Here's how you can translate your academic experience into bullet points for your resume. Make a list of the accomplishments that you had as part of your dissertation project. These were things that had to happen in order for your project to be completed. You might have something like this: 1. Developed in vitro model of blood brain barrier 2. Administered fluorescent tracer dyes in vivo 3. Figured out how to culture rare pathogenic bacteria 4. Created multicolor flow panel for immunophenotyping 5. Developed IHC panel For each of these you can tell a story that involves "what", "how", and "why", which can be turned into a bullet point. I'll use the first one in the list as an example. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁? Developed in vitro model of blood brain barrier 𝗛𝗼𝘄? identified appropriate cell models, testing/optimizing culture media, selecting in vitro modeling system, optimization of cell culture conditions 𝗪𝗵𝘆? As a quick method to test several different conditions to model disease ---------- Now let's put these together, make it more concise, and add some numbers👇 "Developed in vitro model of blood brain barrier through selection of relevant cell lines (B.end3), in vitro transwell systems, and optimization of culture conditions, resulting in reproducible high content screening system to test 90+ conditions per week." The line above highlights your capabilities and will be of high value to companies needing someone to build out high content in vitro screening systems for vascular disease. To get 5 strong bullet points, you would repeat the same exercise with accomplishments 2-5. ---------- Use this approach and improve your scientific communication on your resume. #biotech, #biotechjobs, #scientist P.S. If you're looking for guidance to help you break into biotech, I have a self-paced course that covers job search strategy, resumes, networking and other important job in much more detail. DM me if you want to learn more.
Agree with Ali's comments. Most industry resumes can be longer. It is more important that that you have enough detail to get a phone interview than be general with a short resume that gets passed. Ali shares good advice on how to properly phrase academic research experience.
Gerald Marco
3mo
This is a very helpful advice. Thank you very much, Ali.
Aspiring Pre-PhD/MBA student with an insatiable desire to create and apply novel ideas in biotech and biomanufacturing.
3moI’ve tried a version of this method, but it increases the length of my resume. How would you address that?