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Last week, BioJobBlog in association with BVS, a life sciences vendor management company, launched an inaugural three hour career development workshop called BioCareer Development Symposium at New York University School of Medicine. 

The event which featured seminar topics  including "Writing a Winning Resume," "Interviewing Tips and Advice" and "Social Media and Career Development for LIfe Scientists" was well attended by graduate students, postdocs and mid-career life scientists.  In addition to the seminars, nine life sciences companies were on site to showcase the latest life sciences reagents, equipments and kits.

Future BioScience Career Development Symposia are scheduled @ Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Alabama-Birmingham and the University of North Texas Health Sciences Center in Fort Worth, TX.

If your or your institution may be interested in hosting or learning more about our BioCareer Development Symposium offerings, please contact me.

Until next time....

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!

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Believe it or not, employment opportunities are looking better in the life sciences industry. While this may be good news for some, the need for R&D scientists and sales representatives in the US is dwindling. The high cost and low ROI for R&D at most major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies has forced life sciences executives to outsource many R&D functions that previously had been performed in house. Likewise, the inability of companies to bring novel, new medicines to market has reduced the need for pharmaceutical companies to maintain large sales forces. Put simply, there aren’t enough drugs to be sold to warrant large numbers of sales people trying to sell them! Given this backdrop, now may be a good time for bioprofessionals in these areas to consider new job opportunities and possibly new career paths. To that end, this post contains information about several biocareer developments sites (created by me) that may be helpful to bioprofessionals looking for work or new careers. 

BioCrowd

BioCrowd, created two years ago by Clifford Mintz and Vincent Racaniello, is an online networking site for scientists and other life sciences professionals. Built on a flexible and highly interactive social networking platform, BioCrowd was designed to foster scientific and business relationships between its members. While science is the main driver of our community, it takes a host of other bioprofessionals in addition to scientists to create successful life sciences ventures. To that end, BioCrowd provides its members with immediate access to world class academic researchers, industrial scientists, consultants, recruiters, venture capitalists and other life sciences professionals. 

Our goal is to provide a socially-interactive “one-stop-shopping” solution for bioprofessionals who are interested in advancing their careers or seeking new business opportunities in the life sciences industry.

BioJobBlog

BioJobBlog was created four years ago and focuses on training and career development issues that are facing scientists and other bioprofessionals. The blog offers career development ideas and advice for bioprofessionals and also provides insights into hot topics and debates taking place in the life sciences industry.

Its founder, Clifford Mintz, started the blog because of the career difficulties he faced while making the transition from an academic scientist to freelance science writer. Cliff hopes that by sharing his experiences with others they may be able to more easily navigate their own career paths which can be difficult, frustrating and emotionally- draining!

The BioJobCenter

The BioJob Center offers both job seekers and employers ‘real time,’ current job listings, job application tracking, and e-mail job alerts. Job seekers can join for free and search for jobs (based on job title and/or location) and directly apply for them from the job center.
Employers, for a fee, can list job openings; advertise jobs; call out ‘hot jobs’ or search candidate resume databases. Jobs posted to the BioJob Center are also simultaneously listed on other job sites including www.JobJobHealth.com and Twitter Jobs.

While this is not close to being a comprehensive list of biocareer development sites out there, I can safely say that the advice and content on these sites is relevant and sound.

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!

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 A report on the state of the Massachusetts biotechnology industry suggests that global competition and shortages of trained workers might cause the state to loss its reputation as one of the world’s top life sciences cluster. The report points out that there simply aren’t enough trained workers to meet the growing demand from Massachusetts-based biotechnology companies-both because of a lack of adequate training programs and lack of interest from students.  

To help to remedy the situation, the study recommended that more job training programs ought to be created at two- and four-year state colleges and that Massachusetts should do more to encourage students to pursue careers in the life sciences. As usual, the report recommended that math and science education should be improved at the K-12 levels. Other suggestions included setting up a “summer bio camp” and launching an unpaid bioscience internship program.

Unfortunately, this report, which was prepared by Boston-based Mass Insight Corp and McKinsey & Co and was likely very expensive, is almost identical to other studies published over the past decade about ongoing workforce shortages in the life sciences industry. Like its predecessors, it contains the same tired and unimaginative recommendations that others have proposed to solve bioscience labor shortages. To learn more about some creative solutions to avert life sciences workforce shortages click here.

Despite what the experts and pundits would have you believe, the etiology of the workforce shortages in the life sciences industry is easy to decipher. Put simply, most universities and colleges don’t believe that job training or career development should be part of their academic initiatives or educational missions. Likewise, companies don’t feel that education or training should fall within their purview–according to industry executives, college and professional school graduates ought to be sufficiently prepared to enter the workforce after they complete their education.

Because neither academia nor industry wants to assume responsibility (financial or otherwise) to prepare or train students for careers in the life sciences, it should come as no surprise that there are workforce shortages in this industry. Although a number of federally-funded biotraining programs were initiated in the late 1990s, these programs were poorly promoted and are incapable of sustaining themselves without government support. Paradoxically, there are many more innovative, industry-focused biotechnology and bioscience training programs at the high school level as compared with the undergraduate and graduate levels. I suspect that many professors in undergraduate and graduate life sciences departments are more concerned about their own research programs than about the careers of their students. Go figure………!!!!!

There will continue to be workforce shortages in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical devices industry until either academia, industry or both claims ownership of bioscience training and career development.  I think that it time for academicians and industry professionals alike to put their heads together to solve this serious and ongoing problem. Failure to do so will result in the loss of America’s global dominance in the life sciences industry.

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!!!

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