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ABOUT PROJECT EDUACCESS

Access to higher education is a privilege most people from marginalised

communities are systematically denied through cost, information, and

dispositional barriers.

Launched in 2021, Project EduAccess is a modest attempt to improve inclusivity in

higher education institutions and work towards removing these barriers for students

from marginalized communities in South Asia.

We hope to achieve this by providing expert mentorship, support, and guidance

to learners in South Asia.

In addition to running a mentorship programme and organising workshops, Project

EduAccess also regularly develops content such as guides and documents that

aid potential applicants in their university and scholarship application processes.

This guide for writing your CV is a part of our series Guides on Application

Documents.

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 DISCLAIMER

This guide, prepared for the benefit of prospective applicants, is a compilation of

advice available on the websites of several universities and scholarship bodies. The

information provided is for general informational and educational purposes only.

All information is provided in good faith.

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 WRITING YOUR CV

Curriculum Vitae (CV) is a document that contains the grades, achievements, and

experience of a candidate. Across applications, there will be many different

requirements for a CV, depending on the university, the course and the scholarship in

question.

An easy step is to make a Master CV document in which you should specify all the

experience, activities, and grades secured [the guidance on specific heads to cover

is below]. This document can be a relative longer document which covers all

experiences. At the time of application, you can pick up relevant information from

the Master CV and tailor your CV for the specific application. This is an essential

exercise in the applications process, seeing as most universities expect you to submit

CVs that do not exceed 2 pages.

COMMON HEADS TO COVER IN A CV

Following are some things to include in an academic CV. You can pick and choose

depending on your field and your work experience:

1. Name and Personal Details

2. Personal Profile (optional)

3. Education

4. Work and Research Experience

5. Relevant research/ technical/ laboratory skills

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 6. Publications

7. Conference presentations

8. Projects

9. Awards and Funding

10. Research Interests

11. Extracurricular activities

 Name and personal details: Write the name in big and bold font as the CV

heading. Under that, include contact details like an email address you regularly

use, a phone number you can be reached on, and any relevant website/ portfolio

link. For example:

SHAHRUKH KHAN
shahrukhkhan@khan.com | +919999888777 | LinkedIN

 Education: The name and personal details should be followed by educational

qualifications in a reverse chronological order (most recent to earlier ones).

Include educational qualifications with a short description of the course and study

outcomes and the final grade (percentage/GPA depending on application

requirement). Include the years through which you did the course. Highlight course

aspects and dissertations that are relevant to your current application. You can

include your class rank or percentile, if you think it will reflect favourably on your

application. For example:

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 MSc in Finance and Economics, College Name, Location (2017–2019)

CGPA: 7 (Top 5 rank)

Studied modules on International Finance, Derivatives and Financial Risk

Analysis, Portfolio Management, Corporate Financial Reporting. The
course gave exposure to econometric methodologies and its usage in
financial risk analysis that I shall be using to develop my future research.

Dissertation: ‘Title’

My research is concerned with…(a one/two-line description of the

dissertation)

OR

o LL.B – Year II | Campus Law Centre, University of Delhi | Aggregate of

3 semesters - 63.3% (I Div.) 2018-21
o B.A. (H) Economic | XXX, University of Delhi | CGPA 7.4/10 (I Div.) 2015-
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o Higher Senior Secondary (CBSE) | XX School, Delhi | Best four subjects
aggregate 96.75% 2009-15

 Work Experience: This includes professional work and any positions of responsibility

you have held including volunteer positions and internships. Mention your position,

organisation name, time spent at the organisation, location and describe your

responsibilities. You can include your responsibilities either in bullet points or in a

paragraph, depending on the length of the content. For example:

Project Associate at Z Foundation (2 February 2020 to 2 February 2022)

Led a team of five to conduct research and data analysis on healthcare

accessibility of domestic workers under the welfare schemes of the
Government of West Bengal. Responsibilities included guiding and
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 training the team members, supervising all aspects of research and
developing the final publication.

OR

INSTITUTE OF HUMAN RIGHTS Events Officer

Delhi, India January 2020 – Present

o Provide support for organizing conferences and seminars/ webinars

on topical issues in human rights, liaising with speakers and
participants, creating content for social media, and recording events
for podcasts.
o Also responsible for recording and disseminating event outputs,
including writing up, editing and proofreading academic reports.

Check the Annexure for a list of action verbs you can consider using to describe

your experiences in your CV.

 Publications and Presentations: Include relevant published works like articles,

papers, blogs, journals and books. If there are group projects, mention other

authors and highlight your name and contribution. Include online links to your

publications wherever possible. For example:

‘Impact of COVID-19 vaccines on diabetes patients’, The Lancet: The

paper investigates the impact of the COVID-19 vaccines on people with
type 2 diabetes.

 Conferences, Trainings, Courses, Certifications: Mention conferences you have

attended and presented at. If you have just attended a conference, only include

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 it if you think the theme of the topic is very relevant to your application. Otherwise,

only include conferences that you have either organised or where you have

participated as a presenter.

Similarly, include trainings/ courses you have undertaken like IT skills, teaching skills,

technical skills, digital training, online courses, etc. It is equally important to include

any relevant professional certifications here (provide the title of the certification,

the name of the certifying organisation and the date on which you earned the

certification).

Please be careful about how many you include in the CV you submit for your

application – list only those that are relevant for that particular application.

 Awards and Funding: This includes academic awards, ranks, achievements,

grants/ scholarships/ fellowships you received for studies or research work.

OPTIONAL HEADINGS

 Qualifications: These may include other qualifications like English language test

scores (IELTS/ TOEFL).

 Research Interests/ Areas of Academic Interest: You can choose to include a list

of your specific areas of research/ academic interest – it may also be useful to

divide the list into current and future interests. However, this is an optional section

that can also be merged into the personal profile section.

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 Skills: This may include IT, language and technical skills as well as relevant

transferable skills (creativity, leadership, team management), which may not be

wholly relevant to the application you are making.

 Languages: If you are multilingual, write about the languages you know and

indicate how well you know them using “native/ advanced/ intermediate/

beginner levels of written/spoken fluency” as appropriate.

 Extracurricular Activities: This may include extracurricular interests, activities and

achievements. This is an optional section depending on its relevance to the

application.

NOTE: In a CV you submit for graduate applications and graduate scholarships, you

do not need to include a “References” head, simply because you will be expected

to input the details of your referees separately in the application form and they will

also be asked to submit reference letters in support of your application.

LANGUAGE TO BE USED/ NOT TO USE

 The language of a CV should be straightforward and clear. Refrain from using long

paragraphs, passive voice and short forms.

 Use technical terminology, wherever applicable.

 The CV is an archive of all your achievements, skills, and interests and therefore, it

should read confidently so that it can convey how you are the suitable candidate.

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 Use bullet points with action words (see Annexure for a list of action words) to

describe work/ academic experiences in short sentences.

FORMATTING A CV

● The CV design should be readable, clear and consistent.

● The main things to remember when formatting a CV are who it is being sent to and

for what purpose, depending on which the information should be organised and

highlighted.

● After preparing your CV, get it printed to check if it looks neat and readable in

case you have to submit the hard copy at any point.

● Font and Highlighting: Choose a readable, attractive font and it is best advised to

not use more than two fonts in one CV. The font size should be a minimum of 11 pt.

Do not overuse bold, italics and highlighting because it is distracting for the reader.

To highlight headers and sections of the CV, use bold since too much italics and

underlining can make it look clumsy.

● Headings: Maintain a consistent style (font style, size, colour, capitalisation) for

similar headings and sub-headings. Do not put full stops after headings/ sub-

headings. Create headings that are of relevance to your application. Avoid using

‘Other’ as a section since it suggests that the reader could possibly skip it.

SAMPLE CVs

A few sample CV formats are available here.

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SCHOLARSHIP ADVICE

Scholarship applications usually provide guidance on how to tailor a CV. Even

otherwise, depending on the aims, intentions and scope of the scholarship, the CV

can be tailored. For example, it may be important to show teamwork, initiative, and

leadership for some scholarships. In this case, the CV should include ‘Positions of

Responsibility’ with a brief description and outcomes, if any. A few examples of

scholarships with their diverse CV requirements are given below:

 Several courses under Erasmus Mundus require applicants to follow the Europass

CV format; it is available here.

 For the Rhodes Scholarship, applicants are advised that the CV should contain a

list of principal activities. Separately, the scholarship also looks to identify

leadership potential in applicants – so, it is wise to highlight such qualities in your

CV.

RESEARCH DEGREE ADVICE

It is especially important to highlight your involvement in academia and research

projects, if you are looking to apply for research degrees like PhDs/ DPhils. Highlighting

any previous research experience (in the form of writing dissertations in your

undergraduate/ postgraduate degrees, or in the form of publications, or in the form

of research internships) is necessary to demonstrate that you have the necessary skills

to pursue a research degree.

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DISCIPLINE-BASED ADVICE

For a social science application, one can follow the same sequence of heads

specified above. However, do bear in mind that most social sciences applications

require you to highlight work and research experience. Therefore, do draft the

sections that demonstrate work and research skills (including publications, work with

relevant organisations, etc.) carefully. Also highlight workshops and trainings that

enhance your skills as a social sciences student.

For LLM/ law applications in particular, some universities tend to focus more on

research or theoretical subjects – here, highlighting research experience and

publications should be prioritised. However, if it is an application for a taught LLM with

more practice-oriented subjects, work experience should be mentioned first and

highlighted clearly. If there is space, then undergraduate dissertation topics (if

undertaken) can also be specified.

For a humanities application, a CV can follow the same sequence recommended

above. Dissertations, research interests, and publications should be highlighted.

Including relevant websites that include academic writings and creative projects is

very helpful. Do highlight workshops and trainings that enhance your skills as a

humanities student. For example, a student of literature should highlight workshops on

creative writing, translation, language courses and so on. Since some humanities

degrees are interdisciplinary in nature, highlighting relevant interests, training and

achievements beyond the specific subject is also a good way to demonstrate the

expanse of your experience and skills.

For a STEM application, it is important to highlight the specific educational

qualifications your degree of choice demands. It is equally important to clearly

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highlight the technical skills and certifications relevant to your degree of choice.

Differentiation between different kinds of skills is not necessary for CVs with a smaller

number of skills. However, it might be useful to distinguish between different range of

skills otherwise (for example, Web Development Languages vs Programming

Languages vs Database Languages, etc.). Conveying comfort/ capability levels with

your skills is also very important. You can say “Proficient In/ Adept In" to convey a high

level of skill competency such that you are able to use and apply the skill for real-

world applications, and "Experience with/ Exposure To" to convey a beginner-comfort

level. Sometimes the best way to present your skills, or perhaps your only exposure to

an experience, has been because of a project (either academic or personal) or

hackathon or clinical/ shadowing experience. These kinds of experiences can have

their own section.

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 ANNEXURE: ACTION VERBS

Achievement Administrative Communication Creative Financial

accelerated arranged addressed authored allocated
accomplished channelled arbitrated changed analysed
achieved charted articulated conceived appraised
activated collated briefed constructed audited
attained collected communicated created balanced
competed coordinated conducted developed budgeted
earned dispensed contacted devised calculated
effected distributed conveyed drafted compiled
elicited established corresponded established computed
executed executed delivered formulated controlled
exercised implemented demonstrated founded disbursed
expanded installed edited illustrated estimated
expedited maintained entertained influenced figured
generated offered interviewed introduced financed
improved ordered informed invented forecasted
increased outlined lectured launched projected
insured performed mediated originated reconciled
marketed prepared negotiated revamped tabulated
mastered processed persuaded revised
obtained provided presented staged Lead/Manage
produced purchased promoted updated acquired
reduced recorded proposed visualized administered
reorganized rendered publicized approved
reproduced served reported Research/Analytical assigned
restructured serviced represented assessed chaired
simplified sourced responded compared contracted
sold supported suggested critiqued controlled
solicited translated defined decided
streamlined Technical wrote derived delegated
succeeded adapted detected directed
upgraded adjusted Plan/Organize determined enlisted

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 applied allocated discovered governed
Help/Teach built anticipated evaluated handled
advised computed arranged examined initiated
clarified constructed catalogued explored instilled
coached designed categorized found instituted
collaborated diagnosed classified inspected managed
consulted engineered collected interpreted motivated
counselled experimented consolidated investigated presided
educated maintained convened located recruited
explained modified edited measured retained
facilitated operated eliminated observed reviewed
guided prescribed employed predicted selected
helped programmed gathered rated shaped
instructed proved grouped recommended supervised
modelled reinforced monitored researched
participated repaired organized reviewed
taught resolved planned searched
trained restored regulated studied
tutored solved scheduled surveyed
specified structured verified
systematized summarized
tested targeted

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