While the traditional advice suggests that you keep a professional resume to one or two pages, these limits are usually too narrow for a graduate-school resume. Academic and professional resumes differ in many ways, including their length, organization and general content. Applying for a specific position within a company or applying for a spot in a graduate school program requires very different approaches. Because of this, a curriculum vitae, or C.V., is often the best choice for a graduate-school application.

Look at some samples to get an understanding of the information that is commonly included. A C.V., unlike a traditional resume, is used to outline a person's lifetime of achievements, not just previous jobs and education. It can include personal achievements, honors and awards, community service, extracurricular activities, professional experience, work experience, computer skills, language skills, and whatever else is appropriate to the individual compiling the C.V. It is best to always include a section concerning education and work experience. After that, choose four or five additional headings that will best highlight your skills and achievements.

Choose a layout. It is customary to include your full name and contact information (email, address and telephone, according to your preferences). There is no need to put a date on the resume/C.V. itself, but if you send a cover letter along with it, you should include the date at the top of the letter. The headline of each section should be easily identifiable (in bold, underlined or in a larger font), and there should be a space between each section. Each entry within the section should be organized clearly as well. One possibility is to italicize the heading for each entry (for example, the name of the educational institution or the title of a job held), or to put it on a separate line from the dates/explanation.

List everything that comes to mind for a particular category--either on a piece of scrap paper or on a working document on the computer. After you are done listing, you can go back over each item, decide on its importance, and record the relevant dates if necessary (either the specific dates or just the year, according to your personal preference). It is usually best to list education and work experience with the most recent items first; however, some sections, such as community service and personal achievements, can be listed by importance, if you prefer.

Print out a copy of the final document so you can see how the layout works and if the sections are easy to distinguish when read on paper. Be sure to check for spelling and layout mistakes.