Academic CV templates for research, teaching and study

CV or resume?

If you are applying for a postdoc, a fellowship, a lectureship or a PhD place, you want a CV. If you are a graduate applying to industry, you want a resume — and industry recruiters do get put off by an eight-page CV for a junior role.

Which template

Academic CV is the research layout. Georgia serif, small-caps section headings with rules that only span the heading, and hanging indents on every entry — the shape a publication list is supposed to have, where the first line sits out and continuations tuck under. It runs to as many pages as you need.

Harvard Style is the centred Garamond convention with a double rule under the name. Standard for finance, consulting and law, and common for academic job letters in the US.

LaTeX Style looks like a CV set in a LaTeX class — Times, thin section rules, light name weight. Familiar in maths, physics and CS, and it parses cleanly.

Traditional Serif is book typography for the humanities, law and public institutions.

Europass follows the EU structured convention with labelled personal-detail rows. Some European institutions and public bodies still ask for it specifically. Use it when asked for, not by default — it is verbose.

Graduate is education-first with a double-rule header, for a first or second job after a degree.

Student is the friendliest layout on the site: rounded cards with colour-coded sections, built to make coursework, projects and activities look substantial when employment history is thin.

Sections a normal resume does not have

The editor lets you add and reorder sections, which matters more for academic CVs than anything else. The ones you are likely to want:

• Publications — reverse-chronological, consistent citation style, your name bolded so a reader can find you in a nine-author list. Split peer-reviewed from preprints and chapters if there are enough of them.
• Conferences — talks and posters separately; note invited talks explicitly.
• Funding — grant, funder, amount, your role, dates. Do not be shy about amounts.
• Teaching — course, level, your role, enrolment size.
• Supervision — students supervised, level, completion year.
• Service — reviewing, committees, editorial roles.
• Courses — for students, relevant modules with grades if they are good.

Ordering, for students

Whatever is strongest goes first, and early on that is almost never employment.

A sensible order for a recent graduate: Education, Projects, Relevant Coursework, Internships, Skills, Activities, Employment. If a summer job is genuinely relevant, move it up. If it was retail and you are applying to a lab, it belongs at the bottom as evidence you can hold a job, not as a headline.

Two things students under-use: a specific project section (a dissertation with a one-line result is stronger than three bullets about a supermarket job), and numbers (a cohort rank, a grade average, a society you grew from 12 to 60 members).

More in our guide to writing a resume with no experience.

Formatting the publication list

Pick one style — APA, Chicago, Vancouver, whatever your field uses — and be consistent to the punctuation. Inconsistent citations are the fastest way to look careless to an academic reader.

Bold your own name in the author list. In a nine-author paper, that one detail is the difference between a reader finding you and giving up.

Number entries if the list is long: a hiring committee referring to "publication 14" is a good sign, and it is impossible without numbers.