Top 12 Organic Chemist Skills to Put on Your Resume
In the highly specialized field of organic chemistry, showcasing a blend of technical expertise and soft skills is essential for standing out in a competitive job market. This article highlights the top 12 skills that organic chemists should feature on their resumes to demonstrate their comprehensive proficiency and adaptability in the field.
Organic Chemist Skills
- NMR Spectroscopy
- Mass Spectrometry
- Chromatography (HPLC)
- IR Spectroscopy
- GC-MS (Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry)
- UV/Vis Spectrophotometry
- Synthetic Design
- Schlenk Line Technique
- Glovebox Operations
- ChemDraw
- Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)
- CRISPR-Cas9
1. NMR Spectroscopy
NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) spectroscopy is a cornerstone analytical method for determining the structures of organic compounds. By probing nuclei in a magnetic field, it reveals connectivity, stereochemistry, and even dynamics.
Why It's Important
It gives a direct window into molecular architecture and environments, helping you confirm products, spot impurities, and map out reaction pathways with confidence.
How to Improve NMR Spectroscopy Skills
Sample preparation: Use appropriate deuterated solvents, ensure complete dissolution, and remove particulates. Clean tubes matter more than most think.
Right concentration: Avoid saturation or weak signals; a typical starting point is about 10–20 mg in 0.5 mL for 1H, adjusted as needed.
Temperature control: Tune temperature to sharpen lines and separate overlapped resonances; variable-temperature experiments can unmask dynamics.
Choose the nucleus: Go beyond 1H and 13C when relevant—19F, 31P, 29Si, and others can be goldmines for functional groups.
Higher fields and cryoprobes: When available, higher-field instruments (500 MHz and up) and cryogenic probes boost sensitivity and resolution.
Advanced experiments: Employ 2D and selective techniques (COSY, TOCSY, NOESY/ROESY, HSQC, HMBC, DEPT) to unravel complex mixtures.
Acquisition and processing: Increase scans for better S/N, use proper apodization, zero-filling, phase/baseline correction, and modern deconvolution tools.
Dialing in these elements transforms noisy puzzles into crisp, interpretable spectra.
How to Display NMR Spectroscopy Skills on Your Resume
2. Mass Spectrometry
Mass spectrometry identifies and characterizes molecules by producing ions and measuring their mass-to-charge ratios. It’s fast, incisive, and revealing.
Why It's Important
It nails down exact masses, flags fragments that hint at structure, and sorts through mixtures where other tools stumble.
How to Improve Mass Spectrometry Skills
Clean samples: Remove salts and matrix junk with solid-phase or liquid-liquid cleanups to protect ionization and clarity.
Match ionization to analyte: ESI for polar/ionic species, APCI/APPI for mid-polarity, MALDI for big biomolecules, EI for GC-friendly volatiles.
Pick the analyzer wisely: Quadrupole for routine quant, TOF/QTOF and Orbitrap for high resolution and confident formula assignment.
Optimize source and tune: Nebulizer gas, cone voltage, temperature, collision energies—small tweaks, big gains.
Maintain and calibrate: Clean sources, check vacuums, calibrate often. Reliable in, reliable out.
Get fluent in software: Use spectral libraries, isotope pattern tools, and deconvolution to turn spectra into decisions.
How to Display Mass Spectrometry Skills on Your Resume
3. Chromatography (HPLC)
High-Performance Liquid Chromatography separates, identifies, and quantifies components in complex mixtures with precision and speed.
Why It's Important
Purification, reaction monitoring, impurity profiling—HPLC is the daily driver for clean data and clean compounds.
How to Improve Chromatography (HPLC) Skills
Column choice: Stationary phase chemistry, particle size, and dimensions govern resolution and backpressure. Core–shell particles can be a sweet spot.
Mobile phase tuning: Adjust pH, buffer strength, and organic composition; use gradients for gnarly mixtures; watch for solvent miscibility and UV cutoffs.
Temperature: Column ovens improve reproducibility and often sharpen peaks while trimming run time.
Sample prep: Filter, extract, or SPE to tame matrices and extend column life.
Detector fit: UV/Vis, FLD, CAD, MS—pick the detector that sings for your analyte and concentration range.
System care: Prime, purge, replace seals, and keep logs. Ghost peaks hate discipline.
How to Display Chromatography (HPLC) Skills on Your Resume
4. IR Spectroscopy
Infrared spectroscopy fingerprints functional groups via bond vibrations. Peaks speak the language of carbonyls, alcohols, aromatics, and more.
Why It's Important
It’s fast, minimal prep, and glaringly good at confirming functional groups and catching missteps in a synthesis.
How to Improve IR Spectroscopy Skills
Thoughtful sampling: ATR for most solids/liquids, thin films for neat samples, proper path length for solutions to avoid saturation.
Clean baselines: Desiccation, background collection, and baseline corrections pay off in crisper assignments.
Resolution and scans: Balance resolution with noise; increase scan count for faint features without drowning in time costs.
Assign with context: Use isotopic shifts, conjugation effects, and hydrogen bonding clues to avoid overconfident calls.
Instrument care: Verify purge, keep optics clean, and monitor source/detector health.
How to Display IR Spectroscopy Skills on Your Resume
5. GC-MS (Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry)
GC-MS pairs gas-phase separations with mass detection, making quick work of volatile and semi-volatile organics.
Why It's Important
From reaction headspace to trace impurities, it offers sharp separations and definitive identification in a single run.
How to Improve GC-MS (Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry) Skills
Prep and derivatize: Clean extracts, concentrate carefully, and derivatize when polarity or thermal stability demand it.
Column parameters: Choose stationary phase, film thickness, length, and ID to fit analyte volatility and complexity.
Temperature program: Nail the initial hold, ramp rates, and final temp to separate fast without smearing peaks.
Carrier gas strategy: Helium is common; hydrogen can be faster and more efficient—optimize flows and liners accordingly.
Source tuning: EI for rich fragmentation libraries; CI for gentler spectra. Keep sources clean and calibrated.
Libraries and quant: Use match factors judiciously, confirm with retention indices, and validate quantitation with proper internal standards.
How to Display GC-MS (Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry) Skills on Your Resume
6. UV/Vis Spectrophotometry
UV/Vis measures how molecules absorb light, revealing conjugation, concentration, and sometimes even kinetics at a glance.
Why It's Important
It’s rapid, gentle on samples, and indispensable for assays, titrations, and tracking reactions.
How to Improve UV/Vis Spectrophotometry Skills
Solvent sense: Pick solvents with clean windows in your range and mind the baseline. Purity matters.
Concentration window: Stay within linear absorbance (generally A = 0.1–1.0). Adjust path length or dilute as needed.
Cells and care: Quartz for UV, clean and unscratched cuvettes, consistent orientation—small habits, big stability.
Baselines and blanks: Zero with proper blanks, recalibrate after lamp warmup, and verify wavelength accuracy periodically.
Data handling: Smooth judiciously, deconvolute overlaps when necessary, and use molar absorptivity wisely for quantitation.
Microvolume and kinetics: Consider microvolume cells for precious samples and rapid scanning for kinetic traces.
How to Display UV/Vis Spectrophotometry Skills on Your Resume
7. Synthetic Design
Synthetic design is the art and strategy of building molecules: retrosynthesis, selectivity, step economy, and creative troubleshooting.
Why It's Important
It unlocks new scaffolds, smoother routes, and scalable chemistry—fuel for discovery and development.
How to Improve Synthetic Design Skills
Retrosynthetic thinking: Dissect targets into robust disconnections, identify transforms, and map multiple pathways before committing.
Embrace catalysis: Leverage organocatalysis, transition metals, and biocatalysts to tilt selectivity and cut steps.
Green and lean: Prefer benign solvents, telescoped steps, and minimal protections. Waste saved is time banked.
Flow and automation: Explore flow chemistry and high-throughput screening to rapidly optimize conditions and increase safety.
Computational aids: Use reaction prediction and property modeling to triage ideas and focus bench time where it counts.
How to Display Synthetic Design Skills on Your Resume
8. Schlenk Line Technique
The Schlenk line enables safe, routine handling of air- and moisture-sensitive reagents using vacuum and inert gas. Simple kit, serious control.
Why It's Important
Many organometallic and highly reactive transformations demand oxygen- and water-free conditions. This is the gateway.
How to Improve Schlenk Line Technique Skills
Plan and stage: Assemble glassware, dry and cool it properly, and pre-check valves and traps before the clock starts.
Leak discipline: Grease sparingly, test connections, and listen for telltale hisses. Vacuum integrity is everything.
Master transfers: Practice cannulation, syringe techniques, and pressure-equalized additions to keep air out and control steady.
Cycle wisely: Use effective pump–refill cycles to purge, and maintain proper overpressure with inert gas when needed.
Safety first: Cold traps with appropriate coolants, check for overpressure, wear PPE, and have quench protocols ready.
How to Display Schlenk Line Technique Skills on Your Resume
9. Glovebox Operations
Gloveboxes provide sealed, low-oxygen, low-moisture environments (often below 1 ppm) for highly sensitive chemistry.
Why It's Important
They extend what’s possible—storing and manipulating reagents and running reactions that fail instantly in air.
How to Improve Glovebox Operations Skills
Atmosphere management: Monitor O2 and H2O, regenerate scrubbers on schedule, and log trends to catch drift early.
Antechamber savvy: Cycle properly, pre-dry items, and minimize traffic to keep the box clean and steady.
Space choreography: Organize tools, dedicate zones, and avoid clutter that snags gloves or contaminates work surfaces.
Glove care and ergonomics: Inspect for microtears, relieve wrist strain, and replace worn parts before they fail.
Chemical compatibility: Know which solvents and reagents stress seals or getters; contain and label everything clearly.
How to Display Glovebox Operations Skills on Your Resume
10. ChemDraw
ChemDraw is the standard for sketching clean, accurate structures, reactions, and mechanisms that communicate clearly.
Why It's Important
Clarity sells. Good drawings accelerate collaboration, publication, and patent work—and reduce misinterpretation.
How to Improve ChemDraw Skills
Keyboard fluency: Learn shortcuts and hotkeys to draw fast and consistently.
Templates and styles: Use reaction templates, common fragments, and a consistent style sheet for uniform figures.
Clean-up tools: Normalize bond lengths/angles and align labels; small polish, big readability.
Stereochemistry precision: Wedges, hashes, and E/Z notation must be unambiguous. Double-check.
Advanced features: Reaction mapping, numbering, atom/bond queries, and automatic naming can save hours.
How to Display ChemDraw Skills on Your Resume
11. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)
PCR amplifies specific DNA sequences, generating many copies from tiny starting amounts for analysis and downstream work.
Why It's Important
While PCR is a core tool in molecular biology, organic chemists working at the chemistry–biology interface (chemical biology, diagnostics, materials with biomolecular components) often rely on it for cloning, construct validation, or assay development.
How to Improve Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Skills
Primer design: Aim for balanced Tm, minimal secondary structure, and specificity. Validate in silico before buying.
Template quality: Purify away inhibitors and quantify accurately; garbage in, garbage out.
Reaction chemistry: Tune MgCl2, dNTPs, and enhancers (e.g., DMSO/betaine) for GC-rich or structured templates.
Thermal profile: Use gradient PCR to find the sweet-spot annealing temperature and optimize cycle times.
Polymerase choice: High-fidelity enzymes for cloning/NGS, hot-start enzymes for specificity, fast enzymes when speed matters.
Verification: Confirm size and specificity by gel or capillary electrophoresis; sequence when it counts.
How to Display Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Skills on Your Resume
12. CRISPR-Cas9
CRISPR-Cas9 is a programmable nuclease system for targeted genome editing, guided by an RNA sequence to precise DNA sites.
Why It's Important
For organic chemists in chemical biology, CRISPR unlocks engineered cell lines, pathway rewiring, and target validation—foundations for probing mechanism and building new function.
How to Improve CRISPR-Cas9 Skills
Guide optimization: Design gRNAs with high on-target scores and low off-target risk; consider chemically modified guides for stability.
Cas9 variants: Use high-fidelity nucleases or nickases to trim off-targets; consider base editors and prime editors for edit types beyond simple cuts.
Delivery strategy: RNPs for transient, precise edits; mRNA for quick expression; viral delivery for tough cells—choose based on cell type and risk profile.
Tuning exposure: Temporal control (inducible systems) and dose optimization curb unintended edits.
Verification pipeline: Validate with amplicon sequencing, off-target screening, and functional assays before scaling.
How to Display CRISPR-Cas9 Skills on Your Resume
