How to write projects in a student CV

The problem with most project descriptions

Most students write projects like a syllabus entry: “Group project using Java.” That tells a recruiter nothing about what you did, how well you did it, or what you learned. A great project bullet answers all three in one line.

A simple formula: action + what + result

Use this structure: [action verb] + [what you built] + [result or skill shown]. Add a number wherever you honestly can — team size, users, performance, grade.

Before and after

• Before: “Made a website for a module.”
• After: “Designed and built a responsive charity website in React, achieving the top mark in a cohort of 60.”
• Before: “Data analysis project in Python.”
• After: “Analysed 10k rows of transport data in Python and pandas to identify three peak-congestion routes, presented to the class.”

Which projects to include

Choose projects that show skills relevant to the role you want, and that you can talk about confidently in an interview. Two or three well-described projects beat a long list of shallow ones. Coursework, hackathons, personal builds and open-source contributions all count.