Boost Your Resume with Side Projects and Volunteer Experience

Let’s dive into an important section of your resume: relevant projects and volunteer work. As a biostatistician, you should take full advantage of any side projects or volunteer experiences that align with your career goals. However, one important thing to remember: relevance is key. If your volunteer experience or side projects don’t directly support your target role, leave them out to avoid diluting your resume’s focus.

If your side projects or volunteer work are directly related to biostatistics, this is where you can really stand out. These experiences are an excellent opportunity to demonstrate your skills, passion, and engagement in the field.

Side Projects: Your Secret Weapon

As a biostatistician, you might be working on projects outside of your regular job—maybe freelance work, side research, experimenting with new techniques, or collaborating on others’ projects. These can be major assets when positioning yourself as a well-rounded candidate. Whether you’re working on a Kaggle dataset or developing a statistical model for a personal project, showcasing these activities tells potential employers that you are actively engaged in your field and continuously improving your skills.

Relevance is Key: Only include side projects that tie directly to the role you are applying for. For example, if you’re applying for a clinical data analysis position, a Kaggle project focusing on healthcare data can be an excellent addition to your resume. But if the side project isn’t directly relevant to biostatistics, it’s better to leave it off.

How to Showcase Your Side Projects

1. Be Specific: Treat each side project like a bullet point on your resume. Simply stating the project isn’t enough—demonstrate what you’ve accomplished. What kind of data did you work with? What statistical models or software did you use? Did your work contribute to real-world outcomes, like reducing analysis time or solving complex problems?

For example, instead of saying:

• “Worked on a healthcare data analysis project” Try saying:

• “Developed a predictive model using R to identify key health outcomes in a dataset of 5,000 patient records, improving forecasting accuracy by 20%.”

This makes your contributions tangible and measurable.

Volunteer Work: Only If It Adds Value

Volunteer work can also be a great addition to your resume, but only if it’s related to biostatistics. For instance, working with a non-profit organization to analyze public health data or contributing to statistical analyses for a research project can be a huge plus. The same rule applies: relevance is everything. If your volunteer work doesn’t directly tie into biostatistics, it’s better to leave it out to keep your resume focused.

However, if the volunteer work does involve statistical analysis, data cleaning, or using relevant software tools like SAS or R, it can absolutely strengthen your resume. It shows initiative and a passion for the field, even outside of paid roles.

Using AI to Enhance Your Resume

Incorporating AI tools can be a game-changer when building out your resume. For side projects and volunteer positions, AI tools can help generate clear, impactful descriptions of your work.

1. Generate Volunteer Descriptions Using AI: If you’ve volunteered in a position and need help describing it, AI tools like ChatGPT can assist in drafting polished, concise content. This ensures you present your volunteer experience in a way that highlights your skills and contributions.

2. Generate Side Project Descriptions: For side projects, AI tools can help you craft detailed descriptions. Share details about the methodologies used, software tools involved (e.g., SAS, R), and the outcomes of the project. This will help ensure you’re presenting yourself in the best light possible.

💡 Action Step: Review and enhance your side projects and volunteer work
Go through your side projects and volunteer experience. Only include those that are directly relevant to biostatistics and your target role. Write clear, specific descriptions for each, focusing on the impact and skills you demonstrated. Use AI tools to help polish the content if needed, ensuring it stands out to recruiters.