How to Format a CV for Beginners

In addition to resumes and cover letters, job applicants often need to create a curricula vitae (CV) for use in the hiring process. Like a resume, a CV highlights your skills and professional experiences but typically goes into more detail than a resume. This article explains how to format an effective CV.

How to format a CV for beginners

There is not a set CV format, but here are some tips about common sections and formatting to help you craft your CV:

1. Firstly, take some time to understand the purpose of a CV

CV is short for curriculum vitae, Latin for the course of one’s life. More specifically, a CV is about your professional life, but not just paid work. This is part of what makes a CV different from a resume; it includes several more areas of information and provides a broader view of the person. Because of this, CVs are also generally longer than resumes. 

CVs are often used for academic jobs, but they are sometimes used outside of academia when an employer wants something more extensive than a resume. 

2. Secondly, decide which CV sections are most relevant to you and your career

These are typical CV sections, but you don’t necessarily need all of them on your CV. If you are applying to a nonacademic job, there is some flexibility here for customization. Remember, the ultimate goal is to showcase your qualifications. 

Here are the most common CV sections:

• Contact information. Contact information generally goes first. Make sure this includes your email address and phone number.
• Education. This often comes after the contact information, especially for academic jobs for which there is probably a firm educational requirement. Placing the education section high on the first page lets the employer immediately see whether you’ve met that requirement.
• Professional experience. This is usually done in reverse chronological order, so starting with your current or most recent employer and working backward. If you don’t have work experience yet, don’t worry; there’s still plenty of relevant information you can include on your CV. Also, see the next section below on the functional/skills-based CV format. 
• Awards, honors and scholarships. There are a number of things that could fall into this category, from a prestigious award given to someone advanced in their career to a scholarship, fellowship, grant or other form of recognition given to a student. 
• Research projects and interests. If you are starting out, you may not have done much formal research yet, let alone published research. Nonetheless, indicate your research interests and, if applicable, the topic of any major research project, like a thesis or dissertation. If your field is not academic, published research may not be a common professional activity. This could still be a good section to include, but change the focus to side projects relevant to your field. 
• Publications. This a strong section to include, especially for academic CVs, but optional. Many people do not have publications. Additionally, this section doesn’t have to be just for traditional academic publications. If you’ve published in online journals or student journals, include that information. If you’ve done writing outside your professional field, you could tweak the section header to something like “Creative Writing” or “Nonacademic Publications.” Writing skills are broadly applicable, so even writing done outside your field could work in your favor on a CV. Depending on your field, research-based writing may be especially valuable.
• Department and campus service. Academic jobs often carry an expectation of involvement in and service to the department and campus outside of your primary job duties, so it’s good to show you already have experience handling multiple commitments. This also shows a dedication to the school’s mission. For nonacademic fields, include this section if you have any form of professional service. If you have community service, you can include that as well. This can be a good way to show skills beyond the range of your typical job skills.  
• Professional affiliations. Include any professional affiliations. These show your dedication to keeping up with the field. Membership to some academic or professional organizations requires an annual fee, but it is often reduced or waived for graduate students and adjunct instructors. There are generally professional organizations outside of academia as well. If this isn’t relevant to your field, you could still include a section on organizational affiliations if you feel this would indicate skills, knowledge or characteristics that would interest employers. 

3. Finally, follow the standard guidelines to format your CV

Here are some guidelines for standard CV format options: 

• Chronological. This is the most common. List your current or most recent items first and work backward from there. This would apply to most CV sections, including education, employment, publications, awards and service. 
• Functional/Skills-based. This can be useful if you don’t have an employment history yet, or if you have significant employment gaps. Instead of an employment section, include a skills section. You’ll need to brainstorm specific skills to fill out this section. A bullet-point list would be good here.  
• Combination. You can choose to blend the chronological and functional styles by including both an employment section and a skills section. As with the regular chronological CV, start with your current or most recent job and work backward. The skills needn’t be listed in any specific order.
• Parallelism. Parallelism provides consistency and organization and makes it easy for an employer to read your CV. Use the same order and format for all listed items. In the employment section, for example, it’s typical to start with the dates of employment. You can follow that with the employer, location, your job title and a brief explanation of your duties and/or accomplishments. Follow the same format and order for all jobs. 
• Font. If your professional organization has font standards for professional writing, use those. For example, if you are in a humanities discipline, the Modern Language Association (MLA) is your professional organization, and MLA format uses 12-point Times New Roman font, although for the headings, bold and a slightly larger font would make the text easier to read. If your professional organization doesn’t have guidelines, Times New Roman and Courier are common fonts.