Laboratory technician resume example

What recruiters look for

• Techniques you run independently: name them precisely (qPCR, not “molecular biology”) and say how often you run them.
• Documentation: notebooks, LIMS, SOPs, GLP or GMP. Clean records are what separates a good technician from a risky one.
• Throughput and accuracy: samples a week, assays a month, repeat or failure rates.
• Safety: biosafety level, chemical handling, training completed and a clean record.
• Lab citizenship: inventory, equipment upkeep, training others. Every lab manager notices who does it.

Writing the summary

Your degree, your hands-on experience in months or years, the techniques you are strongest in, and the type of lab (academic, contract research, industry). Two or three sentences.

Bullet points that work

Strong lines for this role, beyond the ones in the example. Borrow the shape and put in your own numbers.

• Ran 2,000 PCR genotyping reactions for a mouse colony of 600 animals with a 99% first-pass call rate.
• Validated a new ELISA kit against the old one across 120 samples before the lab switched suppliers.
• Rewrote 8 outdated SOPs with the lab manager, cutting onboarding time for new technicians by 2 weeks.
• Kept 3 biosafety cabinets and 2 incubators on schedule for certification and cleaning, with zero missed dates.
• Trained 5 rotating students on pipetting technique and aseptic work.
• Processed and banked 1,500 tissue samples into a −80°C freezer system with full chain-of-custody records.
• Cut reagent waste by $6,000 a year by aliquoting and tracking expiry dates in a shared spreadsheet.
• Flagged a drifting pipette calibration that explained a month of variable assay results.
• Assisted with 30 flow cytometry runs and prepared antibody panels for the core facility.

Skills to list

Certifications and licenses worth listing

• No license is needed for research labs. Employers value completed training instead: biosafety, bloodborne pathogens, chemical safety, IATA shipping of dangerous goods.
• CITI Program courses: often required before you can work with human samples or animals; list the ones you hold.
• ASCP Medical Laboratory Technician (MLT) or Scientist (MLS): required for clinical diagnostic labs, and some states (California and New York among them) also require a state license. Not relevant for research labs.

Length and format

One page. Order: summary, experience (research positions count), education with relevant lab courses, skills, training. A two-column layout keeps the techniques and training list visible next to your experience.

Common mistakes

• Vague technique lists (“various lab techniques”). Name each method you can run.
• Listing techniques you watched once. Lab interviews often include questions about troubleshooting each one.
• Leaving out documentation and safety, which are core to the job in any regulated or shared lab.
• Course labs described as research. Keep them under education unless they ran for a semester or more.
• No numbers. Samples, assays, cell lines and turnaround times are easy to count.