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I live in Colorado. I have not looked into to much food safety QC so I will go down that avenue next. That is really cool that you were able to transfer over to aerospace work and that is part of the draw that getting into QC work has for me. For now I am shooting for a position doing some form of QC work but will take anything in industry that I can start with and then go from their.
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Mar 6, 2014 18:09
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Any bioinformaticians in the house?
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Mar 7, 2014 02:45
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Unknownmass posted:I live in Colorado. I have not looked into to much food safety QC so I will go down that avenue next. That is really cool that you were able to transfer over to aerospace work and that is part of the draw that getting into QC work has for me. For now I am shooting for a position doing some form of QC work but will take anything in industry that I can start with and then go from their. Yeah, just take the first job you can get. The turnover rate in most QC departments is very high because (a) its very tedious work and you need mind-numbing attention to detail and most people just cant handle it and run back to grad school, (b) once they get 2-3 years of quality experience they leave for better positions. So you are in luck because there is openings all over the place, it's not like those federal goverment jobs with 6 weeks vacation and full pension etc that has 2000 applicants for every opening. Soak up every bit of knowledge you can get and that will help you move on.. Just remember the first thing you get will be tedious, doing the same poo poo over and over again, day in and day out (in the case of a entry-level micro tech setting up plates, streaking, preparing media, etc.). Its just a right of passage. Ive started with people in QC that went on to management, R&D, sales, production and warehouse management, you name it. I've not worked with any science degree holder in Quality who is in a worse position than when we worked together. They're all team leaders, managers, engineers, etc now., making a lot more. Just take the first job you can which is in a GMP environment. Personal experience: I started as a QC chemistry lab tech making $15.75 an hour with no overtime. My next job almost doubled that. I'm now in a hiring manager making middle-upper five figures. This was all over the course of 4 years.
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Mar 7, 2014 03:44
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Suspicious Lump posted:Any bioinformaticians in the house? Yeah I'm a comp bio student who does things like transcriptomics, little bit of proteomics and network analysis. I've seen some other people talk about bioinformatics stuff here and there. SA is just teeming with 20-30 year old tech people so I'd be really surprised if there weren't a few.
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Mar 7, 2014 03:59
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Can I ask a few questions? My background is molecular biology but I want to get out of the lab. I have an interest in bioinformatics and programming. I have the opportunity to do further study, either a Masters in Bioinformatics (1 year course work, 1 year research with thesis) or a full blown PhD 3-5 years. I don't want to do a PhD. I feel like these days they have very limited economical value. Technically a Masters graduate could be as competent or even more so than a PhD graduate. Something I don't want to do is grant writing and I feel like completing a PhD would lead down the grant route. In Australia the success rate has been steadily dropping for years. Currently it is around 10%. I also don't have a major desire to conduct my own research. I'm happy to work on any project and enjoy helping others conduct research. The Masters degree would also contain several subjects in programming and I think this would really be advantageous. A proper education in programming could go a long way. The other difference between PhD and Masters is the university. I would probably go with my local university in my town for a PhD (quiet a lovely university but the research institute is highly prestigious) while for Masters I would go with a university in another city (much more prestigious and probably no scholarship, research would still be conducted at the same institute). I have a feeling what matters more is my research and output at the end of the degree than the piece of paper I get. For more information, I'd like to be a bit more on the side of programming than a script junkie bioinformatician. This is a bit scattered. I guess my question is: while a PhD will most likely give me more job prospects especially overseas, I feel like a Masters would do a similar job. Am I correct to assume this? Should I just suck it up and do a PhD (it has no course work in Oz)? Am I over thinking this?
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Mar 7, 2014 09:43
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For the Master's vs. PhD I don't have much to contribute. I don't know anything about the environment in Australia, but I'll say that even in non-academic research environments there is a lot of paperwork that goes on that looks very similar to writing grants if you are anywhere above grunt-level. If you are happy being the bioinformatic equivalent of a tech then a Master's would be appropriate. The research and output (and to a bigger extent the people you interact with and the network you create) is indeed way more important than the name of the institution on your piece of paper, especially in a field as new as bioinformatics. If you want to stick to supporting other people's research, then a Master's is probably the way to go. I've known quite a few bioinformatic support staff with Master's degrees, while anyone doing research in the area of bioinformatics tends to be either in school or a post-doc/PI. They don't necessarily lead to the same jobs, you can do the same type of jobs with a PhD as with a Master's, but there will give you more options to do more independent research, at least in my experience. But again, read this all with a grain of salt, I don't have as much experience in non-academic comp bio as regular bio, also I am American, so if that is what you are shooting for then who knows. On a side-note, right now bioinformatics people are in really high demand, but I see that lasting about 4-5 more years. There are a ton of computer science people who are now doing biology stuff because it is popular, and pure bioinformatics programs have kicked into high gear. I don't know that I've seen anyone talk about this but my gut feeling is that we are going to be incredibly oversupplied with mediocre bioinformatics people in the near future. My institution now has 4 separate bioinformatics support offices in addition to the two computational biology related departments plus lab-specific bioinformaticians.
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Mar 7, 2014 19:08
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Crazy thing happened at work yesterday- out of the blue my department head told us she's resigning and out of here next week. This came as a surprise to us all of course, but while it was sudden I don't think she was forced out or anything. That said this is the first time that a boss has left any job of mine since high school, and especially in a lab setting I have no idea what to expect now. I'd like to think that I and everyone else has their jobs down well enough where a new person wouldn't want to give us the boot and bring in "their people", and that probably won't happen, but anything I should keep my head up about in this boss-less state?
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Mar 8, 2014 03:04
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Suspicious Lump posted:I don't want to do a PhD. I feel like these days they have very limited economical value. That's not why you do a PhD. If economical value is what you're after, why are you in science in the first place? Also, I don't think you're right... People see that you have a PhD and they instantly know that you can be an independent researcher, capable of creating and managing your own projects. A masters says that you are slightly better than the average biologist with a bachelors. While there are lots of jobs you can't get if you only have a masters, there are no jobs that you can get with a masters that you can't get with a PhD. Scientastic fucked around with this message at 15:09 on Mar 8, 2014 |
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Mar 8, 2014 15:07
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Scientastic posted:People see that you have a PhD and they instantly know that you can be an independent researcher, capable of creating and managing your own projects. A masters says that you are slightly better than the average biologist with a bachelors. While there are lots of jobs you can't get if you only have a masters, there are no jobs that you can get with a masters that you can't get with a PhD. If you're fresh out of school going into the for-profit sector you'll be working for businessmen who are only looking for the letters after your name. They don't care about being an independent researcher capable of creating and managing your own projects. Despite what your PI says grad school teaches you gently caress all about doing that in a real-world workplace anyway. They want Dr So-and-So in charge of their science department because it makes them look good to customers. Also, your third sentence is completely wrong for most companies. We have process engineer positions where a master's degree is required for the above reason. It's a high turnover position because it's pretty much 24/7 on call. We get resumes from desperate PhDs for them from time to time and we almost never interview and definitely never hire them. They typically want more money than the position pays and think they can twist it into a research position somehow because omg research. The PhD rarely opens doors, it usually closes them.
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Mar 8, 2014 15:23
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Scientastic posted:While there are lots of jobs you can't get if you only have a masters, there are no jobs that you can get with a masters that you can't get with a PhD. This is only true in academia. The educational requirements for a wide range of science-related industry jobs typically say something like: BS + 10 years experience, MS + 5 years experience, or PhD. As seacat mentions, you can also sometimes formally-educate yourself right out of the market for jobs like these with a PhD.
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Mar 8, 2014 18:07
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seacat posted:for-profit sector Aromatic Stretch posted:only true in academia Fair enough. That is the limit of my experience, so perhaps I should have disclaimed that at the start. Edit: Although I would say that this: seacat posted:They typically want more money than the position pays and think they can twist it into a research position somehow because omg research Scientastic fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Mar 8, 2014 |
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Mar 8, 2014 18:48
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Did not mean to turn this into a PhD vs Masters thread. Thanks for the reply OnceIWasAnOstrich. I do agree with gut feeling, I've already seen lots of them floating about. Which is why I don't want to be come one. I'm desperate to learn more programming both Perl and Python combined with R for stats.
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Mar 10, 2014 05:26
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OnceIWasAnOstrich, one more question because I've been thinking about what you've said. How do I become better than average/not mediocre bioinformatician?
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Mar 13, 2014 04:17
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john ashpool fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Mar 13, 2016 |
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Mar 13, 2014 18:15
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john ashpool posted:
I would only say that this isn't true if you published well. In that case it matters far less where your PhD is from and far more where you published and how many times.
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Mar 13, 2014 20:19
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sithwitch13 posted:I've been contentedly chugging away as a research tech in a core lab for the past six years, and within the past three months everything's dried up. I'm giving serious thoughts to looking for new work since I'm pretty sure I'm the most expendable one in my lab. The grant I'm paid off of is good through August, so that's something. I'm really surprised to hear that people won't teach you anything. That's the weirdest thing I've heard. Why would people not teach you things in a lab? Fear of you taking their job? (My experience is only in academic research labs) What was it like in a core? How was the pay? The hours? The people? Any movement?
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Mar 14, 2014 16:07
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Anyone applying for SBIR grants for this next cycle?
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Mar 16, 2014 06:13
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C-Euro posted:Crazy thing happened at work yesterday- out of the blue my department head told us she's resigning and out of here next week. This came as a surprise to us all of course, but while it was sudden I don't think she was forced out or anything. That said this is the first time that a boss has left any job of mine since high school, and especially in a lab setting I have no idea what to expect now. I'd like to think that I and everyone else has their jobs down well enough where a new person wouldn't want to give us the boot and bring in "their people", and that probably won't happen, but anything I should keep my head up about in this boss-less state? I work as a QA lab tech at a fairly big food producing company and the plant manager, who had been there for barely a year, did this exact thing. "Welp! I'm leaving in two days. Bye guys! Nice working with you!" It turned out he accepted a job somewhere else that was a much higher position and even better pay. We were all pretty nervous about a new person, too. So far the new guy isn't too bad. I'm not thinking you'd have to worry about a new person booting everyone, unless there's some crazy drama in your department. Not much changed for us, except for new rules and "efficiency" crap this new guy brought in when he started (although most of that stuff affected production, not the QA lab so much).
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Mar 17, 2014 03:35
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seacat posted:Just remember the first thing you get will be tedious, doing the same poo poo over and over again, day in and day out (in the case of a entry-level micro tech setting up plates, streaking, preparing media, etc.). Its just a right of passage. Ive started with people in QC that went on to management, R&D, sales, production and warehouse management, you name it. I've not worked with any science degree holder in Quality who is in a worse position than when we worked together. They're all team leaders, managers, engineers, etc now., making a lot more. Just take the first job you can which is in a GMP environment. Sorry if this prying but do you/the coworkers who suffered with you at the bench have a graduate degree? Where I am now (GMP QC) all of the supervisors/managers/PMs have phds and I see no zero options for advancement at my current position since I don't have a phd, is this the norm in QC or is my place a special hell?
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Mar 19, 2014 12:44
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Ezekiel_980 posted:Sorry if this prying but do you/the coworkers who suffered with you at the bench have a graduate degree? Where I am now (GMP QC) all of the supervisors/managers/PMs have phds and I see no zero options for advancement at my current position since I don't have a phd, is this the norm in QC or is my place a special hell? Its not the norm. I've been in quality for five years and two years in management and I don't have a grad degree and most of the higher ups I've met don't either. Of those that do only one is a PhD. I work in cosmetics and OTCs though so it might be industry specific
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Mar 19, 2014 14:22
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seacat posted:Its not the norm. I've been in quality for five years and two years in management and I don't have a grad degree and most of the higher ups I've met don't either. Of those that do only one is a PhD. I work in That is relief to hear, I was going to pack it in and start looking for jobs that were totally removed from science since I figured the rest of the world was no phd, go no where.
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Mar 19, 2014 17:28
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Ezekiel_980 posted:That is relief to hear, I was going to pack it in and start looking for jobs that were totally removed from science since I figured the rest of the world was no phd, go no where. The academic world and the top labs for ultra pharmaceutical giants, yes. Mostly, no. Hell our CSO makes lower six figs and only has a bachelor's. .
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Mar 20, 2014 18:51
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C-Euro posted:Crazy thing happened at work yesterday- out of the blue my department head told us she's resigning and out of here next week. This came as a surprise to us all of course, but while it was sudden I don't think she was forced out or anything. That said this is the first time that a boss has left any job of mine since high school, and especially in a lab setting I have no idea what to expect now. I'd like to think that I and everyone else has their jobs down well enough where a new person wouldn't want to give us the boot and bring in "their people", and that probably won't happen, but anything I should keep my head up about in this boss-less state? Honestly, that happens way, way, way less often than most people think. I've had 8 managers/directors resign/get fired in the science department in the three years I've worked at my current company. One of them actually got me a promotion. As someone whose company and department has been MAJORLY restructured over the last year, most of the people let go were doing a piss poor job, drawing a salary sitting on their rear end, or were just a dick to the new higher-ups. Don't worry about it. If you can do your job and do it well, and kiss a little rear end, you'll be fine.
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Mar 21, 2014 03:47
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Honestly, it's more at managerial level that you have to worry about that sort of thing. It was common at PFE for a new exec to clear out the previous exec's managerial chain and put his own guys in there, but he typically didn't give a poo poo about the lab level. At worst, you get minor reorganizations (but I doubt even that if it's truly just a single person leaving by surprise).
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Mar 21, 2014 13:45
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Hi, I'm a QC chemist with a master's coming up on 3 years of experience, thinking about how to advance my career. Other than waiting 10 years trying not to die of boredom to get a lab manager position. My company has had a chronic shortage of LIMS administrators. Do you think taking some LIMS programming courses would improve my resume? If so, how would you recommend? Can anyone suggest any LIMS training resources? Thanks!
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Mar 26, 2014 05:44
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What is a good resource for finding podcasts? I found a few that I like to follow and it makes the long shifts in the lab go by quick. I'm using a Sansa Fuze and want to avoid iTunes, also.
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Apr 4, 2014 00:02
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It's burgin' time! 
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Have any of you dealt with temp agencies for lab work before?
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Apr 5, 2014 07:25
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karl fungus posted:Have any of you dealt with temp agencies for lab work before? I finished my Master's back in June and while I was looking for work I was contacted by a few temp/recruiting agencies. At least one told me they had seen my resume on Careerbuilder.com, where I had applied for a few jobs, and I imagine that the rest found me through similar channels. I generally found them useful, in addition to connecting you with job opportunities the majority of them invited me to talk to them in person to both vet me for the specific interview they helped me acquire as well as general interview tips. Ultimately they want you to succeed because it helps them maintain good standing with the companies that hire them, but at the same time all but one recruiter I worked with cut me off when the first interview that they sent me to didn't work out. I suspect that the one recruiter who did stick with me only did so because she was part of a nationwide agency, and I did eventually get a job with her help. Are you in the Chicago area by chance? I could set you up with my recruiter if you are, she's a fuckin' G and can definitely help you.
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Apr 7, 2014 06:10
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Nope, New York City. Though, what was the nationwide agency you worked for? Also, in general: what are warning signs with recruiters that I should look out for?
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Apr 7, 2014 06:42
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teardrop posted:Hi, I'm a QC chemist with a master's coming up on 3 years of experience, thinking about how to advance my career. Other than waiting 10 years trying not to die of boredom to get a lab manager position. LIMS is a weird thing to get into, it seems like to get started you either need to transition into it organically or join a LIMS vendor and then leave to work for a customer. I say that because off the top of my head the three biggest players all use different technology stacks... LabWare is Small Talk based, StarLIMS is .NET, and LABVANTAGE is Java. The general idea between all Laboratory Information Management Systems is the same but actually administering them is very different. I think your best bet would be to express interest in becoming a LIMS administrator/power user internally and transition from a lab role to a role in between lab and IT. You would essentially become an internal business analyst between the lab and the IT folks because you have the domain knowledge from the lab and you learned the tech lingo to communicate with IT. I work for a LIMS vendor in sales/training so if you have any specific questions I'll do my best to answer them.
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Apr 10, 2014 20:01
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Lyon posted:LIMS is a weird thing to get into, it seems like to get started you either need to transition into it organically or join a LIMS vendor and then leave to work for a customer. I say that because off the top of my head the three biggest players all use different technology stacks... LabWare is Small Talk based, StarLIMS is .NET, and LABVANTAGE is Java. The general idea between all Laboratory Information Management Systems is the same but actually administering them is very different. This is exceptional advice- LIMS needs an internal champion with lab expertise and as much as it sucks to lose a guy from my team to IT, it really is the best career move for him. fake edit: gently caress
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Apr 13, 2014 12:21
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Hey guys, do me and yourselves a favor and don't buy used equipment without getting the serial number and getting a service history from the manufacturer first. I got a call from a guy at a company I'd never heard of before that purchased an instrument we haven't manufactured for 35 years. He was looking for installation and an estimate for repairs. Turns out after talking to him for a bit that the instrument was missing its power cord and some internal components. Unfortunately it also turned out that the instrument was a trade in and was not disposed of properly. He got absolutely nasty when I told him that our policy was that we don't work on equipment that's already been traded in and even if we did there was no way we have the parts (or the knowledge) to fix his instrument. The drat thing is older than I am. Had he made a simple phone call before buying the thing I could have saved him whatever he spent on it and a whole lot of grief for both of us. The same also holds true for equipment that's been mothballed and shoved in a corner somewhere. I ran across a guy trying to bring back an instrument 20+ years old complaining about not being able to get service on it. The worst part was all the responses of, "Yeah, what the hell? gently caress those guys!" when talking about the manufacturer/situation. Of course you're not going to be able to get service/installation on an instrument that old. The manufacturer is probably 3-4 generations past it and who is going to remember how to work on an instrument 2 decades out of date. Just a friendly reminder from your friendly Customer Support Engineer.
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Apr 13, 2014 15:21
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TouchyMcFeely posted:Hey guys, do me and yourselves a favor and don't buy used equipment without getting the serial number and getting a service history from the manufacturer first. It kinda sucks, because sometimes used equipment is a great value, but it's a gamble if they're worth the headache.
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Apr 13, 2014 19:53
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Bastard Tetris posted:It kinda sucks, because sometimes used equipment is a great value, but it's a gamble if they're worth the headache. The thing to always keep in mind that any piece of equipment, whether used or simply retired, was taken out of operation for a reason. It's possible that it was retired due to age, but even that can be a non-starter if the software, computer of a certain vintage or controller card isn't available. Hell, even old cables that link between the instrument and computer can be impossible to replace if they're old enough. I guess what I'm trying to say is if you come across equipment like that, don't be afraid to contact the OEM first but don't be surprised if the response is something along the lines of "yeah, probably not going to get that working again."
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Apr 14, 2014 02:45
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I want to to look for a new job, however I have no idea as to what to call myself on my resume. On the company org chart I am listed as 'Filler' which means jack poo poo to anybody outside of my company. A quick run down of what I do. I work in a cGMP specialty gas lab. The lab is responsible for the manufacturing of ultra high purity gas and gas mixtures. Testing and certification of those gases following FDA, USP, NF, Food Grade, Milspec, AWS, and internal specialty gas protocols. So basically if there is an industry that needs high grade gases I deal with it. I also deal with client complaints in regards to most gas issues. I use a variety of instruments for testing but gas chromatography has a large roll. I've been with this company for the last 14 years and have been in the lab for the last 8 years. For the last 4 years I have been trying to get into a management position. However, the company has been eliminating management positions since modernizing our plant. They recently allowed the last position to go unfilled. There is now 1 manager over seeing our entire plant with a lot of pissed off people who were supposed to move into those unfilled positions. I can give more specifics if it helps, types of instruments, software used etc.
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May 23, 2014 06:03
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Farside posted:I want to to look for a new job, however I have no idea as to what to call myself on my resume. On the company org chart I am listed as 'Filler' which means jack poo poo to anybody outside of my company. Gases analyst, gas quality control specialist, etc ?
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May 23, 2014 12:14
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I'm looking to hire a GC Chemist with industry experience and the confidence to take apart, service, and reassemble GCs. In addition, the person should be independent, self directed, and able to develop methods and analyze data. Experience working with polymers and/or pyrolysis unit is a major plus. Job is located in Thomasville, NC. Convenient to the Piedmont Triad area of the state. If you're interested, send me a resume and cover letter to dikhzgcjob yahoo com. We are a fast paced manufacturing company. People stuck in the FDA/GMP/GLP mentality generally have a tough time transitioning to the pace of our work. I have 10 different projects right now that need a good GC chemist. So you'll have diverse, challenging projects to work on.
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May 24, 2014 00:01
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Dik Hz posted:We are a fast paced manufacturing company. People stuck in the FDA/GMP/GLP mentality generally have a tough time transitioning to the pace of our work. Also, good luck. I've trained a couple of dozen people on HPLCs in the short span of four years and have yet to find someone with the mechanical aptitude to actually take a wrench to one rather than just calling me to fix it. I guess it depends on your recruiting network and what you have budgeted for the position. What's the detector?
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May 24, 2014 08:49
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seacat posted:Huh?? Please explain. Are you saying people who are in an FDA/GMP/GLP mentality are too rigid and bogged down with strict guidelines? I can understand this if you're in pharma I guess. Also, thanks. I know it's a long shot, but those people are out there. We have a GC-FID and a GC-MS.
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May 24, 2014 12:51
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There are two different mentalities when it comes to manufacturing - you either have the GMP "MUST FOLLOW EXACTLY THE LETTER OF THE LAW" thing, and then the "get it done, who the hell cares just do it and get it over with" mentality. Either one is fine depending on your industry and what your expectations are. They both suck when applied to the wrong industry, though. My company is under consent decree for (well, for like 283 things but still) taking the latter approach in a FDA-regulated environment. Fly-by-night validations (eh, we did it and it failed but whatever good enough) don't cut it in pharma. On the other hand, who the gently caress cares about aseptic particulate counts or QbD if your process is flash-freezing strawberries for grocery stores? Whatever processes you put in place need to be fit for their intended purpose and the general risk profile associated with the business. (e.g. stricter controls and procedures around sterile injectables, less around children's aluminum lunch boxes.) My company is screwed because they cannot get out of the hole they dug themselves into. We have a mix of NDA and pure OTC products at our site, and we got thrown into consent decree for (among other things) not having adequate GMP controls around the NDA products. The consulting firms we brought in to remediate the CD have instituted this terrible system of procedures and SOPs so complex that they'd be unwarranted even in a sterile injectable plant, and we're applying them to anti-gas products and mouthwashes. We've discontinued four products (out of seven) at the site in the last year because they now cost more to make than we can sell them for.  That's without getting into the really crazy, insane bullshit we loop ourselves into around verification of activities. (Did you clean equipment? Prove it's clean. Now prove none of the cleaning compounds remain. Now prove there's nothing left over from the swabbing you did to prove that. Now prove there's nothing left over from the swabbing you did to prove the swabbing hadn't left trace cotton. Now prove... ad nauseum.) I pick all the winners.
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May 24, 2014 15:05
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