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Lab SkillsMay 06, 2026 6 min readBy Rohit Sharma, QC Lead
HPLC: the one instrument that gets pharma QC freshers hired
If you can run a method, integrate a peak, and troubleshoot a baseline drift — you are employable.
Walk into any pharmaceutical QC interview in India and you will be asked about HPLC within the first 10 minutes. It is the workhorse instrument of the industry.
The minimum you should know
- Difference between isocratic and gradient elution
- How to prepare and degas mobile phase
- Column care: storage, equilibration, flushing
- Integration parameters and how to fix a tailing peak
- System suitability: theoretical plates, tailing factor, %RSD
How to demonstrate the skill
Carry a one-page printout of a chromatogram you actually ran, with annotations. Interviewers love it.
Common troubleshooting questions
Baseline drift, ghost peaks, sudden pressure spike, retention time shift. Be ready with one cause and one fix for each.
Next step
Turn this into a real internship
Apply to a mentor-led BioBridge internship and build the exact experience employers ask for.
Apply Now →