Top 12 Lab Chemist Skills to Put on Your Resume

In the competitive world of laboratory chemistry, a resume that pops off the stack matters. A crisp spread of lab chemist skills—technical muscle plus sharp judgment—signals you can run clean experiments, wrangle data, and keep the lab humming. The right blend sets you apart fast.

Lab Chemist Skills

1. Chromatography (HPLC)
2. Spectroscopy (FTIR)
3. Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS)
4. Titration (Karl Fischer)
5. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)
6. Electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE)
7. Microscopy (SEM)
8. Bioinformatics (BLAST)
9. Quality Control (ISO 9001)
10. Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS)
11. Statistical Analysis (SPSS)
12. Chemical Synthesis (Schlenk line)

1. Chromatography (HPLC)

High-performance liquid chromatography separates, detects, and quantifies components in complex mixtures by driving them through a column under pressure. Subtle interactions with stationary phases produce sharp peaks, clean baselines, and answers you can defend.

Why It's Important

HPLC underpins release testing, impurity profiling, and method development across pharma, environmental, and food labs. When you need selectivity, sensitivity, and reproducibility—this is the workhorse.

How to Improve Chromatography (HPLC) Skills

1. Mobile phase mastery: Match solvent strength and pH to analyte chemistry. Buffer carefully, filter and degas, and use gradients for tangled matrices.
2. Right column, right job: Choose chemistry and particle size for your target. Shield with guard cartridges and observe proper storage. Track plate count and backpressure over time.
3. Sample discipline: Filter, dilute, and clean up with SPE or protein crash when needed. Avoid precipitates. Treat standards like gold.
4. Thermal control: Keep column temperature steady; even a few degrees swing can reshape selectivity.
5. Flow finesse: Tune flow to balance runtime and resolution. Don’t outrun your column or wreck your plates.
6. Detector fit: Pick UV, DAD, FLD, CAD, or MS wisely. Calibrate, verify linearity, and monitor lamp/ion source health.
7. System suitability: Use SST metrics—retention time, resolution, tailing, RSD—to guard performance before every batch.
8. Preventive care: Flush salts, swap frits, and keep seals fresh. Inline filters save columns; logs save headaches.

How to Display Chromatography (HPLC) Skills on Your Resume

2. Spectroscopy (FTIR)

Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy reads molecular vibrations through IR absorption. Functional groups show their fingerprints; spectra tell stories—fast, non-destructive, and revealing.

Why It's Important

Identity checks, contamination flags, and material characterization hinge on FTIR. From polymer additives to solvent residues, it answers “what is this?” in minutes.

How to Improve Spectroscopy (FTIR) Skills

• Sample prep that behaves: Clean contact surfaces, dry samples, and avoid over-thick films. For solids, fine grinding helps; for liquids, go neat or with compatible diluents.
• ATR done right: Match crystal type to sample (diamond, ZnSe, Ge). Ensure strong, even pressure. Remember ATR’s shallow penetration depth when interpreting intensity.
• Resolution and scans: Increase resolution for crowded regions; add scans to tame noise without dragging all day.
• Calibration and checks: Verify wavenumber accuracy regularly (e.g., polystyrene), and inspect desiccants, optics, and purge if available.
• Baseline discipline: Use proper background, correct baselines thoughtfully, and avoid over-smoothing that erases real bands.
• Libraries and chemometrics: Curate libraries for your materials. For mixtures, multivariate methods can tease apart overlaps.

How to Display Spectroscopy (FTIR) Skills on Your Resume

3. Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS)

GC-MS couples gas chromatographic separation with mass-based detection. Volatile components elute cleanly; the mass spectra lock down identity and quantity—even at whisper-low levels.

Why It's Important

From trace contaminants to flavor compounds, GC-MS brings specificity and sensitivity that push past interferences. Regulatory methods, forensic work, environmental monitoring—this is the backbone.

How to Improve Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) Skills

1. Prep that respects volatility: Use SPME, LLE, or QuEChERS when suitable. Internal standards stabilize quantitation. Keep vials clean and caps tight.
2. Injection savvy: Choose split vs. splitless wisely. Mind liner choice and cleanliness. Avoid discrimination for heavy hitters.
3. Column and oven program: Fit stationary phase to analyte class. Tailor ramp rates to sharpen separation without stretching runs.
4. Source health and tuning: Clean ion sources, check vacuum integrity, and tune routinely. Stable tune, stable data.
5. Gas purity: High-purity carrier and makeup gases cut background and chemical noise. Leak checks save days of grief.
6. Smart quant: Validate calibration range, verify linearity, and monitor ion ratios. Use deconvolution tools for coelutions.
7. Maintenance cadence: Replace septa, liners, and ferrules on schedule. Track retention time stability and peak shapes.

How to Display Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) Skills on Your Resume

4. Titration (Karl Fischer)

Karl Fischer titration quantifies water with precision by a specific chemical reaction. Volumetric for higher levels, coulometric for a trace whisper—moisture is measured, not guessed.

Why It's Important

Moisture drives stability, reactivity, and shelf life. When every microgram matters, KF gives numbers you can trust across pharma, chemicals, and foods.

How to Improve Titration (Karl Fischer) Skills

1. Guard against ambient water: Cap quickly, weigh fast, and precondition vessels. For tricky solids, use an oven attachment to transfer moisture without matrix effects.
2. Choose the right mode: Coulometric for low ppm, volumetric for higher percent ranges. Match reagents to expected levels and sample chemistry.
3. Track drift: Measure and subtract drift. A stable, low drift rate is your early warning system.
4. Standardize regularly: Verify titer with certified standards and recalibrate after reagent changes.
5. Mind interferences: Aldehydes, ketones, and strong bases can complicate results. Use suitable reagents or pretreatments to neutralize troublemakers.
6. Instrument care: Replace diaphragms, seals, and electrodes on schedule. Keep desiccants fresh.

How to Display Titration (Karl Fischer) Skills on Your Resume

5. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)

PCR amplifies specific DNA segments, turning a few copies into millions. Sensitivity sings; specificity holds the line.

Why It's Important

Diagnostics, cloning, environmental microbiology—PCR makes sequences visible and testable. It underlies qPCR quantitation and sequencing workflows alike.

How to Improve Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Skills

1. Primers that behave: Balanced GC content, minimal dimers, matched Tm. Validate in silico, then prove on gel.
2. Template quality: Clean DNA, free of inhibitors. Quantify, assess integrity, and store cold.
3. Mg2+ and additives: Titrate MgCl2; for GC-rich targets, try DMSO or betaine. Don’t overtune—keep changes deliberate.
4. Thermal profile: Use gradient annealing to land the sweet spot. Consider touchdown for thorny specificity problems.
5. Hot-start enzymes: Reduce nonspecific artifacts and primer-dimers, especially with complex templates.
6. Controls, always: No-template controls, positive controls, and, if contamination risks lurk, UNG/dUTP systems.
7. Instrument care: Calibrate block uniformity and verify ramp rates. Consistency is everything.

How to Display Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Skills on Your Resume

6. Electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE)

SDS-PAGE separates proteins by size. Denatured, uniformly charged proteins sprint through polyacrylamide—small first, big last—leaving tidy bands that tell you what’s what.

Why It's Important

Purity checks, expression levels, molecular weight estimates, and Western blot foundations all begin with clean gels. If the lanes look good, downstream work shines.

How to Improve Electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) Skills

1. Sample treatment: Reduce and denature consistently. Fresh loading dye, accurate protein loading, and proper heating pay dividends.
2. Gel selection: Choose acrylamide percentage for your size range, or use gradients for mixes. Fresh buffers prevent weird runs.
3. Run conditions: Keep voltage steady, avoid overheating, and ensure even electrode contact. Chill for high-voltage sprints.
4. Staining strategy: Pick sensitivity to match the task—Coomassie for routine, silver for trace, fluorescent for quant work.
5. Troubleshooting mindset: Smiles, smears, or crooked bands point to salt, heat, or polymerization issues. Adjust methodically, not haphazardly.
6. Reducing vs. non-reducing: Run both when disulfides might matter.

How to Display Electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) Skills on Your Resume

7. Microscopy (SEM)

Scanning electron microscopy maps surfaces with electrons, delivering high-resolution images and elemental clues when paired with EDS. Texture, defects, particles—suddenly obvious.

Why It's Important

Materials research, failure analysis, and contamination investigations rely on SEM to see what light microscopy misses. Structure informs function; the images prove it.

How to Improve Microscopy (SEM) Skills

1. Pristine prep: Clean, dry, and mount samples securely. For nonconductors, sputter coat lightly. Avoid charging before it starts.
2. Beam-savvy settings: Tune accelerating voltage, probe current, and working distance for your resolution and contrast needs. Lower kV helps with surface detail.
3. Vacuum vigilance: Leaks and contamination dull images. Maintain pumps, seals, and apertures on schedule.
4. Detector choice: SE for topography, BSE for compositional contrast. Add EDS for elemental mapping and spot IDs.
5. Minimize damage: Dose carefully on beam-sensitive materials; scan fast, average smartly, and cool if needed.

How to Display Microscopy (SEM) Skills on Your Resume

8. Bioinformatics (BLAST)

BLAST compares nucleotide or protein sequences against databases to uncover similarity, function hints, and evolutionary ties. For chemists crossing into biochem and molecular work, it’s a fast compass.

Why It's Important

Gene identification, target verification, primer sanity checks—BLAST anchors sequence-level decisions before the wet lab burns hours.

How to Improve Bioinformatics (BLAST) Skills

1. Pick the right flavor: Blastn, blastp, blastx—match the algorithm to your query and goal.
2. Curate databases: Use current, relevant databases for your organism or protein family. Old libraries mislead quickly.
3. Parameter tuning: Scoring matrices, gap penalties, filters—adjust for sensitivity vs. speed. Document choices for reproducibility.
4. Interpretation discipline: Don’t chase every hit. Evaluate coverage, identity, E-values, and biologic plausibility.
5. Batch like a pro: For many sequences, adopt command-line workflows and standardized outputs.
6. Keep notes: Version control your parameters and databases so results can be reproduced cleanly.

How to Display Bioinformatics (BLAST) Skills on Your Resume

9. Quality Control (ISO 9001)

ISO 9001 frames a quality management system focused on consistent processes and continuous improvement. In labs, it pairs well with ISO/IEC 17025, which targets technical competence and method validity.

Why It's Important

Standardized procedures reduce variability and errors. Traceable records, calibrated equipment, and trained staff produce data that stands up to audits—and to time.

How to Improve Quality Control (ISO 9001) Skills

1. Map the process: Document SOPs, method versions, change controls, and responsibilities. Keep them living and current.
2. Train and verify: Competency checks matter as much as initial training. Refreshers stop drift.
3. Calibrate and qualify: Schedule calibration, preventive maintenance, and method verification/validation. Record everything cleanly.
4. Internal audits: Audit routinely, fix root causes, and verify effectiveness. Nonconformances are opportunities, not blame games.
5. Control samples: Use blanks, standards, spikes, and proficiency testing to monitor day-to-day performance.
6. Customer and risk focus: Gather feedback and assess risks to prioritize improvements where they count.

How to Display Quality Control (ISO 9001) Skills on Your Resume

10. Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS)

LIMS orchestrates samples, analysts, instruments, and data. Results move through workflows with audit trails, permissions, and compliance baked in—less clipboard, more clarity.

Why It's Important

Fewer transcription errors. Faster turnaround. Stronger traceability. LIMS levels up lab reliability and unlocks scale.

How to Improve Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) Skills

1. Integrate widely: Hook instruments, ELNs, and CDS systems into LIMS to eliminate manual handoffs.
2. Customize workflows: Mirror real lab steps, not idealized ones. Automate status changes, notifications, and approvals.
3. Harden data: Enforce roles, audit trails, e-signatures, and version control. Align with GLP, GMP, and 21 CFR Part 11 where applicable.
4. Train for adoption: Short, targeted sessions, sandboxes for practice, and quick-reference guides keep usage consistent.
5. Measure and refine: Track turnaround times, error rates, and bottlenecks. Iterate with the team that uses it daily.
6. Plan for growth: Choose scalable architectures and modular features so the system grows without chaos.

How to Display Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) Skills on Your Resume

11. Statistical Analysis (SPSS)

SPSS supports data cleaning, visualization, and statistical testing—from t-tests to ANOVA to regression—so experimental conclusions aren’t just plausible, but proven.

Why It's Important

Good chemistry rests on good statistics. Trends, outliers, variability, and effect sizes steer decisions on methods, formulations, and process changes.

How to Improve Statistical Analysis (SPSS) Skills

1. Start with fundamentals: Distributions, power, confidence intervals, residuals. Understand before you automate.
2. Design experiments well: Use DoE to squeeze information from fewer runs. Randomize, block, and replicate.
3. Clean relentlessly: Validate data entry, handle missing values transparently, and visualize before testing.
4. Pick suitable tests: Match assumptions to methods; transform data or switch tests when assumptions break.
5. Validate models: Check residuals, leverage, and multicollinearity. Don’t trust a pretty R² blindly.
6. Document everything: Syntax, versions, and decision rationales make analyses reproducible and review-proof.

How to Display Statistical Analysis (SPSS) Skills on Your Resume

12. Chemical Synthesis (Schlenk line)

Schlenk techniques enable air- and moisture-sensitive chemistry under inert gas with vacuum at the ready. Cannula transfers, freeze–pump–thaw cycles, and scrupulous dryness keep reactions honest.

Why It's Important

Many catalysts, organometallics, and reactive intermediates won’t tolerate air. Schlenk work opens that door—safely and repeatably.

How to Improve Chemical Synthesis (Schlenk line) Skills

1. Dry means dry: Oven-bake glassware, flame-dry when appropriate, and test for fogging to confirm.
2. Seal integrity: Grease sparingly, use proper clips, and pressure-test lines. Small leaks create big messes.
3. Smooth valve work: Open slowly, vent thoughtfully, and avoid pressure shocks that aerosolize reagents.
4. Backflow safeguards: Traps, check valves, and correct bubbler levels prevent solvent creep and oxygen ingress.
5. Temperature control: Calibrated oil baths, ice–salt slurries, or cryo baths keep kinetics in the lane you intend.
6. Transfer techniques: Master cannula and syringe transfers; practice with harmless solvents before the real thing.
7. Safety first: Plan quenching routes, label lines, and rehearse steps. No surprises with pyrophorics.

How to Display Chemical Synthesis (Schlenk line) Skills on Your Resume