About This Resume

Landing a research job with a new degree is often less about your grades than about your hands-on time at the bench, because a lab manager needs someone who can run next month's experiments with little retraining. Running experiments involves following protocols exactly and keeping records that auditors or journal reviewers sometimes check years later. Both habits have to show.

Principal investigators (the scientists who run labs) and lab managers usually scan for three things: the techniques you can perform without supervision, the instruments you have used and the projects you worked on. They also look for care with safety and records, since one careless habit can ruin weeks of shared work. Be honest about your level for each technique. A reader who will test you in your first week trusts "with supervision" more than an inflated claim.

What to Include

  • Techniques grouped by type (molecular, cell culture, analytical), with your level for each
  • Instruments and software by name, such as qPCR machines, HPLC systems, confocal microscopes, ImageJ or R
  • Research projects with the question, your part in it and the outcome
  • Publications, posters and talks in your field's citation style, with your name in bold
  • Safety training, such as biosafety, chemical hygiene, animal work or radiation safety, with dates
  • Record keeping: paper or electronic lab notebooks, sample inventories and data files
  • The lab or principal investigator for each position, since researchers often know one another's work

Lab Research Resume Sample

Sample resume. The person, employers and contact details are fictional.

Tomasz Wierzbicki

Research Technician, Molecular Biology
Pittsburgh, PA | tomasz.wierzbicki@example.com | (555) 010-8472

Summary

Research technician with four years in a molecular biology lab studying kidney cell signaling. Runs qPCR, Western blots and mammalian cell culture on his own, manages the lab's sample inventory and trains undergraduates in safe bench practice.

Experience

Research Technician II, Castellano Lab, Department of Cell Biology, Fernbrook University, Pittsburgh, PA 2022 to present

  • Run qPCR and Western blots for three projects on kidney cell signaling, about 60 plates a month.
  • Moved 4,000 frozen samples into a barcoded inventory, so anyone in the lab can find a tube in under a minute.
  • Co-authored two peer-reviewed papers and presented a poster at a national kidney research meeting.
  • Train six to eight undergraduates a year in pipetting, sterile technique and chemical waste rules.

Laboratory Assistant (part-time), Biology Teaching Labs, Harrow Creek College, Erie, PA 2020 to 2022

  • Prepared media, buffers and reagents for 12 weekly teaching lab sections.
  • Maintained autoclaves, microscopes and the chemical inventory for the department.
  • Completed an honors research project on antibiotic resistance in soil bacteria and presented it at the college research day.

Education

B.S., Biology, minor in Chemistry, Harrow Creek College, 2022
Honors thesis: antibiotic resistance in soil bacteria from farm runoff

Skills

qPCR and RT-PCR, Western blotting, Mammalian cell culture and sterile technique, DNA and RNA extraction, Fluorescence and confocal microscopy (with supervision), ImageJ and GraphPad Prism, R for basic statistics, Electronic lab notebooks

Publications

  • Castellano MR, Wierzbicki T, Pell SA. Calcium signaling in cultured kidney tubule cells. Journal of Renal Cell Studies. 2025.
  • Pell SA, Wierzbicki T, Castellano MR. Timing of injury markers in a kidney cell model. Renal Cell Methods. 2024.
  • Wierzbicki T, Castellano MR. Poster: A barcoded freezer inventory for small labs. Regional cell biology meeting, 2024.

Safety Training

  • Biosafety Level 2 practices, renewed 2025
  • Chemical hygiene and hazardous waste, renewed 2025
  • Bloodborne pathogens, 2025

Tips for Your Lab Research Resume

  • Group techniques by type and mark your level. Writing "flow cytometry (with supervision)" is honest, and a lab manager will trust the rest of the page more for it.
  • Name instruments and software exactly. "Ran samples on an HPLC" is a start, and naming the detector or the analysis software shows you know the machine.
  • List publications in the style your field uses, with your name in bold, and include posters. Papers under review can go in as "submitted" with the journal name.
  • Describe projects by question and result: what the lab wanted to know, what you ran and what came of it.
  • Put safety training in its own section with dates. Labs cannot let you handle some materials until your training is current, so this saves a step before your start date.
  • New graduates can list a thesis or class research project under experience, with the methods used and any presentation.
  • For faculty or senior scientist jobs, an academic CV usually fits better. For technician and assistant jobs, a resume of one or two pages is the norm.

Next steps: the resume writing guide covers every section in detail, and the template library has layouts for other fields and career stages.