How to write a projects section on a CV

Decide where each project belongs before writing it

A project can sit in three places on a CV, and putting it in the wrong one either hides it or inflates it. Sort yours first.

What counts as a project, and what does not

MIT's career office suggests class projects, competitions and even personal projects when tailoring a resume, provided you describe each in terms that make its relevance clear. Harvard's engineering careers office (SEAS) says to list projects, not homework, from classes, clubs or outside activities, and that showing evidence you actually did the CAD design or programmed the app matters more than the title.

Who gains most from the section

• Students and new graduates: the National Careers Service suggests that people applying for a first job focus on skills learned through projects, work experience or volunteering.
• Technical applicants: Carnegie Mellon says a project or research section can emphasise technical and teamwork skills.
• People returning after a break: Prospects lists personal projects, alongside volunteering, freelance work and online courses, as activities that can fill a gap.
• Career changers whose past jobs do not show the new skill.

Anatomy of one project entry

Carnegie Mellon's resume checklist gives the frame: the name of the project or lab, the semester it was completed, projects listed newest first, and action-oriented bullets covering your role, the purpose of the project and the result of your work.

1. Title line: project name, context (course code, club, hackathon, self-initiated) and dates.
2. One line on the purpose: what problem it solved and for whom.
3. One or two bullets on what you did, starting with a verb, naming the tools.
4. A result you can check: users, a grade, a prize, a measured speed-up, a client decision. If there is none, say what was delivered.
5. A link, if the work can be shown.

Team projects: your share, not the team's

Say how many people were on the team and what you owned: 'Team of 4; built the data pipeline and wrote the evaluation'. A reader cannot tell your work from your teammates' unless you say it, and in an interview you will be asked.

Edinburgh Napier's filter

Napier asks students to include the modules, dissertations, skills or projects that align with the job description or person specification. Read the posting and keep the two or three projects that use what it asks for; drop the rest even if they were good.

Links: GitHub, portfolios and demos

Prospects says to link a professional networking profile, website or online portfolio within your contact details. Harvard SEAS says a back-end developer should have a well-organised GitHub account the hiring manager can search, and that for other roles a portfolio is often a better way to show work in more depth than a resume allows. On GitHub you can pin up to six repositories and gists, combined, so the profile opens on your best work, according to GitHub's documentation.

Before you add a link

• Open it in a private browser window: it must load without a login.
• The repository needs a README that says what the project does and how to run it.
• Use a short, readable URL, written out in full, so it survives printing and parsing.
• Check what is public. Harvard SEAS warns not to put anything online you do not want the world to see: work for a company is likely proprietary, and a professor may want research kept private until it is published.

When the work cannot be shown

Describe it without the code or files: what it did, your part and the result, plus 'code private' or 'under NDA' once. A screenshot portfolio or a short write-up can stand in, if the owner allows it.

Sample Projects sections for four people

The people, projects and numbers are invented to show the pattern.

Every figure above is invented. Only write a number you can show: a grade sheet, a dashboard, a sign-up list.

Sources, read on 13 October 2026

• Carnegie Mellon University Career and Professional Development Center, Resume essentials (PDF): project or research section, its contents and order.
• Harvard SEAS Office of Student Career Development, Resumes and portfolios: projects not homework, GitHub, portfolios, what not to publish.
• MIT Career Advising & Professional Development, Resumes: class, competition and personal projects.
• De Montfort University careers toolkit (PDF) and Edinburgh Napier University CV guide: projects in the degree entry and matched to the job.
• Prospects, How to write a CV; National Careers Service, CV sections; University of Northern Iowa, Resume basics (PDF).
• GitHub Docs, Pinning items to your profile: up to six repositories and gists.

Where this page stops

• Freelance and client work: written as experience, covered on the freelance work page.
• Theses, publications and grants on an academic CV.
• Design portfolios as a whole: the graphic designer and UX designer CV guides cover them.
• The education entry itself, where a final-year project gets one line: see the education section page.

Next steps

List every project you could name, sort them with the table at the top, keep the two to four that match the posting, and test each link from a logged-out browser.

CitedCV's form holds up to ten projects, each with a name, a description, a link and up to six bullets, and writes the section only from what you enter. It does not open the link, so check it yourself.

Questions people ask

Sources

1. Carnegie Mellon University Career and Professional Development Center, Resume essentials (PDF)www.cmu.edu/career/documents/quick-tips/resume.pdf
2. Harvard SEAS Office of Student Career Development, Resumes and portfoliosseas.harvard.edu/office-student-career-development/resources-undergraduate-students/resumes-portfolios
3. MIT Career Advising & Professional Development, Resumescapd.mit.edu/resources/resumes/
4. De Montfort University, Careers success toolkit: CV preparation and examples (PDF)www.dmu.ac.uk/documents/study-documents/undergraduate-study-documents/employability-and-careers/cv-writting.pdf
5. Edinburgh Napier University, CVs and cover letter guidemy.napier.ac.uk/careers-support/cvs-applications-and-interviews/cvs-and-cover-letters/cvs-and-cover-letter-guide
6. Prospects, How to write a CVwww.prospects.ac.uk/careers-advice/cvs-and-cover-letters/how-to-write-a-cv
7. National Careers Service, CV sectionsnationalcareers.service.gov.uk/careers-advice/cv-sections
8. University of Northern Iowa Career Services, Resume basics (PDF)careerservices.uni.edu/sites/default/files/docs/resume_basics.pdf
9. GitHub Docs, Pinning items to your profiledocs.github.com/en/account-and-profile/setting-up-and-managing-your-github-profile/customizing-your-profile/pinning-items-to-your-profile