How to Write a CV (Curriculum Vitae) in 2023: Guide and Tips

Although this section was once considered optional, a professional summary or objective statement on your CV is now standard in the U.S. and international job markets. This section should sit immediately below your contact information and include a description of what you hope to accomplish in the role. List your years of experience in the field and the top skills and key accomplishments that reflect your ability to perform the job.

Check out this physics professors’ example of a summary statement for his CV:

Depending on the amount of education and professional experience, your skills can live under one general skills section or multiple skills sections. We’ll give you instructions on how to write those additional languages, digital, and research skills sections below –– for now, we’ll dive into how to write a general skills section.

These skills are the abilities and knowledge needed to perform specific tasks and are defined by two categories; your soft skills and hard skills.

Soft skills are interpersonal skills that allow you to be a collaborative member or leader of a team. These can include communication, multitasking, organization and task delegation.

Hard skills are learned, practical qualifications such as understanding computer software like Microsoft Office or Adobe, language fluency for bilingual or polylingual employees, or typing speed. These types of skills can live in two places: this general skills section, or if this section gets too long, in your optional Language and Digital Skills sections. We’ll have advice on how to make those secondary sections further down the page.

Before we can break into those secondary skills sections, though, we advise that you list your job-relevant skills, including your research, language and digital skills, into this first General Skills section. If you have more than six- to eight skills listed, you can break your sections into those optional, dedicated skills sections that offer a more detailed and well-rounded summary of your abilities. We pulled together a list of the most requested skills in the job market to help you get started!

This section is formatted similarly to a traditional chronological resume:

• Start by listing the job title and company.
• List the dates of employment.
• Write a bulleted list of your core responsibilities. Include quantifiable metrics to highlight your accomplishments, if possible.

The primary difference that a CV holds against a resume is the amount of information included. A traditional resume only includes formal work experience, prefers long-term and steady employment, and tends to cut off work history after 10 years.

The CV allows you to showcase traditional employment, research projects and teaching engagements, stgardless of the length of time you worked on each. The CV format also allows you to showcase information from the past 10 years, especially relevant to the open job requirements.

This section follows the same reverse-chronological format as the work experience section.

List your current degrees in progress, or the most recently completed degree first, followed by your completed degrees and relevant professional certifications. For example, applicants can include a National Board Certification under the Education section if they apply for a professorship.

A big chunk of your CV will most likely be your work samples or publications section. If you’re applying for a professor position or other academic role, you’ll want to include a complete list of your publications. Your Publications sections should list all of your scholarly articles from most recent to oldest and follow formal citation rules, although the style varies according to your field of interest. For example, if you’re applying for a psychology position, use the APA citation style. If you’re pursuing a degree in literary criticism, use the MLA citation style.

Candidates applying for non-academic roles can share professional initiatives, department-wide projects they’ve organized, or industry conferences they have participated in, for example.

When sharing a list of publications, your CV section can look like this:

Write your full name as it shows up on your legal ID documents. We also recommend adding a special font treatment to your name to make it stand out. You can double the font size (size 24 to the rest of your documents’ size 12) or make it bold.

Follow up with your full professional mailing address and phone number on your CV, a key difference from a standard resume, which omits your specific location. Your email address should consist of some version of your first and last name and not be from an outdated email system such as AOL.

Students may submit the email address of their current university. Professionals may list their current company address along with the department phone number; however, you can provide your private address and phone number if including your current employment contact information would jeopardize your job.

Earlier, we showed you how to write a Work Experience section and mentioned that you could include your research, academic and extracurricular experiences in addition to your formal work experience. If you noticed that the section grew too long, you can easily break it up and create dedicated Research and Teaching Experience sections. We highly recommend that approach, especially if you’re pursuing an academic teaching role, a research position or applying to a Ph.D. program.

This section will follow the same format as your Work Experience section.

• Write the position title and place of research employment.
• Specify the dates of employment or active research.
• Write a bulleted list of your responsibilities and accomplishments.

As with your previous Work Experience section, you’ll want to start with your most recent research roles and work your way back. Remember to only include projects with relevant or similar duties to the new position requirements you’re applying for.

For example, writing that you helped maintain astronomical equipment during a pre-grad internship when you’re going for a Ph.D. in mathematics won’t look as impressive as it would for a physics or astronomy degree. Although the experience is impressive and valuable, it does not involve any of the exact requirements needed in the mathematical program. You’re better off focusing on memberships to math associations or competitions.

Your teaching history must include the following:

• Job title and company location.
• Start and end dates.
• A brief description of your accomplishments or responsibilities. Avoid including a laundry list of duties and focus on your critical successes.

Tailor your teaching history to the open job posting. If you are applying to an academic institution, focus on teaching experience (including editing or providing feedback to others), management and administration experience as these are valued skills in academia. In this section, you can also discuss your laboratory and field experiences.

Describe any volunteer work or leadership positions, as these skills indicate initiative and responsibility.

Create a section dedicated to your polylingual skills, especially if you’re pursuing a job or academic program where your ability to speak multiple languages serves as an advantage. You’ll want to dedicate bullet points for each language and specify how fluent you are in said language. For example, you could have strong speaking, reading and writing skills in English and Mandarin but only speak conversational French or understand German without speaking it. So, list the language spoken and level of frequency.

Employers look for practical and relevant skills in the mechanical, IT, mathematical or scientific fields. Add these to this section if you have learned how to use a complex piece of laboratory equipment, know the ins and outs of particular software, or have mastered a new programming language.

Create a bulleted list of these technical skills, especially if you pursue a tech-field career or an academic program in robotics, engineering or tech development.

If you only have one to three professional presentations under your belt, these can live under either your Teaching Experience, Research Experience or Publication sections. However, if you hosted more than three presentations at conferences, universities or association lectures, consider creating a separate section for this valuable experience.

Whether you decide to create this dedicated Conference Presentation section or list this experience under the other three sections, be sure to include the following information:

• Identify your role and name of the conference.
• Specify the date and location.
• Write a bulleted list of your role and topics addressed.

Although different from hosting or presenting in a conference, being a conference attendee shows you are interested in expanding your education and networking with colleagues—and employers love to see that initiative.

Conference attendance can live under the Education section if you’ve only attended a few conferences, as this still relates to a learning experience that helped you develop your knowledge of specific topics and industries.

However, suppose you stgularly attend conferences to expand your technical knowledge and stay updated on recent industry trends and developments. In that case, you’ll want to create this dedicated section.

It should include the following information:

• Name of conference
• Dates attended
• Bulleted list of seminars or panels attended, along with a brief description of said panels

Although we list this as an optional section, you should include this information on your CV if you received any honors, awards or accolades. These forms of recognition indicate to hiring managers or admissions counselors that your knowledge or performance of a subject is noticeably high. This level of recognition makes you a stronger candidate, so it’s important to scrub through your employment history, scheduling documents, journals and meeting notes to find these awards.

Add these honors and awards to your CV, and keep track of additional recognition in a dedicated file to add to your document as you acquire them. Be sure to include the following information:

• Name of the honor or award
• Date awarded and name of the award committee

If you have two or more academic honors or grants, create this section. Otherwise, fold these accomplishments into your Education section.

If you’ve never written an academic CV before, give yourself plenty of time to populate this section. Chances are that you’ve been recognized multiple times over your collegiate and professional career.

List your honors or grants like this:

• Name of the grant or fund
• Date awarded and name of the committee
• A brief description that summarizes the honor or grant proposal, goal and result

Here’s another section where you may want to give yourself a while to consider what to include. Many people join professional associations in academia and use those resources to meet potential employers or participate in group discussions before moving on to another area of intellectual interest.

For example, if you’re a medical researcher studying a particular illness, you may join an epidemiological society to gather information; but, if your interest next turns to the immunological aspects of the disease, you may not participate as much in the forums and professional societies you joined previously.

Going through your publication and presentation history may help you recall professional societies to which you belonged or forums in which you’ve been active. Consider placing this information in your employment section if you held office or another position in a scholarly or professional organization. Just as in the different optional sections, consider excluding it if what is here does not add anything significant to your CV.

Your community outreach efforts or volunteer work can live under your Work Experience section unless you happen to do an extraordinary amount of this work. Suppose you have quite a bit of community service under your belt. In that case, it can be beneficial to write this standalone section, especially if you’re pursuing work in nonprofits or social work.

This dedicated work can demonstrate your interest in contributing to your community’s welfare. You’ll write this section in the same structural format as your work experience and include:

• Name of the volunteer role and community organization
• Dates of service
• A bulleted list detailing the work and responsibilities you handled

Here, you’ll list people who’ll support and testify to your work ethic. You should have three default references, although HR and recruitment offices may request more or less.

Suppose you’re applying for a collegiate position or a doctoral candidacy. In that case, it’s standard to obtain two academic references to attest to your professional and intellectual capacities and one personal or professional reference to vouch for your character.

Your References section should include the following information:

• Name of individual
• Current job title of individual
• Institution or company where the individual works
• Address of the institution
• Email and telephone number of individual