Case Study E, part 2

The Job Posting

This is an anonymized posting for an actual job

Minimum Requirements

• Accredited Bachelor’s Degree in Medical Laboratory Science OR equivalent education/experience OR high school graduation or equivalent AND one year of chemical, clinical, or public health laboratory experience.
• Eligible to take the Medical Laboratory Science certification examination from the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP), within eighteen months from date of hire. Failure to attain certification within eighteen months of date of hire may result in a recommendation for termination.

The requirements for this job are pretty slim - simply requiring basic education and a little experience in laboratory science and methods.

• Even a high school graduate can apply for this job. This fact tells us that our applicant must point out her college education and classroom / laboratory experience to stand out for this job.

Expected Job Duties

• Perform Diagnostic Testing | Play a key role in patient care by performing clinical diagnostic laboratory tests; record, evaluate, and interpret test results; contact appropriate personnel for tests with unusual or critical findings; utilize laboratory information system, discipline-specific middleware, as well as all institution-based computer systems for test result entry and data acquisition; collect specimens.
• Exercise Critical Thinking Skills | Exercise your critical thinking skills to help design, develop, evaluate, and troubleshoot procedures and problems that may or may not include wet laboratory involvement; calibrate, operate, troubleshoot, and perform preventative maintenance of laboratory instruments and related equipment.
• Assure Quality Control | Adhere to quality control requirements to validate test results; record data and maintain continual quality assurance program to ensure patient and personnel safety; prepare and verify the quality of reagents, standards, and control samples; utilize electronic quality control system.
• Engage in Teamwork and Leadership | Apply your professional expertise by instructing and training new employees, post-doctoral fellows, residents, and students; act as a resource to other internal and external clients, including physicians and nurses.
• Complete Related Duties as Required | For example, you may assist and instruct patients and medical staff in proper specimen collection techniques and/or assist physicians in obtaining bone marrow specimens and preparation of specimens for evaluation.

This job is serious - people’s lives are at risk if mistakes are made. This company is looking for people who:

1. Follow all laboratory procedures and minimize any mistakes
2. Take rigorous records about everything they do
3. Can analyze and interpret test results
4. Think critically and report data properly
5. Can properly use computers and laboratory equipment properly and maintain these tools
6. Verify quality of chemicals, standards and other systems to give accurate testing results
7. Work as a team, explain and train incoming members on all systems, tools and standards

We need to create a resume that shows that we can do these tasks.

Let’s update the Education Section

Education and Biochemistry Experience

• Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from Noname University - Dean’s List (4 quarters)
• Isolated a novel phage now catalogued in the Phage Database https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/OP068344
• Skill with laboratory techniques such as pipetting, standard creation, purification, centrifugation, titration, calibration of various lab equipment, organic synthesis, and lab notebook keeping
• Experience with H-NMR, IR, mass spectrometry, UV-VIS spectrometry, chromatography, fluorescence spectrometry, oxygen bomb calorimetry, etc
• Undergraduate thesis - Exploring the properties of a then unresearched organo-photocatalyst under the guidance of a professor. Maintained rigorous methodology, records and analyzed data using latest computer software and tools.

This section checks off items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 from the above list and gives details about the techniques and tools used in laboratory work.

• Anybody can say “I can do that,” but fewer can tell you all the details about what they have already done and how they did it.
• Listing the skills and tools used also lets the interviewer ask you details about any of these techniques to “drill down” to make sure you actually know how to do them (e.g. Explain how to titrate silver nitrate - not an actual task, by the way)

Teamwork, Leadership and Training Experience

How do we show that we have leadership, mentorship and training experience?

Leadership, mentorship and teamwork are not skills generally taught in a school, but arrive through life experience via previous jobs, clubs, jobs, elected office and organizing teams.

Reviewing Kylee’s Experience section, we see summer jobs at childrens’ camps and education centers as well as elected office of her high school and planning council for a Choir organization.

• Teaching and managing young children is tough (kind of like herding cats). You must maintain order while actually keeping it fun.
• The responsibility of taking care of young children can be very stressful and often requires going above and beyond the job description. Emergencies can happen at any time with young children.
• Planning events for a large group requires thinking about details and making sure they get handled by people who are reliable or by yourself, in a pinch.
• Student Body President of a high school presumes electability, the ability to manage other officers and ensuring things get done - the buck stops here.

The key is to list how these experiences taught leadership and teamwork skills.