In this month's Tooling Up column, I conducted phone or e-mail conversations with a great number of people I know in the biotechnology, food, and pharmaceutical industries asking for viewpoints on topics relevant to CVs and résumés. As always, we got a load of editorial commentary back, much of it going into this month's column. However, there was so much more, and a lot of it really interesting, that editor Jim Austin and I decided to make my notes available as an addendum.

Many of the comments seen here have been edited to convert "e-mail speak" into written English. Some remain anonymous by request. All of them deserve our thanks for providing such a great help to the readers of Science Careers.

--Dave Jensen, 15 January 2007

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Having a good cover letter can convey what they are looking for in an industry job as well as summarize their skills (not just scientific, but how they will work under deadlines and within teams). This will help tremendously in "translating" their CV to the people who are seeing the material before anyone else.

Pet Peeves: Cover letters addressed to the wrong company or mentioning info about the company that is wrong. Candidates should do some homework before blindly sending a resume. The other glaring one is grammatical errors!

--Donna Dimke, Senior Director of Human Resources, Human Genome Sciences, Rockville, Maryland

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Personally, I like to see something short (two pages) with other information--publications, etc.--appended. A brief description of their skills set (protein engineering, proteomics, etc.) clearly defined. ... Successful collaborations with other labs are a good predictor of industrial success. Doing "alpha to omega" on your own just doesn't happen in industry.

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Most people need to just write clearly and show their materials to friends to help them trim all the unnecessary information. A good industry CV just feels tight. It has nothing unnecessary (hobbies and interests), and it reads easily because it is focused on exactly what we need to hire. All the key words from our ads show up in the document, with relevant accomplishments supporting the same skill area.

Start your CV with your name in bold text. H/R tells us that we can't contact you at your place of work, so you will need to have home address and phone there for this purpose.

--A quality-control director for a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical company

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Remember it is likely that the first person screening your resume may not be a scientist. This person will be looking for broad terms such as immunology, medicinal chemistry, or pharmacokinetics, so use your summary statement to make your area of expertise quite clear, and then the body of the resume for the detail.

Don't forget to include auxiliary roles such as chemical or radiation safety officer. Early-stage companies look for individuals capable of wearing not only "many" but "extra" hats. As far as your "other interests" section goes, I don't care if your hobby is cooking or hiking, but I am indeed interested if it includes creative writing or languages.

--Pat Abbott, Principal, Venture Forward Partners, Boston, Massachusetts

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The candidate must always keep the reviewer in mind and put themselves in their shoes. After all, the reader always asks, "Why should I take a second look at this resume versus all the others out there?"

Seeing if the person is overly boastful or timid in their approach ... tells me a lot about how they will act on the job. ...

Resumes and CVs need to be clean, crisp, well-formatted, and not greater than two pages long, in my opinion. They need to demonstrate exquisite attention to detail--no misspellings, grammatical errors, poor or confusing overall formatting, [or] verbose or meaningless information. ... I believe that if a candidate cannot take the time to write in this way, then they will not strive for the same level of perfection on the job and with my projects.

--Ken Kodilla, VP Manufacturing, Neogen Corp., Lansing, Michigan

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Be explicit about what you know how to do--for example, have a "skills" section. Too often young scientists assume that the reader will somehow know or be able to intuit this information. Being specific is important, especially in this age of resume-scanning software.

Forget about the summer job you had dipping ice cream while you were in college. "Other," i.e., nonscience, experience is only relevant if it adds something important.

My personal preference is to start an industry CV with a summary rather than an objective statement.

--A consultant and executive recruiter in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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Turn offs: 12 page resumes!!!! CVs that list only laboratories, publications, posters, etc.--with no work experience or skills provided. Resumes with pictures are a real no-no, as are resumes with too much personal information, such as marital status, height, weight etc.

Verbose cover letters and objective statements don't work.

--Mary McKinney, Staffing Manager, Lexicon Genetics, Houston, Texas

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I highly recommend that the applicant reads the job posting and ensures that the requirements are met. I get this feeling that if the writer did not bother to spend much time writing for me, why should I spend much time reading?

Focus on tasks, techniques, and systems that you have mastered. Don't write a long list of research you have done using more technical terms and acronyms than regular words.

All jobs teach you something. Even "lowly" jobs can be valuable. A very good scientist in my lab had a stint of 1-year as a driver of a Coca-Cola delivery truck. The reason was that it was a family business, and he was needed. That experience taught him a lot about how people get upset when promises such as delivery dates are not met--a very valuable lesson indeed.

I have received resumes that are very focused on what the applicant wants rather than what the applicant can do to support the business at hand. ... I got one recently that said "my objective is to work for a pharmaceutical company developing new drugs to treat cancer." That's fine, but the opening is to develop clinical diagnostic assays, ... so that resume goes right to the bottom of the pile.

--Keld Sorensen, Director of R&D, Luminex Corp., Austin, Texas

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Everyone needs to have one, but in the real world, people don't get jobs via CVs. Most new graduates, and postdocs, think that the CV is the ultimate way to get a job. It isn't. Instead, it's simply a business card you leave behind or something you send on in advance to get a door open just a smidgen. Then, it's up to YOU, and not to a piece of paper. People need to learn to communicate better, to look you in the eye and tell you what it is that they can do for you.

--A VP of business development for a midsize biotechnology company

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The first key to a good resume is making sure that you have all of the relevant keywords and acronyms listed. The majority of the time, the first person to see a resume is either a computer or an assistant-level person who is simply matching keywords. ... Make sure the information is easily decipherable.

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Keep the education information up front instead of after the experience section. Put the Ph.D. after your name--you've earned it. If it's for a job in biotech or pharmaceuticals, make sure any therapeutic area experience is emphasized--perhaps in a summary statement at the top of the document. If the resume is for a clinical-research professional, I like a detailed summary of the Clinical Trials they've worked on.

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Make the resume easy to read; the content should be clear and concise. Also, you should make sure that your e-mail address is somewhat conservative. In the past, we've seen such e-mail addresses as kissmybutterfly@netcom.com, etc.

--James C. Calvin, Vice President, On Assignment, Clinical Research, Princeton, New Jersey

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It is good to see accomplishments ("Published 5 major articles in top peer-reviewed journals," "Received patent for XXX discovery," "Founded married student organization that negotiated healthcare for spouses of grad students," etc.)

Activities don't belong on a CV in place of accomplishments! (Examples: "Worked with PI to design experiments," "Taught undergrad courses," etc.)

What I don't like to see are 5-page or longer CVs from 27 year olds that go through everything they have done from the time they were a gamete. Believe it or not, I have seen people list HS class president!

--Donald D. Haut Jr., Ph.D., Director, Strategy and Business Development, 3M Safety Security and Protection Service, St. Paul, Minnesota

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A CV for an industrial job should not be longer than 2-3 pages at most. If you have 10 published papers, just say so, and list the 3 or 4 most important ones. List your previous positions, most recent first. Leave out the bartending and checkout positions--only professional positions are relevant.

Put something in the CV or cover letter that shows you've done some research into the company, or at least that you have visited their Web site. It should go without saying that misspellings and poor grammar in a CV or cover letter are immediately fatal, but you would be surprised how often I see them.

--Burt Ensley, Sedona, Arizona, serial entrepreneur and business angel

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Once you pass [the] entry hurdle, what they really are looking for is someone who shows a track record of solving problems in their specialty. Don't be afraid to highlight technical problems you have solved and what made you able to solve these while others tried and couldn't!

I received a Ph.D. resume that showed how this person was able to get research funding through a venture capitalist rather than more traditional funding sources. It proved the point about this person's creativity.

Your name should be bold and all capitals at the top. (You want the reader to remember that name!) If education is prominent, then bold the name of the university.

--David Bomzer, VP Human Resources and former Science Careers columnist, CertainTeed Corp., Valley Forge, Pennsylvania

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Avoid long paragraph-type tomes that candidates with advanced degrees have been using for years in academia. The other thing that I don't like seeing in resumes is a description of all the things the candidate has accomplished, but the candidate does not say where and when they have done these great things. At the end of the resume, they simply list the schools graduated from and companies worked at.

--Don Bergmann, Ph.D., Senior Vice President Technical Operations, Tengion Inc., King of Prussia, Pennsylvania

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I like to see a candidate who has demonstrated some interest in nonacademic careers. ...

A candidate who has technical knowledge in multiple disciplines is more likely to be able to serve a diverse client base.

--Jila Bakker, Ph.D., Patent Agent, Fletcher Yoder, Houston, Texas

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I suggest an individual provide detailed explanations about their graduate research, specifying the instrumentation and techniques they have utilized. Using an easy-to-read format such as bullets versus a long-paragraph format makes the CV easier to read. ...

I like to see an account of an individual's experience accompanied by the institution/company name and the dates they were there. With this format, it is very easy to see what someone has done, at which place, and during what timeframe. Credibility can be boosted by including Professor and/or Industry reference names in the CV.

--Stephanie J. Britt, Director, Scientific Staffing, KBI BioPharma Inc., Durham, North Carolina

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A mediocre CV (stylistically, not with respect to your actual expertise and accomplishments) and a lot of networking is guaranteed to get you a job.

A stunning CV and no networking is equivalent to playing lotto.

So put your effort where it matters.

--Kevin Foley, Director of Research for a Boston-area biotechnology company

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