Top 12 Quality Control Chemist Skills to Put on Your Resume

In the competitive world of quality control chemistry, standing out isn’t optional. It’s survival. A resume that threads together sharp technical skills, sound judgment, and calm communication under pressure does more than get noticed—it signals trust. Employers want rigor, speed, and results. Show them you can deliver.

Quality Control Chemist Skills

1. HPLC (High-Performance Liquid Chromatography)
2. GC-MS (Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry)
3. FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy)
4. UV/Vis Spectroscopy
5. SOP Development
6. GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices)
7. ISO 9001
8. Data Analysis (e.g., JMP, Minitab)
9. LIMS (Laboratory Information Management System)
10. Titration Techniques
11. ICP-MS (Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry)
12. Quality Auditing

1. HPLC (High-Performance Liquid Chromatography)

HPLC is a high-resolution separation technique used to identify and quantify components in complex mixtures. It anchors release testing, stability studies, and impurity profiling across pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and beyond.

Why It's Important

It delivers precision, speed, and specificity. That means consistent potency, clean impurity profiles, and defensible data—cornerstones for compliant manufacturing.

How to Improve HPLC (High-Performance Liquid Chromatography) Skills

Sharper HPLC comes from tuned methods, healthy hardware, and disciplined execution.

1. Refine the method: Adjust mobile phase pH, buffer strength, organic modifier, flow rate, column temperature, and gradient shape to untangle coelutions and fix tailing. Validate per current guidance (method development/validation principles align with ICH Q2(R2)/Q14).
2. Pick the right column: Match stationary phase and particle size to analyte chemistry. Protect with guard columns and in-line filters. Replace the column—not the packing—when performance drifts.
3. Clean samples: Filter or centrifuge; use SPE or dilution to tame matrices. Keep injection solvents compatible with the starting mobile phase.
4. Maintain the system: Flush salts, clean autosampler needles, degas solvents, and service seals, pistons, lamps, and detector flow cells on schedule. Track pressure and baseline health.
5. Use system suitability: Retention time, resolution, tailing, %RSD—monitor with control charts to catch creep early.
6. Upskill the team: Troubleshooting, detector fundamentals, gradient logic, and data integrity best practices keep errors scarce and recoveries steady.

Do this well and retention times behave, peaks look like peaks, and batch decisions stop wobbling.

How to Display HPLC (High-Performance Liquid Chromatography) Skills on Your Resume

2. GC-MS (Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry)

GC-MS separates volatile/semi-volatile compounds and identifies them by mass spectra. It’s a forensic lens for residual solvents, degradants, and contaminants.

Why It's Important

Unambiguous IDs. Low detection limits. Confident quant. That trifecta protects product safety and keeps findings audit-proof.

How to Improve GC-MS (Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry) Skills

1. Prep with care: Use SPME, headspace, or LLE to clean matrices and enrich analytes. Avoid active sites—silylation or derivatization when needed.
2. Tune GC conditions: Fit the column (phase, film, length) to your targets. Optimize inlet temperature, split ratio, purge flows, and a temperature program that separates without burning time.
3. Dial in MS: Choose EI/CI wisely, adjust source/quad temps, and apply appropriate scan/SIM modes to balance sensitivity with confirmation power.
4. Maintain relentlessly: Swap septa and liners before they haunt baselines. Trim columns, clean sources and lenses, and monitor vacuum health.
5. Calibrate and control: Multi-level curves, internal standards, bracketing standards, and routine QC checks keep bias out. Verify linearity and carryover.
6. Work the data: Use deconvolution libraries, spectral match criteria, ion ratio windows, and matrix-matched calibration to tighten IDs and numbers.

Do this, and ghosts vanish; peaks tell the truth.

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

3. FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy)

FTIR reads molecular vibrations as spectral fingerprints. You spot identity, polymorphs, and some impurities with speed and minimal prep.

Why It's Important

Rapid confirmation and trending without destroying the sample. Perfect for incoming ID, polymer QC, and verifying raw materials at the door.

How to Improve FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy) Skills

1. Prep consistently: For solids, grind fine and homogenous; ATR needs proper crystal contact. For liquids, use clean, fixed-path cells.
2. Calibrate and verify: Check wavelength and photometric accuracy; verify resolution with standards. Keep logs tight.
3. Optimize scans: Balance resolution, scans, and apodization for the matrix at hand—clarity without time waste.
4. Tame the atmosphere: Purge with dry air or nitrogen when water and CO2 clutter the baseline.
5. Use the software: Baseline correction, deconvolution, library match criteria, and spectral subtraction sharpen calls.
6. Maintain optics: Clean crystals, check alignment, and replace desiccants to preserve sensitivity.
7. Standardize SOPs: Same pressure, contact, and cleaning steps—repeatability climbs.

Done right, spectra become crisp, matches honest.

How to Display FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy) Skills on Your Resume

4. UV/Vis Spectroscopy

UV/Vis measures absorbance across ultraviolet and visible wavelengths to quantify analytes, check purity, and monitor reactions. It’s quick, dependable, and gentle on samples.

Why It's Important

Fast confirmation of concentration and identity keeps batch decisions moving and specs on track.

How to Improve UV/Vis Spectroscopy Skills

1. Keep it calibrated: Use traceable standards to verify wavelength accuracy and photometric response at set intervals.
2. Ace the prep: Use clean quartz cuvettes for low UV, match pathlengths, and hold dilution factors steady. Avoid bubbles and fingerprints.
3. Tune the method: Select the right λmax, bandwidth, scan rate, and baseline correction. Validate linear range and LOQ.
4. Mind interferences: Use blanks, matrix-matching, or derivative spectroscopy if needed.
5. Maintain: Clean optics and sample compartments routinely; track lamp hours and stray light checks.
6. Trend performance: Control charts for check standards reveal drift before it bites.
7. Train the team: Pipetting discipline and cuvette handling matter more than they seem.

Clarity in, clarity out.

How to Display UV/Vis Spectroscopy Skills on Your Resume

5. SOP Development

SOPs transform tacit knowledge into auditable, repeatable action. They spell out how to test, handle materials, operate instruments, and record data—safely and consistently.

Why It's Important

Consistency beats heroics. SOPs reduce error, anchor training, and satisfy regulators who want process control, not improvisation.

How to Improve SOP Development Skills

1. Define scope and intent: What process, which roles, and what outcomes? Keep it tight and relevant.
2. Co-create with users: Pull in chemists, QA, and technicians. If it’s not workable at the bench, it won’t be followed.
3. Write for clarity: Actionable steps, acceptance criteria, required materials, safety notes, data integrity expectations (ALCOA+), and version control.
4. Pilot and validate: Dry runs expose ambiguities. Revise before release.
5. Train and assess: Document training with practical demos and competency checks.
6. Monitor adherence: Spot checks and deviation tracking keep practice aligned with paper.
7. Review on cadence: Update with process changes, CAPA learnings, and new technology.

Good SOPs are living documents—tidy, current, and trusted.

How to Display SOP Development Skills on Your Resume

6. GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices)

GMP is the framework that keeps products safe, effective, and consistent—by design and by documentation. For QC, it means validated methods, controlled changes, and bulletproof records.

Why It's Important

Testing alone can’t rescue a broken process. GMP bakes quality into every step, slashing risk before it reaches the patient or customer.

How to Improve GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) Skills

1. Know the rules: Stay current with cGMP expectations and data integrity principles. Translate them into daily lab behaviors.
2. Elevate documentation: contemporaneous, complete, attributable, and legible. Audit trails that tell a clean story.
3. Train continuously: Refreshers on GDP, OOS/OOT handling, change control, and contamination control keep teams sharp.
4. Audit proactively: Internal audits and walk-throughs uncover gaps early. Fix fast, document faster.
5. Validate and maintain: Methods, equipment, and systems—qualified, calibrated, and periodically reviewed.
6. Strengthen suppliers: Qualify vendors, monitor quality, and keep technical agreements specific.
7. Build a quality culture: Encourage speaking up, reward precision, and treat deviations as lessons, not liabilities.

GMP isn’t a checklist. It’s muscle memory.

How to Display GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) Skills on Your Resume

7. ISO 9001

ISO 9001 defines the scaffolding for a quality management system: risk-based thinking, documented processes, customer focus, and continual improvement. It applies cleanly to labs and manufacturing support.

Why It's Important

It brings discipline to processes and metrics, so quality isn’t accidental—it’s engineered and measurable.

How to Improve ISO 9001 Skills

1. Embed process thinking: Map lab workflows end-to-end, define owners, inputs, outputs, and controls.
2. Document smartly: Clear procedures, records, and templates that support traceability without drowning teams.
3. Audit and act: Internal audits that lead to targeted CAPAs. Verify effectiveness, don’t just close them.
4. Measure what matters: Turnaround time, first-pass yield, repeat analysis rates, instrument uptime—trend and review.
5. Engage customers: Gather feedback from stakeholders (manufacturing, R&D, clients) and feed improvements back into the system.
6. Keep learning: Monitor standard updates and align with related guidance for labs and validation practices.

The result: fewer surprises, smoother inspections, happier customers.

How to Display ISO 9001 Skills on Your Resume

8. Data Analysis (e.g., JMP, Minitab)

Data analysis tools turn raw numbers into decisions. Control charts, capability studies, design of experiments, Gage R&R—these techniques separate noise from signal so processes improve and stay in control.

Why It's Important

Without statistics, outliers rule the day. With them, you catch drift, prove robustness, and justify changes with confidence.

How to Improve Data Analysis (e.g., JMP, Minitab) Skills

1. Master the fundamentals: Distributions, hypothesis tests, regression, ANOVA, SPC. Fluency beats button-clicking.
2. Practice on real data: Past batches, stability sets, method validation outputs—re-analyze and compare insights.
3. Lean into DoE: Screen, optimize, and robustify methods and processes with fewer runs and clearer answers.
4. Strengthen measurement systems: Run Gage R&R and bias/linearity studies so data can be trusted.
5. Visualize well: Residuals, Pareto charts, interaction plots—make trends obvious.
6. Peer review: Walk through assumptions and models with colleagues; sharpen conclusions and catch blind spots.

Good analysis calms arguments. The plots speak.

How to Display Data Analysis (e.g., JMP, Minitab) Skills on Your Resume

9. LIMS (Laboratory Information Management System)

LIMS orchestrates samples, workflows, instruments, users, and data. It enforces traceability, speeds reporting, and strengthens compliance with audit trails and electronic signatures.

Why It's Important

It shrinks manual entry, reduces transcription errors, and creates a single source of truth for the lab.

How to Improve LIMS (Laboratory Information Management System) Skills

1. Automate data capture: Integrate balances, chromatographs, spectrometers—cut rekeying and mistakes.
2. Tailor workflows: Configure sample lifecycles, approvals, and hold points to match actual lab operations.
3. Embed QC checks: Automatic flags for OOS/OOT, SST failures, and missing metadata keep quality tight.
4. Design for compliance: Use roles, permissions, audit trails, and secure e-signatures to meet 21 CFR Part 11 and similar expectations.
5. Train and support: Short, role-based training with job aids. Feedback loops to refine screens and steps.
6. Integrate broadly: Connect to ELNs, ERP/MES, and stability systems for end-to-end visibility.
7. Review performance: Periodic assessments of turnaround, queue bottlenecks, and data integrity metrics drive enhancements.

When LIMS hums, the lab flows.

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

10. Titration Techniques

Titrations determine concentration by reacting an analyte with a titrant of known strength. Manual or automated, acid-base to redox—precision here underpins many release specs.

Why It's Important

It’s direct, reliable, and adaptable. When done carefully, results are crisp and repeatable.

How to Improve Titration Techniques Skills

1. Standardize often: Verify titrant normality with primary standards. Recheck after storage or heavy use.
2. Choose quality reagents: Fresh, pure, stable solutions cut uncertainty.
3. Calibrate equipment: Burettes, pipettes, balances—routine calibration keeps bias out.
4. Optimize the approach: Pick the right indicator or instrumental endpoint (pH/redox). Consider back titration or autotitration for tricky matrices.
5. Control conditions: Temperature, ionic strength, and mixing affect endpoints. Keep them steady.
6. Replicate and record: Run duplicates/triplicates; track drift and blank corrections.
7. Train technique: Consistent delivery rates, proper meniscus reading, and clean glassware matter.

Small habits, big accuracy.

How to Display Titration Techniques Skills on Your Resume

11. ICP-MS (Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry)

ICP-MS detects trace elements with stunning sensitivity by ionizing samples in plasma and sorting ions by mass-to-charge. It’s the go-to for elemental impurities and contamination control.

Why It's Important

Ultra-low detection limits and multi-element capability safeguard products and prove compliance with tight impurity limits.

How to Improve ICP-MS (Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry) Skills

Performance rises on the back of clean prep, tuned parameters, and vigilant QC.

1. Sample preparation: Use high-purity acids and clean vessels; digest fully. Matrix match standards and apply appropriate dilutions to minimize suppression or enhancement.

2. Optimize the instrument: Set plasma and nebulizer gas flows, lens voltages, and collision/reaction cell conditions to balance sensitivity and interference removal.

3. Calibrate with care: Multi-element curves with internal standards that match analyte behavior. Include CRMs and continuing checks to track recovery.

4. Address interferences: Collision/reaction cell chemistry, high-resolution modes where available, and mathematical corrections when justified.

5. Maintain the inlet: Clean cones, nebulizers, and spray chambers; monitor oxide and doubly charged ratios as health indicators.

When QC charts stay flat and spikes stay gone, you’re there.

How to Display ICP-MS (Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry) Skills on Your Resume

12. Quality Auditing

Quality auditing examines processes, records, and outcomes to verify compliance and effectiveness. It’s not just about catching errors—it’s about strengthening systems.

Why It's Important

Audits protect data integrity, validate controls, and keep the lab inspection-ready. They also surface improvements you wouldn’t see from the bench.

How to Improve Quality Auditing Skills

• Standardize the approach: Use clear checklists mapped to procedures and risk. Consistency breeds fair findings.
• Train auditors: Techniques, questioning, sampling, and report writing—plus an eye for data integrity signals.
• Leverage tools: Digital audit trails, document control systems, and dashboards accelerate reviews and trend analysis.
• Analyze and act: Classify findings, assign CAPAs with root cause, and verify effectiveness. Trends drive prevention.
• Collaborate: Share outcomes across QC, QA, production, and supply chain so fixes stick system-wide.

A good audit is a mirror. A great one is a map.

How to Display Quality Auditing Skills on Your Resume