affiliations
References

*These are the most common sections of a CV. 

Crafting your CV

Design and Formatting

Remember that your CV is read in many different ways. If you are using it for searching for a job or getting a grant, it is often quickly skimmed. Thus, you want it to be well-organized and not too text-dense.

  • Choose clear and legible fonts—Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, Times New Roman, etc.
  • Create a consistent layout—one-inch margins, uniform headings, date format, etc.
  • Offer the right text density—white spaces, use bullet points and lists. The CV will be often skimmed.
  • Include brief but strong texts—short paragraphs, keywords, and action verbs.

Order of Sections

The order of the sections in your CV are based, in part, on how you are marketing yourself. For example, if the position is heavy on publication, you will want publications to appear sooner on the CV; while if the position is teaching-oriented, you may want to put teaching sections higher. Further, the order may be disciplinary—some fields have very set expectations for order while others are flexible.

Contact information section: Full name, professional title, email address, telephone number, LinkedIn profile (if you have one) or website, mailing address. This always goes first.

Education section: Dissertation title, expected graduate date, degree, institution name, honors (if applicable). This always goes after the contact information.

Scholarship/Research section: Typically, this section is the third on your CV. These include peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, book reviews, online publications, conferences, service, and grants. Peer-reviewed articles and books should always appear before conferences or non-peer-reviewed work.

  • Publications: Publications are listed by date with newest first. Publications should be in a standard research format (APA, CBE, etc.)
    • “Under review” publications mark for “Publications in Progress/Works in Progress section separately”
    • If an article is accepted for publication but released, you can list it as “forthcoming”
    • Distinguish between peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed
  • Conferences: Conferences are listed by date with newest first. Conferences should include Participants (in the order of organizer, panel organizer, paper presenter, discussant), Name of Paper, Name of Conference, Location of Conference.
  • Other Presentations: (inside vs. outside of the university): These are other presentations you give that may be in a non-conference setting, such as:
    • Talks or workshops given within your department
    • Invited talks: you were invited to discuss certain topics

Teaching and/or work experience section(s): This section describes your working/teaching experience, listing universities’ names, courses’ names, section numbers, students’ levels, etc.

  • Subdivide as needed according to Institution, Area or field, Graduate/undergraduate courses
  • Group by kind of course taught and number of total sections
    • e.g., Composition I (4 sections at IUP; 6 sections at Purdue).
  • Clarify if you are instructor of record

You may also include a “relevant work” section which includes non-university related work that is relevant to the work you are doing.

Research experience section: This section is optional and is for people who have research experience that is not reflected in your publications. This includes the period of time, institutions, your responsibilities, and achievements.

  • Title: Research assistant/Graduate assistant (GA/RAships)
  • Years/Start year and end year
  • Professor’s name, institution
  • Describe projects, duties, and publications arising from the experience

Service: Service refers to anything in higher education that is not teaching and not research. This is often tied to committee responsibilities, which may include curriculum, assessment, hiring committees, volunteer work at your institution, serving in a leadership role in an organization, community service, or other kinds of experiences. If you have only a few items, list them in a “service” section. If you have a considerable amount of service, you may want to break it up into the following sections:

  • Service to profession section: This section shows your community service experience. Most job positions expect you to teach, research, and serve communities. These include the time, institution/organization, description of the service, and your role.
    • Journal or manuscript reviewer
    • Editorial boards
    • Work in professional organizations (committees, boards, etc.)
    • Conference/Panel organization
    • Departmental and university service:
  • Service to the institution: list the committee’s name, the level of committee (university, department, program, etc.), and description of your role.
    • Appointments: list the institution’s name, level, and your role.
  • Service to the community: Offering services as a grant writer, etc.

Courses taken section: Graduate student CVs include relevant coursework, listing the name of the courses you take at the graduate program. This section can be removed after you have your first full-time job.

Related professional skills section: This section lists professional skills relevant to the job. This may include:

  • Additional certifications
  • Publishing
  • Experience with technologies: web design, layout, graphics, etc.
  • Language: list with indication of proficiency (beginner, intermediate, advanced)
  • Training for working with specific populations (e.g., TESOL certificate)

Other sections: Depending on how you want to tailor your CV, you may include other sections as they are relevant to your skill set. For example, if you are trying to get a job that has an administrative component, including a section on “administration” or “assessment” might be useful.

Professional memberships and affiliations section: List all of your professional memberships and affiliations.

References section: References may not be needed for all CVs; they are usually included as “available upon request.” They often have a different section on a job application. This is especially true if you are publishing your CV on your website or making it a public document. If you are going to list your references:

  • List references vertically
  • Include references’ full title, institution/company, and preferred contact information

Tailoring Your CV for Specific Jobs

Once you have your CV, you may find it necessary to tailor or adapt it for various uses. Most commonly a CV is adapted to a range of different jobs as you are applying.

To tailor your CV for a job: read the job posting carefully and check the keywords used and the tasks/responsibilities that will be expected of you. The sections’ order and the skills you include on your CV have to be relevant to the job/position you try to land.

  • Put keywords in the job ad/posting all over your CV, such as an experience section and skills section.
  • Follow the Problem-Action-Result (PAR) formula to highlight your relevant working/research experiences and achievements, using hard numbers and details.

For academic jobs, some universities are looking for teacher-scholars (community college, public, four-year, liberal arts institutions) while others are looking for research-focused scholars (e.g., public and private doctoral). You may decide to move the teaching section higher and emphasize it more for jobs which have a primary focus on teaching (these are commonly jobs that have a 4/4 or higher teaching load).

Updating Your CV

Keep your CV file in a very easy-to-access place (such as on your computer’s desktop). As you gain experience, make sure you are updating your CV. The best way to do this is to immediately update your CV when you have something to add (e.g., if you have a new publication, or as soon as you get the acceptance letter, update your CV).