Here are the keywords and skills that appear most frequently on recent Research job postings. In other words, these are the most sought after skills by recruiters and hiring managers. So try to include them on your resume where possible. Go to the Sample Templates ↓ below to see how to include them on your resume.
Remember that every job is different. Instead of including all these keywords on your resume, identify the keywords most relevant to the job you're applying to and include those. Use the free Targeted Resume tool to help with this.
Does your resume contain all the right skills? Paste in your resume in the AI Resume Scan ↓ section below and get an instant score.
Paste your resume below and our AI will identify which keywords are missing from your resume from the list above (and what you need to include). Including the right keywords will help you get past Applicant Tracking Systems (i.e. resume screeners) which may scan your resume for keywords to see if you're a match for the job.
Here are examples of proven resumes in related jobs and industries, approved by experienced hiring managers. Use them as inspiration when you're writing your own resume. You can even download and edit the resume template in Google Docs.
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.
When applying to be a chemistry research student assistant, emphasize your past research experience and chemistry skills in your resume. Chemistry is a specific and precise discipline, and your resume should reflect these qualities. Aim to choose instances that detail your expertise in hands-on lab procedures or with relevant software, as opposed to simply listing out the responsibilities you were assigned. Use strong action verbs and be deliberate with what you include.
As mentioned above, chemistry is a precise discipline -- you’re often working in the lab with dangerous chemicals or complex equipment. That means that the employers reading your resume -- labs, government agencies, or academic institutions -- are looking for evidence of your experience and skills in those areas. Do your research to find what types of software the job posting notes, whether that’s MATLAB, Solidworks, or ANSYS. Emphasize the hard skills you’ve learned through your past experience with powerful action verbs, and highlight your achievements with quantifiable metrics.
This resume makes great use of a concise, information-packed elevator pitch that is well-written and to the point. Chemistry recruiting managers often don’t have time to carefully read through every detail of your resume, so a resume summary is a great way for them to get a high-level overview of your work history. When brainstorming what to put in your chemistry resume elevator pitch, include your personal strengths as a chemist, or even the types of people you’ve learned to work with (i.e., biostatisticians, pathologists, professors).
As the title suggests, this position requires an analyst to interrogate current policies or problems, do in-depth research and data analysis around a problem and be able to offer workable solutions. You will most likely work under a senior analyst and possibly as part of a team of analysts. You should therefore be an effective team player. This resume does a great job of highlighting the applicant's extensive research-based background as well as their ability to develop effective solutions. It also does a great job of emphasizing the applicant’s ability to successfully collaborate with colleagues.
You want an employer to be confident in your capabilities to properly research any assigned topic. You also want to make it clear that not only do you have extensive experience as a researcher but you are also capable of synthesizing the research into solutions. So, highlight your crafted solutions - especially those that were adopted.
A policy analyst is supposed to create workable solutions that should have positive results. Show your effectiveness by quantifying how your suggestions and policy saved resources, increased revenue, or otherwise benefitted your previous employers.
An equity research associate position is commonly an entry-level position in the equity research analyst industry. In this position, you will generally be working under/with a more senior research associate. You will be doing a lot of financial modeling, valuation, and other necessary financial research. Your work will help inform the recommendations the senior analyst will make to the decision-makers. This position has a heavy and varied workload. You will want your resume to show your ability to complete varied research and analysis-related tasks to a high level. If you do not have years of experience, you will also want to clearly list any related educational background and any skills that would enable you to complete expected tasks.
Because this can be an entry related position, you may not always have a lot of equity research experience. So include any positions you have had in related industries. Especially if those positions are research and analysis related.
What you can’t prove in experience, you can prove with your skills list. Ensure you write a comprehensive list of all your learned skills that would be useful in your position. Remember that you can always take courses online to learn new skills to bolster your resume.
The following word cloud highlights the most popular keywords that appear on Research job descriptions. The bigger the word, the more frequently it shows up on employer's job postings. If you have experience with these keywords, include them on your resume.
The most common skills and keywords we found on Research resumes and job postings were MATLAB, Python (Programming Language), C++, LaTeX, R (Programming Language), Research, Machine Learning and C (Programming Language).
Skills like Consumer Behavior, Marketing, Agile Methodologies, Regulatory Submissions and Design Control also appeared on related job postings.
Popular skills we often see on resumes for Research Consultant positions include:
In comparison, skills we see on Research Coordinator resumes include:
Depending on the specific role you apply to, you may need to emphasize different skill sets. Here are a few examples:
While the keywords above are a good indication of what skills you need on your resume, you should try to find additional keywords that are specific to the job. To do this, use the free Targeted Resume tool. It analyzes the job you are applying to and finds the most important keywords you need on your resume.
It is personalized to your resume, and is the best way to ensure your resume will pass the automated resume filters.
Thank you for the checklist! I realized I was making so many mistakes on my resume that I've now fixed. I'm much more confident in my resume now.
