Chemistry job prospects getting better in California

A recent article at Chemical & Engineering News summarizes some encouraging indicators that the job market may be picking up for scientists with a chemistry background, at least on the west coast:

the employment picture for some chemists on the West Coast may finally be brightening. Although growth in job volume for chemists was “flat to declining” last year, it is now “definitely picking up,” according to Alan E. Edwards, a senior director for the Americas Product Group in the scientific arm of Kelly Services, a staffing services company. “I would say that California is climbing back and is now well out of the trough it was in.

According to a 2011 survey of biotechnology CEOs, a majority of firms in this area plan to increase their workforce over the next two years.  However, many of the jobs will be short-term in nature, so chemists may need to get used to the idea of jumping from contract to contract. And while the demand for analytical and quality control chemists is increasing, medicinal chemists still find themselves competing with cheaper, internationally outsourced labor.  As a result, many are exploring ways to take their skills from the benchtop and are looking at other career prospects, such as business development.  As one says, the switch to a technical sales support role

“has been a great learning experience and helped to broaden my skill set—something that is critical to my career,” he says. “The landscape of R&D and manufacturing is changing faster than ever, so the ability to wear multiple hats and contribute across classical departmental boundaries is key.”

Top pharmaceutical and biotech salaries

‘Big Pharma’ has been dealing with a lot of challenges lately. You might be curious to know what the people at the top of the pharma career ladder are earning to manage those challenges.

FierceBiotech — which is a great resource for keeping on top of rumours, news and developments in the pharma / biotech sector — has published their annual list of the top ten 2010 pharma CEO salaries. Suffice it to say that the CEOs are doing all right! In position #10, John Martin of Gilead Sciences brought home $14M, whereas Bill Weldon of J&J earned twice that much to take the top spot.

Of course, very few of us will reach these stratified heights. Once you move a few steps down the ladder, salaries quickly drop from 8 figures down to six. For example, I recently came across salary information for a VP of Research for a small firm developing a new molecular diagnostic test. His salary? $225K, along with a very generous relocation package.

If clinical research is your focus, our previous post “How much does a CRA earn?” might interest you.

Why don’t research scientists get paid more?  We discussed biotech scientist salaries in a previous post.

Good luck in your job search!

What’s it like to work for a CRO?

Over at ask.metafilter, someone has posed the question “what’s it like to work for a CRO?”

The person asking the question is a university research assistant with a background in cognitive neuroscience and an interest in statistics and applied math.

So far, one excellent answer has been posted. Read the rest of this entry »

New Book: PhD [alternative] Career Clinic

Readers of this blog may remember Jane Chin, who provided some insightful commentary on the realities of a career as a Medical Science Liaison.

Jane has recently published a book which sounds very interesting: PhD [alternative] Career Clinic Read the rest of this entry »

BIO Career Fair – June 27

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