Chemist Resume Examples & Writing Guide

This is an analytical chemist with seven years in laboratory work, five of them in a regulated quality control lab. The name and the employers are invented. Notice how early the instruments appear and how the numbers are all lab numbers: samples, validations, investigations, turnaround.

Your resume will be screened by the person who has an empty bench and a backlog of samples. They have four questions and they want the answers above the fold.

• Which instruments you can run alone, including sample preparation, calibration, system suitability and basic troubleshooting. Watching somebody else run an HPLC is not HPLC experience.
• Throughput. Samples a week or a month. It tells a manager whether you have worked at production pace or at research pace, and both are hireable for different roles.
• The quality system you worked under. cGMP, GLP, ISO 17025, CLIA, EPA methods, USP monographs. This changes the job more than the chemistry does.
• Investigation and documentation record. Out-of-specification investigations, deviations, audit outcomes and data integrity training. In a regulated lab this is half the job.
• Method work. Development, validation or transfer, and to which guideline. A chemist who has validated a method is a different hire from one who only runs them.

• Quality control chemist. Lead with instruments, sample throughput, the quality system and your investigation record. Add stability programs, release testing and audit history.
• Analytical chemist in development. Lead with method development and validation, the problems you solved, and the range of matrices you have handled. Add any structure elucidation work with NMR or mass spectrometry.
• Formulation chemist. Lead with the product types (coatings, adhesives, cosmetics, cleaning products, food), the number of formulations you have taken from bench to production, and your stability and compatibility testing. Add scale-up and cost work.
• Environmental chemist. Lead with the EPA methods you run by number, your matrices (drinking water, wastewater, soil, air), your certification scheme and your holding time and chain of custody discipline.
• Process and manufacturing chemist. Lead with the scale you have worked at, from kilo lab through pilot plant, plus yield, purity and reaction optimization numbers.
• Forensic or clinical chemist. Lead with the accreditation body, the assays you are competency signed off on, court testimony if you have given it, and your proficiency testing record.

Put this near the top and group it. Name the technique, and where it helps, the detector or mode. Be honest about level; "working level" and "trained, supervised" are respected answers.

• Chromatography: HPLC and UPLC (reversed phase, normal phase, ion exchange, size exclusion), gas chromatography with flame ionization or thermal conductivity detection, headspace, ion chromatography, preparative chromatography
• Mass spectrometry: GC-MS, LC-MS and LC-MS/MS, ICP-MS, and the data systems you use with them
• Spectroscopy: UV-Vis, FTIR, Raman, NMR, atomic absorption, ICP-OES, fluorescence
• Wet chemistry and physical testing: titration including Karl Fischer and potentiometric, gravimetric analysis, pH and conductivity, viscosity and rheology, particle size, melting point, dissolution, TGA and DSC
• Method work: method development, validation and transfer to ICH Q2 or an equivalent guideline, system suitability design, forced degradation and stress studies
• Quality systems: cGMP, GLP, ISO 17025, CLIA, USP and EP monographs, EPA methods by number, deviation and change control, CAPA, data integrity and ALCOA+
• Software: Empower, Chromeleon, OpenLab, LabWare or STARLIMS, Excel to a defensible level, Minitab or JMP for statistics, ChemDraw
• Safety and handling: chemical hygiene plan, hazardous waste handling under RCRA, shipping under DOT and IATA rules, fume hood and glovebox work, compressed gas handling

Chemistry is a degree-gated field rather than a licensed one. There is no state license to work as a chemist in the US, and no single certification that opens doors the way a nursing license does.

• Degrees. A bachelor's gets you to chemist or analyst level, a master's speeds promotion and helps in method development, and a doctorate is normal for independent research and senior development roles. An American Chemical Society approved program is worth naming on the degree line.
• Professional membership. American Chemical Society membership and division involvement is worth a line, especially with any presentation or poster history.
• Quality credentials. The American Society for Quality offers auditor and quality engineer certifications that are recognized in regulated manufacturing. Lean and Six Sigma belts help in production-facing labs.
• Required training. Laboratory safety and hazard communication, RCRA hazardous waste generator training, and DOT or IATA shipping training are annual requirements in most labs and belong on the page.
• Clinical exception. If you will test human samples in the US, the laboratory falls under CLIA and some states license clinical laboratory personnel individually. That is one of the few places where a personal license genuinely applies, so check the state.
• Coursework for new graduates. List the upper-level laboratory courses by name with the instruments used. For a first job this is legitimate experience and hiring managers know it.

This is the most searched version of the question and the answer is that you have more than you think. Two years of upper-level chemistry laboratory courses is hundreds of hours of hands-on instrument time.

1. 1Put an Instruments and Techniques block above your work history. List what you ran in instrumental analysis, organic and physical chemistry labs.
2. 2Give your senior research project or thesis its own entry with dates, the supervising lab and three bullets, including sample counts and techniques.
3. 3Count your laboratory hours honestly. "Roughly 400 hours of instrument time across instrumental analysis and organic laboratory courses" is checkable and specific.
4. 4Add non-chemistry jobs that show care and documentation: pharmacy technician, food production, quality inspection, veterinary work, kitchen work with allergen control.
5. 5Apply for laboratory technician, QC analyst and sample preparation roles as well as chemist titles. The first regulated lab job is the hard one.
6. 6Get the free or cheap training that every lab needs anyway: hazardous waste, hazard communication, and a chromatography short course if one is available.
7. 7Say plainly that you are comfortable with shift work if the lab runs one. Many QC labs run second and third shift and struggle to fill them.

• One page up to about five years, two pages after that. An academic CV with a full publication list is for university and postdoctoral applications only.
• Mirror the posting's technique names exactly. If it says UPLC, write UPLC. If it lists a USP chapter or an EPA method by number, use the number.
• Spell out an abbreviation once with the short form in parentheses, then use the short form. HPLC, OOS, LIMS and ICH all need it the first time.
• Pharmaceutical, chemical and testing companies all use applicant tracking systems. Keep to a single column with no graphics, tables or text boxes.
• Name your software: Empower, Chromeleon, OpenLab, LabWare, STARLIMS. These are matched as strings and "chromatography software" matches nothing.
• No photo, no date of birth, no marital status. If your degree is from outside the US, add the country and, if you have one, an equivalency evaluation.
• Objective lines are common on chemistry resumes and mostly wasted. Use a four-line summary with instruments and numbers instead.

“The instrument list decides whether I read the rest. If someone writes that they run headspace GC and tell me their system suitability limits, they have actually done it. If it says "proficient in a variety of analytical techniques", that is somebody who watched a lot of chromatograms print out.”