Write a Rocking BioProcessing Resume
BioProcessing is a set of complex multifaceted scientific and technical activities. Your resume needs to speak to reviewers at all levels and scientific areas of expertise including Recruiters, HR Professionals, Hiring Managers and BioPharma Executives. Make it easy for resume reviewers to understand exactly what you do. The key to moving through interview processes is a well structured, BioProcess keyword rich and easy to understand resume which highlights your experiences most in demand by BioPharma employers…
Clinical Development Phases – Be sure to emphasize which specific clinical development phase projects you have worked on. Highlight your specific early Phase I process experience as well as late stage Phase II or Phase III experiences. There is a huge demand for candidates with late Phase III experience so be sure these experiences stand out.
Commercial Experiences – Have you worked on Commercial Manufacturing activities? Please be sure to differentiate clinical development from your Commercial Manufacturing experiences. We also see a great demand for candidates with Commercial Manufacturing experience.
Equipment – What BioProcessing equipment have you worked with? Stainless steel bioreactors, chromatography equipment, filtration equipment, lyophilizers, HPLC analytical equipment? Describe the equipment you have worked with as it relates to the clinical and commercial processes.
Sizes and Scales – What size scales and processes have you worked on? Bench scale, 500L scale, 1000L scales or 5000L scales. It’s true, bigger is most often better!
What are you making? What’s the end product you’re working on? Is it a major commercial product such as Enbrel or Rituxan? Are you working on late stage monoclonal antibodies, antibody drug conjugates, or fusion proteins? No need to divulge proprietary info but be sure to make it clear what’s the end product you’re working on. Also, if you’ve been working on small molecule and biologics, be sure to mention this for each position you’re in.
What are you working on? Are you working on drug substance processes such as upstream cell culture, downstream purification, analytical development and formulation activities? Are you working on drug product fill/finish, packaging, labeling processes? Make it clear specifically what part or parts of the processes you are working on from early Cell Line Development all the way through to Fill/Finish and Packaging.
What is your role? Were you leading projects? Were you leading people? Were you leading project teams? Leadership is important so make it clear exactly what you are leading.
If you are in a personnel management or team leadership position, specify the titles and roles of the people on your team. For example, ‘Overseeing a team of 3 Manufacturing Scientists; Upstream Scientist, Sr. Downstream Scientist and Downstream MSAT Associate’.
Other highly experiences in high demand – Manufacturing Sciences and Technology (MSAT), Validation, Process Validation, Process Characterization, cGMP experience, FDA interaction, contributing to CMC filings, Tech Transfer to CMOs, scale up, scale down, contributing to FDA filings such as INDs, BLAs and NDAs. Quality experiences are also in high demand such as QA, Quality Compliance, Batch Record Review, Batch Release and Disposition, FDA Inspection and Inspection Readiness as well as Quality Control activities.
Ensure that your resume is keyword rich. Don’t just list keywords, embed them into the context of your resume so it flows in well crafted sentences. A few examples:
‘Managed and optimized unit operations to improve Drug Substance manufacturing yield using CHO expression system to support a phase 2 manufacturing program.’
‘Led equipment modification and automation changes for chemostat platform and assured process robustness and scaled-up to the 12000 L production scale.’
‘CMC lead for the development of Amgen’s first MAb, delivering successfully a clinical manufacturing process for purified bulk within an accelerated timeline.’
‘Led downstream process development and tech transfer of early stage recombinant proteins for both internal and external client projects from bench to 12,000L scale.’
‘Improving chromatography steps through resin performance evaluation, buffer compatibility, and elution conditions without sacrificing product quality and yields; adjust filter membrane type and sizes through flux and adsorption studies; enhance TFF performance by evaluating TMP excursions and molecular stressing.’
Use Action Words – Avoid using words such as participated, supported and performed…Instead use words which highlight your leadership and direct contribution to processes and projects such as led, drove, designed, owned, created, improved, directed, implemented, increased, optimized, initiated and managed.
The person reviewing your resume makes a Yea or Nay decision in split seconds. The more descriptive and easy your resume is to understand the more they’ll like you! You’ll get more calls to interview and more great BioPharma opportunities.
And one more thing. Don’t worry if your resume goes from 1 page to 2 or 2 pages to 3. If you have the relevant in-demand experiences, highlight them and don’t hold back. It’s 2020 and cyber storage space is a plenty!!