Graduate School CV and Resume Examples

4 Tips for a Strong Graduate School CV or Resume

1. Send the document the program asks for

A CV (curriculum vitae) is an academic record: education, research, presentations, publications, teaching, awards and skills. It can run longer than a page. A resume is a short summary of work experience and skills, usually one page. Research programs, including most PhD programs, usually want a CV. Professional programs such as MBA, MPH and MSW programs often ask for a resume. If the portal says "CV or resume," choose by the kind of program: research means a CV.

2. Put the most relevant section first

Education usually comes first for current students and recent graduates. After that, lead with whatever the program cares about most. For a research PhD, that is research experience. For a professional master's, it is often work experience. Within each section, list entries in reverse chronological order, newest first.

3. Say what you did and what came of it

"Research assistant" tells a committee almost nothing. "Ran 140 participants through a two-session sleep study and wrote the R scripts the lab now uses to clean its data" tells them what you can do. Start each line with what you did, then add the methods, tools, numbers or results that make it specific.

4. Keep it accurate and consistent with the rest of your application

Label work honestly: "under review," "in preparation" and "presented" mean different things, and faculty will notice if you stretch them. Make sure dates, titles and names match your statement and the application form. Leave out high school activities unless the program asks for them.

6 Graduate School CV and Resume Examples

Here are six examples, three CVs and three resumes, each followed by a short note on what it does well. We wrote these ourselves as teaching models. The applicants are invented, schools and contact details are left as bracketed placeholders, and nothing here is a real client's document. Use them for structure and level of detail, not as text to copy.

Example 1 (Psychology PhD applicant): Research CV for a recent graduate

Maya Okonkwo

[City, State] | [email] | [phone]

EDUCATION

B.A. in Psychology, minor in Statistics, [State University], May 2026. GPA 3.84.

Honors thesis: "Sleep Loss and Emotional Reactivity in College Students." Advisor: Dr. [Name].

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

Research Assistant, Affective Science Lab, [State University], January 2024 to present. Supervisor: Dr. [Name].

• Ran 140 participants through a two-session sleep restriction protocol, including consent, actigraphy setup and debriefing.
• Wrote R scripts to clean and merge survey and actigraphy data; the lab now uses them for all new studies.
• Trained four new research assistants on the protocol.

Honors Thesis, [State University], September 2025 to May 2026.

• Designed and ran a within-subjects study (n = 48) on sleep loss and reactivity to emotional images.
• Preregistered hypotheses and analyzed data with multilevel models in R.

Summer Research Fellow, [Program Name], [University], June to August 2025.

• Coded facial expressions in 300 video clips for a study of emotion regulation in adolescents.

PRESENTATIONS

Okonkwo, M., and [Advisor Name] (2026, April). Sleep loss and emotional reactivity in college students [Poster]. [Regional Psychology Conference], [City, State].

MANUSCRIPTS UNDER REVIEW

[Advisor Name], Okonkwo, M., and [Coauthor Name]. Actigraphy-measured sleep and next-day mood in first-year students. Manuscript submitted for publication.

AWARDS

Undergraduate Research Grant ($1,500), [State University], 2025. Dean's List, six semesters.

TEACHING AND MENTORING

Peer Tutor, Introductory Statistics, [State University], 2024 to 2026. About six hours a week.

SKILLS

R (tidyverse, lme4), SPSS, Qualtrics, actigraphy scoring. Spanish (conversational).

What works here:

• Research experience comes right after education, because that is what a PhD committee reads first.
• Each research entry says what Maya did, with numbers (140 participants, n = 48, 300 clips), not just her title.
• The manuscript is labeled "submitted for publication," which is accurate. Calling it "in press" would be a problem.
• Skills name specific tools and packages, which tells a lab exactly what she can do on day one.
• There is no objective statement. Her personal statement does that job.

Example 2 (History PhD applicant): Humanities CV for a master's student

Daniel Reyes

[City, State] | [email] | [phone]

EDUCATION

M.A. in History, [University], expected May 2027. Thesis: "Selling the Desert: Land Promoters and Water in the Imperial Valley, 1900 to 1930." Advisor: Dr. [Name].

B.A. in History and Spanish, [College], May 2024. Summa cum laude.

RESEARCH

• Archival research, [State Archive] and [University Special Collections], three weeks in summer 2025, funded by a departmental travel grant.
• Read and catalogued 1,200 pages of land company correspondence and promotional pamphlets for the master's thesis.

CONFERENCE PAPERS

"Paper Oases: Promotional Pamphlets and the Imperial Valley Land Rush." [Regional History Conference], [City, State], March 2026.

TEACHING

Teaching Assistant, U.S. History to 1877, [University], fall 2025 and spring 2026. Led two weekly discussion sections of about 25 students each and graded all written work.

GRANTS AND AWARDS

Graduate Travel Grant ($800), [University] Department of History, 2025. Best Undergraduate Thesis in History, [College], 2024.

LANGUAGES

Spanish: advanced reading, speaking and writing. Portuguese: intermediate reading.

SERVICE

Treasurer, History Graduate Student Association, [University], 2025 to 2026.

What works here:

• The thesis title and advisor appear under education, so a committee can place Daniel's work in a few seconds.
• Archival research is listed with the archives, the time spent and how it was funded, which matters a great deal in history.
• Languages are rated by skill (reading, speaking, writing), the way history programs assess them.
• Teaching includes the course, the number of sections and the class size.
• Nothing is padded. A single conference paper, described precisely, reads better than a long list of minor items.

Example 3 (Neuroscience PhD applicant): CV for a lab technician three years out

Priya Natarajan

[City, State] | [email] | [phone]

EDUCATION

B.S. in Biology, [University], May 2023. GPA 3.61.

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

Research Technician II, [Lab Name], [Medical School], August 2023 to present. Principal investigator: Dr. [Name].

• Perform stereotaxic surgeries and viral injections in mice for studies of fear memory; about 200 surgeries to date.
• Run and analyze fiber photometry experiments; built the lab's Python pipeline for photometry signal processing.
• Manage the mouse colony (about 40 cages) and maintain the lab's animal protocol records.

Undergraduate Researcher, [Lab Name], [University], January 2022 to May 2023.

• Quantified dendritic spines from confocal images for a study of adolescent stress.

PUBLICATIONS

[Author], [Author], Natarajan, P., and [PI Name] (2025). [Article title]. [Journal], [volume], [pages].

PRESENTATIONS

Natarajan, P., [Author] and [PI Name] (2025, November). [Poster title] [Poster]. [Neuroscience Conference], [City, State].

TECHNICAL SKILLS

Stereotaxic surgery, fiber photometry, confocal microscopy, immunohistochemistry. Python (NumPy, pandas), MATLAB, ImageJ.

What works here:

• After three years of full-time lab work, research experience is the heart of the CV, and the entries show growing responsibility.
• The bullets combine techniques and scale (about 200 surgeries, about 40 cages), which shows a committee she can run experiments independently.
• The publication is listed in full citation form, with her position in the author list visible.
• GPA is included because she is still within a few years of graduating and the number is solid. Many applicants further out leave it off.
• Technical skills are grouped into lab methods and programming, which makes them easy to scan.

Example 4 (MPH applicant): One-page resume with three years of work experience

Jasmine Carter

[City, State] | [email] | [phone]

EXPERIENCE

Health Program Coordinator, [County] Public Health Department, July 2024 to present.

• Coordinate school vaccine clinics at 9 sites, reaching about 2,400 students in the 2025 to 2026 school year.
• Track clinic data in REDCap and produce monthly reports for the immunization program manager.
• Recruited and trained 15 volunteer nurses and clerical staff for flu season clinics.

Community Health Worker, [Community Clinic], August 2023 to June 2024.

• Helped about 30 patients a month enroll in health coverage and find transportation to appointments.
• Translated patient education materials into Spanish for the diabetes program.

EDUCATION

B.S. in Biology, [State University], May 2023.

CERTIFICATIONS

Community Health Worker Certificate, [College], 2023. CPR and First Aid.

SKILLS

REDCap, Excel (pivot tables, charts), introductory SAS. Spanish (fluent).

What works here:

• Experience comes before education, because three years of public health work is Jasmine's strongest qualification for an MPH.
• Every bullet has a scale or a result: 9 sites, about 2,400 students, 15 volunteers, about 30 patients a month.
• Data tools appear in the bullets as well as the skills section, which shows she has used them on real work.
• It fits on one page, which is what most professional programs expect from a resume.

Example 5 (MSW applicant): Resume for a career changer

Robert Lin

[City, State] | [email] | [phone]

EXPERIENCE

Family Services Case Aide, [Family Resource Center], March 2025 to present.

• Support two case managers with a combined caseload of about 60 families: intake paperwork, referrals and follow-up calls.
• Run the center's weekly school supply and food pantry, serving about 80 families a week.

Store Manager, [Retail Company], 2018 to 2025.

• Managed a staff of 22 and a store budget of about $3 million a year.
• Started a hiring partnership with a local reentry program; hired and kept 6 employees through it.

VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE

Mentor, [Youth Mentoring Program], 2022 to present. Weekly meetings with one middle school student.

Volunteer, [Tenant Rights Clinic], 2024 to present. About 4 hours a month helping tenants complete repair requests and court forms.

EDUCATION

B.A. in Sociology, [State University], 2017.

SKILLS

Mandarin (fluent), Spanish (basic). Microsoft Office, Salesforce.

What works here:

• The current social services job comes first, so the committee sees where Robert is headed before they see where he has been.
• The retail management years are kept short and chosen for transferable skills: managing people, a budget and a community partnership.
• Volunteer work gets its own section with time commitments, which MSW programs read as evidence of a real interest in the field.
• The reentry hiring partnership quietly connects his old career to the new one.

Example 6 (MBA applicant): One-page resume with five years in engineering

Alyssa Moreno

[City, State] | [email] | [phone]

EXPERIENCE

[Manufacturing Company], [City, State]

Senior Process Engineer, January 2024 to present.

• Led a six-person team that redesigned the packaging line, cutting changeover time by 35 percent and saving about $400,000 a year.
• Chosen to represent engineering on the plant's capital planning committee; built the business case for a $2.1 million automation project, approved in 2025.

Process Engineer, July 2021 to December 2023.

• Reduced scrap on the main extrusion line from 6 percent to 2.5 percent through a quality project with two suppliers.
• Trained 40 operators on new safety procedures after an equipment upgrade.

EDUCATION

B.S. in Chemical Engineering, [University], May 2021.

ADDITIONAL

Volunteer tutor for high school chemistry, 2022 to present. Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. Interests: long-distance cycling, Mexican regional cooking.

What works here:

• Each bullet leads with a result an admissions reader can weigh: time saved, money saved, a project approved.
• The promotion is shown by listing two titles under one employer, which is the clearest way to show growth.
• The capital planning committee line shows business judgment, not just engineering skill, which is what an MBA committee looks for.
• The "Additional" line is standard on MBA resumes and gives interviewers something human to ask about.