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Ome Ogbru, Pharm. D, CEO and Founder of Rxeconsult, a new networking site for healthcare consulting and jobs, asked me if I would be interested in being interviewed about the companies and websites that I started.  Of course I could not refuse.  So here goes:

RxEconsult: What is BioInsights and why did you develop BioInsights?

BioJobBlogger:  BioInsights founded in 1998 was originally a bioscience training and education company.  The goal of the company was to help life scientists get the training that they need to get jobs at life sciences companies. Today, BioInsights, Inc is more of a career development company that provides individualized career development guidance and counseling for life scientists. This is because the life sciences job market has changed considerably since 1998 and jobs are harder to come by. However, we still offer bioscience training in drug development, regulatory affairs and biomanufacturing. Additionally, BioInsights also offer medical communications consulting services.

RxEconsult: How do you distinguish BioInsights from other Medical Communications companies? 

BioJobBlogger: Unlike traditional medical communications companies, BioInsights offers writing services that heavily focus on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter and various blogging platforms.  We also offer medical writing, copywriter and website content development services.

RxEconsult: What are the main challenges in your business and how are you addressing them?

BioJobBlogger: Training and career development services are not high priorities for job candidates or life sciences companies until a scientist is looking for a job or a company needs to hire new employees.  Consequently, it is difficult to convince both companies and jobseekers to be proactive and engage us early in the process. We are beginning to address this problem by turning to various social media platforms to get the word out about our services. Paradoxically, the recent economic downturn has been good for our business activities!

RxEconsult: What attracted you to social media and blogging? How can professionals make a living or develop their career by blogging?

BioJobBlogger:  I enjoy writing and always have had a strong desire to share my ideas and opinions with others. Blogging seemed like a natural extension of what I like to do. So, about 6 years ago I launched BioJobBlog (www.biojobblog.com) which is focused on life sciences career development topics as well as opinion pieces and reports on the goings on in the life sciences industry. While blogging is exciting and extremely cathartic, it is difficult to make a living as a blogger. The days of individual bloggers selling their blogs for millions to large media outlets are over.   That said, blogging is useful in establishing yourself as a subject matter expert which can sometimes lead to paid opportunities.  At its peak last year, I was averaging between 65,000-70,000 unique visitors per month @ BioJobBlog.

I built traffic to the levels I mentioned by blogging 4-5 times per day and staying abreast of late breaking events in the life sciences industry.  I was able to maintain that pace for a couple of years but because I blog for free, I could not sustain the pace any longer. The original goal was to reach 100,000 unique visitors per month and then try to sell the blog or form an alliance with a media outlet. Obviously, that did not happen.  I am now happy to log between 30,000-45,000 unique visitors per month by blogging three times per week or whenever the urge strikes me.

As far as revenue is concerned, it has not been much.  It costs me about $2400 per year in hosting and management fees and I have been blogging for over 5 years.  In that timespan, I may have made several thousand dollars but not enough to break even or turn a profit.  Blogging is truly a personal medium that is driven more by desire and the need to be heard rather than a profitable enterprise; unless of course you can get a major media outlet and blog for them.  That is really my dream job right now!

RxEconsult: What are the top social media practices that professionals should use for developing their career?

BioJobBlogger: I think that LinkedIn, Twitter and a personal blog can really help in terms of career development for life scientists.  However, all of these platforms require daily monitoring and care. Sadly, most life sciences professional spend most of their time in the laboratory and fail to realize that career development is vital and cannot be ignored if one wants to find a job!

RxEconsult: What healthcare gaps can social media address? 

BioJobBlogger:  I believe that social media can be used in real time for adverse event reporting and educational outreach activities. Unfortunately, most drug makers view social media as means to bolster sales or look for specialized employees.  That said, these are early days for life sciences companies and social media and it will interesting to see how social media evolves in the life sciences industry.

RxEconsult: Why are biopharmaceutical companies struggling with leveraging social media and how can they best use social media? How can BioInsights help them?

BioJobBlogger:  The life sciences industry is very conservative and adverse to change.  Social media is clearly a game changing phenomenon and most life sciences companies don’t know what to make of it yet.  Over the past three years or so, more and more life sciences companies have experimented with various social media platforms and are beginning to realize their potential for their businesses.  

BioInsights can help companies navigate the social media jungle because of our experience using social media platforms and also developing life sciences websites and blog content.

RxEconsult: What feedback have you received and how are your websites performing?

BioJobBlogger: I recently redesigned the BioInsights website and traffic has been down. Most of my focus is on two other BioInsights web assets---BioJobBlog and BioCrowd (www.biocrowd.com) an online networking community for bioprofessionals.  

I frequently get comments @BioJobBlog about its content and how helpful it is to jobseekers and other bioprofessionals. BioCrowd was launched about three years ago and we are still growing the community. At present, joining BioCrowd is primarily through invitation only.  We are embarking on a mass membership drive early next spring.  At present there are 4,200 BioCrowd members.

RxEconsult: If you wrote a book about how to develop and run a business what pearls would you include?

BioJobBlogger: No matter how good the idea is, it is all about marketing! Good ideas with insufficient marketing power can easily fail whereas bad ideas with mega-advertising can succeed.  As a scientist myself, I failed to realize how important marketing and advertising are! In hindsight, I would have invested much more money and effort in marketing my business rather developing content and building sleek looking websites!

RxEconsult:BioJobBlogger, thank you for sharing your views and discussing your ventures. Hopefully, you can return to give us an update. I wish you success and I hope you find that dream job!

 To comment on this article or ask questions  join the RxEconsult community, a free business network for healthcare consulting, jobs, and more.

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Medical/science writing is increasingly becoming popular among PhD life scientists are having trouble finding traditional laboratory-based, research jobs. The transition from laboratory research to writing is not an onerous one; especially if you like to write.

As many of you may know, I am a freelance medical/science writer who entered the field about 10 years ago.  Because most freelancers work from home offices, the lack of communication with others can be overwhelming at times. Consequently, many of us subscribe to e-mail-based listservs which allow us to stay in touch with other writers and frreelancers. Most of these medical writing listservs are run and maintained by the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA). In order to access and participate at the listservs, you must be an AMWA member which costs $145 or more per year.

While the AMWA forums are very popular, AMWA officials assiduously monitors them and at times, restricts some of the content that can be posted. For example, members of the 'freelance business only listserv' are strictly prohibited from posting jobs or alerting others to potential freelance opportunities. AMWA officials contends that these posts are inappropriate and disruptive. However, the real reason for the prohibition may be that AWMA operates a separate, fee-based service that allows freelancers to hawk their services.  In other words, allowing  users to mention freelancing gigs or job opportunities on 'freelance business only' listserv, could potentially jeopardize an additional AMWA revenue stream.

Occasionally, freelancers like me break the rules (go figure) and mention "hot" jobs or employers who may be looking for writers. I do this because, as a freelancer, I am painfully aware that my success as a freelancer is contingent upon my ability to maintain a regular, ongoing stream of freelance gigs. Unfortunately, the AMWA officers who monitor the listservs (many of whom are not freelancers), don’t understand this. Consequently, repeat offenders-- like me--have been threatened with financial sanctions and possible expulsion from the listserv.

Because I don't like feeling oppressed and being told what to do, I decided to create my own forum where freelancers can freely exchange information, post jobs, alert others about potential gigs and jobs and generally have an open and ongoing discussion about medical and science writing.  To that end I launched the BioWriters Forum about two weeks ago. The forum is hosted by BioInsights, Inc and is sponsored by BioJobBlog and BioCrowd. The forum is free but membership is required in order to participate. Please check it out and join if you like.

For those of you who decide to join, please feel free to send me any ideas, thoughts, suggestions, kudos, kvetches etc, that you may have.  Enjoy!

Until next time....

Good Luck and Good Freelancing!!!!!!!!!

Employers

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Online career sites like Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com and Yahoo Hot Jobs have gotten so big and over subscribed that they are no longer useful to most jobseekers. Many career development experts have discovered that the large career sites tend to overwhelm jobseekers because of the enormity of job possibilities that appear on them.  Unfortunately, this seemingly endless supply of job opportunities frequently induces jobseekers to spend too much time applying for online jobs and not enough time exploring non-internet based job possibilities. While applying for online jobs is facile and may be emotionally-gratifying, it usually doesn’t culminate in many face-to-face interviews or job offers for that matter. This is because most online job applications are screened by software programs looking for key words or phrases and, if your resume doesn’t contain them it will not be reviewed by a human. Further, many of the openings posted on job boards are actually placed there by recruiters and contract employment agencies—not actual companies seeking to fill positions. Often times, recruiters post expired or fictitious job descriptions on the boards to “pad” their candidate databases with qualified applicants who can be used for future job orders. Finally, sometimes unscrupulous people/companies place false or misleading ads on the big job boards. Unfortunately, these people have no qualms about taking financial advantage of job seekers who may be desperate or “down on their luck

The declining usefulness of the big online job boards has given rise to smaller career sites like Indeed.com and Simply Hired.com which are driven by powerful search engines and permit jobseekers to customize job searches based on industry, geography, salary and job availability. Other companies like BioInsights.com and OneScience.com have built niche job boards that specialize in industry-specific job listings (in this case pharma and biotech). While these new careers site are more focused, easier to navigate and frequently yield better results than the large job boards, they too can be exploited by recruiters and unscrupulous would-be employers. 

The growing popularity of social networking sites represents an important paradigm shift for jobseekers and employers. Belonging to popular social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook or Plaxo allows job seekers to cast a wider net by taking advantage of the contacts or connections that their “friends” may have at various companies and organizations. Further, it is not uncommon for people within a network to pass on resumes or put in a good word to hiring managers on behalf of friends or contacts from their network who are seeking employment.  However, it is important to also point out that recruiters and contract employment agencies have also recognized the potential and power of social networks. Recruiters and HR specialists now routinely troll social networks (particularly Linked In and Facebook) for qualified candidates and don’t hesitate to contact “qualified candidates” whether or not they are actively looking for a job. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, hiring managers and recruiters are becoming increasingly reliant on social networks to screen and gather personal information about job candidates to assess their suitability for certain jobs. According to a 2006 study conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, recruiters use social networking sites 23 per cent more than they did in 2006 to verify resumes, screen applicants and fill vacancies. Also, the study found that possible negative information posted on social network profiles—personal views, alcohol or drug use, sexually-oriented pictures or social commentaries— have a greater impact on hiring decisions than any positive information that may also appear on job seeker profiles.

The growing use of social networks by job seekers to find employment and employers and recruiters to screen job applicants has profound implications for people who belong to these networks. With this in mind, if you currently have profiles associated with your legal name on social networks like Face Book, MySpace or Linked In, I strongly recommend that are completely devoid of the following: 1) sexually suggestive or explicit photographs, 2) posts or photos depicting excessive alcohol or drug use, 3) any rants that you may have posted about your boss or a current place of employment and 4) personal information about your age, marital status, children or sexual orientation. Also, if you are actively involved in a job search, it is a good idea to upload a short bio or resume to your profile and to post any bonafide recommendations or career award and honors that you may have received. However, if you find the prospect of having to sanitize your MySpace and Facebook profiles unpalatable, then I suggest that you remove your name from your current profile(s) and replace it with an alias (your friends will still  know who you are) and build another profile with your real name for professional use only.   

We live in a highly competitive, constantly-changing world where even slightly negative perceptions about a person may mean the different between employment or not. Ironically, while the Internet allows greater freedom of expression, it also permits people with decision-making powers to more easily scrutinize our daily activities and gain greater insights into our personal lives. Consequently, the onus is on jobseekers to regulate or control what prospective employers may learn about them online. Put simply, the success or failure of your career may literally be in your own hands. That said, the next time that you update your Facebook or MySpace profiles take a moment (before you hit the “send button”) and ask yourself whether or not the new information “is going to help or hurt my career?”

Until next time…

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

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