Advice for PhD Students

How to write an academic CV

CVs provide a concise summary of skills, knowledge and country in which they were obtained. You may want to include
experience and to be effective they need to be tailored to the title of your dissertation or highlight any relevant courses or
a specific role or sector. This handout looks at CVs for PhD options you took.
students applying for academic roles such as postdoc, research • Research employment
fellow and teaching positions.
If you have been employed as a research assistant either before
or during your PhD, include the relevant dates, job titles and
LAYOUT AND LENGTH employers here. You can also include bullet points detailing
All CVs, including academic ones, should be laid out clearly for your research achievements in each position.
the reader so that they are easy to read (see the tips section for
• Technical skills
ideas on how to achieve readability). It is conventional to have
your name in large letters at the top followed by contact details. For any position such as a postdoc where you will be employed
Don’t allow your contact details to take up too much space on hands on to do research you should list your relevant technical
the page – they are there for information and not to select you. skills. Organise this section so that it is easy to read. For
There are no restrictions on the length of academic CV as they example break down your skills into convenient sub-groups.
usually contain lists such as conferences and publications and If there are skills you think are particularly relevant to the
so can be long. However, do not make your CV unnecessarily position you are applying for then put them at the start of the
long through poor formatting choices. list or even highlight them in bold. You can include IT skills here
as well as laboratory skills.

CONTENT • Awards and prizes

Academic CVs tend to include standard headings with content List here any prizes you have won for academic merit, again in
listed under each heading in reverse chronological order. You reverse chronological order. If the prize will not be understood
only need to include those headings for which you have content to the reader, give a brief explanation. For example ‘awarded
and it is not expected that you will have content for every for highest mark in the year’.
section, particularly at an early stage in your career. As your • Publications
career progresses you are likely to begin to develop content in This is one of the most important sections on an academic
more of these areas. CV. It is very important to make sure you are presenting your
The most common section headings you will find on an publications professionally. Peer reviewed journal articles
academic CV are: are the publications that really matter on the academic job
• Education market and these should be listed together and first. Present
the publications as you would expect to see them cited in an
Your PhD should appear at the top of this section. Include the
article and with the most recent first. They should then always
start and end dates as it is relevant to the reader how long
be in reverse chronological order. You can highlight your own
you took to complete your PhD. Also include the name of the
name in bold so that it is clear at a glance where it is in the
institution, title of the thesis and name of your supervisor.
list of authors if this is relevant to your contribution to the
Under your PhD you can, optionally, choose to list some bullet publication. You can also note anything that speaks to the
points that convey your key research achievements. To make impact of the publication, for example being selected for the
this effective you should present these using active words. cover of a journal or for a highlight article. It should be clear
Examples of active words are ‘solved’, ‘identified’, ‘increased’ – where the article is in the publication process, for example
there are many others. Use these bullet points to pin point the ‘submitted’, ‘under review’, ‘accepted for publication’.
contribution your research has made to your research area.
In coming to the end of your PhD you may have a plan to
Follow the presentation of your PhD by listing your previous publish your work but not yet have submitted anything to a
qualifications in reverse chronological order i.e. the most journal. It is possible to include a list of planned publications
recent first. Include start and end dates, title and level of on the CV in your early stages of your career as it is understood
qualification, institution and grades. If you studied in a that publication processes take some time. However you
different country to that in which you are applying, don’t try to should be cautious in this area. This list must be clearly
‘translate’ the grades but just present them as you would in the

Careers Service
www.imperial.ac.uk/careers
labelled and separate to the published list. It must be realistic • Training
so you can defend it in interview. That means that you should You may wish to list training that you have that gives evidence
have finished all the experimental work and analysis, ideally be that you are progressing your academic career to the next
working on a draft and know where you will submit the paper to stage. For example training on leadership, management,
and when. You may be asked for an update on progress towards teaching or writing funding proposals. Do not list any training
publication in an interview. that inadvertently leaves a bad impression such as ‘time
If you have other types of publication then you can group them management’.
together under appropriate headings. These could include • Work experience/volunteering
book chapters, media articles or blogs.
This is where you can list the other elements of your experience
• Funding since you started university. This could be internships during
This heading is typical of academic CVs for more senior vacations, time spent volunteering or jobs you have done to
researchers. It refers to obtaining funding for research (i.e. not earn money.
scholarships which would be listed under ‘Awards and Prizes’). • Interests and achievements
If you have gained experience of obtaining research funding by
It is not common for more senior academics to list their outside
the end of your PhD then you should list it under this heading.
interests and achievements on their CV. However it won’t cause
However do not worry if you don’t have this experience yet. You
any problems if you do list them, especially if they show useful
should be aware that it is important to look towards building
skills such as leadership or resilience.
your knowledge of research funding and gaining experience if
you are planning a long term academic career. • References

• Conferences References are taken seriously in academia. It is usual to

include your PhD supervisor and at least one other academic.
In the early stages of your research career this may simply
This could be a collaborator, your thesis examiner or your
be a list of conferences you have attended. However as you
internal examiner, for example. You should always alert your
gain experience that list becomes too long and researchers
referees that you are putting them down as a reference and
cut it down to the list of conferences talks given. The idea of
what you are applying for.
this section is to show that you have been networking, ideally
outside your institution and even country. This indicates that
you are being exposed to different ideas and feedback and are LAYOUT TIPS
building your academic reputation. There are no hard and fast rules about layout. The principle
• Patents to be guided by is that your CV needs to be easy to read and
This section heading is not relevant to all researchers but if you get information out of. However here are some suggestions to
have been involved with a patent then you should list it. follow:

• Teaching experience • Keep the same typeface throughout and don’t use less than
11pt
This includes all teaching experience such as lab
demonstrating, exam marking, small group teaching, • Keep a reasonable size of margin on the page
supervising research projects or one to one teaching. Group • Use line spacing between sections and under headings
this sensibly and to avoid needless repetition. Be aware that • Avoid underlining and italics as these are harder to read
course codes do not translate from one institution to another
• Use bold to highlight e.g. section headings
and so can be left out. Do include the ranges of topics you have
taught and the types of students, for example year groups. • Make sure there is a balance of text and white space on
Include any evidence that your teaching has been high quality, the page. If there are large areas of the page that are blank
for example a teaching award. However avoid anecdotal you could probably use the space better.
feedback that cannot be corroborated, such as ‘all the students
said the course was really fun’. FURTHER SUPPORT
• Academic service Available from the Careers Service:
This is a very useful catch all heading for any of those activities • Careers Service website: www.imperial.ac.uk/careers/cv
that serve the wider academic community such as organising • Bookable appointments with Careers Consultants: book
conferences, sitting on committees or peer-reviewing articles. through JobsLive*
This shows that you are engaged in the community and on track • For information on the disclosure of disability or specific
to develop the right experience for an academic career. learning difficulty such as dyslexia please see information
• Collaborations on the Careers Service website: www.imperial.ac.uk/
You may want to list your collaborations if you have any at careers/disclosure
this stage. However you should make sure they are your * www.imperial.ac.uk/careers/jobslive
collaborations and not your supervisor’s i.e. will you be able to
continue the collaboration independently once you leave your
current group?

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