This time I want to share three major red flags I notice when reviewing PhD applicants’ CVs. All three are related to publications.

❌ Not clearly marking papers that are still under review

It is completely fine to list papers that are under review on your CV, as long as they are clearly indicated. However, I have seen many applicants describe these papers in very vague ways, sometimes listing only the conference name without indicating the submission status. At first glance, this can easily make it look like the paper has already been accepted. This kind of ambiguity can be interpreted as an attempt to mislead the reader, which immediately raises concerns about the applicant’s integrity.

❌ Not specifying which conference track accepted the paper

Many conferences have multiple tracks in addition to the main research track, such as industrial track, demo track, dataset track, etc. In NLP conferences, there is also Findings, which is different from the main proceedings. If your paper was not accepted to the main research track, you should clearly indicate which track it was accepted to. This allows reviewers to correctly understand your background and evaluate your research experience fairly.

❌ Changing the author order

Some applicants list their publications but move their own name to the first position, instead of keeping the original author order from the paper. This is a huge red flag. If you are a co–first author, you should still keep the original author order. Reordering authors to make yourself look better is a serious concern.

When reviewing PhD applications, I am not only evaluating an applicant’s technical background. Integrity matters just as much.