Top 12 Medical Technologist Skills to Put on Your Resume
The lab never stands still, and neither should your resume. Medical technologists juggle instruments, data, and people—precision meets poise. To cut through the noise, you’ll want a sharp blend of technical mastery and soft-skill fluency. Below are the top 12 skills worth spotlighting—vital, practical, and very much in demand right now.
Medical Technologist Skills
- Phlebotomy
- PCR
- ELISA
- Hematology
- Microscopy
- Biochemistry
- LIS (Laboratory Information System)
- Flow Cytometry
- Spectrophotometry
- Chromatography
- Mass Spectrometry
- Immunohistochemistry
1. Phlebotomy
Phlebotomy is the art and science of drawing blood safely and efficiently for testing, analysis, and transfusion—clean sticks, labeled right, handled fast.
Why It's Important
Everything downstream depends on sample integrity. Accurate collection drives accurate results, which drives good care. No shortcuts, no guesswork.
How to Improve Phlebotomy Skills
Sharpen the routine, calm the patient, respect the tube. Quick hits:
Education: Keep up with current venipuncture practices and refreshers through accredited continuing education.
Technique: Master vein selection, needle angle, order of draw, and proper inversion. Practice until it’s muscle memory.
Equipment: Use quality, in-date supplies. Check lot numbers. Have backups ready.
Communication: Set expectations, ease fears, explain steps. A calm patient bleeds better, plain and simple.
Feedback: Ask preceptors and peers to watch your technique. Small tweaks pay big dividends.
Infection Control: Standard precautions, PPE, sharps safety, skin antisepsis, hand hygiene—every time.
Organization: Prepare labels, requisitions, and supplies before the draw. Fewer errors, smoother flow.
How to Display Phlebotomy Skills on Your Resume
2. PCR
PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) amplifies specific DNA sequences; with reverse transcription, RT-PCR targets RNA as well. Small signal, big answers—fast.
Why It's Important
PCR enables sensitive, specific detection of pathogens and genetic targets, supports monitoring, and speeds up decisions when hours matter.
How to Improve PCR Skills
Primer/Probe Design: Check specificity, GC content, secondary structures. Align against likely cross-reactors.
Contamination Control: Unidirectional workflow, dedicated pipettes, aerosol-resistant tips, and physical separation of pre- and post-amplification areas.
Chemistry Tuning: Optimize Mg2+, annealing temperatures (use gradients), and cycle numbers. Hot-start polymerases reduce spurious bands.
Template Quality: Purity and quantity matter. Remove inhibitors, verify integrity, and normalize inputs.
Controls: Include NTC, positive controls, and internal controls to confirm extraction and amplification.
Data Review: Validate baselines and thresholds. Watch amplification curves—not just Ct values.
How to Display PCR Skills on Your Resume
3. ELISA
ELISA detects and quantifies proteins and antibodies using enzyme-linked immunoassays on plate formats—sensitive, scalable, dependable.
Why It's Important
From infections to autoimmune workups, ELISA provides quantitative clarity for diagnosis and monitoring. When calibrated correctly, it sings.
How to Improve ELISA Skills
Coating: Use high-quality capture reagents. Optimize concentration, buffer, and pH for firm binding without waste.
Blocking: Pick the right blocker and time to tamp down background—BSA, casein, or specialty mixes as needed.
Sample Handling: Choose proper diluents, avoid freeze–thaw cycles, and run duplicates or triplicates for confidence.
Incubation: Dial in time and temperature at each step; overdoing it often raises background.
Washing: Consistent, thorough washes reduce noise. Validate wash cycles for your plate and washer.
Detection: Select colorimetric, fluorescent, or chemiluminescent systems based on dynamic range and sensitivity needs.
Analysis: Use appropriate curve-fitting (four-parameter or five-parameter logistic). Track QC and lot-to-lot shifts.
How to Display ELISA Skills on Your Resume
4. Hematology
Hematology examines blood and marrow—cells, indices, morphology, and coagulation—linking lab patterns to patient stories.
Why It's Important
Anemias, leukemias, clotting disorders—many diagnoses begin here. Accurate counts, flags, and smears make or break clinical decisions.
How to Improve Hematology Skills
Instrument Mastery: Understand analyzer principles, flags, and delta checks. Verify with manual differentials when signals conflict.
Smear Quality: Perfect your push. Even feathered edge, proper thickness, clean stain—morphology only tells the truth on a good slide.
QC and Correlation: Daily QC, proficiency testing, and cross-checks with parallel methods keep results tight.
Pattern Recognition: Train your eye on abnormal cells, inclusion bodies, and schistocytes. Frequent practice wins.
Stay Current: Refresh knowledge on updated reference ranges, anticoagulants, and new analyzer algorithms.
How to Display Hematology Skills on Your Resume
5. Microscopy
Microscopy cracks open the small—cells, tissues, microorganisms—so you can see what’s actually going on, not just infer it.
Why It's Important
Gram stains, urine sediments, blood films, parasites—microscopy anchors countless diagnoses and confirms analyzer output.
How to Improve Microscopy Skills
Prep First: Fixation, staining, mounting—optimize each step for contrast and clarity. Garbage in, garbage out.
Optics and Setup: Clean lenses, align Köhler illumination, verify calibration. Digital capture helps standardize.
Advanced Techniques: Learn phase contrast, fluorescence, and, when relevant, confocal for 3D detail.
Image Analysis: Use validated software for counts and measurements to reduce bias and boost reproducibility.
Continuous Practice: Build slide libraries. Blind yourself to the diagnosis and test your identification skills regularly.
How to Display Microscopy Skills on Your Resume
6. Biochemistry
Biochemistry tests decode the chemistry of life—analytes in blood, urine, and beyond—to guide diagnosis and therapy with numbers that matter.
Why It's Important
From electrolytes to enzymes and hormones, biochemical results are the backbone of day-to-day clinical decision-making.
How to Improve Biochemistry Skills
Method Know-How: Understand assay principles (enzymatic, immunoassay, potentiometry) and their interferences.
Preanalytical Control: Standardize collection, handling, and storage. Hemolysis and lipemia can wreck results.
Calibration and QC: Follow calibration schedules, run multi-level QC, monitor Westgard rules, and investigate shifts fast.
Interference Checks: Screen for heterophile antibodies, drug effects, and biotin where relevant.
Data Literacy: Trend data, validate reference intervals, and confirm delta checks before releasing results.
How to Display Biochemistry Skills on Your Resume
7. LIS (Laboratory Information System)
An LIS coordinates orders, specimens, results, QC, and reports—gluing analyzers, workflows, and people together with data that actually moves.
Why It's Important
Speed, accuracy, traceability. A reliable LIS cuts errors, boosts throughput, and safeguards patient information.
How to Improve LIS (Laboratory Information System) Skills
Automate Wisely: Reduce manual entry with rules, autoverification, barcoding, and instrument interfaces.
Integrate: Ensure clean connections with EHR, middleware, and billing. Support HL7 and FHIR where possible.
Security and Compliance: Apply role-based access, encryption, audit trails, and HIPAA-aligned policies.
Training: Give staff concise, role-specific training and quick-reference guides. New features deserve refreshers.
Usability: Simplify screens and workflows. Less clicking, fewer mistakes.
Quality Management: Embed QC, flags, delta checks, and incident tracking right in the system.
Feedback Loop: Collect user input and iterate. Small workflow tweaks can save hours.
How to Display LIS (Laboratory Information System) Skills on Your Resume
8. Flow Cytometry
Flow cytometry rapidly profiles cells one by one—size, granularity, and markers—using lasers and fluorescence to reveal complex populations.
Why It's Important
Immunophenotyping, minimal residual disease, immune monitoring—this is where detail meets speed, crucial in oncology and immunology.
How to Improve Flow Cytometry Skills
Sample Quality: Keep single-cell suspensions, minimize clumps, and sustain viability. Filter and use appropriate buffers.
Panel Design: Balance fluorochromes, anticipate spillover, and use proper controls (FMO, isotype where appropriate).
Instrument Setup: Calibrate routinely, set voltages per detector, and apply compensation carefully using matched controls.
Standardization: Use beads and standardized protocols to reduce day-to-day variability.
Analysis: Gate logically, verify with back-gating, and document strategies for reproducibility.
How to Display Flow Cytometry Skills on Your Resume
9. Spectrophotometry
Spectrophotometry measures absorbance or emission at defined wavelengths to quantify analytes—simple in concept, powerful in practice.
Why It's Important
Enzymes, hemoglobin, bilirubin, drug levels—precise absorbance translates into reliable results that clinicians trust.
How to Improve Spectrophotometry Skills
Calibration and Maintenance: Use traceable standards, follow service schedules, and verify wavelength accuracy.
Reagents and Cuvettes: High-purity reagents and clean, scratch-free cuvettes reduce noise and drift.
Sample Prep: Standardize dilutions, temperature control, mixing, and bubble avoidance.
Environmental Control: Stabilize temperature and humidity; light-sensitive assays need protection.
Training: Teach sources of error and quick troubleshooting. Document procedures, keep them tight.
Quality Systems: Run internal/external QC and proficiency testing; investigate outliers immediately.
How to Display Spectrophotometry Skills on Your Resume
10. Chromatography
Chromatography separates complex mixtures so you can identify and quantify targets—drugs, hormones, metabolites—with precision.
Why It's Important
Clean separation equals clean data. Therapeutic drug monitoring, toxicology, metabolic profiling—chromatography underpins them all.
How to Improve Chromatography Skills
Sample Prep: Clarify and clean—protein precipitation, liquid–liquid extraction, or solid-phase extraction to reduce matrix effects.
Column Choice: Select the right stationary phase, particle size, and dimensions for your analytes and matrix.
Mobile Phase: Tune pH, organic modifiers, and ionic strength. Gradient design can rescue resolution and shorten runs.
Flow and Temperature: Optimize flow rates and maintain stable temperature for reproducibility.
Detection: Match detectors (UV, fluorescence, MS) to analyte properties; validate sensitivity and linearity.
How to Display Chromatography Skills on Your Resume
11. Mass Spectrometry
Mass spectrometry identifies and quantifies compounds by mass-to-charge ratios—deep specificity, striking sensitivity, and rich structural clues.
Why It's Important
From newborn screening to steroid panels, MS offers accuracy that cuts through interferences and enables truly targeted testing.
How to Improve Mass Spectrometry Skills
Sample Integrity: Minimize carryover and contaminants. Robust cleanup improves limits of detection and method ruggedness.
Instrumentation: Keep sources clean, tune routinely, and monitor vacuum and calibration drift. Log everything.
Method Development: Optimize transitions, collision energies, and chromatography to separate isobars and isomers.
QC and Metrics: Use internal standards, system suitability checks, and matrix-matched calibrators.
Data Analysis: Validate integration parameters and review ion ratios. Automate where safe, verify always.
How to Display Mass Spectrometry Skills on Your Resume
12. Immunohistochemistry
Immunohistochemistry (IHC) tags proteins in tissue with labeled antibodies, revealing where and how intensely targets are expressed.
Why It's Important
Cancer diagnostics, prognostic markers, therapy selection—pathology leans on IHC for clear, localized answers.
How to Improve Immunohistochemistry Skills
Antigen Retrieval: Choose heat-induced or enzymatic methods suited to the epitope and tissue.
Blocking: Reduce background with appropriate blocking agents and serum where needed.
Antibody Strategy: Use validated primary antibodies, optimize dilutions, and pick the right secondary for the host species.
Controls: Run positive and negative controls every time. No controls, no confidence.
Detection: Select chromogenic or fluorescent systems based on sensitivity and multiplex needs.
Mounting and Storage: Choose media that preserve signals and prevent fading; store slides under stable conditions.
Quality and Consistency: Standardize protocols, monitor lot changes, and document deviations meticulously.
How to Display Immunohistochemistry Skills on Your Resume
