This was adapted from Cheeky Scientist’s webinar titled: Tailoring your resume for an industrial job. “A good resume is not enough to get a job, but a bad resume is enough to keep you from getting a job”. This was a quote that struck me as I was watching the webinar hosted by Cheeky Scientist’s Isaiah Hankel. During the hour-long webinar, I learned about tailoring one’s resume for a job in industry; a resume optimized for a non-academic career. One of the goals of an optimized resume is to ensure your resume will not be reduced to a “bunch of metrics”, which is used to evaluate how qualified you are for the job. Everyone should learn about the Applicant Tracking Software (ATS), which is used to weed out most of the submitted resumes. Some of the things that ATS focuses on are (1) Keywords usage and your answers to the application questions (more on the keywords below). (2) Salary expectation; the elephant in the room. (3) Inaccurate representation of your work history. Companies are not the only ones who use ATS to remove candidates that may not be qualified for a job position, recruiters use them as well. Moral of the story? Get your resume in top-notch shape before sending it out for a job application. An average recruiter spends 6 seconds before deciding whether to keep or trash your resume (read here). Therefore, avoid jargons and big words, but tailor your resume to their level. Here are some of the tips, shared by Isaiah, on creating job-attracting resume: 1. You should keep the resume as short as possible. 2 pages, or less, with a lot of white space. Make your resume clean; if your resume is wordy it will be overwhelming to read. Remember that you have 6 seconds to make an impression. 2. You should not start with the “Education” section. Start with your summary statement, followed by your professional experience, and then your education section. They know you went to school and you have a Master’s or a Ph.D. degree. What they care about are your qualifications and this is what you should highlight in your resume. Keep in mind that your resume will be skimmed from top to bottom, therefore, you should list the important things first. 3. You need a strong professional summary statement. Include at least 3 of your biggest achievements so far. This should utilize results-oriented bullet points in a list format. You want to include phrases such as, “resulting in” and “as demonstrated by”. Each statement should have 3 main parts: transferable skills, technical skills, and quantifiable results. Here is an example: “Strong project management skills with experience supervising research scientists on collaborative projects, which resulted in 5 publications and $500,000 in grant funding.” 4. You must use the company and position-specific keywords. Focus on the nouns and adjectives. While looking at a job posting circle or outline the keywords describing the job and its qualifications. Incorporate those words into different areas of your resume. Here’s an example below, the keywords are boxed in red (see if you can find additional keywords): 
5. Your resume should not have a peer-reviewed timeline of research or publications. Companies do not care so much about that. This is more for a resume designed for an academic job. Instead of listing these information, use a summary statement to highlight these achievements by including them in your quantifiable results (see the example in number 3). 6. Your resume should be a persuasive marketing document. Do not be afraid to show off what you have accomplished, without coming off as arrogant. Your important assets are your (a) transferrable skills (b) motivation (c) strategic planning. 7. You should include top skills that all companies require. Examples are: product/market knowledge, current industry trend, project management, problem solving, communication, leadership skills and others. You can learn more about transferrable skills you already have from our blog. Remember to keep your resume simple and concise, market yourself well, pay attention to what the company requires, and keep it mind that it takes 6 seconds to make an impression. Your resume should speak for you!