Developing Your First Academic Curriculum Vitae (CV)

Brynleigh Payne
Jan 22
4 min read

Updated: Feb 2

Introduction

Graduate school application season is a stressful time, and even more so when you are developing your first academic curriculum vitae (CV). My first CV did not adequately portray my experience! How you position yourself in this document can make or break graduate program acceptance, or receiving an academic research job offer.

I believe that many students and early career professionals experience not knowing exactly where to begin with the process. Below, I provide tips and tricks on developing your first CV, from start to finish, as well as a template to help you get started.

Résumé vs. Curriculum Vitae

Think of a CV as a formal document containing your entire academic career, or the parts worth highlighting for your applications. For many academic research professionals, including early career professionals, this means multiple pages. By contrast, a résumé is typically a 1–2 page document pitching your specific qualifications in order to be hired for a non-academic job.

Please see the prior Research Girl, Inc. article, "Curating Your First Scientific Résumé," by fellow STEM Content Contributor, Jacinda Taggett. I personally support all advise in this article, and it will also support you in building a foundation for developing your CV.

Positioning Yourself in the CV

Sharing a cohesive story of who you are and where you want to go in academic research is of utmost importance. How you do this through your narrative in the CV is slightly different from your personal statement (a separate part of graduate school applications). Both your CV and personal statement will be submitted as part of your application packages.

Your CV should not be ongoing paragraphs about your experience; rather, bullet points with descriptions and separated by section headers. Sections in your CV that I suggest including are:

Education
Selected Works (Publications and Presentations)
Research Experience
Teaching Experience
Awards and Grants
Relevant Coursework
Service and Outreach
Technical Skills

The Secret Order of CV Content

For me, the biggest unknown while drafting my first CV was the order in which the sections should follow. They should be listed in order of relevance to your targeted school and/or employer. For example, if you are applying for a research position, your relevant professional experience in research should come before your teaching experience, or vice versa if you are applying for a teaching position. If the reviewer only looks at the first page of your CV, will the message of who you are as an academic be conveyed?

With sections, order is also important. All content within the sections should be listed in order of most recent to least recent (e.g., your professional research positions; and in the education section, your current degree program and then your prior program(s) below it). When summarizing your experience, the position that you held prior should be stated before the name of your former employer. This organization keeps the focus on you and your contributions.

Ask for Feedback from Professionals

Ask academic faculty (and their teaching assistants) whom you interact with regularly, managers who handle recruitment for staff research positions and frequently review CVs, and/or graduate students whom you conduct research with, to take a look at your first draft CV and offer comments. These professionals and students were once in your position of seeking further education and/or employment. The worst they can say is no—and if that is the case, know that it is likely due to their busy teaching, research, clinical, and administrative schedules.

Receiving feedback on your CV, and application materials as a whole, from students and professionals in more senior roles than yourself may tremendously improve your chances of succeeding in acceptances and offers. Graduate students may be able to provide insight into their own application experiences, and may be willing to share their CVs as examples. Academic faculty and research managers may be able to share their perspectives on what they are seeking when recruiting candidates of all levels (e.g., student research assistants; and in the professional workforce, research coordinators, etc.).

Be prepared for varied feedback from these professionals. When I submitted my application packages to graduate programs, I did not have a peer-reviewed publication; however, I had one in preparation. One academic faculty member suggested that I list the manuscript as "in preparation." Later, I heard from another individual to disregard this advise, as a manuscript in preparation may never make it to publication. Student researchers advised that listing the manuscript as "in preparation" was acceptable to include as it could help in further informing application reviewers of your research niche. Ultimately, my advise is to gauge such a decision based on your targeted reviewers.

Downloadable Academic CV Template

I developed a template based on my own CV that I used when applying to PhD programs. I continue to use this template, and modify it as needed, for grant and fellowship applications. Please feel free to download it, personalize it, and make it your own!

A Note from the Editor

The Research Girl, Inc. Science Content, Communications, and Grants Team is developing a recurring feature on paid student research opportunities, and paid early career research opportunities, for the blog, e-newsletters, and social media communications.

If you are a student, academic faculty member, or staff member at a research institution and would like to share paid opportunities for inclusion across these content mediums, please contact Science Content and Communications Manager and Site Editor, Patricia Fortunato, at patricia@researchgirl.org