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Vincent Racaniello, PhD podcaster extraordinaire and a BioCrowd co-founder, has long contended that Twitter is an ideal medium to conduct scholarly research especially in the life sciences. Unfortunately, many scientists, who have yet to try Twitter, steadfastly disagree with Vincent. To that end, I received a message from the folks over at Onlinecollege.org alerting me to an article that they published entitled “15 Fascinating Academic Studies Done on Twitter."

While none of the studies mentioned in the post were conducted in the life sciences, they run the gamut from computer science to sociology, music and science education. Twitter, which is still in its formative stages, is clearly emerging as the social medium of choice to track real time events and to stay informed about current events. As the platform matures and more people sign up as users, it is likely that it will become a player for online scholarly research studies in the life sciences and an ideal medium for science education.

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Tweeting!!!!!!!!!!

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Yahoo jobs pointed me in the direction of an article entitled “22 Secrets HR Won’t Tell You About Getting a Job.” Usually these are so-called fluff pieces but after reading this one, I decided that it was one of the more informative articles on job searching that has appeared on the Internet. Rather then filling up the page with descriptive prose and insightful comments from HR professionals and prospective employers, the authors of the piece use quotes from various individuals involved in the hiring process to reinforce or dispel ideas and myths about job hunting. 

The article is divided into three sections: 1) What You Should Know About Resumes; 2) Secrets About The Interview; and 3) Things to Know About Salary Negotiation. Rather then publish them all at once; I will post them in three separate installments so that people at various stages of the job hunting process can read the sections most relevant to them.  

What Jobseekers Should Know About Resumes

1. “Once you’re unemployed more than six months, you’re considered pretty much unemployable. We assume that other people have already passed you over, so we don’t want anything to do with you.” –Cynthia Shapiro, former human resources executive and author of Corporate Confidential: 50 Secrets Your Company Doesn’t Want You to Know

2. “When it comes to getting a job, who you know really does matter. No matter how nice your résumé is or how great your experience may be, it’s all about connections.” –HR director at a health-care facility

3. “If you’re trying to get a job at a specific company, often the best thing to do is to avoid HR entirely. Find someone at the company you know, or go straight to the hiring manager.” –Shauna Moerke, an HR administrator in Alabama who blogs at hrminion.com

4. “People assume someone’s reading their cover letter. I haven’t read one in 11 years.” –HR director at a financial services firm

5. “We will judge you based on your e-mail address. Especially if it’s something inappropriate like kinkyboots101@hotmail.com or johnnylikestodrink@gmail.com.” –Rich DeMatteo, a recruiting consultant in Philadelphia

6. “If you’re in your 50s or 60s, don’t put the year you graduated on your résumé.” –HR professional at a midsize firm in North Carolina

7. “There’s a myth out there that a résumé has to be one page. So people send their résumé in a two-point font. Nobody is going to read that.” –HR director at a financial services firm

8. “I always read résumés from the bottom up. And I have no problem with a two-page résumé, but three pages is pushing it.” –Sharlyn Lauby, HR consultant in Fort Lauderdale, Florida* (see footnote)

9. “Most of us use applicant-tracking systems that scan résumés for key words. The secret to getting your résumé through the system is to pull key words directly from the job description and put them on. The more matches you have, the more likely your résumé will get picked and actually seen by a real person.” –Chris Ferdinandi, HR professional in the Boston area

10. “Résumés don’t need color to stand out. When I see a little color, I smirk. And when I see a ton of color, I cringe. And walking in and dropping off your resume is no longer seen as a good thing. It’s actually a little creepy.” –Rich DeMatteo

*While this may be true for non-scientists, there is no page limit on CVs. That said, the more concise that you are the better off you will be!

Stay tuned for the next installment; Secrets About the Interview

Until next time...

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

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Believe it or not, I was interviewed by Karl Schmieder of Bridge 6, a digital healthcare marketing firm about the genesis of BioCrowd and why online networking is important for bioprofessionals and healthcare providers. This is a first for me and it signals that online networking for life scientists and other bioprofessionals may actually be starting to catch on. You can read the entire interview by clicking here.

While most other sites like Benchfly, Epernicus, Labspaces, ResearchGate and others cater almost exclusively to scientists, BioCrowd was created as an online networking and career development site for ALL bioprofessionals including those involved with marketing, manufacturing, publishing, writing, fun raising etc. We want prospective BioCrowd members to think of the community as a “one-stop-shopping” site for life sciences professionals who want to network, advance a career or even start  up a biotechnology company! Check us out!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (I hope to see you at BioCrowd!)

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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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“Unpleasant personality traits are almost required of young entrepreneurs trying to build something lasting. It requires tremendous arrogance to believe that their idea is better than anyone else’s. They need to be immensely selfish, putting their fragile creation ahead of everything else including important relationships. And, they have to be ruthless, tossing overboard friends who were once useful and no longer are.”

—Joe Nocera, New York Times commenting on the success of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

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A recent report published by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that in the last year, social networking services have nearly doubled in popularity in Americans over the age of 50. Interesting, there were virtually no inroads among those aged 18 to 29. The spike in popularity also includes those over 65 years old who are twice as likely this year as compared with last to say that they belonged to social networking sites.

The authors of the report suggest a few reasons for the increasing popularity of social networking among seniors (aside from the observation that older people are slower overall to adopt technological innovations). 

First, social networking sites provide a rare opportunity to bridge the generational divide; for example grandparents and grandchildren can keep track of each other or share family photos on a single network like Facebook. Second, many older Americans use Facebook and even Twitter to reconnect with people from their past. Finally, social networking sites have been around for almost a decade and there are growing signs that younger folks are moving beyond social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to the next big thing (whatever that may be).

While online networking sites may have begun to outlive their usefulness for social activities, there is trend toward the use of these sites for professional purposes including job searches and access to information. LinkedIn and BioCrowd are two good examples of this type of online professional networking sites.

FYI, I rarely visit Facebook and occasionally have time for Twitter (I turned 57 this past July). Most of my online time is spent on LinkedIn and BioCrowd looking for new contacts and access to interesting information about the life sciences industry. 

Just sayin’

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Surfing!!!!!!!!!

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We previously announced that BioCrowd, an online bioprofessional networking site, was going to launch a new feature which allows members to upload any type of multimedia files ranging from videos to podcasts to poster presentations to their profile page and the BioCrowd network. Also, members can view  videos or listen to podcasts, comment on them and  let others know whether or not you liked them. Like most other websites that support videos, we offer an embed feature that allows you to copy the code of videos that you like and post them to other website, blogs or YouTube.

We hope to run contests for best video, podcast, PowerPoint or poster presentation in the very near future. If you are already a BioCrowd member, please visit the site and upload your favorite multimedia files to the network.  For those of you who are not members yet, please drop by, check us out and join if you like!  If you have any problems or identify any bugs with the new upload feature please e-mail me.

I hope to see you at the BioCrowd!!!!

Until next time.... 

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

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Until recently, there was little or no mention of business activity within the emerging Chinese life sciences industry. However, as the Chinese middle class continues to grow, the need and demand for pharmaceutical and biotechnology drugs (including vaccines and other biologics continues) to grow at a frenetic pace. Further, a growing abundance of US-trained scientists has allowed the Chinese life science industry to develop much more quickly than anticipated. Also, many major pharmaceutical companies like Merck, Roche and Novartis have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in China and have already established world class Chinese R&D facilities. Finally, unlike in most Western countries, the Chinese government controls roughly 80% of the pharmaceutical and biologics manufacturing that takes place in China. Together, this suggests that China has quietly established itself as a life sciences power to be reckoned with! To that end, there were two reports that came across the transom this morning that piqued my interest. 

The first report was about a company called Lotus Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

"Lotus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a growing developer and producer of prescription drugs and licensed national seller of pharmaceutical products in the People's Republic of China ("PRC"), reported the groundbreaking ceremony on March 9 to construct a new building complex on the grounds of its production facility in Beijing.

Officials of Beijing municipal and Chaoyang district governments, officers of the China State Food & Drug, and representatives of both state-owned and private pharmaceutical companies attended the ceremony. CEO, Zhongyi Liu, welcomed the guests. "After a year of planning, we are pleased to start the construction of the new building complex and expect to finish the construction by July, interior decoration by September and GMP certification by December of this year," he said. "This is a new page for Lotus' development and it will provide important impetus to profitable growth, which is anticipated to reach $150 million in annual sales during the first year after the facility, is fully operational."

The second reported on plans to build a venture-back, “private” contract manufacturing facility that specializes in biomanufacturing in metropolitan Beijing.

"AutekBio, Inc., SUMA Ventures and Beijing E-Town Harvest International Capital Management Corporation, a venture capital group from Beijing Municipal Government announced a joint investment of more than US$100m to develop a new contract manufacturing organization (CMO) for biopharmaceutical industry in China. This joint effort led by AutekBio represents strong interests from both private investment sector and government to establish world quality capability and capacity in biopharmaceutical manufacturing in China.

The new joint venture will build up a world class R&D and manufacturing center in southern Beijing to service international biologic developments, with combined volumes of bioreactors up to 20,000 liters in multiple production lines (trains). The firm will also benefit from financial, regulatory and other supports from the Chinese government for the biotech industry." 

It is becoming increasingly apparent that China has clearly set its sights on establishing itself as player on the global life sciences stage. After spending a week in China during the country’s preparation for the Beijing Games, I discovered that China can achieve any goal that it sets for itself in very short order.  

Until next time...  

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (try China)!!!!!! 

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Mary Canady author of the Comprendia Blog recently analyzed the popularity (or lack thereof) of a number of social networking sites that were created for life scientists. It would seem that online social networking sites would be ideal for scientists because we are not known for our networking or social communication skills in real life. However, only a few of the more than 15 life sciences social networking sites started in the past two years are doing well based on the traffic and usage statistics cited by Mary in her post. 

While Mary’s analysis included most of the well known life science social networking sites, she failed to include BioCrowd, the networking site started by Vincent Racaniello and me. While BioCrowd does cater to life scientists, we intentionally expanded our network to include other bioprofessionals including medical writers, marketers, consultants, venture capitalists and even CEOs! After all, it takes a village to take an idea from concept to commercialization.

Hat tip to Mary for the insightful post!

Until next time...

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

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Vincent Racaniello, virologist extraordinaire and a BioCrowd co-founder is slated to appear on ABC World News this evening to discuss Rebecca Sloot’s new book entitled The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. The book details the life of little-known Henrietta Lack whose cancerous cervical cells (subsequently called HeLa cells by the scientists who managed to cultivate and immortalize them in the laboratory), revolutionized the field of virology and changed the way viral vaccines are manufactured.

Rebecca Skloot, the author, is an award-winning science writer, and a contributing editor at Popular Science magazine; she's worked as a correspondent for the NPR show RadioLab, and PBS Nova ScienceNOW. Her writing appears in The New York Times Magazine, O: The Oprah Magazine, Discover and others. The “Immortal Life of Henrietta Lack” is her first book.

So, why is Vincent being featured on tonight’s newscast about the HeLa book? For those of you who don’t know, Vincent has spent almost 30 years unraveling the molecular mechanisms by which the polio virus causes disease. And, as many of you may know, HeLa cells are the cell line of choice to cultivate polio virus in the laboratory. In addition to cloning the polio virus receptor in HeLa cells, members of Vincent’s laboratory have elucidated the genes and their proteins responsible for the neurotrophic effects of the virus that can lead to paralysis from polio infections. Further, for those of you who may not know, Vincent, while a postdoctoral fellow in David Baltimore's laboratory, was the first to demonstrate that transfection of HeLa cells with cDNA made from polio virus genomic RNA (using the newly discovered HIV reverse transcriptase enzyme that resulted in Baltimore winning the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine) yielded infectious polio virions.

While Vincent’s findings greatly aided research to elucidate the underlying pathogenic mechanisms of the polio virus, it transformed and revolutionized the entire field of RNA virology. Prior to Vincent’s discovery, it was impossible to study the molecular biology of RNA viruses using recombinant methods because unlike DNA, there are no known RNA restriction enzymes. The ability to transcribe viral RNA into cDNA molecules that yield infection RNA viral particles permitted researchers to dissect RNA virus genomes (using recombinant DNA technology) to determine contribution of individual genes to viral pathogenesis.

Vincent, one of only a handful of virus pioneers, is now applying his considerable pioneering talents to social media because he believes that Web 2.0 tools like blogs, podcasts, videos and social networking sites can be successfully used for science education and improving the public understanding of the life sciences.

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Viewing (ABC World News Tonight)!!!!!!

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There is no question that job opportunities for recent life sciences undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows are becoming increasingly difficult to find. While this is troubling, older, mid-career bioprofessionals who may be looking for new jobs and challenges are having a rougher go of it. This is because older employees generally cost more to hire and many employers mistakenly believe that seasoned employees make lack the drive and technological skills as compared with younger, less experienced jobseekers.

Whether or not these assumptions are true, the interview questions that older job candidates may be asked are likely to be different than those offered up to younger prospective employees. To that end, there was an informative “how to” blog post written by Shelbi Walker of Back to Work, Inc that offers older professionals some responses that older job candidate can use to answer challenging questions that they may encounter during a face-to-face job interview.

I listed some sample questions and acceptable possible responses to them below:

1.  You appear to be overqualified for this position. Won't you get bored?

Suggested Responses:

“You are an excellent company. You deserve excellence in employees."

“Experience is a great premium today.”

“There is a greater return on your money if I hit the ground running. Less training time.” 

“I always like for additional work to do to prevent from getting bored.”           

2.  This company is on the fast track. Do you think that you can keep up?

Suggested Responses:

“I have stayed on top of the latest development in our industry and am computer literate." (Use this opportunity to showcase any training classes or courses you have taken.)

Also, consider hitting this question head-on by stating politely that you have not noticed any slowdown in attitude or energy. 

3.  This isn’t exactly the type of job you have done in the past. Can you tell us how you will transfer your skills?

Suggested Responses:

"I have viewed your website and read everything about your company.” (Then, draw some analogy to a previous area of expertise, and relate it to the new company's product or service).

4.  I noticed that you have been out of work for over six months. Can you explain this break in employment?

Suggested Responses:

"I explored some other options but they weren’t for me.  I feel that I have many more years of productivity left to work in this industry."

“I am looking for something different. I am fortunate to be in a position to take time to make sure this job is right for both of us. "

"I used this time to brush up (or learn) a new skill, and now I am ready to contribute my knowledge and expertise to an exciting company like yours."

5.  Why do you think you are qualified for this job? I don't see where you have experience that would match our business needs

Suggested Responses:

"My excitement at learning new things never diminishes. With my work experience, I know I will be a quick learner." Take this opportunity to point out any skills you have added to your repertoire. Identify a skill you have, and align it to something you would need to do on the new job.

6.  Your resume indicates you have worked at a lot of different places. Can you comment on that?

Suggested Responses:

“Each of those positions broadened my knowledge and skill base."

“It does appear that way, but, in the last 10 years, the economy has been such that mergers have forced a number of us to realize our potential in various environments." (Always turn a perceived negative into a real positive!)

7.   You were with your last company for 19 years. Can you change the way you did things?

Suggested Responses:

"I am looking for change!"

"My last company underwent many changes during that time, and I enjoyed trying new things and ideas." (Give examples whenever possible.)

8.  I see you have been a consultant. Does that just mean you were out of work?

Suggested Responses:

" My old company brought me back on contract to complete several projects, which I did — and now I want to see if there is something more exciting out there. "

“ I understand lots of people are calling themselves consultants while they look for a new position. " (Laugh — sometimes, it's OK to insert a little bit of levity.)

9.  What salary are you looking for (the implication that is may be too high because you have been in the workforce so long)

Suggested Responses:

Never respond with a specific dollar amount. Affirm that you have vast skills and experience. Indicate that you are either willing to start over to show them what you bring to the table or deserving of top dollar.

Alternatively, ask the interviewer what dollar amount is allocated for the position in this year's budget. And, finally ask the interviewer whether or not they are offering you the job since you are discussing salary requirements!

While I can’t guarantee that you will be asked any or all of these questions at your next job interview, they are food for thought!

Until next time...

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

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At the recent Social Communication and Healthcare conference I was invited to run a roundtable discussion entitled “How to Build a Social Networking Site for Bioprofessionals.” The discussions were well attended, primarily by employees several pharmaceutical companies and vendors who sell scientific equipment and reagents. Several bloggers and medical communications professionals also attended.

While microblogging platforms like Twitter are slowly supplanting traditional networking sites as the social medium of choice, themed online communities like BioCrowd--hich was exclusively designed for bioprofessionals ranging from scientists to venture capitalists—are still useful for jobseekers and people who are interested in a “richer” networking experience. For those of you who are interested in social networking sites, I wrote a brief synopsis of the two roundtable discussions that I conducted.

Please feel free to contact me with any additional thoughts, ideas or comments you may have about the piece.

 Until next time...

 Good Luck and Good Networking!

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 As many of you know, we launched BioCrowd about six weeks ago. Our membership is steadily growing and several early members suggested changes and improvements to the site. In typical Web 2.0 fashion, we listened to those suggested and decided to add several new features!

First, we added a new section to the home page called BioCrunch. BioCrunch will feature “fresh content” developed by BioCrowd members. Items that can be posted to BioCrunch include but are not limited to podcasts, PowerPoint presentations, manuscripts and possibly poster presentations. With this in mind, we urge interested BioCrowd members to send us stuff that you wanted featured in BioCrunch and shared with the rest of the community.

Second, you can now upload multiple files with discussion posts and add a single file to comments. Also, it is now possible to preview your comment or discussion posts (before you hit the send button) to insure that they are grammatically-correct and typo-free. 

Third and perhaps most importantly, we decided to publicly open the site so that RSS feeds from BioCrowd can be imported to other social media applications including blogs, Facebook and Twitter. It also means that member profiles and discussion posts are searchable by Google. However, all posted resumes and job listings will remain private and only available to BioCrowd members, i.e. you have to join to view them.

We are planning other improvements to BioCrowd—stay tuned for new updates!

Until next time….

Join Us and Be Part of the Crowd!

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For those of you who want to learn about  why Vincent and I created BioCrowd, listen to our very first podcast!   Anybody who is interested in doing a podcast for BioCrowd, please send us a note along with your ideas and when you might be available for recording the session.

Hope to see you at the Bcrowd!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Listening

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