CV Format

Do you actually need a CV? (Most people don't)

You need a CV if you are applying for: faculty positions (assistant professor and up, and most lecturer posts), PhD or MPhil admissions, research roles in institutes and labs, postdoc positions, medical careers (PG applications, senior residency, fellowships), grants and academic fellowships, or some international applications where the country's convention is CV-first (much of Europe; 'CV' in the UK, though a UK CV is closer to an Indian resume).

You do not need a CV for private-sector jobs in India — IT, product, banking, consulting, sales, operations. Those want a 1-page resume, and sending a 5-page CV to an HR screener actively hurts: it reads as not knowing which document the situation calls for.

The confusing middle: senior corporate roles sometimes say 'send your CV'. In India that phrase almost always means 'send your resume' — read the sender, not the word. A committee wants a CV; a recruiter wants a resume, whatever they called it.

The academic CV structure, in the order committees read it

Contact and identity: name, email, phone, city, and your Google Scholar / ORCID / LinkedIn where relevant. No photo, no date of birth — the biodata conventions do not apply here either.

Education, reverse-chronological, with thesis or dissertation titles and supervisors named. For a fresh PhD this section leads; twenty years in, it compresses to four lines and moves down.

Publications — the section the committee actually reads. Number them, use one citation style consistently, mark yourself in the author list, and separate peer-reviewed journal articles from conference papers from book chapters. Never pad with 'in preparation'; 'under review' is acceptable with the journal named.

Research experience, then teaching experience: courses taught, level, class size, and any course you designed rather than merely delivered. In teaching-heavy hiring (most Indian colleges), this section outranks publications — order yours to match the job.

Then, as applicable: grants and funding (with amounts), awards, conference presentations and invited talks, professional memberships, administrative and service roles, and 2-3 referees with designations and institutional emails — actual professors who know your work, listed with their permission.

Length and formatting norms

A CV has no page limit, but it has a density expectation: a master's applicant runs 2-3 pages, a fresh PhD 3-5, an established academic as long as the record genuinely is. Length must come from real entries — a 6-page CV with padding reads worse than a tight 3-pager.

Formatting is conservative on purpose: single column, standard serif or sans font at 11-12pt, clear section headings, no colour blocks, no skill bars, no design flourishes. A CV is a record, not a pitch; committees are suspicious of decoration in direct proportion to its quantity.

Consistency is the real formatting test. One date format, one citation style, one way of writing institution names — throughout. Committees read dozens of CVs in a sitting; inconsistency is what makes yours feel careless.

India-specific CV situations

Faculty applications at Indian colleges and universities: expect to also fill the institution's own proforma (a biodata-style form) alongside your CV — the CV does not replace it. UGC-NET/SET qualification, API scores where the institution still uses them, and Ph.D. registration details belong prominently on the CV for these applications.

Medical careers: NEET-PG counselling itself is form-driven, but senior residency, DM/MCh applications, fellowships and hospital consultant posts want a CV — with registrations (state medical council number), internship and residency detail, procedures/case exposure where relevant, and publications.

Study abroad: master's applications abroad generally want the 1-2 page 'academic resume' variant of a CV — education-first, projects and research experience, no personal details. Europe's Europass format exists but is only worth using where a posting explicitly asks for it.

The skeleton: Name and contact → Education (with thesis) → Publications → Research experience → Teaching experience → Grants and awards → Presentations → Service → Referees. Reorder teaching above publications for teaching-first posts; delete empty sections rather than writing 'None'.