PhD to industry CV template for pharma, biotech and CRO jobs
A sample PhD to industry CV, built on the layout I use for my own CV and for clients. The person, the employers and every number in it are invented, so treat each line as a prompt and replace it with your own evidence. You get it in English and in German, as Word and PDF.
Made by Andreas Schulz, MoreThanCareer.de: 17 years in recruitment, 14 of them in pharma and CRO environments at Bayer, ICON and Syneos Health. Free for your own CV. If you share the template, please keep the credit line in the footer. Checked every quarter, next review planned for February 2027.
What a Hiring Manager checks in a PhD to industry CV
- A target job title above your name. An academic CV starts with publications; an industry CV starts with the role you want.
- Two pages, not a publication list. Keep the two or three papers that match the role and link the rest on your LinkedIn or ORCID.
- Methods and techniques named the way job ads name them, so the reader finds them in seconds.
- Anything that looks like industry work: collaborations, budgets, timelines, supervision, validated methods.
- Results with numbers. "Screened 1,200 compounds" reads stronger than "performed screening experiments".
Keywords that belong in it
Use the ones that are true for you, in the words the job ad uses: assay development, cell-based assays, flow cytometry, CRISPR, high-throughput screening, project management, GLP, data analysis, R, Python.
How the template is built
Target role above the name, a short profile, career highlights with numbers before the experience, role title and dates on one line, employer and location on the next, and competencies as a keyword line at the end. The reasoning behind each part is on the pharma CV template page. If your target is a German employer, read how your Arbeitszeugnis will be compared with your CV in the Arbeitszeugnis decoder.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a PhD CV for industry be?
Two pages. Move the full publication list to LinkedIn or ORCID and keep the two or three papers that match the role.
Should I put my PhD thesis title on an industry CV?
Yes, in one line under education, but describe the skills you used in the experience section. The title alone tells a Hiring Manager little.
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Want your CV written for the role, not just formatted?
A template gives you the structure. I write the content: your evidence, in the order a pharma Hiring Manager reads it, for the role you're targeting.
See the CV and LinkedIn rewrite