6. Academic CV

“The academic curriculum vitae (CV) is a formal document widely used by researchers and scholars when applying for academic jobs. It details the educational background, professional appointments, research and teaching experience, publications, grants, awards, fellowships, and other key achievements.”

Academic CV is really significant when you are going to send your first emails to potential supervisors and it is a summarized document that he/she can refer and evaluate whether you will be a good candidate for their research work. In addition to that, academic CV is also needed when you are making an online application for postgraduate studies as well as if you need to obtain some job opportunity in academic/ research field. Making an academic CV is different from the CV prepared to apply for a job. In my experience, it has taken some time to create an academic CV and I self-studied about the correct and appropriate method to make a good academic CV. A good CV can build a good impression to the viewer and also provide a platform to include your educational, research, professional background and achievements. In my view, the most crucial part of writing an academic CV is your ability to highlight your achievements and to reveal that you would be an asset to a particular educational institution. My academic CV is 4 pages long (A4 size) and it contains all the important details for an academic application process.

Structure of My Academic CV

There may be various structures you can follow to make an academic CV. However, I prepared my CV according to the common instructions available in many resources. There is no right or wrong way to make an academic CV, but you should first refer some standard ways and then you can alter some sections as you prefer. First, I studied how to make a good academic CV.

Order I followed;

1. Profile Picture (size of about 1” ´ 1.55”) and my Personal Details (Name, address, email, mobile number)
2. Objective: My expectations and the ultimate goal of professional life to be achieved in future within 1 descriptive sentence
3. Education: Details of my bachelor’s degree; Degree name, university name, duration, major field, focus area, overall GPA
4. Research Experience: All the research projects I contributed; project name, research institution (for me it was my university), duration, few sentences on what I did in each project
5. Publications: All the publications including some papers in “submitted/ under review/ waiting for online publication” status. All the publications were written based on a citation style. (Ex: Names of authors. (year). Research paper title. Journal name)
6. Teaching and Administrative Experience: All my teaching experiences; Position, institution, duration, main tasks
7. Conferences and Courses Attended: All the conferences I attended; Conference name, country, when it was held, my contributions (Ex; oral presentation/ poster presentation/ organizing/ participation, etc.). All the courses I have completed; Name of course, institution, duration, grades
8. Honours and Awards: All of the main achievements; Title for the achievement (Ex: Finalist in “X” competition), year of achievement, a sentence for describing the achievement
9. Work Experience: All working experiences except to academic field (Ex: Manager role in an “X” company); Position, company name, duration, main tasks
10. Extracurricular Activities: All the important extracurricular activities; Role, society/organization, duration; I included main extracurricular activities after secondary education.
11. Professional Memberships: All the important memberships in professional bodies/ organizations/ authorities; Type of membership, name of the professional organization, duration
12. Skills: All the important skills which may be effective during postgraduate studies; Name of skill, example (if any).
13. Interests: List of some personal interests
14. References: Details of 2 referees; Name of the referee with his/her professional title (Ex: Prof. / Dr. / Eng. etc.), educational status (Ex: degrees/professional memberships in abbreviations – B.SC. Eng. (Hons) (Moratuwa)), position, professional organization, contact details.

Formatting of My Academic CV

I used my own format to make my academic CV because I prefer that uniqueness of my CV. However, there are lots of good/impressive formats for CV preparation you can find on the web. Therefore, you can decide which type of format you should use.

I only used only 2 colours for the fonts (black-content and blue-headings). Otherwise, it may not be seen as an official document. I used only one font for the whole document (Times New Roman). However, there are also some other common fonts you can use for the CV. Formatting of the document was done simply and also based on the page constraint.

* Please noted that quoted statements are obtained from some online resources.

* You can study some materials uploaded (which I have used as references) in the following drive for further understanding. 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qRZoC-FDev7TDSUUqNU5SEBkb0Avy85l?usp=sharing