Comprehensive study abroad resources

Overview - Resume/ CV writing tips for studying abroad

The full form of CV is Curriculum Vitae, also known as resume in many parts of the world. A resume or a CV is a rundown of your academic and professional career. The CV will include the individual's qualifications, accomplishments, commitment, and abilities. Your resume casts your initial introduction on the admission committee, and therefore, it must be structured cautiously and critiqued meticulously. There are a couple of significant points you should consider while drafting a resume that incorporates the content, design, and, lastly the length of the resume. Keep in mind that your resume is one amongst hundreds and thousands of applications that the university has to go through. Ensure that your resume captures the attention of the admission committee in the initial overview, as they may only have a few seconds to go through each resume.

While preparing your resume, you should remember that a resume isn't a life account, and it should seem like a micro biography of your life. It would help if you regarded your resume as a comprehensive and focused reference to your academic qualification and professional achievements. A well-written resume will have objectives and purpose clearly defined in the construction and flow of the content. Do not start the resume by mentioning your objectives and goals, like most students, and try to stick to the standard format.

The most effective method to make an impressive academic resume

An essential part of building up a powerful and impressive resume is to acknowledge and understand the purpose behind making this resume. You have to realize that it's anything but an autobiography; instead, it is a summary of your academic and professional qualifications as well as accomplishments.

To help you format a good resume, you can read the CV writing tips section.

Mistakes you should avoid while making a resume.

A resume is the first look into your candidature, and you don't want to mess it with common blunders amateurs make. It's as essential to know the basic errors people make while building their academic resume as it is to remember what all it ought to be included in it. Often candidates with prior work experience submit the same resume they would have to provide for their next job interview, which is the last thing you would want for successful admission.

Be extra cautious while preparing your resume, and it's better to understand the common mistakes students make while making their academic resume.

Guidelines for writing a Study Abroad CV

Even a single misplaced bullet point can get your resume look clumsy. So make sure that correct formatting, US/UK English, use of action words, overall hygiene of the document, the grammar must be double-checked before submitting your resume. The readability of your CV should not be compromised because of the appearance and common mistakes students do. Also, the more time it takes to finish reading your draft, the more uninteresting it becomes for the admission committee. Make sure you keep all your details crisp and mention every critical professional and academic achievement in brief. Check the guidelines section to know how to go about making your resume, carefully tailored in keeping all the points as per university requirements.

The Basics Guidelines

Use of English:

• Singapore Universities: US English
• American Universities: US (American) English
• European Universities: UK (British) English
• Canadian Universities: UK (British) English
• New Zealand Universities: UK and US English (Emphasis on 100% consistency)

For the text:

• Headings: Use boldface or capital letters for section headings. Do not use italics. Italicized words won't be read properly
• Font size to use: For text, use font sizes of 10 to 12; for headings, use 11 to 14. Most scanners easily recognize these fonts.
• Fonts to use: For a traditional look, use a serif font such as Times New Roman. For a cleaner yet contemporary look, use Arial or Calibri font.
• Avoid graphics: Avoid vertical or horizontal lines, boxes, or columns
• For the page: Justify the document. Always align the text before sending the final document for submission.
• When using bullets, use only dots and bubbles, and avoid using special characters like arrows, checkmarks to maintain uniformity.
• Spacing: No spacing between subheading and text. Indentation:left 0; right 0;Spacing: Before 0 after 0 and Line spacing: Single
• Margins: Margins should be 1 inch
• Color: Use the only black

Capitalization:

• Any software or Programming names, for example, MATLAB, in capitalized
• Capital letters within sentences: 'The' when in the sentence should be in the small case; specific universities capital U and specific schools and department name in upper case.
• Names of specific courses in sentence case, for the most part, subjects ought to be in lower case.
• Editors frequently commit errors like capitalizing 'national technical symposium', which isn't right. Only country names should be capitalized.
• A location or geographical region shouldn't be capitalized. For example, south India, east Bengal.

Grammar/punctuation:

• Continuously use Active Voice.
• 'However/though' and 'but/yet' - never use them together in one sentence.
• A colon is used to join two free statements when you wish to stress on the subsequent clause. For instance - Julie went to the store for some groceries: milk, bread, coffee, and cheese.
• A semicolon is used to join two free statements when the subsequent clause identifies with the first, and they are of equal significance. For instance,—The director didn't favor the arrangement; he recommended a few changes.
• Commas – in a list of at least three commas follows the thing previously - John, Paul, and George. In a list of two, there are no commas.
• No space before and after (/) forward slice.
• em dash, en dash and hyphen (-)[use for connecting two things that are intimately related eg.. two-thirds];, en dash (–)[use for connecting things that are related to each other by distance, as in the 12th May 2012– 15 September 2013], and em dash (—)[use to probably serve as a sort of bullet point]
• Periods and brackets - If the words inside the brackets are not a sentence, the period, question mark, or exclamation that points the end of the sentence comes after the enclosure: Ex. Squiggly likes chocolate (and nuts). Ex. Could Aardvark bring home sweets (rapidly)?
• If the words inside the enclosures are a complete sentence, the period, question mark, or exclamation point that parts the end of the sentence goes inside the parenthesis: Ex. Bring chocolate. (Squiggly likes desserts.) Ex. Purchase treats. (Bring it rapidly!)
• Single quotes: Use for titles of projects, books, workshops, seminars, or publications.
• Double quotes: Used for original quotes.

Dates:

• The same pattern should be utilized all through. If one is using December 12, 1980, at that point, a similar example ought to be followed in the entire document.

Names of projects/books:

• Projects or tasks Within single quotes: 'Secure online voting system using RFID', when writing in LOR or SOP, while in the resume, it can very well be in bold. Try not to feature, bold, italics or use capital letters
• Books: Within single quotes' The Fountainhead' and not in italics, bold or capital letters
• Publication: Name of writers, title/subject of the paper, name of the journal, and afterward, these volumes, version, year can be mentioned.

Currencies:

• Every single fiscal worth (monetary value) should be written in US dollars.

• If at all the writing is in Indian cash, at that point, write INR before the sum. The units are thousands, lakh and crore for India and million somewhere else. We usually compose INR 5 lakh and 'INR 5-lakh deficit '(where the sum is used as a descriptive word). There is no stop after INR, yet there is a space between the cash and the amount, for example, INR 450. For pound sterling and dollars, however, there is no space (£45, $70)

Abbreviation:

• An abbreviation that is a contraction, i.e., that retains its first and last letters, should appear without a stop, e.g., Mr, Ms, Mrs, Dr, St (for street and Saint)
• But an abbreviation that does not retain its original last letter must appear with a stop, e.g., Prof., Maj., Capt.
• For abbreviated names, there are stops but no spaces between initials, but space after, e.g., A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
• There are stops after abbreviated names of parts of a book, e.g., vol. 5(Or v. 5), no. 3, sec. 11, p. 92
• Do not use abbreviations like etc., e.g., i.e.
• Educational degrees like BA, MA, MBBS, BTech, MPhil, and Ph.D. are used abbreviated but with no stops. There are no stops also in abbreviated names of states like UP, MP, HP or WB
• In the first instance of using an abbreviation in a document, first name the "thing" and then add its acronym in parenthesis. Organizational or institutional names like DRDO, PMO, SAIL, and TELCO or CBI or NASA should be spelled out on the first appearance and abbreviated after that
• It is okay to use commonly understood abbreviations like USA and UK or TV (not tv) and CD (no cd)
• Below are some more terms that are universally acknowledged; so, there is no need to expand them. Expanding can make us seem ignorant!

For example:

• 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 till nine should ideally be spelled out, and if a sentence contains many numbers below twenty, they should be spelled out
• Numbers from 10 onwards will be written in figures
• Numbers beyond Twenty will be hyphenated, e.g. 'fifty- one.'
• Figures beyond 10,000 will be separated by commas for every two digits, e.g. 20,000; 1,20,000; 12,20,000
• 80 Percent or 80% - It should be 80%

Others

Troublesome words:

• Affect/Effect: Affect means to act upon or influence. Effect is to produce or accomplish.
• Among/between: Between emphasizes the individual, among the group. Logically, between should be used to indicate reciprocal relationships, and among common ones.
• Appraise/Apprise: Appraise means to evaluate, set a price on. Apprise means to inform.
• Along with: Not 'alongwith.'
• Any more: Not 'anymore.'
• Any time: Not 'anytime.'
• Anything, anywhere, anyway, anyone: One word.
• Benefited/Benefiting: Not benefitted/benefitting.
• Can, may, will, shall: Can applies to what is possible; may apply to what is permissible; will express 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 centering around something is physically impossible.
• Compare to/with: Compare to is used to liken things, compare with 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, but is generally used as a singular: no one says 'datum' anymore.
• Different: One thing is different from another; not different to.
• Disinterested: 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., '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 skillful, clever. Ingenuous means frank, free from deception.
• In spite of: Not 'inspite of.'
• Its/It's: The most common mistake still. 'Its' is the possessive form of 'it'; 'it's' is an abbreviation for 'it is'.
• Licence/license: Licence is the noun, license the verb.
• Men's, women's, children's: The apostrophe should come before the s, since the words are already plural
• Riveted/Riveting: Not rivetted / rivetting
• 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 a verb ('the man whom we saw last night'). Who is used in all other cases

Common misspelled words and there Corrected Spelling

• Acknowledgement: Acknowledgment
• Advisable: Adviseable
• Encyclopedia: Encyclopaedia
• Adviser: Advisor
• Focused: Focussed
• Accommodate: Accomodate
• Manoeuvre: Manouever
• Millennium: Milenium
• Minuscule: miniscule

CV Sample

While setting up an Academic Resume, there are basic guidelines and rules which each student must remember. They are very little, not the same as a resume you usually prepare. The stark contrast is the absence of specific areas like summary, target objectives, and so on. Aside from that, the Academic Resume is an official record that targets capturing your candidature by featuring your qualifications and achievement. Figuring out how to compose an impressive resume requires understanding both the content that you need to incorporate just as understanding which format to follow.

While the format lists the segments you should incorporate, here are a couple of basics of a decent Academic Resume.

• Keep a consistent Font all through the resume.

• Generally, the Resume should not surpass two pages
• Keep the alignment of text as ‘justified.
• A text dimension can change for titles, however, in any case, it should be steady all through

Here's a standard format that you can use for setting up your Academic Resume:

Your Name

Address: House No. 1, Street No. 2, ABC City, PQRS District, XYZ State–PINCODE, India (this ought to be precisely the same as you have in your visa)

Email: your email address | Mobile: 91-XXXXXXXXXX

Work Experience (If relevant) 

Name of the Organization 

Designation from MM'YYYY – MM'YYYY

Project Name: Mention the name of client/venture you have taken a shot at if pertinent

Technologies Employed: If you have taken a shot at any niche technology, mention it here

Roles and Responsibilities:

Utilize this space to list down your job and responsibilities.

Keep the resume brief and use action words to begin your sentences, for example, developed, created, handled, etc.

Notable Achievements

• This is a rather relevant section. Use bullets to highlight any special award you have received in the organization, any special appreciation, or any innovative idea you might have implemented. Remember to highlight the result in the latter case.
• Also, focus not on your roles and responsibilities but the Achievements section in your resume.

Note:

List all the organizations you have worked in, in reverse chronology, which means the most recent on top. For instance, you are presently working for ABC, and before that, you were working with XYZ, then first mention ABC and follow the format to list down your experience with XYZ.

Academic Qualification

• Postgraduate Degree (Specialization) from Name of the University/Institute, Place with a (CGPA/rate) (if pertinent)
• Undergraduate Degree (Specialization) from Name of the University/Institute, Place with a (CGPA/rate) (if relevant)
• Class 12 from Name of the School, affiliated to Name of the Board in Year with a total rate/CGPA
• Class 10 from Name of the School, affiliated to Name of the Board in Year with a total rate/CGPA (just in the event that you are applying for an undergraduate course. Understudies applying to Masters' program need not notice their class 10 scores.)

Notable Scholastic Achievements (these ought not to be more established than five years from the date of application)

• Mention any exceptional academic achievements, awards, and scholarships you have gotten over your academic career, beginning from class 10&

• Make sure to utilize this space carefully for Academic Achievements. List out your extracurricular accomplishments later.

Academic Projects Undertaken

Name of the Project: Specify the Name of the project.

Length: If required

Guide: Name of the teacher (if pertinent)

Technologies Used: Whichever pertinent.

Description: Please give a short depiction of the project, specifying what it should do and what the outcome was. Make sure to keep the depiction brief in the state around 50 words or something like that.

Notable Achievements:

List out any achievements/special mentions your project got.

Repeat the format to list all the scholarly achievements you have got. On the off chance that the number of achievements is more, limit the description length to guarantee that the resume doesn't surpass 2 pages.

Other Qualifications/Certification (if relevant)

Technical Skills (if applicable)

Languages: Ex. C language, PHP, CSS

Database Management System: Ex. My SQL

Working Systems: Ex. Microsoft Office 2003, 2007, 2010

Structure Software: Ex. CATIA, AutoCAD

Paper Presentation/Seminars Presented/Workshops Attended (if applicable)

Utilize this space to specify any papers that you exhibited or published, a particular seminar you presented and or any workshops you attended. You can make separate segments if the number is high.

Extracurricular Achievements

• Feature any extracurricular awards/achievements.
• It will be ideal if you refrain from mentioning participation until and unless if the event was of national/international level
• Debates/quizzes/sports/theater are all to be clubbed
• As much as possible, keep the list in reverse chronological order
• Avoid mentioning awards got in the primary or secondary schooling until they were of national/international level/li>