Research Scientist CV Examples & Writing Guide

Two pages in real life, first page shown here. Written for a hiring manager in discovery research who reads the techniques block before anything else. The name, companies and universities are invented. The assay statistics, study counts and screening numbers are the kind you can take from your own notebooks and reports.

• Techniques and platforms, by name. Flow cytometry, LC-MS, cryo-EM, NGS library prep, HPLC, cell culture, CRISPR, patch clamp. The specific list decides whether you can do the job on the bench they are filling.
• Project ownership. Whether you designed and ran a project or executed someone else's plan. Words like 'own', 'designed', 'led' with a result attached carry the weight here.
• Throughput and scale. Compounds screened, samples processed, animals studied, assays validated, datasets analysed. Industry runs on volume, and academic CVs usually leave it out.
• Whether you can work across teams. Discovery scientists hand work to process development, analytical, regulatory and clinical groups. Evidence of that hand-off is worth as much as a paper.
• Publications, patents and presentations, compressed. A count line plus two or three relevant items, not five pages.
• Whether you can supervise. Managing associates is the step from Scientist to Senior Scientist, and it is often the deciding factor between two similar candidates.

“Techniques first, then what you owned. If your first bullet says you performed experiments to investigate a mechanism, that could be anyone in the building. Tell me you built the potency assay, took it to a Z prime of 0.74 and released four programmes on it, and now we have something to talk about.”

One alphabetical wall of terms is unreadable. Group by category so a reader hunting for a single capability finds it immediately, and put the categories in the order the job advert cares about.

• Wet lab techniques: assay development, cell and primary culture, flow cytometry, immunoassays, molecular biology and cloning, protein expression and purification, chromatography and mass spectrometry, microscopy and imaging, histology.
• Model systems: cell lines, primary human samples, organoids, rodent models with the specific models named, and the licences and approvals you have worked under.
• Instruments and platforms: name the ones that take training, such as flow cytometers, plate readers, liquid handlers, sequencers, LC-MS systems, imaging platforms.
• Computation and data: Python, R, MATLAB, SQL, statistical methods you genuinely use, bioinformatics or cheminformatics pipelines, image analysis, machine learning where it is real rather than a course you took.
• Practice and compliance: study design and power calculation, electronic lab notebooks, data integrity, good documentation practice, GLP or GMP exposure, containment level, Home Office licences for animal work, ethics approvals for human samples.
• Soft skills that belong on a science CV because they are actually scarce: writing regulatory or grant sections, presenting to non-scientists, mentoring, project planning to a timeline.

Industry science is full of work you cannot describe and programmes that were killed. Neither is a reason for a blank CV. Describe what you built and what decision it enabled, not the proprietary answer.

The realistic entry title in industry is research associate, and it is the right target for a new BSc or MSc graduate. Most people who search for an entry-level scientist role are competing with candidates who have done a year in industry, so build the page around hands-on evidence.

1. 1Put a techniques block at the very top, before education. It is the fastest way past a keyword screen and the fastest way to prove you have handled a pipette rather than read about one.
2. 2Write your dissertation or final-year project as a project with a title, dates, techniques and a result, not as a module.
3. 3List placements, internships and undergraduate research as jobs with supervisors, hours and outputs. A 12-month industry placement is worth more than a strong degree classification in this market.
4. 4Give sample and dataset numbers wherever you can: plates run, samples processed, cells analysed, compounds tested.
5. 5Include lab citizenship: instrument maintenance, ordering, inventory, safety training, training other students. Entry-level hiring managers care about it more than you expect.
6. 6Keep it to one or two pages and apply to research associate roles as well as entry-level scientist adverts, because the associate title is where most people actually start.

• Cut the full publication list to a count line plus two or three relevant items, with an ORCID or Scholar link for the rest.
• Cut teaching, service and committee work unless it shows management or training that maps to the job.
• Cut the research statement voice. Replace 'my work seeks to understand' with what you built, ran and delivered.
• Keep every technique, model system and instrument. That part gets longer, not shorter.
• Add throughput, timelines and cross-team work, which academic CVs almost never mention and industry managers always look for.
• Get it to two pages. A six-page academic CV sent to a biotech reads as someone who has not made the transition in their head yet.

• One to two pages for an entry-level or associate role, two pages for a scientist with a PhD plus a few years. Academic and fellowship applications use a full academic CV with different rules.
• Single column PDF, plain headings, no tables or graphics. Applicant tracking systems in pharma and biotech are strict, and a two-column layout often loses your techniques block entirely.
• Mirror the advert's exact wording for platforms and methods. If it says 'flow cytometry (multicolour panel design)', use those words rather than 'FACS experience'.
• Spell out an abbreviation the first time and use it after that, since a recruiter without a science background may be doing the first pass.
• Mention your right to work in the UK if the advert asks, and note any security clearance or export control eligibility for defence-adjacent labs.
• Keep a plain contact block: town or city, mobile, professional email, LinkedIn, ORCID. Drop a university address that expires when your contract ends.