How to write an academic CV for PhD applications
A PhD CV is not a job CV. Admissions committees and prospective supervisors read it looking for one thing — evidence you can do research — and everything that gets in the way of that costs you.
Two pages, and no photo
Academic CVs run one to two pages until the publications pile up — length comes from output, not formatting. Skip the photo, the date of birth, the skills bar-charts and the 'passionate about' summary: none of it appears on a researcher's CV, and committees notice. In much of Europe and North America a photo is actively discouraged for admissions.
Education first, with the details that matter
Degree, institution, years — then the two lines most applicants omit: your thesis title and your supervisor's name. A concrete thesis title does more than a list of courses, because it proves you carried a project. Add your GPA only when it is strong by the target country's standards, and translate the scale so nobody has to guess.
Research is the spine — write it as contribution, not duties
Each project gets three moves: the question, what you specifically did, and where it landed (thesis, paper, dataset, grade). 'Responsible for data collection' reads like a job description; 'Built the preprocessing pipeline for 400 EEG recordings, which became the methods section of my thesis' reads like a researcher. One concrete number per project beats three adjectives.
Publications, preprints and conference posters
List them as full citations with your position in the author order visible. Work under review or in preparation can be listed — mark it honestly ('under review', 'manuscript in preparation') and never inflate the venue. A workshop poster with a real result is worth more than a padded journal line a supervisor will look up in ten seconds.
Skills and tools — concrete, not rated
Name the actual instruments: lab techniques, frameworks, programming languages, software. 'Python (PyTorch, scikit-learn)' tells a supervisor what you can do on day one; a five-dot rating under 'Python' tells them nothing. Drop MS Office, driving licences and language bars — a language belongs on the CV only if you will need it in the lab or the classroom.
Tailor the first page per application
The full CV stays the same; the order does not. Applying to a neuroimaging group puts your EEG thesis above your web-development job, every time. One line connecting your record to the group's current projects turns a generic CV into an obvious fit — and that is the match supervisors are scanning for.
What quietly hurts a strong record
Misspelling the university or the supervisor's name (check the exact spelling in their own publications), inconsistent dates between CV and transcript, unexplained two-year gaps, high-school distinctions on a master's graduate's CV, and formatting that breaks when converted to PDF. Export as PDF, open it on another device, and read every date once more.
Opportica builds your academic CV into an admission-ready PDF, then matches it against live funded PhD positions and drafts the outreach emails.