How do I write an academic CV for a postdoc application?

An academic CV is a different genre from the CV used outside academia, and applying the wrong conventions is the most common avoidable error. It is not limited to two pages, it is comprehensive rather than selective, it does not carry a personal statement or a photograph, and it lists publications in full using your field's citation style.

Length follows career stage. A finishing doctoral candidate typically has two to four pages, and that is entirely normal. Padding it to look longer is visible and works against you.

Reorder for each application rather than sending one file everywhere. Read the job description, identify the two or three things the panel is selecting on, and make sure those appear on page one. A candidate with strong teaching applying to a teaching-heavy post should not have teaching on page three.

Reordering is not optional politeness. Tomaska and Nosek tell applicants not to send an unchanged application to different research groups, institutions, and advertised positions, and to state instead how the group would benefit from hiring you, which of your abilities match the advertised requirements, what distinguishes you from the other candidates, and what training you would undertake for a requested skill you do not yet have (Tomaska and Nosek, 2018, pp. 2-3). On the CV that translates into changing the order and the emphasis of your research, methods, teaching, and service entries while the underlying record stays the same.

Formatting matters more than it should. Panels read many CVs quickly, so use consistent headings, clear dates, and enough white space to scan. Bold your own name in author lists so a reader can see your position without counting.

Keep a master version containing everything, and generate each application's CV by cutting from it. Maintaining several parallel versions is how inconsistencies appear, and an inconsistency between your CV and your public record is worth avoiding.

What order do the sections go in?

Name and contact, education, publications, research experience, funding and awards, presentations, teaching, service, then skills and references. For a research-heavy post, publications go above experience. For a post with a teaching component, teaching moves up. The first page decides most outcomes.

Within each section, reverse chronological order. Within publications, separate peer-reviewed articles from book chapters, preprints, and conference papers, since mixing them makes the list look padded even when it is not.

Include the doctoral thesis title and your supervisor. Panels use both to place your work, and the supervisor's name carries information about your training that nothing else on the page conveys.

The sections earn their place because of what a committee actually weighs. Tomaska and Nosek describe selection as running on the previous achievements listed in the CV, the recommendation letters, technical and presentation skills, and the research plan, and they advise applicants to identify their major achievements and technical skills and to foreground project leadership, teamwork, and communication (Tomaska and Nosek, 2018, p. 1). Breadth beyond the standard sections can also count. Huang's own record includes founding a company, consulting, science-policy work, teaching, and interviews across academia, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals (Huang, 2020, p. 1), though that is one person's trajectory rather than a checklist every applicant is expected to fill.

How do I handle a thin publication list?

Show the pipeline honestly, with status labels: published, in press, under review, in preparation, and preprints listed as preprints. Then give weight to conference presentations, invited talks, and any funding you won. Nobody expects a long list from a candidate finishing a doctorate.

Be conservative with status labels. "In preparation" for a manuscript you have outlined is a stretch that becomes uncomfortable if someone asks about it in an interview. "Under review" should mean submitted, with the journal named.

You will meet the counter-argument in the advice literature, and it is worth reading carefully. Bourne and Friedberg write that for an academic career the most tangible outcomes are publications, and they recommend striving for at least one quality publication per year (Bourne and Friedberg, 2006, p. 1327). That number is a target for output during a postdoc, not a threshold a doctoral candidate is already supposed to have cleared, so do not read it as a verdict on your list. What it does tell you is which section a reader goes to first, which is a reason to make the publications section accurate and easy to scan rather than a reason to inflate it.

The cover letter is where a thin list gets addressed, not the CV. One sentence explaining that two chapters are under review, and what they show, does more than any amount of formatting.

Keep that letter short and non-duplicative. Tomaska and Nosek recommend a focused summary of your most important and relevant qualifications, say the letter should not repeat the CV, and set two pages as the maximum when the advertisement gives no formal requirement (Tomaska and Nosek, 2018, p. 2). Note that this limit applies to the letter, not to the CV, so the length and section order of the CV still follow the advertisement and your discipline's convention.

Ask two people to read it before you send it: someone in your field who has sat on a panel, and someone who has not, to catch the places where an acronym or a role means nothing to an outsider.