CV Writing Tips for Studying Abroad

A well-written resume has to define your objective and purpose through its content clearly. However, it is not a good idea to mention the objective at the start of the resume, as most applicants do. Your objective should reflect in the construction, content and flow of your resume, along with the hierarchy of your qualifications and achievements included in the document.

Academic CV/Resume Writing Tips for Studying Abroad

You must keep in mind that you are one of the few thousand applicants who will apply to that university, and thus, your resume is also one of the few thousand resumes the admission committee will go through. Naturally, the admission committee may have just a few seconds/minutes to go through your resume. So, you must ensure that the resume captures the attention of the committee member in the first few seconds. Also, what is most important is how you endeavour to make your resume look more impressive and comprehensive than the rest. For more information, read Common Errors in a Resume. One must include the following details in their academic resume:

• Academic Performance and Background: Though briefly but importantly about the institutions attended and the GPA scored.
• Work or Internship Experience: This acts as an added advantage if mentioned in a CV and also if the applicant holds some experience. 
• Projects Worked on: Research projects or projects that are relevant in context to academics can leave a good impression on the assessor about the applicant.
• Skills: Those who have the technical know-how can definitely mention their skills in their academic CV. 
• Extracurricular Activities: Sports or social service is definitely an added advantage for students with these experiences and applying abroad for higher education. 

While preparing your resume, you must remember that a resume is not an autobiography and should not be approached in that way. You must treat your resume as a comprehensive and focused reference to your academic history, delivered responsibilities, achievements, and academic and professional skills. Finally, the font, font size, spacing, alignment, and the like, should be appropriate. More importantly, there is a standard format that an academic resume follows, which you should keep in mind.

How to Make an Impressive Academic Resume

The most important part of developing an effective and impressive resume is to realize and understand the purpose of creating this document. You need to understand that it is not an autobiography. Instead, it summarises your professional and academic qualifications and achievements. How to Make an Impressive Academic Resume? hold more details as to what all should ideally go into a CV to make it impressive and readable. 

Related Links

• How to Prepare Resume for MBA Application
• How to Prepare Resume for MS Application
• How to Prepare Resume for UG Application

Common Mistakes in a Resume and How to Avoid These

A resume is essentially the first look into your candidature. While it is important to keep in mind what you should include in your resume, it is essential to keep in mind the common mistakes people make while making their academic resume. Most often, students (especially the ones with work experience) upload the same resume they use for applying for a job. They need to remember that an academic resume differs from a professional resume/CV. As such, students must be very careful and not make these common mistakes while preparing their academic resumes.

What to Avoid Writing in a Student Resume?

When writing a resume, students should usually highlight their academic achievements, important coursework, and extracurricular activities. But there are a few things which one should avoid including in his/her CV so as to keep the resume’s content crisp and attractive. Some of the points are:

• Irrelevant Personal Details: Personal information such as your marital status or social security number should not be included in your resume as it’s not relevant to your academic or professional achievements.
• Unrelated Work: Although, one needs to display a strong work ethic and experience, mentioning work experience which is not related can occupy valuable space on your resume and make it look cluttered.
• Grammar or Spelling Errors: Make sure that your resume has no spelling or grammar mistakes as the employer may consider it unprofessional or careless.

Shiksha Guidelines for CV

Along with the right format, the correct formatting, hygiene of the document, US/UK English, action words, and grammar, are the most important aspects of the CV/ resume that you will be submitting to the university. Even an incorrect alignment of bullets or extra line spacing can affect the whole appearance of the document. This, in turn, affects the readability of your draft. The more verbose/confusing your draft is, the less interesting it is for the ADCOM.

Hence, it is important to convey all your information in a detailed yet crisp manner, which does not miss any of your essentials. To help you with this, with years of research and study abroad experience, the Shiksha Guidelines for CV have been carefully tailored, keeping in mind all these trivialities, as well as university requirements.

AlsoAlso, Read

• Difference between MS and MBA Resume
• How to Present Professional Experience in Resume
• Things to include in your MS Resume