

7 Personal Branding Tips For Today’s Scientists
STEM professionals are in high demand around the globe. So why do so many highly qualified scientists struggle to get invited for a job interview?
The answer is simple: no matter how brilliant and experienced you are, your résumé and your LinkedIn® profile have to contain the right elements in order for you to get noticed.
Keywords are at the top but aren’t the only elements of an effective résumé or LinkedIn profile. There are a number of other factors to keep in mind—here are seven tips:
1. Keep your résumé short: between one
and two pages.
Anything
shorter gives the immediate impression you’re not qualified, and anything
longer makes it difficult for the reader to note the most salient information.
2. Highlight your skills.
Use
keywords and key phrases that are relevant to your field, the job posting, and
both your technical and soft skills. We often suggest that candidates add a
skills section, preferably in column format, at the top of their résumé. Having
an easy to identify skills section goes hand-in-hand with making sure you have
the right content and keywords in your résumé.
3. List your experience correctly.Use the following format to list your job experience: the type of job site (for example a commercial lab or academic lab), location(s), your most important job responsibilities, how your work benefited your employer, and what additional skills you used or developed during the job.
4. List dynamic experience when
possible.
For
positions where you used very specific expertise to help develop a product,
list your precise expertise, the product you worked on, and the scale of the
project.
5. Don’t forget internships and
research experience.
Many
scientists transitioning from academia to industry forget to list their
internships as work experience. Internships are highly relevant, so make sure
to include them.
6. Keep your list of publications
concise.
One
mistake many academics make is to include a full list of publications to which
they’ve contributed. Highlight between one and three of the most relevant or
significant publications only when they directly illustrate your qualifications
for the job.
7. Maintain a personal website.
If
you want to provide potential employers with more information, get your own
website. You can include a bio, a full list of publications, and more
information about past and current research and related projects. Plus, you can
set up your blog to showcase your expertise. Wix and Weebly both offer easy to
use, free templates for building impressive portfolio sites.
Keep these tips in mind, and you’ll soon be able to write a résumé and LinkedIn profile that not only pass the Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), but may also get you invited to the interview you want.

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