Have you ever been in the situation where you meet a person who you have never met before, and they ask you for a description about yourself or what you were looking for. They were in essence asking for your “elevator pitch,” that is, key information about yourself delivered in a short amount of time. The information should be memorable. What you say will create an impression and will be what the person walks away from the conversation remembering you by.
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In a prior post, I promised to relate my research findings on getting either a certificate or a degree in regulatory affairs. Here is what I have learned.
Regulatory affairs (RA) personnel function in pharma and device companies to insure compliance with all of the regulations and laws within their business.
Think about the last publication manuscript that you submitted on a journal website. You entered the type of article, title, author information, abstract and the manuscript files. Then there’s the other stuff that took longer than it should to figure out. I’m talking about the “names of four proposed referees” and “five keywords separated by semicolons.” Did they also ask for names of people you didn’t want to review the manuscript? I never bothered with that because I thought I might as well upload a “send” button along with those names for the editor to click when he saw them.
Mergers and acquisitions are rampant in the pharmaceutical industry. As companies consolidate and reorganize, downsizing is the norm and many talented people lose their jobs. Some will take early retirements. Some may take a break if they get severance. But most are thrown onto the job market.
A big thank you to all of you who participated in our second Virtual Job Summit in early April. You made it a big success! Our participating employers were pleased with the quality of the scientists they met.
Thanks also to Coach Tom and Lauren Celano, who devoted their time to giving one on one advice to scientists who needed job search strategy, resume, and interview help. These sessions were also a great success, judging by the comments of some jobseekers who availed themselves of these opportunities.
I am a little behind in my blog posts because I became overwhelmed with my thesis defense. The big day finally came, and I was able to present the work I’ve done over the last several years since arriving at Scripps Florida. I was very fortunate that my family lives fairly close, so my mom, sister, and best friend were able to attend the seminar and go out to dinner with me after the small reception hosted by my department. The big question is now: What next?
You know that an academic life may not be the right one for you, but what do you do now?
For many people, myself included, the academic path has been a straightforward one that offered little opportunity to learn about the other career choices available in the world. Even as I knew I wanted to leave bench science, at first I didn’t know where to look or where to go. And when I did search for opportunities, I ended up searching for only things directly related to biology. (Which you don’t have to do!)
Today, we are continuing our discussion on working with independent recruiters.
In our last installment, we talked about how to decide WHICH voice or email messages left by recruiters were worth responding to. To recap, you want the ones who identify themselves immediately as a recruiter, and the ones who leave a pertinently descriptive voice message, email, or LinkedIn message.
Now we’re going to discuss what to do (and not do) when you make contact.
Are you familiar with the 80/20 Rule? If not, I’ll tell you about it in the video below. And then I’ll show you how you can apply it to creating a 30/60/90-Day Plan for your next job interview.
And if you’re not familiar with 30/60/90-Day Plans, you are missing out—these are amazing interview tools that give you a psychological and tactical advantage over the other candidates. Find out more about 30/60/90-Day Plans here.
Doing your homework before a job interview means different things to different people, just like it does in school. Some people skate by, and some people knock it out of the park. To get the job in this economy, you’ve got to prepare for the interview like the best of the best—with a purpose and a strategy. Watch the video below to find out how to do your homework to get the job:
