Curriculum Vitae

The Curriculum Vitae (CV) or resume in American english, is meant to introduce you and your background to the admission committee that does not know you and barely has time to get to know you. It should present you in the best possible light, in a concise and well-structured manner. A regular CV for admission purpose should ideally not go over two A4 page. You may pass that limit, on the condition that you use the extra space to describe academic activities, like conferences, publications list, etc.

How to write a CV: 

A well-written CV shows first what is most important, but contains all relevant information. To that goal, we advise you to adapt it to your target (specific university and department). Cut information from your CV only as a solution of last resort, but pay attention to the order in which you present it in your CV.

Print the CV on plain-white A4 paper. Always send a CV with a cover letter. It introduces your CV to the reader, attracts attention to certain parts of it that you want to bring to light, or mentions aspects that for some reason could not be listed in your CV.

To make it look neat, we suggest you use one of the MS Word pre-made formats, unless you are computer-savvy and feel confident that you can produce an even better structured and easier-to-read format. You will be able to introduce your own headers in that format. Below we have a word of advice for those items most-often met in a CV.

Personal Details

Here you should include your full name, birth date, contact address, email, telephone number and nationality. In case you have both a permanent and present address, include both, with the dates when you can be contacted at each of them. Personal details can be written with smaller fonts than the rest of your CV, if you want to save space. They do not have to jump in the reader’s attention - you will never convince somebody to hire you because you have a nice email alias! If your CV managed to awaken the reader's interest, he or she will look for contact details - it is important that they be there, but not that they are the first thing somebody reads in your CV. You should write your name with a bigger font than the rest of the text, so that the reader knows easily whose CV is he or she reading. If you need to save space, you can delete the Curriculum Vitae line on the top of your CV. After all, if you have done a good job writing it, it should be obvious that that piece of paper is a CV, no need to spell it out loud.

Objective

This is a concise statement of what you are actually looking for. It's not bad idea if it matches the thing you are applying for. Don't restrict it too much like "to get admission in this university", but rather "to develop a career in... " the thing that you're going to study if you get the admission. If you are apply for an assistantship, you can be even more specific - " to obtain a position in... , where I can use my skills in…". You can use a few lines to describe that specifically, but keep in mind that you should show what you can do for the university more than what the university can do for you. Writing a good objective can be tough; take some time to think about what exactly are you going to write there.

Educational Qualification

When you are applying for admission to an academic program it is always advisable to start your CV with your education. Very probably, at this stage in your career, it is your most important asset. We suggest you use the reverse chronological order, since it is more important what college’s degree you have, rather than, very probably, where you went to the high school in your native town. No matter for which order you decide - chronological or reverse - you should keep it the same throughout the rest of your CV. Try to give an exact account of your accomplishments in college: grades (do not forget to write the scale if it may differ from the one the reader of your CV is used to), standing in the class (in percentile), title of your dissertation, if you have one, expected graduation date if you are in college while applying. Write all of the above to put you in the best light. Are you not in the best 20% of your class? Better not to mention ranking then, maybe you still have good grades, or your school is a renowned one. In any case, do not make your results better than in reality - you may not know how this information may be checked and the whole application could lose its credibility.

Awards received                                                                 You should introduce this header right after the education, in order to outline all the scholarly or otherwise distinctions you have received. Another solution is to include these awards in the education section, but this might make the section a little complicated - the reader wants to get from that section an impression about the colleges you went to and the overall results, not about every distinction you were awarded. Still, these are important! Therefore, here is the place to mention them all- scholarships, honours you have had to compete for, prizes in contests, any kind of distinction etc. Here, same as everywhere in your CV, write a detailed account of what happened: do not just mention the year and "Prize in Physics", but rather give the exact date (month), place, name and organizer of the competition. For a scholarship abroad, write the time frame, name of the University, Department, the subject of classes there - e.g. managerial economics - name of the award-giving institution, if different from that of the host-university.

Work exp.                                                              Here you should include internships as well as full-time jobs. Don't feel awkward about whatever small or insignificant jobs you may have done, don't try to diminish your accomplishments! Nobody really expects you to have started a million dollar business if you're still a student - even better if you did, though! Accountability is an important criterion for what you write in this section. The account should show what you improved, where, by how much, what your responsibilities were, etc. The idea is that when you apply for a admission you have to show growth-potential. That is, that you proved some kind of progress from one job to another and that especially at the last one you were so good, you could obviously do something that involves more advanced work - like the degree you are applying for now. The overall result should portray you as a quick learner, a person with initiative and creativity - don't forget you have to convince the reader of your CV that you are the best pick for that seat in the department.

Extracurricular                                                   This is the place to mention any other activities outside the college that for some reason did not fit in the CV so far. A good section here can help a lot towards that goal of portraying you as a leader, a person with initiative, not just a nerd with good grades!

Languages                                                                          List here all the languages you speak, with a one-word description of your knowledge of that language. We suggest the following scale: conversational, intermediate, advanced, and fluent. List any certificates and/or results like TOEFL scores, with date.

Computer skils                                                                  Write everything you know, including Internet browsers and text editing skills. There is no absolute need to know C++ unless you want to be a programmer or something. List certificates and specialty studies as well.

Hobbies                                                                               List them if space is left on the page. They look fine in a CV, showing you are not a no-life workaholic, but a normal person. There is no need to have a 20,000 pieces stamp collection, you can mention reading or mountain tracking as well.

Miscellaneous                                                                     You can introduce other headers that suit your needs. Some CV's, for example, have a summary heading, that brings in front what the author considers to be the most important stuff in his/her CV. A references section can be added as well, where you can list with contact details, persons ready to recommend you. If you don't, the admission people will assume they are available on request.