Research assistants provide support to individuals or research teams conducting experiments, analyzing data, and collecting information. Many research assistants work in academia for colleges and universities, but are also in demand from research centers, think tanks, public interest groups, and private consulting and market research firms.
Most research assistant jobs are temporary contract positions. While this means that there are fewer permanent roles for those seeking additional job security, it provides a high level of flexibility, with many jobs available part-time. Additionally, the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts an employment growth of 5%, which is above the national average.
Becoming a research assistant generally requires at least an undergraduate degree in a related field, though some positions will require postgraduate qualifications. The role is ideal for recent graduates and PhD candidates, as it provides hands-on experience with applied research, including opportunities to publish papers. Whatever your academic background, all positions will require you to possess technical skills, experience in the field, and an aptitude for data analysis, problem solving, communication, and time management.
The duties of a research assistant will vary depending on the field you’re working in, but will almost always include planning research projects, reviewing literature, writing proposals and grant applications, conducting interviews and surveys, developing statistical models, analyzing data, producing reports, and presenting research findings. While research assistants can be found in just about any academic field, they all share a need for communication, critical thinking, and problem solving skills.
Your resume needs to be tailored to the job you’re applying for — every time. There are plenty of ways to do this quickly and easily, like adding a resume title, using the exact title of the position you’re applying for, and writing a quick resume summary that highlights your most relevant achievements.
When listing your skills at the end of your resume, stick to hard skills only. If you want to emphasize soft skills, you can do this through your bullet points instead. Accomplishments like “streamlined work instructions and developed easy-to-use checklists” show attention to detail, while “developed surveys to collect information and implemented automated reminders” highlights problem solving and communication skills.
Clinical research assistants work on clinical trials in hospitals and medical research centers. As a clinical research assistant, you’ll be assisting doctors and senior researchers by recruiting and enrolling research subjects, developing protocols, setting up and managing trials, collecting and analyzing data, and contributing to trial reports, regulatory authority applications, and grant writing. Ideally, you’ll need some experience or a degree in the field of study and clinical trial experience.
When applying for a more specialized position like clinical research assistant, you want to keep your resume as tightly focused as possible. That means prioritizing clinical research experience. It’s fine to include general research experience, but try to tailor your bullet points by including accomplishments relevant to clinical research, like preparing regulatory documents and conducting medical research.
Jobs that require a lot of hard skills, like clinical research, may end up with a larger than usual skills section. Avoid making recruiters’ eyes glaze over by splitting it into subsections, like certifications, techniques, and technical skills. Make sure you’re exclusively listing hard skills — employers want to see things like relevant software skills and clinical trial experience.
As a laboratory research assistant, you’ll be working in a laboratory environment to design projects, conduct research and experiments, write reports, perform general laboratory maintenance, and assist senior laboratory staff — so make sure to emphasize your technical skills. You may be working for a private laboratory, medical or research facility, or pharmaceutical company. Unlike standard research assistant positions, lab assistants typically work full-time, including weekend and evening shifts.
Every bullet point should start with a strong action verb. Remember, your resume is supposed to highlight your accomplishments, not simply list your job duties. As a laboratory research assistant, you’ll want to emphasize your scientific expertise. Verbs like Researched, Designed, and Developed all reflect the skills you’ll be expected to use on the job.
Including metrics in your bullet points is the best way to demonstrate the outcome of your work. This doesn’t mean every bullet point needs to include numbers but try to quantify your accomplishments whenever possible. If you analyzed data with 98% accuracy, reduced processing times by 25%, or performed research on 1,000 subjects, say exactly that.
Graduate research assistants are able to work while they study, receiving a tuition reimbursement or stipend as well as valuable experience working in academia. As a graduate research assistant, you’ll have completed an undergraduate degree and be pursuing a master’s degree or PhD. You’ll generally be working closely with a supervisor to support their projects, including conducting research, analyzing data, writing reports, and supervising undergraduate research assistants.
As a graduate research assistant, hiring managers won’t expect you to have extensive paid experience. If you’ve worked on previous research projects as a student, you can list these under your work experience or in an education or projects section. For greater impact, use action verbs and metrics to frame your accomplishments in an action-focused way.
Even as a graduate, you may have significant research experience, especially if you’ve been heavily involved in student research. You can highlight your skills and background with a short resume summary — no more than 100 words — explaining your years of experience, research or educational specialization, and 1-2 of your most impressive accomplishments.
The skills you’ll need as a research assistant will depend on your field and the specific position you’re applying for. Clinical or laboratory positions will require more technical and scientific skills, while academic or market research positions may place a heavier emphasis on soft skills that don’t need to be listed in your skills section.
To find out what hard skills you should be including on your resume, the best place to start is the job description itself. Pick out the most important skills from there and make sure to list the ones you have. For more comprehensive suggestions, you can check out our list of top resume skills and keywords or use our free Targeted Resume tool for keyword suggestions and personalized feedback on how to improve your resume.
This word cloud highlights the important keywords that appear on Research Assistant job descriptions and resumes. The bigger the word, the more frequently it appears on job postings, and the more 'important' it is.
One of the easiest mistakes to make on your resume is listing the job duties for each position you held instead of focusing on your accomplishments. The best way to prevent this is to start each bullet point with a strong action verb. As a research assistant, you’ll want to choose verbs that highlight clinical, scientific, and technical skills. Use Tested or Analyzed to highlight your experience with running tests and performing data analysis, or Monitored and Documented to show attention to detail.
If the position you’re applying for requires soft skills like teamwork and communication, choose verbs like Assisted and Supported to show how you’ve worked with senior researchers and academics, Supervised if you’ll be leading a team of research assistants, and Presented if the role required a lot of public speaking or outreach.
For a full list of effective resume action verbs, visit Resume Action Verbs.
If you're a senior-level employee, or you're changing careers to become a Research Assistant, it's useful to add a paragraph at the top of your resume highlighting your most impressive accomplishments. This is called a resume summary.
Here's an example of a summary that can be used on a Research Assistant resume.
A resume summary is a totally optional section, and in most cases, it's better to leave it out of your resume than include it. For example, if you're a student or mid-level hire, you should not include a summary, and instead use the space to add to your work experience.
To learn how to write an effective resume summary for your Research Assistant resume, or figure out if you need one, please read Resume Summary Examples for Job Seekers: When To Include One.
You should use bullet points to describe your achievements in your Research Assistant resume. Here are sample bullet points to help you get started:
Created and maintained models for M&A plans, Discounted Cash Flow Analysis, Product SVA Analysis, Credit Risk Assessment Models, and Common Stock Liquidity Comparisons
Conducted private equity due diligence in $400M portfolio. Performed strategic and analytical valuation of assets based on interviews with experts and created extensive models of the industries; persuaded client to move forward with acquisition
Created economic model to assess financial feasibility and operational synergies throughout the supply chain; identified >$50M in savings
Generated Excel models which produced risk-weighted composite valuation scores of country and sectors based on quantitative signals
Designed merchandising strategies for grocery retailers based on regression analysis identifying key store attributes to increase traffic and conversion; resulted in a 25% sales lift
For more sample bullet points and details on how to write effective bullet points, see our articles on resume bullet points, how to quantify your resume and resume accomplishments.
