Writing CVs

Purpose of a CV
Sections of a CV
Sample CVs

Purpose of a CV

What is a Curriculum Vitae (CV)?

A presentation of credentials for a research/teaching position in a university, a research institute or a company with research and development requirements. The CV summarizes your career aspirations, educational background, research and employment experience, academic accomplishments, achievements and interests.

A CV is not a résumé. A résumé (two pages maximum) is prepared for employers outside the academic and research environment. To prepare a CV for graduate school or a professional program, please read the CV/résumé overview in the Further Ed section.

Internationally, employers may refer to CVs and résumé interchangeably, which may cause some confusion. However, academic employers always ask for a CV, not a résumé.

Do I have to tailor my CV?

You are strongly encouraged to tailor your CV for each job. Place sections in the order of importance to correspond to the academic posting. For instance, research-focused positions will order research experience, publications, projects and presentations before teaching. But a teaching-focused position will require teaching experience first.

Do I have to write bullet points for my experiences in my CV?

We strongly recommend including bullet points for your experience sections: research, teaching, industry, service and additional experience.

Each bullet point should strongly communicate your qualifications and accomplishments relevant to the position. Bullet points are a persuasive tool that gives a more detailed picture of what you did in those roles, allows you to expand upon the accomplishments of your experiences and conveys personality.

Your supervisor may not have bullet points in their CV because they have a tenured job and only need to list their academic achievements.

You can find out how to write effective bullet points in Writing Effective Bullet Points for a Résumé. While the advice pertains to résumés, the advice can be applied to CVs as well.

I noticed that others in my field structure their CV differently than what might be recommended here.

The advice in this section applies to academic jobs in general, but there may be unique particularities in how your disciplinary field organizes and structures a CV. Check with your supervisor or mentors to see if you’ve prioritized the most relevant information for your field.

Sections of a CV

Header

The header includes your name, address, email, phone number, personal website (if applicable), LinkedIn Profile (optional) and any other relevant links (like GitHub). Your name should be the largest font in the document. Ensure that all links have URLs (do not assume that they will be reading digitally and clicking on the links).

Research/teaching interests

In point form, list your research and/or teaching interests and areas of expertise from general to more specific areas.

For positions that involve research and teaching, include both categories. If the position is only teaching or only research, you may only include one category. However, including one category is up to your discretion because research interests can inform your teaching or your ability to teach certain topics, and a research-focused role may involve teaching later or require some form of supervision.

Summary of Qualifications

This section provides a concise overview of your qualifications, showing the employer how you will offer a competitive advantage in a convenient, direct format. Include four to six points outlining your relevant strengths and the work you have done, beginning with the most relevant to the job. All points in your summary of qualifications should be targeted to your potential employer, elaborated on throughout your CV and accurate.

Include:

 X years of Y experience (research and/or teaching)
 # of publications, noting prestigious journals
 Awards, naming the most significant ones and their value
Technical skills, related expertise, industry experience, training or certification (as relevant)
Relevant soft skills, connecting to service

Education

Include your degrees, from current/most recent to least recent. Under each degree, you can include additional info such as:

 Supervisor
 Internal committee members
 External committee members (including which University they are from)
Title of thesis or major research project
Relevant courses

This additional info can add further context to your degrees that can also support you in tailoring your application.

Employment

Include only academic appointments in this section. These can include postdoctoral positions and professorships. If you have relevant industry experience, we recommend placing that experience in its separate category.

Research Experience

In reverse chronological order, list the research positions that you have held, the research project, and (optional) a bulleted list that highlights your major accomplishments/skills in that position (see Writing Effective Bullet Points for a Résumé). These positions include Doctoral Research, MA Research, Research Assistantships, Visiting Scholar and Research Member.

Publications

In correct bibliographic format, create separate sections with headings denoting the kinds of publications you have and the ones currently under review.

The order of subheadings:

Books
Edited volumes
Refereed journal articles
Book chapters
Conference proceedings
Encyclopedia entries
Book reviews
Articles under review/consideration
Manuscripts in preparation
Web-based publications
Other publications (non-academic that may be relevant)

Presentations

List conferences, creating subheadings for conference and poster presentations (if applicable). You may also include a subheading for panels that you have organized, but you are encouraged to create a separate heading for panels organized once you have more than one panel organized.

Teaching Experience

Include the most recent teaching experience, including the name of the course and when you taught it. Do not include the course code – if you want to emphasize that you have taught an upper year or graduate course, indicate in brackets beside the course or indicate in the bullet points. If your teaching experience is online, indicate that in brackets beside the name of the course.

Separate teaching experiences into categories according to roles: instructor, teaching assistant, lab assistant, guest lecturer.

You can remove teaching assistant experience as you gain instructor experience. For junior scholars, it is strongly recommended that you keep teaching assistant positions because they show more evidence of your teaching.

It is also recommended for junior scholars add bullet points to their courses that detail the tasks and accomplishments you achieved in those experiences.

Projects

In this section, you can include projects relevant to the position(s) you are applying for. These can include:

personal projects
industry-related or industry-partnered projects
academic projects that aren't your dissertation
research creation
digital art projects

Note that you may call the “projects” section whatever you choose. If you mostly do research creation, call the section “research creation”; if your projects are mostly software development projects, call the section “software development projects.”

Awards and Scholarships

List your awards and scholarships. If you have a lot of awards or would like to highlight major awards like (like SSHRC/NSERC), you can create two subheadings:

Major awards;
Other awards.

Academic Service

Include any service positions that you’ve held. These include but are not limited to:

Academic committees (both student and faculty)
Peer reviewer/editorial roles for journals
Conference service (such as peer-review or volunteer organizer)
Community outreach
Volunteer work in the academy

Ask your supervisor or mentor how to organize your service and look at other CVs within your field to see how service is organized.

Professional Affiliations

Include current memberships and significant appointments with dates.

Professional Development

The professional development section should detail the kinds of workshops, certificates and relevant professionalization courses you have taken. Make a list detailing:

The name of the workshop/certificate/course
The place you received it
The date you received it

Technical Skills

List of technical skills that you have, grouped into categories such as:

Web development and platforms
Programming languages
Digital facilitation tools
Creative software
Graphic design

How you group your technical skills is completely up to you and what you believe would be best understood by the hiring committee.

Activities and Interests

Listing your activities and interests can create a human connection between you and the hiring committee. It also may indicate how well you will adapt to the department's culture.

References

Some positions will request you to list your references. For the positions that do not require you to do so, leave out your references. This is crucial for more public CVs that you use on your website.

Other categories

You may include other categories, such as industry experience or additional experience, to note any experiences outside of academia that are relevant to the position you are applying for. These can include industry-related work or volunteer roles you have done.

Depending on your field, you may also need to include specific sections relevant to your field, such as computer proficiency or scientific instrumentation. Check with your supervisor, department chair or mentor to determine which sections to include.