Creating an Inventory of Your Skills

Locating and securing employment requires a mix of technical excellence, marketing, and sales. Since the marketplace is competitive, candidates for employment are generally ranked based on four general factors:

  • Academic and Industrial Pedigree
  • Breadth of Knowledge
  • Personality
  • Presentation Skills

Pedigree - The pharmaceutical industry selects its employees from the top 10 - 20% of graduates from universities around the world. This means that the better the reputation of the schools you attend and the more connected your advisor is within the industry, the more choices you will have when it is time to search for employment. But how can someone starting out know which universities and advisors to select? Either ask scientists within the industry or check the journals where the industry publishes the majority of their papers. The academic groups which publish frequently within these journals make up the pools from which the industry draws their candidates for employment.

Within computational chemistry for example, the primary journals are considered to be Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Journal of Computer-Aided Molecular Design, Journal of Molecular Graphics, Journal of Computational Chemistry, Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Science. A few of the research groups and universities which appear frequently in these journals include UC Berkeley (Paul Bartlett, Peter Schultz), UCLA (Ken Houk), UCSD (J.A. McCammon, Kent Wilson), UCSF (Fred Cohen, Ken Dill, Brian Shoichet), Harvard (Martin Karplus, Gregory Verdine), Penn State (Peter Jurs), University of Florida (Kenneth Merz), Scripps Research Institute (David Case, Arthur Olson), UT Austin (Robert Pearlman), Washington University (Garland Marshall), University of Washington (Brian Reed), Vanderbilt (Terry Lybrand), and Yale (Bill Jorgensen). Other disciplines will show similar patterns. [Note: This list is not meant to be all inclusive by any means. If your favorite school or research scientist has been left out, please feel free to contact us and we will add them!]

Breadth of Knowledge - One of the most difficult tasks that we face as recruiters for the pharmaceutical industry is to explain to very bright, very motivated graduate students/post doctoral fellows that the research they have labored on for years is too focused to be of interest to potential industrial employers. While molecular modeling started with chemical physicists performing high level ab initio calculations on very small molecules, the industry currently seeks well rounded scientists who are familiar with a wide variety of techniques. Organic chemists are increasingly being called upon to present expertise with both complex natural products synthesis as well as solid phase combinatorial techniques. Chemical information specialists are required to combine a detailed knowledge of structural chemistry with programming and system management. Bioinformatics positions are a hybrid of molecular biology and programming. In all cases, a knowledge of elementary pharmacology and drug development is assumed.

Once a scientist has landed their first position, the requirement to augment skills accelerates. During the discovery and development of a new chemical entity, scientists frequently are placed into multi-disciplinary project teams where they are expected to assimilate biology, toxicology, metabolism, analytical chemistry, regulatory requirements, market analysis, chemistry, information systems, and a variety of other areas in order to contribute to the teams' efforts. Each of these assignments can be used to broaden your background and provide you with alternative career paths.

Personality - There is a standard comment made in real estate about setting the value of a piece of property by using three factors - location, location, location. The same is true when looking for employment. Once a candidate has been screened for their basic knowledge of the job and their academic background, the single most important factor which determines a job offer is personality. Do you appear interested in the company? Do you ask questions about the program? Do you have comments/suggestions that show your ability to contribute to the organization?

We have seen candidates who, during their interview trip to a company, do not engage in conversation, answer only when asked a question (and then respond only in monosyllable), do not show enthusiasm, and appear to be concerned only about the benefits package and vacation schedule. Needless to say, these candidates do not receive an offer.

Presentation/Communication Skills - Given that research is a collaborative effort, it is necessary to be able to present data, articulate progress and points of view, and to publish results both internally and externally. Your ability to organize information and to present it logically to a diverse audience is often a significant factor for advancement.





   



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