The Harvard CV Format: What It Is and How to Use It (2026)

What “Harvard CV” actually means

There is no official “Harvard template” you have to copy. The name comes from the résumé guide and sample résumés published by Harvard's career services office for its students. They became popular because they're clear, conservative and easy for both recruiters and applicant tracking systems to read. When people search for a Harvard CV, they mean that style: simple layout, education near the top, and results-focused bullet points.

The sections, in Harvard's order

1. Contact details: name at the top, then email, phone and city. No photo.
2. Education: university, degree, dates, and honours, thesis or relevant coursework if they help. For students and recent graduates this comes first.
3. Experience: jobs, internships and research positions, most recent first, each with organisation, title, place, dates and 2–4 bullet points.
4. Leadership and Activities: student societies, volunteering, sport at a serious level, projects. This shows initiative when your work history is short.
5. Skills and Interests: languages with levels, technical skills, and a few genuine interests that could start a conversation.

Harvard's advice is to order headings by importance. So once you have a few years of work behind you, Experience moves above Education.

The rules that make it a Harvard CV

• Reverse chronological order within every section, most recent first.
• Bullet points that start with an action verb (led, built, analysed, organised) and show a result. Harvard lists passive language and not showing results among the top mistakes.
• No personal pronouns (“I”, “we”): write “Analysed survey data from 1,200 respondents”, not “I analysed…”.
• No photo, no age, no gender or other personal details, and no references.
• Consistent formatting: the same spacing, bold, italics and capitalisation everywhere, with enough white space to scan.
• Make sure it still looks right as a PDF.

Does the Harvard format work in Europe?

• Yes for: graduate programmes, consulting, banking and finance, research and academia, international organisations, and any job ad written in English.
• Adapt it for: countries where a photo or date of birth is still common (Germany, Spain, Italy and much of Central and Eastern Europe). These are optional in most private-sector jobs today, so the Harvard style is fine, but follow the job ad if it asks for them.
• Use Europass instead when: a public employer or an EU programme explicitly asks for the Europass CV.
• Add a short profile if you're experienced or changing careers. The Harvard sample doesn't have one, but three lines at the top help a recruiter see your direction.