Guidelines for CV Study Abroad: Freshers, Experience

Wondering how to draft that eye-catching CV for admission into your dream university abroad? A list of do's and don'ts forms a perfect CV. To help applicants with their CVs, we have curated guidelines to make a perfect CV in the first go. Refer to the Shiksha guidelines for CV, which will help you in creating a flawless CV.  

When applying to study abroad, one of the most important documents you will need is your CV (Curriculum Vitae). This document is your chance to showcase your academic background, skills, and experiences to the admission committee. Whether you are a fresher just starting out or someone with work experience, having a well-structured CV can make a big difference in your application.

The article have a detailed guidelines on how to create an effective CV for studying abroad. We will cover what sections to include, how to present your information clearly, and tips for both freshers and experienced candidates. A strong CV not only highlights your qualifications but also helps you stand out among many applicants. By following these guidelines, you can create a compelling CV that enhances your chances of getting accepted into your desired program.

Basic Structure of Your CV

A standard CV for studying abroad typically includes the following sections:

• Contact Information: Include your full name, phone number, email address, and current location at the top of the CV.
• Objective Statement: Write a brief statement (1-2 sentences) about your goals and why you are applying to that specific program.
• Education: List your educational background in reverse chronological order, including degrees earned, institutions attended, and dates of attendance.
• Work Experience: Include any internships or jobs you have held, detailing your responsibilities and achievements.
• Skills: Highlight relevant skills such as languages spoken, technical skills, or soft skills like teamwork and communication.
• Extracurricular Activities: Mention any clubs, organizations, or volunteer work that demonstrates leadership or community involvement.
• Certifications and Awards: List any relevant certifications or awards that can strengthen your application.

Guidelines for Student CV (Curriculum Vitae)  

In this section, we will look at the important factors that must be considered when you begin to write your CV. Let us begin with the basics: 

Use of English 

• For Singaporean universities, use US English 

• For American universities, use US (American) English 

• For European universities, use UK (British) English 

For the text 

• Fonts: The most preferred font is Times New Roman; it gives a traditional look to the document. To give contemporary look to your CV, you can use Arial or Calibri. Most scanners easily recognize these serif fonts; avoid fancy or illegible fonts. 

• Font size: For text, use font sizes of 10 to 12 point; for headings, use 11 to 14 points. 

• Headings: Use boldface and/or capital letters for sub-headings. Avoid italics. 

• Alignment of the page: Use justified alignment for the main content. Only the name and contact details should be centred.  

• Avoid graphics: Do not use vertical or horizontal lines, text boxes, tables, columns or any such special formatting. 

• Bullet points: Bullet points make the document look clean and precise. Avoid special characters such as arrows or checkmarks for bullets; use the black round bullets and the hollow round ones (bubbles) for sub-points (if any). They should appear same in design and alignment throughout the document. 

• Spacing: The line spacing should be single, unless stipulated otherwise by a specific university. There should be no spacing between subheadings and the text. Before and after spacing should be set at 0 

• Indentation: It should be set at zero for left, right, top and bottom, except for bullet points. They can be placed at 0.5 indentation. 

• Margins: Your CV should have normal (1inch) margins on all sides. If the content needs to be adjusted to fit a little more, set the margin at the ‘Moderate’ setting. Do not use ‘Narrow’ margins as they may give a cluttered look to your CV. 

• Colour: Always use Auto black. Avoid colouring of the document, not even for subheadings.  

These Shiksha guidelines for CV are curated after analysing numerous documents to figure out what is preferred by the universities. 

Check: Academic CV - Templates & Samples

Capitalisation 

• When writing software names such as MATLAB, use uppercase. 

• Capital letters within sentences: ‘The’, when in the middle of the sentence, should be in lowercase; the specific university should be written with a capital ‘U’ and specific school and department should be written in title case 

• Avoid the mistake of capitalizing generic terms like ‘national technical symposium’. Only specific names should be capitalised 

• If you are indicating a geographical region, then it is not capitalized. For instance, it is south India or east Bengal and not South India or East Bengal. 

 Also Read 

• Standard Academic Resume Format 

• Resume/CV Writing Tips for Studying Abroad 

 Grammar/Punctuation 

• Use active voice in your CV. 

• 'Though’ and ‘but’ are never to be used together in one sentence. 

• The Colon joins two independent clauses, where emphasis is on the second clause. For instance - Amy went to the store to purchase some groceries: milk, bread, coffee and cheese. 

• A semicolon also joins two independent clauses where the second clause relates to the first and they are of equal importance. For example - The manager did not approve the final draft; she suggested various changes. 

• Learn to use commas – while listing three or more items, commas follow the item before. For example - John, Paul, and George. In a list of two items, a comma is not required. 

• Do not leave space before and after (/) forward slash.  

• Use hyphen (-) for connecting two things that are intimately related like two-thirds; en dash (–) is used to connect things that are related to each other by distance, like May 2012 – July 2013, and em dash (—) serves as a sort of bullet point. 

• How to use periods and parenthesis? If the words inside the parentheses are not a complete sentence, the period, question mark, or exclamation point that ends the sentence goes after the parenthesis: 

• Squiggly likes chocolate (and nuts). 

• Could Aardvark bring home candy (quickly)? 

• If the words inside the parenthesis are a complete sentence, the period, question mark, or exclamation point that ends the sentence goes inside the parenthesis: 

• Bring chocolate. (Squiggly likes sweets.) 

• Buy candy. (Bring it quickly!) 

• For titles of projects, books, workshops, seminars or publications, use single quotes (‘

Related Links:

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

Dates 

• Irrespective of the pattern you follow, dates should be uniform throughout the CV. If one is using December 12, 1980, then the same pattern should be followed in the entire document.  

• You can also use abbreviated forms but maintain uniformity while doing so. Example: Sep 10 – Oct 15, 2019 

 Names of projects/books 

• Write topics or projects in single quotes like ‘Hand-gesture based communication system’ in LOR or SOP. In your CV, you can write it in bold. Do not highlight, underline, italicize or use uppercase. 

• The name of the books should be in single quotes only and not in italics, bold or uppercase. Avoid underlining content.  

• In case of publications, name of authors, title/topic of the paper, name of the journal and then volume, version, and year can be mentioned. Follow Shiksha guidelines for CV to avoid any errors. 

 Currencies 

• Write the monetary values in US dollars. Convert the amount to EUR when applying to European universities. 

• When writing in Indian currency, mention INR before the amount. The units are lakh and crore for India and million/billion elsewhere. We should write INR 5 lakh, and ‘INR 5-lakh deficit’ (where the amount is used as an adjective).  

• There is no stop after INR but there is a space between the currency and the amount, for example, INR 450. For pound sterling and dollars, there is no space (£50, $50). 

 Abbreviation 

• An abbreviation or contraction retains the first and last alphabets of the word and appears without a stop, example - Dr (for doctor) or St (for street and saint). 

• Abbreviations that do not retain their original last letter must appear with a stop, like Prof. (for professor), Maj. (for major), Capt. (for captain). 

• When the name of a person is abbreviated, there are stops but no spaces in between the initials but spaces after them, for example - A.P.J. Abdul Kalam 

• Stops should be used after abbreviated names of the parts of a book, example- vol. 5 (or v. 5), no. 3, sec. 11, p. 92 

• Avoid using abbreviations like etc., e.g., i.e. Keep your document formal. 

• While writing academic qualifications like BA, MA, MBBS, BTech, MPhil, and PhD, the terms are abbreviated but with no stops. There are no stops in abbreviated names of states like UP, MP, HP or WB. 

• When using an abbreviation of an organization or institution like DRDO, ISRO or NASA in your CV, first expand the term and then mention its abbreviation in parenthesis. For example, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). Spell out the term when it appears first in the CV and then use the abbreviation elsewhere. 

• If the terms or words are commonly used and known by all, then you need not expand them. For example, there is no need to expand USA or UK. 

• Below are some more universally acknowledged terms; there is no need to expand them. In fact, expanding can actually make us seem ignorant! 

• IEEE - http://www.ieee.org/index.html - pronounced eye-triple E 

• IAYP - https://www.iayp.in/about_the_award.htm 

• Baja SAE - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baja_SAE - pronounced ba-ha S A E 

• AIESEC - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIESEC - pronounced eye-sek 

• SPIC MACAY - http://www.spicmacay.com/ 

• IB Diploma - http://www.ibo.org/diploma/ 

 Numbers 

• Numbers up to nine should ideally be spelt out, and if a sentence has several numbers below twenty, they should be spelt out. 

• Numbers from 10 onwards should be written in words. 

• Numbers beyond 20, when written in words, should be hyphenated (sixty-two). 

• Figures beyond 10,000 will be separated by commas for every two digits. 

• 80 percent or 80%? It should be 80%. 

Also, Read

• Difference between MS and MBA Resume
• Common mistakes Indian students make while applying to Top Universities Abroad
• How to Present Professional Experience in Resume

 Troublesome words 

• Shiksha guidelines for CV also gives you clarity on some words that are often used incorrectly, like affect/effect. Affect (verb); ‘to affect’ means to act upon or influence. Effect (noun); ‘an effect’ (a positive or a negative effect) is the result of being affected by something. There is also a verb, ‘to effect’, which means to bring something about – ‘to effect a change’. 

• Among/Between: Between emphasizes the individual, among the group. Logically, between should be used to indicate reciprocal relationships, and among collective ones. 

• Appraise/Apprise: Appraise means to evaluate, set a price on. Apprise means to inform. 

• Along with: Not ‘along with’. 

• Any more: Not ‘anymore’. 

• Any time: Not ‘anytime’. 

• Anything, anywhere, anyway, anyone: these are all written together. 

• Benefited/Benefiting: Not benefitted/benefitting. The spelling may trick you. 

• Can, may, will, shall: ‘Can’ applies to what is possible; ‘May’ applies to what is permissible; ‘Will’ expresses simple futurity; ‘Shall’ expresses a sense of definitiveness and determination. 

• Centre on: Not ‘centre around’, as common parlance has it. You can ‘circle around’ something, but ‘centring around’ something is physically impossible. 

• Compare to/with: ‘Compare to’ is used to liken things, ‘compare with’ is used to consider their similarities and differences. 

• Comprise: is not followed by of, unlike consist and compose. The whole comprises the parts. 

• Data: is actually plural; ‘datum’ is not used any more. 

• Different: One thing is different from another; not different ‘to’.          

• Disinterested: This is not the same as uninterested. Disinterested means impartial, unbiased. 

• Every day/Everyday: Everyday is one word only when used as an adjective, e.g. ‘an everyday occurrence’. 

• Farther/further: Farther refers to literal (and therefore measurable) distance, further to figurative distance. 

• Forego/forgo: To forego is to precede. To forgo is to do without. 

• Hour, heir, honest, honour: The only words starting with h where the h is silent, and which need to be preceded by an, rather than a. Historian/historical and hotel should be preceded by a, not an. 

• Ingenious/Ingenuous: Ingenious means skilful, clever. Ingenuous means frank, free from deception. 

• In spite of: Not ‘inspite of’. 

• Its/It’s: This still tops the list among the most common mistakes. ‘Its’ is the possessive form of ‘it’; ‘it’s’ is an abbreviation for ‘it is’. 

• Licence/license: Licence is the noun, while license is the verb. 

• Men’s, women’s, children’s: The apostrophe should come before the ‘s’ because the words are already plural 

• Riveted/Riveting: Not rivetted/riveting 

• Some time/Sometime: One word, except when ‘some’ is being used as a separate adjective 

• Who/whom: Whom is used when it is the object of a preposition (‘to whom it may concern’) or verb (‘the man whom we saw last night’). Who is used in all other cases 

• It is under-graduation but undergraduate; similarly, it is co-curricular, but extracurricular 

 Correct Spelling Incorrect Spelling 

accommodate	two c’s and two m’s
manoeuvre	not manouever
millennium	two l’s and two n’s
minuscule	not miniscule
recommendation	One c and 2 m’s

Your spell-checker within the MS Word document will highlight any possible errors and therefore do check them. 

Commonly Misspelt Words 

accommodate	two c’s and two m’s
manoeuvre	not manouever
millennium	two l’s and two n’s
minuscule	not miniscule
recommendation	One c and 2 m’s

Tips for Freshers in CV 

If you are a fresher with limited work experience, focus on the following:

• Focus More on Academic Achievements: Highlight your grades, relevant coursework, projects, or research that relate to your desired field of study.
• Include Relevant Projects: If you have completed any projects during your studies that showcase your skills or knowledge in a particular area, be sure to include them.
• Showcase Internships: If you have completed any internships or part-time jobs, include them even if they are not directly related to your field. Focus on transferable skills gained from these experiences.

Tips for Experienced Applicants CV

For those with work experience, consider these points:

• Highlight Relevant Experience: Focus on jobs or internships that relate directly to the program you are applying for. Use bullet points to describe your responsibilities and achievements in each role.
• Use Action Verbs: Start each bullet point with strong action verbs (e.g., "developed," "managed," "led") to convey impact and demonstrate what you accomplished in each position.
• Quantify Achievements: Whenever possible, use numbers to quantify your accomplishments (e.g., "Increased sales by 20%," "Managed a team of five").

Related Reads

• Sample Essays for Study Abroad: Types and Writing Tips here
• What are Academic Transcripts and How to get it?
• Credential Evaluation: Why is it necessary?
• Admission Essays - What They Are?