Everything You Need to Know About Hiring Contractors
While I spend most of my time as a freelancer, I sometimes will do contract work because the pay is good and the hours are reasonable. As many of you know by now, using contractors rather than hiring new employees has become the new way of controlling costs and keeping the full time headcount low. After all, paying someone an hour wage without covering insurance and other employee benefits costs can be huge savings to companies trying to maintain competitiveness and cut costs.
During my various stints as a contract employee, I learned that the rules governing the hiring of contractors vary widely from company to company and agency to agency. Consequently, there are a lot of myths, urban legends and misinformation regarding hiring contractors and the obligations of employers to them. Admittedly, I am a bit confused about the rules surrounding hiring and employing contractors despite the fact that I have been a contractor on more than three occasions.
For those of you who may be confused as me or others who simply want to learn more about contracting, I highly recommend an article by Katherine Reynolds Lewis in the small business section of the NY Times entitled “Hiring Contractors Without Getting Into Trouble.”
The article offers a comprehensive overview of the Federal laws governing contractor hiring practices, the challenges of a contractor workforce and how to maximize the effectiveness of contract employees. Despite its obvious employer bias, it does paint a realistic view of what persons interested in contract work will likely encounter in the workplace.
Until next time....
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!
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Chicago-based Abbott Laboratories 
This past holiday season, as usual, was rife with massive layoffs and downsizing at various big pharma companies. Interestingly, in 2011, most biotechnology companies were able to weather the economic downturn and layoffs were not typical. Sadly, 2012 looks to be a more challenging year for many biotechnology company employees.
For many corporate employees, the annual performance review process is a bane to their existence. For those of you who may not be familiar with annual reviews, most corporate employees are required to undergo a review process that includes a synopsis of their accomplishments over the past year and new goals for the upcoming one. And, as all corporate employees understand, the quality of an annual review determines the size of the bonus that they can expect to receive and whether or not a salary increase is in order for the upcoming fiscal year. In other words, you never want to get a “less than stellar” annual review because your fiscal well-being depends on it!
There are a variety of reasons why the life sciences job market has been so dismal in recent years. First and foremost, there are too many applicants for too few jobs; employers are ignoring resumes/CVs that previously commanded face-to-face interviews. Second and perhaps more pernicious, is the notion among corporate executives and hiring managers that current graduates (both undergraduate and graduate students) have been catered to and are so academically untested that they bring little or no value to today’s fast-paced and demanding workplaces. While this characterization may or may not be warranted, it is a prevailing attitude that is likely hindering employment opportunities for recent life sciences graduates..jpg)
Despite the fact the US unemployment rate has hovered around 9.0 percent for the past several years and over 200,000 pharmaceutical employees have lost their jobs since 2001, many 
While many of you are happy just because you have a job, there are those individuals (deserving or not) who are going to “bite the bullet” and ask for a raise. This makes sense because over the past few years the cost of health insurance has gone up along with college tuition, gasoline price and a variety of other things while salaries have all but stagnated. Interestingly, only 9 percent of companies have put pay freezes in place over the past 18 months; a rate this is consistent with historical standards. That is down from the nearly two-thirds of companies that imposed pay freezes in January 2010. In other words, now may be a good time to ask for a raise as companies are trying to retain high value employees who presumably were too vital to lay off when companies were downsizing over the past three years. Sadly, merit raises (when they are meted out) have precipitously dropped in recent years from an average of roughly 4-5 percent to a paltry 2 percent on average today..png)
Remember when Amgen was the world’s largest and most profitable biotechnology company? That was way back in 2006 before its marketing and sales team got in trouble for “pushing” the sale of its erythropoietin (EPO) product Epogen and Aranesp beyond acceptable patient safety limits. This, along with a relatively thin new drug pipeline, has for the past five years or so relegated the company to second tier biotech company status.
From 2001 to present, roughly 300,000 pharmaceutical employees have lost their jobs. That is a massive number; second only to the job losses in the automotive and financial services industries. The main reasons for the layoffs have been a lack of return on investment on R&D activities and impending patent cliffs in 2013 for as many as 15 blockbuster drugs. .jpg)
The Pharmalot Blog today 
Merck & Co, which yesterday completed its $430 million acquisition of Inspire Pharmaceuticals, 
For the past few years, I have been 
It seems like hostile takeover bids in the life sciences industry may be de rigueur (how can anyone forget the 
Sometimes job candidates do the stupidest things during job interviews. Several years ago I begged a hiring manager to give an MD a second shot at a face-to-face job interview after he botched the first one. The hiring manager reluctantly agreed to give my candidate a second chance to redeem his poor performance during the first interview. After the interview, the hiring manager told me that he wasn’t going to extend a job offer to my candidate because he was “on call” the day of the interview and he kept on excusing himself to answer his pager. This happened almost 12 years ago before the cell phone–texting explosion became annoying pervasive. 
Layoffs at big pharma companies
Despite public assertions made by Novartis a mere 
During the course of my long and somewhat varied career, I have had the opportunity to work at a variety of different companies and organizations. Admittedly, while I am generally a “half-empty” kind of guy, the places where I enjoyed working the most were the ones where people treated one another with respect and management made a concerted and obvious effort to create a positive workplace environment. It didn’t matter whether I was a manager or a contract worker; I enjoyed going to work every day and I worked hard for the company. .jpg)
Times are still tough and unemployment remains high. This means that finding a job is a lot harder and will take a lot longer than in previous times. Because of layoffs and reorganizations many jobseekers may have gaps in their resumes or difficult to explain periods of unemployment. Further, it you have a physical disability, health issues, a criminal record or you are older, finding a job becomes even more challenging. 
In contrast with many of its competitors, which have layed off thousands of pharmaceutical employees over the past two weeks, Roche
I am certain that many of you may have noticed that the size of the life sciences industry is shrinking at an unprecedented rate. Big pharma companies flush with cash, near- empty pipelines and impending patent cliffs have embarked on a buying spree that is likely to continue for next years (or at least until the economy shows clear signs of resuscitation). Pfizer’s 
While a
It is well established that many scientist are not particularly adept at social interactions and are notoriously poor at networking. Contrary to popular belief these deficiencies are not genetic and likely result from the erroneous notion that scientists don’t need career network to advance their work or careers.
The Pharmalot Blog 
Despite assertions by its CEO that there isn’t enough scientific talent in the US, Eli Lilly announced that it will lay off a couple of thousand employees within the next 90 days. Most of the cuts will take place in Indianapolis at four different sites where the company currently employees about 13,000 workers. According to an
Let’s face it; there aren’t many employees in the workforce who have good things to say about their bosses. Bosses are generally reviled and in some cases the criticisms and pejoratives are truly warranted. To that end, while viewing my .jpg)
There are rumors that companies are hiring again and that pharmaceutical jobs may begin to make a comeback over the next six months to a year. This may be a real possibility based on a new report released yesterday the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas, Inc..jpg)
While attending the Advanced Learning Institute conference “Social Media and Pharma” earlier this week I happened to sit down next to Laura Lindsay, a member of Tarrytown, NY-based Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’ corporate communications team. Not surprisingly, we struck up a conversation and I learned that unlike most pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies Regeneron is looking to hire 500 new employee over the next year or so. Yes, you heard it correctly: 500 NEW EMPLOYEES. The company currently employs about 1,200 people.
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For the past year or so, I have been focusing on the downsizing and layoffs taking place at big pharmaceutical companies. The unprecedented size and scope of these massive layoffs have overshadowed the downsizing and job loss taking place at small to mid-size public and private biopharmaceutical companies. In contrast with most fully-integrated vertical pharmaceutical companies that are flush with cash, most biotech companies—even the likes of Amgen, Genentech, Gilead and others—don’t have the cash reserves to maintain operations in a down economy or when a drug candidate fails in clinical development. This coupled with the lack of venture and private equity capital has been causing biopharmaceutical employees to lose sleep in recent months.
Ed Silverman, who runs the 
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pharmaceutical industry and seemingly getting tougher.
, or 12 percent of its work force, by 2014 to cut costs as it reported disappointing fourth quarter earnings. The job cuts will be made across all regions and divisions and were necessary because some of the company’s major products including the child asthma medication Pulmicort, which made sales of $1.3 billion in 2009, and breast cancer treatment Arimidex, with $1.92 billion in sales will be losing patent protection in the near future.
Healthcare informatics (HCI) is one of the fastest growing professions in the US. This is because the Obama administration has allocated billions of stimulus dollars to create electronic healthcare records (EHR) in an attempt to reduce healthcare costs. .jpg)
I have heard from many jobseekers, who—despite many years of work experience— are having difficulty finding full time employment. During economic down turns many companies cannot or are reluctant to hire full time employees. However, this doesn’t mean that there is work to be done. Consequently, many firms look for part-time, temporary or contract workers to handle the work that must get done to maintain operations.
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The whole world is atwitter about Twitter (pun intended). One of the reasons why social media tools like Twitter are so effective is that information can reach very large audiences almost instantaneously..jpg)
Do you ever wonder whether or not you are getting paid enough at work or what the person sitting next to you makes? I bet most employees think about this from time to time—especially around bonus time. This isn’t surprising because salaries are one of the best kept secrets at most companies and organizations. Keeping salaries under wraps is good for morale mostly because it minimizes resentment among employees However, because nobody really knows how their salaries match up with their co-workers, determining what constitutes an acceptable salary can become problematic for jobseekers and long time employees. Not to worry—Monster.com has created.jpg)
Reuters reports 
Everybody who works for a living has to learn how to deal with annoying co-workers who, either directly or indirectly, may have an effect on your career trajectory. However, we are living in uncertain financial times, when having a job--no matter the circumstances--is more important than personal happiness on a day-to-day basis. Nevertheless, office politics are a reality regardless of how good or bad the economy is. To that end, managing difficult co-workers is essential if you want to learn how to adroitly deal with workplace politics sand advance your own career. (1).jpg)
The debate, if you can call it that, over whether or not interactive social media platforms like .jpg)
There is a growing worldwide shortage of nurses and other typically female-dominated medical professionals. The acute shortage of nurses in Europe has induced at least one Czechoslovakian clinic to develop a novel—albeit somewhat controversial— approach to retain and recruit hospital personnel. According to an 
The advent of social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and Linked In have been a boon to recruiters and human resources (HR) professionals. Social networks represent a vast and easily-accessible source of job candidates whose professional credentials and personal information are readily available to determine whether or not they may be potential new hires. While the effectiveness of recruiters and HR professionals to source new talent is debatable, I contend that there is nobody more qualified than employees at a company to identify prospective new employees who may bring value to an organization. A number of forward-thinking companies have realized that the best way to find “right fit job candidates” is to mine the social networking contacts of their existing employees. To that end,.gif)
Over the past three years, more than.gif)
While I have never been layed off, I understand how awful and painful it must be. After all, unlike people who were fired for cause or otherwise, most people who are layed off are performing well but they simply became too expensive or expendable to remain with a company facing financial exigency.
According to a 
Astra Zeneca announced today that it would cut 1400 jobs and close several manufacturing facilities worldwide. .gif)
Last month, 240,000 American workers lost their jobs. Many of these jobs were lost as a result of corporate lay offs and restructuring—things that are likely to continue as we attempt to navigate a course through these financially troubling times. Unlike being fired, lay offs and job losses that result from restructuring have little to do with individual job performances and everything to do with budget constraints and reductions. That said how should a person who is laid off from a job deal with it on a resume when looking for a new job? I found a 
Millennium employees find themselves in an enviable position that most pharmaceutical and biotechnology employee would die for! Shortly after Takeda announced that it would buy Cambridge MA-based Millennium Pharmaceuticals for $8.8 billion, 