How to write an academic CV for PhD and postdoc applications

Most CV advice online is written for corporate jobs. Academic CVs follow a completely different logic.

The fundamental difference: depth over breadth

A corporate CV rewards variety. An academic CV rewards depth and focus. Committees are looking for someone who has already started thinking like a researcher. Every section of your CV should reinforce that.

Structure, in order

1. Personal details and contact information Name, institutional email, personal website or Google Scholar profile if you have one. Nothing else needed at the top.

2. Education, with grades, prominently Put this first, above everything else. List your degrees in reverse chronological order. Include your grade or classification for each. Your first-class degree or distinction is one of your strongest signals at this stage, and burying it halfway down the page is a mistake many applicants make.

Example:

MSc Applied Mathematics, University of X, 2024 — Distinction
BSc Computer Science, University of X, 2023 — First Class Honours

If your dissertation is relevant to the position you're applying for, add a one-line description underneath. If it isn't, leave it out.

3. Research experience (your centrepiece) Every research assistant position, every lab placement, every supervised project goes here. For each one, write two to three bullet points that describe what you did and provide a link to a GitHub or published paper if you can.

Weak: Assisted with research into climate modelling.
Strong: Developed a Python pipeline to process ERA5 reanalysis data, reducing preprocessing time by 40% and enabling daily model runs across a 30-year historical dataset.

The difference is specificity. Committees read hundreds of CVs. Concrete technical detail stands out immediately.

4. Publications If you have any (even preprints, working papers, or submitted manuscripts) list them here using a standard citation format (APA or the convention in your field). A preprint is still worth listing. An under-review paper is worth listing.

If you have no publications yet, omit this section entirely. Don't create a heading with nothing under it.

5. Conference presentations and attendance This is underused by most applicants. If you presented a poster or gave a talk at a conference (even at an undergraduate level) list it. Even attendance at relevant workshops or summer schools is worth including, because it signals that you're already engaging with the academic community in your field.

Format each entry as: Conference name, institution, date - Poster/Talk title.

6. Teaching and supervision experience Any demonstrating, tutoring, or lab supervision goes here. A single semester as a teaching assistant is worth including. It shows you can communicate your subject, which matters for funded PhD positions that come with teaching duties.

7. Awards and funding Scholarships, prizes, competitive funding. A departmental prize for your dissertation is worth listing. It provides third-party validation that someone other than you thinks your work is good.

8. Technical skills Programming languages, statistical software, lab techniques, specialist tools.

9. Professional experience Internships, part-time work, and volunteering go here, near the bottom. They are not irrelevant, but they are not what an academic committee is primarily evaluating. Keep descriptions to one line each.

A few things people consistently get wrong

Length. A corporate CV should be one page. An academic CV can be two or three (especially at postdoc level). For a PhD application with limited experience, two pages is usually right.

Generic research descriptions. "Conducted research into X" tells a committee almost nothing. What did you actually do? What methods did you use? What was the result, even if preliminary?

Listing modules instead of skills. Don't write "studied econometrics, machine learning, and stochastic processes." Write what you can do with those tools.

Applying with a corporate CV. It signals immediately that you haven't thought carefully about what academic culture values. Take the time to reformat.

The academic job market is competitive and often opaque. But a well-constructed CV that leads with your research, shows your depth of engagement with the field, and presents your grades clearly will get you past the first filter, which is all you need to make your case in person.