How to Write an Academic CV

Short answer: an academic CV is a complete record of your scholarly work with no page limit: education, appointments, publications, grants, presentations, teaching, mentoring and service, each listed most recent first. Contact details and education come first; after that, order the sections by what the job values most. Research universities want publications and grants up front, teaching-focused colleges want teaching, and adjunct searches want credentials and practice. Keep the design plain and consistent, and send it as a PDF.

By the AcademicCareers.com editorial team · Updated October 14, 2026 · 11-minute read

CV vs. resume

In the United States, a CV and a resume are different documents. MIT's career office describes a resume as a one- to two-page document tailored for industry roles, and a CV as a comprehensive record of your scholarship. The UW-Madison Writing Center adds that a CV is written for fellow academics, who know what it means to teach a course or present a paper, so it needs few of the descriptions a resume relies on.

Outside North America, "CV" often means what Americans call a resume. This guide covers the U.S. academic CV.

Section order for three kinds of jobs

Contact information and education open almost every academic CV. After that, UC Berkeley's career center advises, the order depends on your strengths and the job, and most candidates end up with two or three versions. Compare three common orders below.

Whatever the order, list entries within each section in reverse chronological order and format every entry in a section the same way.

Every section, with formatting examples

Contact information. Your name, slightly larger or in bold, then your current title and institution, one professional e-mail address, a phone number and a link to your website, Google Scholar or ORCID profile.

Education. Degrees in reverse order with field, institution and year. If you haven't finished, write "expected" with the month and year, as both Berkeley's and Penn's career offices advise. Add your dissertation title and committee.

PhD, Environmental Chemistry, Example Tech, 2023
Dissertation: "Nitrogen Cycling in Restored Urban Wetlands"
Committee: Ana Ruiz (chair), David Chen, Priya Natarajan
BS, Chemistry, Example State University, 2017, magna cum laude

Appointments. Faculty, postdoctoral, visiting and lecturer positions, with title, department, institution and dates.

Publications. Separate peer-reviewed articles, books and chapters, and work under review or in preparation, each under its own heading. Formatting rules follow below.

Grants, fellowships and awards. Name, funder and years. Add the amount when it's substantial, and a short note on how competitive an award was if readers might not know it.

Presentations. Separate invited talks from conference presentations, and label posters.

"Which Wetland Designs Remove the Most Nitrogen?" Invited talk, Department of Chemistry, Example College, March 2026
"Plant Diversity and Nitrate Removal in Urban Wetlands." Poster, Example Regional Chemistry Meeting, October 2025

Teaching experience. For each course: title and number, institution, your role (instructor of record, co-instructor or teaching assistant), terms and enrollment, plus a short note on anything you designed. Add a list of courses you are prepared to teach.

Mentoring and advising. Students you have supervised, their projects and outcomes such as presentations or co-authored papers.

Service. Department, university and professional service, including peer review for journals.

Memberships, skills and languages. Professional associations, specialized methods and software, and languages with your level of proficiency.

References. Three or four people, each with title, department, institution, e-mail and phone. Penn's career office notes that most faculty candidates list them on the CV.

Citation styles and publication status

Use your field's citation style, consistently: APA in psychology, education, nursing and many social sciences; MLA in English and modern languages; Chicago in history and much of the humanities; and field styles such as ACS in chemistry, IEEE in engineering and AMA in medicine. The same article in three common styles:

APA: Ortiz, M., & Kim, J. (2025). Nitrate removal in restored urban wetlands. Journal Name, 41(2), 115-138.
MLA: Ortiz, Maya, and Jae Kim. "Nitrate Removal in Restored Urban Wetlands." Journal Name, vol. 41, no. 2, 2025, pp. 115-38.
Chicago: Ortiz, Maya, and Jae Kim. 2025. "Nitrate Removal in Restored Urban Wetlands." Journal Name 41 (2): 115-38.

Label status honestly, under separate headings:

• Forthcoming or in press: accepted but not yet out. Berkeley's career center stresses using this label only for accepted work.
• Under review: submitted, not yet accepted. Fields differ on whether to name the journal, so ask your advisor.
• In preparation: a few pieces that will realistically be published, as Penn's career office suggests, not every idea you have.

In long author lists, bold your own name so readers can find your position quickly, as Berkeley's center recommends in the sciences, and mark student co-authors with an asterisk and a note. At teaching-focused colleges, those asterisks show your mentoring at a glance.

How long it should be, and what to leave out

There's no page limit, as Penn's career office and the UW-Madison Writing Center both note. Length follows your record: a graduate student's CV may run two or three pages, and it grows with every publication, course and grant. Put the most important information on the first pages and don't pad; committees notice a talk listed twice. Anything on your CV is fair game in an interview, so list only what you can discuss (see our faculty interview questions).

Leave out:

• A photo, date of birth, marital status, children and place of birth. Berkeley's career center lists the last three, and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission advises employers not to request photos before an offer.
• Your GPA and anything before your bachelor's degree, per the UW-Madison Writing Center.
• An objective or summary statement; your cover letter does that job.
• Salary history, hobbies unrelated to your work and personal identifiers such as a Social Security number.

Tailoring your CV to each job

Keep a master CV with everything you've done and update it whenever something is accepted, awarded or taught; the UW-Madison Writing Center suggests revisiting it several times a year. Build each application from it:

• Mirror the ad. If it stresses online teaching or undergraduate research, put that evidence on page one.
• Control page one. Berkeley's career center suggests deciding which three things you want the committee to know by the bottom of the first page.
• Rename headings to fit. "Teaching Experience" can become "Teaching and Course Development" for a teaching college.
• Add a "Prepared to teach" list using the department's own course titles.

Applying for tenure-track jobs at research universities and community college faculty jobs in the same season means at least two versions. For adjunct faculty jobs, put professional experience high: CUPA-HR's 2024-25 data show only about 7 percent of adjuncts teach as their full-time job, so most bring other work that belongs near the top.

Design: fonts, layout and PDF

• Font: one standard, readable font such as Times New Roman, Garamond, Calibri or Arial. The UW-Madison Writing Center advises nothing smaller than 11 point and margins of at least half an inch.
• Layout: a single column, consistent spacing and bold or small capitals for headings. Skip photos, color blocks, skill bars and two-column templates; they distract readers, and some application systems read them poorly.
• Dates: at the right margin or the end of each entry. Penn's career office notes that dates in the left margin emphasize when you did something rather than what you did.
• Header: your name and the page number on every page after the first, as Berkeley's center advises.
• File: a PDF, so your formatting holds on any computer, named clearly: Ortiz_Maya_CV.pdf.
• A matching set: the same font and header on your cover letter and teaching statement.

Common mistakes, and a final check

• Mixing peer-reviewed and non-reviewed work in one list
• Calling submitted work "forthcoming"
• Vague teaching entries, such as "Taught biology," with no course title, level, role or enrollment
• Formatting that drifts: dates, abbreviations or italics that change from section to section
• A first page that buries what the job asks for
• An old e-mail address, broken links or typos; committees read a CV as a sample of your care with detail

Applying for a staff job? Send a resume

Administrative positions are the largest job category on AcademicCareers.com, with 287 openings in October 2026, and most staff jobs, from advising to finance, ask for a resume rather than a CV. Keep it to one or two pages, add a short summary if you like, and describe each job with results:

Academic Advisor, Example State University, 2022 to present
Advise a caseload of 300 first-year and transfer students; built a four-week orientation course now required for undeclared majors.

Moving from faculty work to a staff role? Translate your experience: teaching becomes training and presentations, committee work becomes project management, and grant writing becomes budgeting and fundraising. If a staff ad does ask for a CV, send a short one. Browse student affairs jobs and academic advisor jobs, and read our guide to higher education jobs without a PhD.

Frequently asked questions

How long should an academic CV be?

As long as your record requires; there is no page limit. A graduate student's CV may be two or three pages. Leave out minor items that don't help a committee judge your work.

What is the difference between a CV and a resume?

A CV is a complete record of your scholarly work for academic jobs, with no page limit. A resume is a one- to two-page summary of skills and results, used for staff and industry jobs.

Should I include a summary or objective on an academic CV?

No. The UW-Madison Writing Center lists the objective statement as something a CV leaves out. Your cover letter does that job.

How do I list a degree I haven't finished?

Write "expected" with the month and year, for example "PhD, Ecology, expected May 2027," and be ready to explain your timeline in interviews.

Should I list references on my CV?

Usually, yes, for faculty jobs. List three or four people with title, department, institution, e-mail and phone, and ask each of them first.

Can I list courses I haven't taught yet?

Yes, in a separate "Prepared to teach" or "Teaching interests" list using the department's course titles, kept clearly apart from courses you have taught.