When writing your academic CV, as with any kind of writing, it's not just the information you put in.
How you present that information can make the difference between getting a job you love or finding yourself stuck in a job you hate. In other words, it can alter the course of your whole life.
Writing your academic CV: the 2 basic rules
1: Individual CVs for individual jobs
The absolute number 1 golden rule is that you shouldn't just write one CV, but should tailor it to each individual job you apply for. If you're applying for academic jobs, the CV you send will be different to the one you send to work in a bank or bakery, but you should also tweak every CV you send to the specific job you apply for. The facts don't change, but you might choose to emphasise certain skills and experience over others.
2: Not all content is equal
Just like in your thesis, not all potential content in is equally valuable. Not everything you've done is equally interesting to an employer. You want them to read you CV and want to know more about you, rather than skimming sections looking for something interesting.
Once you've listed your PhD, master's degree and undergraduate degree, there's no need to say where you went to high school. If you have a ton of experience as a computer programmer, saying you can use Microsoft Office is pointless.
I'd say 2 pages is often enough for a CV, but if you had to reduce your CV to one page (which is OK to do), what information would be indispensable?
Think about what information you want them to ask you in your interview, and what they might want to know and make those the focus of your CV
Structuring your academic CV
Part 1: Who are you?
What are you going to put first? Your name, obviously needs to be clear in large bold type at the top of the page. Put your contact information in small type underneath, like a sub-title. Contact information is only useful to the reader when they decide to contact you, so giving it a third of the space on the first page doesn't make much sense.
What's the next thing you want a potential employer to see?
Give them a quick summary (about 3 to 5 lines, probably no more) of what you do and what your experience is. For example;
"Recent PhD graduate* in (insert subject), specialising in (insert 1 or 2 skills or areas of expertise, relevant to the job your applying for). Also highly experienced in (something else), with practical experience in/ working knowledge of/ familiarity with (some area you might not be as confident in, but the employer may be looking for)."
*If you haven't finished your thesis yet, just replace "recent graduate" with "PhD researcher in..." , and finish the paragraph with "Expected thesis submission date: (insert date)". If you think you could do the job and can demonstrate that you have the right skills, the fact that you haven't yet finished doesn't rule you out.
In other words, if they only read the top half of the first page, they'll know everything they need to to decide whether you're at least worth talking to.
Tailor the statement to the job, or if it's a speculative job enquiry, to the research group in question. Be brief, but anything you think makes you good for the job, include it here.
Everything else you put in your CV needs to support that opening statement.
Part 2: Can you do the job?
It's safe to assume that everyone else going for that postdoc position has got good academic qualifications, so is that what you want them to see next? It won't necessarily help you stand out from everyone else.
So thinking about what to put next... well what do academics care about most?
Publications, publications, publications.
If you've published papers or presented work at conferences, then it demonstrates professional competence and backs up your opening statement.
When you come to apply for your second research job or a lectureship, you might want to put your research experience in the form of an employment history, but fresh out of your PhD, demonstrating just that you've been published is the most important thing to highlight.
The big difference between an academic CV and non-academic CV is that if you're applying for jobs outside academia, the specific publications might not be so important. To a non-academic employer, they simply serve as proof that you were competent at what you were doing before.
Part 3: How did you get here?
Once you've shown your publications, you can give your qualifications. For your first "real" job, this will double up as an employment history as it accounts for your time over the last several years.
It's good to structure this as a timeline, working backwards from the most recent, or what you're doing now.The bar job you took to pay your way through your masters probably isn't relevant to the job you're applying for, but if you had a job for a significant length of time then put it in. You want to avoid gaps in your history because these cause a bit of suspicion about what you were doing.
Wherever relevant, put some detail in about what you were doing at each place, again to reinforce what you said in part 1. Those things you said you have some knowledge of, this is where to say where you got that experience.
Part 4: Anything you'd like to add?
Finally, if there's anything else interesting you want to say about yourself, then include a section about your other experience. You could list interests, but its way better to frame it as things you've done or achieved.
It's not interesting that you like running or music, but it is interesting if you've run an ultra-marathon or played in an orchestra. Interviewers like these kind of things!
A few things to avoid...
DON'T: rush your application by sending a generic CV
DON'T: List everything you've ever done to try to make your CV look fuller, you'll only dilute the good stuff
DON'T: send your CV without checking for errors at least twice. Get someone else to read over it if you have difficulty checking it yourself.
DON'T: use big, dense chunks of text
DON'T: include anything you wouldn't want them to ask about in the interview (either because you think it'd be boring, or because it isn't true)
