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Sundae posted:
Well, I have done research out here around SF for the last 5+ years, and for one it sounds like 61k is a low ball offer. Was it from some tiny company or an academic lab? From lurking this thread it sounds like you have a higher equivalent position than I do, and more experience than I do, but I am getting above 70k. It really depends on what your ideal living condition would be. Many young professionals have roommates (not in the same room like a dorm, sharing a 2 bedroom house or whatever). If you demand your own place you could probably find something around $1300ish (I am guessing, I have not looked) for a studio. Where would you be working? If you are on the east bay there are many relatively cheap areas there, if you are in SF or the peninsula, something like San Bruno or South San Francisco are 5 minutes from SF and signicantly cheaper. The south bay is cheaper as well if you are around San Jose. However, I do have tons of coworkers who make similar amounts of money as I do who live in SF proper, some with roommates, some without, so it is not like it is impossible if that is something you really want. For the last few years, here is where I have lived: 2007ish - South San Francisco in a 2 bed 1 bath house ~ 1,000 sqft, was $1600/2 for roommate, now it is probably about $2000 2009ish - San Mateo 2 bed 2 bath, $1900/2 2010ish - Millbrae, 2 bed 2 bath, $2000/2 Millbrae and South San Francisco are ~ 10 miles from downtown SF, San Mateo was maybe 22 miles. PM me if you have any more specific questions. Pain of Mind fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Aug 24, 2011 |
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Aug 24, 2011 22:30
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You are receiving this broadcast as a dream...We are transmitting from the year one nine... nine nine ...You are receiving this broadcast in order t
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Looking for jobs right now sucks, and I have a feeling my previous pay is one of the main things preventing me from finding a job. I got laid off from a large pharma, and I have been interviewing at many startups and smaller companies between 20 and a few hundred people. I had a great interview a while ago where I could tell everyone at the interview really liked me, they brought me back to just have lunch and meet with a ton of people, it was not even an interview, just literally meeting people. They called my references, and I know they were all positive because my boss had me write my own reference :v (and I know everyone well and I know they would give me a good reference). They asked me when I would be able to start and I told them as soon as they needed me. I figured after two interviews which went well, them asking for references, and for a start date, the job was mine and I was worried I would get the offer too soon without time to take a break between jobs. Then I did not get an offer. The only thing I can think of would be my previous pay. When I was there meeting with people, some higher level director was in, and they asked if I wanted to speak with him and I said sure. The only things he asked were pay based, how much I made, bonuses etc. When I told him my pay (~71kish with bonuses included), he instantly said that was too high for them to match, he did not even think about it. I told him it was negotiable, and that for an interesting position I would be willing to take a paycut, but it seemed like he stopped listening. That is really the only thing I can think of for the reason I did not get the job, because the Scientist who was hiring seemed very interested in getting me in there quick, from what my boss told me after speaking with him on the phone. I had another company which seemed interested as well, but they made you fill out an application where you needed to include your pay (had to be a # in the box, could not write negotiable or whatever), and they pretty much went from emailing me every day to ignoring my emails overnight. In hindsight I probably could have put something like 00000. The first company had about 300-400 people, the second 70-80. I have some general idea of pay for these positions, at my large company I was shown the pay scales for each position (I probably was not supposed to see that data), and for my midlevel position it was something like 55k-85k base salary. I was mid 60's. I was also at a startup of about 100 people, and HR accidently sent me the pay of a few people, and I know an entry level RA (1 year exp) there was high 40's, a mid level RA (5 year exp) was mid 50's, and higher level RA (10-15 years) was about 70k (I only saw 3 peoples stuff + my own, so I don't know the range). I have 7 years experience, and I would say I have a pretty solid skill set and resume, I am co-author on 4 published papers and first author on one and tend to work at a higher level than my pay grade. From what I have seen and heard my pay does not seem that extreme. I spoke with a contract agency and mentioned this info and they did not think my pay was extreme, better than average, but not unreasonably high. Plus I am in a very high cost of living area, so most pay in all industries is somewhat higher across the board. Are there just so many people looking for so few jobs that they can just get a postdoc or someone with 20 years experience to work for 50k? I have had numerous phone interviews where it is essentially a bait and switch, where the job description mentions many high level skills and experience needed, and they would like a PhD or very high level MS/BS person for a position, and then mention that the position will be doing very basic stuff like cleaning mouse cages or whatever. Why do you need to have a MS with 10 years experience along with (massive list of skills in job description) to change mouse cages? It feels like every startup I have talked to recently wants to get the highest level person possible for even the most remedial work, it makes no sense and just wastes time. I guess maybe the market is bad enough where they will find someone desperate enough to take any job? It sure as hell was not like this 4+ years ago. I have enough money to last me a while, I am just not sure if I am talking with lovely companies, and that if I am patient I will find a decent position that will not be a huge paycut, or if the whole industry is like that now and I will need to take a 25% paycut to ever find a job again; no point in rejected a bad offer now when I will need to accept a similar bad offer in a year. I guess my question turned more into a venting post. Let me know if it needs to be cleaned up to become readable.
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Oct 14, 2011 20:31
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I was not at PFE, I was at the other one 
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Oct 15, 2011 00:05
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I just received a phone call from some HR guy at a 50 person or so start up I interviewed at (I never met HR at the interview) that said they would like to make me an offer, and they will submit all my info to the board of directors to decide on an offer, then get back to me in a few days. At least he did not poo poo his pants when I told him my previous salary unlike the last startup, though I still have no idea what they are going to come back with. I noticed this company has a ton of foreign post docs, over half the people I interviewed with were postdocs from china, it was weird. I am not sure if that is a bad omen or not (cheap)? I have a few questions about the position, as I don't have a good idea what the day to day work would be (the description and skill set of the position I applied to sounded very different than what people I interviewed with talked about). Would it be weird to send an email to the hiring manager, even though he has not contacted me at all about getting an offer? I don't want to have the email be something like "Hey, some HR guy told me I am getting an offer for your position, what would I be doing". Maybe he is waiting until they have an offer put together to contact me? Another thing that is making me anxious is that it was just a phone call at an odd time (like 10pm) from some guy I never met a few days ago, and then no contact since. I know at my last job I was emailed tons of forms and paperwork stuff the second they told me they were making an offer. I am getting paranoid one of my old coworkers or something who I mentioned it to is prank calling me, though it does seem unlikely since none of them seemed that malicious. I really hope it is a real, with a decent offer and the work is not lovely stuff I hate, because after I sent out my resume to a ton of places, I had a flurry of phone interviews and real interviews, and this is basically the last one I have, then I have pretty much applied to all the positions in the area. 
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Oct 20, 2011 22:10
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I thought you mentioned you were not interested in moving to such a high cost of living area.
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Oct 20, 2011 22:32
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The very first thing I noticed was everyone was older. I don't think I saw anyone younger than late 30's. It seemed like they replaced your typical mid 20s to early 30s RA with Chinese postdocs who looked pretty old, or at least act pretty old so I could not estimate how old they were. At other places I interviewed at, people usually tend to ask a little bit of technical stuff to make sure your resume is not a complete lie, and then they start asking whether you like Muse or if you play fantasy football. Here all the postdocs had the personality of a rock, and did nothing but ask detailed technical questions. It was pretty much look at resume, ask question. Tell me every step required for an ELISA, tell me every step required for qPCR, what quencher was used for the flourescent probes? Look at resume more, ask another question, it was very robotic and not personal at all. At least I have an ipod to talk to me if I work there  After thinking about it just now, another thing I noticed was it was very quiet and empty. Most places you can hear people talking on the phone, clusters of people either talking science or BSing about football or whatever in the hallways, labs, and cubicals. Here it just seemed completely quiet the whole time. I was just in one corner of the building the whole time though, there could have been more excitement elsewhere. I would definately say it seemed the least friendly out of all of the places I have interviewed at. But it could be that they just did not see any purpose in low level RAs interviewing me so I only spoke with higher level people or something. Either way a job is a job, cannot be too picky if you don't have one. Pain of Mind fucked around with this message at 10:53 on Oct 21, 2011 |
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Oct 21, 2011 10:49
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Well, I got the offer, it is 9% less than what I was making (but has stock options which may or Kind of weird to have a 400 person company with some minor revenue from a few products offer ~10k less than a 70 person company with no products. I am tempted to send an email to the people there telling them they are underpaid and should get out.
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Oct 24, 2011 06:36
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Is that an academic lab or something? I have never worked in one but every single coworker who has has said they are all complete poo poo when it comes to following procedures. For my lovely work experience: The first company I worked for was like 10 people, and I am pretty sure it was just to get investor money without actually trying to do any worthwhile research since half the company were executives all related to the CEO, and the phones would occationally get shut off because the bill was not paid while all the executives including their 16 year old children would have $100,000+ cars. I am pretty sure the CEOs 16 year old son who interning was getting paid more than every non-executive researcher there too. The CEO would try and impress the "secretary" (just some lady the CEO was banging who did absolutely nothing) by going in and trying to inject mice and they would all die or be paralyzed, which is odd because they were not injections that should have been anywhere near the spine. There would be studies where food would be removed overnight (for legitimate reasons), and then they would forget to put it back in and the next monday there would be one living mouse and a bunch of eaten mice. That place sucked, it was pretty much a constant rotation of people straight out of college getting their foot in the door and then finding a better job. I think the average time someone was there was a few months. I was there for 4 months 6 years ago and it feels like I was there just as long as my last job that I was at for 5 years. I am forgetting tons of examples, but I have never seen a place with such blatant corruption. I wish there was a happy ending and they are now homeless or something but I believe all of the executives got pretty rich and went back to their home country with board level positions at some large company.
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Nov 2, 2011 20:38
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I started at my new job a few weeks ago, and it turns out that not only is the work horrible (and completely different than the position's job description), but the company is insanely cheap to a laughable degree, such as not giving us phones, making 4 people share those little office trash cans you can get for $4 at target, and requiring us to get permission to print in color (with posters everywhere mentioning the price difference between black and white and color). The trash can and color printing are not really a big deal, just examples. The cheapness I can deal with, but the main issue is the work. The work is very basic stuff I have experience with already (I actually did similar stuff straight out of college), just an insane amount. They are all tightly controlled timed studies with about 300 time points spread out over 5 hours, which means once you start you cannot stop. Including prep time it is basically nonstop work that is pretty stressful due to the rapid time points where I am hunched over a lab bench for 7 straight hours 5 days a week. Apparently I have a lovely back, I did not know that before this job but after about 3 hours the middle of my back is on fire from sitting there without moving. I am not even learning anything, my resume would get significantly worse by mentioning the stuff I am currently doing. I went from somewhat leading a small research team at my old job to doing stuff that most companies use people without degrees for. The job description and even interview made the position seem pretty high level with tons of required skill and research experience, and then the position is nothing like that at all. Not only are most of the "required" skills for the position stuff that apparently I will never have time to do, but the one and only thing I have to do is something I hate and would not have even applied to the position if I knew this is what it really was. Before I was cleared for labwork, someone was giving a tech demo on some new fancy chemiluminescense and fluorescence blot reader, and I went to the demo since I had nothing else to do. I was familiar with a competitors product so the sales tech and I were mostly talking about the features etc, and of the 6 people there I was probably the most knowledgeable about that stuff. The person who brought the demo guy in asked who my supervisor was, and when I told her, she pretty much said I will never get to use the machine because I will be busy doing the lovely stuff I am doing now 24/7 (paraphrased). She did not say it maliciously or anything, just matter of fact. I heard a few other people mention things along those lines as well, so it seems like this is not a position that will transition into something better. Also this place does not believe in PPE at all, not really a big deal to me because I choose to wear it, but it is odd seeing people working in the labs without labcoats or anything, sometimes people don't even have gloves. When I had my lab orientation the person showing me around said that PPE was not necessary if you were working with safe stuff, better hope the people around you are too I guess.  If I could go back in time I would reject the offer and be happy to get unemployment while I have all day to look for a new position. I have never had a position like this where the work is terrible and extremely time consuming so there is no chance to do anything else, or meet any coworkers, or do stuff like eat lunch. What is there to do? I guess I could just quit but then I would not be earning any money for however long it takes to find something. I will probably keep looking while working there, but have never felt this unhappy everytime I wake up on a workday, and I pretty much always have a massive headache and backache every day after work. It will be hard to interview since I am busy all business hours when people tend to want to phone interview, and I will have no days off for a while to make an interview if I do get one. Most places are probably not getting any headcount until next year anyway. How badly would it reflect on me if I leave after a month or two? I was at my last company for 5ish years so it is not like I have hopped around from company to company every few months, but at the same time people who have been in the industry a while have connections everywhere and I would not want to burn any bridges. I don't want to stay here too long, because like I mentioned earlier, any of the stuff I am currently doing will just make my resume look worse, and I would prefer to just ignore this job and not even list it on my resume if I could get away with it which will be harder to do the longer I am here. I did save a copy of the job desciption when I applied to it, so if I do find something and they ask why I am leaving, I can just compare that to what I am actually doing as reason enough to leave. Sorry for the stream of conciousness, but does anyone have experience or advice for this type of situation? Edit: I sound like a crybaby. Pain of Mind fucked around with this message at 08:55 on Nov 17, 2011 |
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Nov 17, 2011 08:43
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No, it does not involve food or anything like that. I don't even know who the owner is, probably a bunch of different venture capital guys. I think part of why it is completely surprising is because it is a 70-80ish person company with a ton of funding, but most 5 person companies have more reasonable workloads and more perks. Truthfully all of that keeping track of sketchy stuff seems like too much work. Ideally I would just be able to find something early next year. The actual science at the company seems pretty strong (though being pre-preclinical, it is not uncommon to be talking about having the next big novel drug and then go belly up the next day), it is just the working there part that sucks. At least the pay is just slightly below average to average as opposed to terrible like the rest of the stuff there. I think Wednesday was an exceptionally lovely day, and I had a somewhat dramatic rant. Since it is so late in the year, will probably keep in touch with former coworkers and start searching again next year when more stuff should open up.
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Nov 19, 2011 07:05
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I would try and find a list of companies in the area and apply directly through their website, many places don't seem to use job board type sites it seems.
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Nov 22, 2011 17:26
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Bastard Tetris posted:I think the takeaway lesson here is "stay the gently caress away from big pharma if you want any semblance of job security". It is not like smaller pharma are that much safer. I have been somewhat unlucky in that I am moving on to my 5th company in 6 years (though I left two of them after 4-5 months because they sucked), from anything between a 10 person company and a 100,000 person company. While big pharma can have the constant spectre of layoffs (especially when they buy another 60,000 person company with almost complete overlap in programs), at least it is somewhat consistant (and my experience from being at a large pharma for 4 years feels completely different than some of the stories you guys tell here) With startups it could be the coolest job with tons of perks and freedom to try new things, or it could be completely miserable and they try and pinch ever penny and have everyone perpetually overworked with half as many holidays and 70% pay compared to similar sized companies, with very little inbetween. Even though there is no job security, it seems pretty easy to find another job once you get some experience, and it is not like there is anything else I could do
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Mar 17, 2012 09:20
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porkypocky posted:Nooo, I haven't been coming in on weekends yet, but they said it would be likely if their experiments keep going. I guess I worded that strangely. My bad. What made me think that it might not count is that dosing animals is really quick. All you do is walk in, eyedrop the animals and then leave. So on one hand it's like "I need to record every minute I work!" but then again it's only 15 minutes... Whenever we have had hourly people come in on weekends they have always received a minimum of 4 hours. I would try and ask for that just due the the inconvenience of having to go in on a weekend. However we never allowed temps to work outside of normal business hours either, so no idea how it works for that.
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Jun 27, 2012 03:28
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From what I have seen, masters degrees are almost useless unless you are somehow jumping into a different field with it. I have never seen a position that accepted people with a MS while excluding people with a BS. It might matter straight out of college if both people have 0 experience and are competing for a job, but once you have experience that is all that matters (a masters usually counts for ~ 2 years experience). Jobs can be divided by requiring a PhD or not, and a MS is just as much not a PhD as a BS is. I have only been in industry doing pharma research for what that is worth, maybe it is different in academia/manufacturing or something.
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Aug 15, 2012 02:56
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Solkanar512 posted:Most of the jobs I've seen require at least a four year degree. What do the rest of you think? I have seen jobs that require less than a 4 year degree, but they tend to be stuff like cleaning mouse cages or autoclaving flasks. Even then an AA is prefered.
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Oct 10, 2012 07:35
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In the SF bay area I don't know the absolute max, but I would guess it is somewhere around 90-100k. I am making the assumption that chemists are paid similarly to biologists. I only have experience in research, I don't know if manufacturing or QC is higher or lower. For a large company I previously worked at, my boss actually showed me the pay range for each position level, and for an entry level BS it was something like 45k-74k, for the mid level BS position (~5-10 years experience) it was like 55-85k, and for a senior position it was like 60-95k or something. Numbers might not be exact, but they are close enough. I am pretty sure this pay scale covered both Chemistry and Biology related positions of the same rank. I imagine the range is less based on negotiating ability and more based on years experience, where if someone had 20 years experience but they ended up a lower level position for whatever reason(previous experience was not super relevant, weaker resume etc), they were closer to the top of the scale. However, not ever company has the same payscale. Many startups and small companies are 20% lower or more, and it seems straight out of college it starts off really low, but the pay rapidly goes up until 5ish years experience. I actually make 266% more than I started out making straight out of college, though to be fair I am pretty sure that place was exceptionally low.
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Oct 22, 2012 04:49
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iloverice posted:Companies cannot call up your past employers and ask what they paid you when you were employed. Are you sure about that? I received a copy of my most recent background check when I was hired for my current position, and it had my previous pay listed. The page in the background check had my reported pay that I gave them, and then right next to it was my actual pay down to the penny. I have no idea if they received that information from tax info or directly from the company. Since it was a separate background check company, maybe they are allowed to do that? I gave my salary accurately, but I wonder if I would have still received the position if I had lied about my previous pay, since I know a lot of people like to bump it up 10% or whatever to try and get a raise.
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Nov 27, 2012 09:08
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All of these QC jobs sound horrible. Have you tried moving to research or something?
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Jan 5, 2013 18:32
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Where do you live, and assuming it is somewhere that is not a biotech/pharma hub, are you willing to move to one? Getting more than 60k by 30 with a BS is a pretty achievable (though costs of living changes might not make it worth while). Upward mobility is dependent on the company, in some with a BS you can move straight into PhD roles with enough experience if you have shown you know what you are talking about, in others there is a hard cap where once you obtain whatever max title is for someone with a BS, you are stuck there forever. The largest company I worked for was the latter, after about 10 years experience you would reach the highest role and be stuck there. I knew a lot of people who did the minimum required to not get fired just because there was no incentive to do anything more than that.
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Mar 11, 2013 01:53
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My boss is contributing to the problem, we are looking for entry level people for a position, but they will not consider anyone with no experience due to not wanting to have to train someone. We have currently gone through hundreds of resumes and not found anyone because they are all either no experience or 20 years + PhD. Also, every intern or whatever we get has a perfect GPA from a top university like MIT or Stanford, tons of extra curricular stuff and undergraduate lab work. I pretty much just drank a lot and graduated with barely a 3.0. If I was born 4-5 years later to be graduating after the economy crash I would probably still be jobless. Also, going back to the academia vs industry chat, I have only worked in industry, but everything I have heard from coworkers who spent a lot of time in academic labs and dealing with academic collaborators leads me to believe that they are incredibly sloppy. Stuff like contaminating whole labs with radioactivity, dosing mice IP instead of IV because it is easier etc. Edit: For my first job out of college as just a guy with a BS and no useful connections or internships, I pretty much applied to every related job I could find, finally I found a job that was listed on craigslist out of all places. It was low paying, and it was at some terrible 12 person company, but it gave me enough experience to get out 5 months later and it has been smooth sailing since then. Pain of Mind fucked around with this message at 05:13 on May 10, 2013 |
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May 10, 2013 05:01
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C-Euro posted:What do you do in that case- do you keep accepting applications until someone with the right experience comes along, or bite the bullet and take on someone untrained, or just not hire anyone at all? Pretty much. I was told we have a few that might not be terrible now, assuming they don't bomb the phone screen. To be a little vague because I know I have former coworkers who post here, I graduated in 2004 +/- a year.
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May 11, 2013 02:07
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C-Euro posted:Does anyone here have anything to say about Aerotek? They called me this morning after pulling my resume off of CareerBuilder and they want to interview me later this week. I Google'd them and there are some nasty reviews of them, but quite a few are "they didn't find me a job! I used them for a single 6 month contract maybe 7 years ago or so. It was actually a really good job (though no benefits since it was through aerotek) at a good to work for company, and then the company hired me full time. Of course, then it laid everyone off 6 months later, but that's biotech/pharma. It was somewhat stressful nearing the end of the contract, because I did not know I was going to be hired full time until month 5. I still get calls from my recruiter maybe once every year or two, just to check in if I am looking for something. Now I have enough experience to pretty quickly find a job on my own, I am not that interested in looking for contract stuff unless I am pretty desperate sometime in the future. If you have little experience/skills I don't see the harm, it could get your foot in the door and build up your resume. Pain of Mind fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Jul 25, 2013 |
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Jul 25, 2013 16:32
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" so I don't know if that's bad luck or lack of ability on their part. This is in the Chicago area, if it matters.
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plasmoduck posted:I'm at a crossroads deciding where my career/life is going, but excluding E/N stuff it boils down to one question: I am having a hard time processing your questions (probably my fault), but in general, there are lots of biology jobs for different majors and degrees. Are you debating between a PhD and no PhD, or just what to get a PhD in? AS long as whatever graduate work you do is relevant to something, whether it is for a specific pathway or gene, or to a general field like you mentioned something B-cell focused for immunology as an example), odds are some company is investigating it. Since "distinguished lab head" sounds like a purely academic title, I assume you mean something like a senior director or other relatively senior industry position. No one is born into that, most PhDs start in the lab a lot, and then transition to a more management role, eventually having a number of PhDs reporting to them. Then maybe something something senior management. Also, at least in my experience, it seems like most chemistry groups (outside of something like medicinal chemistry) do nothing but boring support work for biology or other groups. A lot of companies I have worked for have been something like 90% biology, 10% chemistry. Hopefully this is not too jumbled, time for bed. Pain of Mind fucked around with this message at 08:09 on Aug 2, 2013 |
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Aug 2, 2013 08:03
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At one place I worked there was just an ipod docking station, and it was basically first come first serve, though people did try to not hog it. Crappy Filipino pop, GWAR, whatever, just depended on who got there first. There was usually a pretty mixed crew of people working in the lab, but as far as I know no one ever complained about offensive music. Another place just used a computer for spotify with the same first come first serve rule. Whenever there are radio stations they seem to trend rock or top 40.
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Jan 27, 2014 07:23
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There are tons of pharma research jobs that are not poo poo which is what it sounds like his gf wants. I kind of gather from the discussion here very few people are in research though. The jobs are mostly in the SF bay area, Boston, and San Diego as far as I know, though there are some in other places. I have had like 5 recruiters contact me to move to NY for various companies out there in the last year, but I don't think the biotech stuff is as dense so it could be kind of risky going to the only company in town unless you would like to move every time you get laid off. Also, even in high cost of living areas you can live quite comfortably with a BS in biology. It does seem to ramp up a lot with experience, where you might start around mid 40k, but after 10ish years of experience or so you could be over 80k (might vary depending on cost of living area and company). Not going to be rich unless you get lucky with a startup, but still pretty comfortable. Also, I have never in my life been GLP, feels good trying to find notes I wrote on a post-it. I am not that concerned about outsourcing in the industry for research, my main concern is that the dying giants (don't get a job in Penn/NJ) have been flailing around buying up all the successful midsized companies for the last 10 years or so to try and pad their pipeline, and they are just bringing them all down with them. I remember looking for jobs when I first got into the industry and there were tons of companies that were 100-2000 or so people that all had very nice perks and benefits or whatever. It kind of feels like now the companies are either 10,000+ or startups <50, everything in-between has been bought and killed.
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Jun 11, 2014 15:54
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Aagar posted:So this week at work (not-for-profit Biotech company) I received a 3.2% raise. The letter that accompanied the raise made it sound like it was due to my performance review, and that it was a big deal. I have received a ~3% annual raise (at a company doing well it might be 3.5%, and a company doing poorly it might be 2.8%) at every company I have been at for longer than a year. The real raises/promotions I have received have been 6-10% depending on the company. Purely anecdotal, with a sample size of 4. Pain of Mind fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Jun 26, 2014 |
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Jun 26, 2014 16:18
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To be fair, I have been working for biotechs/pharma for ~ 10 years in preclinical research and it is pretty relaxed (and I have no idea what the other people in the thread are talking about). While I would rather be independently wealthy and not need to work, as jobs go it is not bad. There is a lot of freedom since you are essentially in charge of your own schedule. Don't have time to run a Western or RNA isolation or whatever because your friend is in town and wants to go out to a 3 hour lunch? Just run it tomorrow or next week!
Pain of Mind fucked around with this message at 06:19 on Jul 19, 2014 |
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Jul 19, 2014 06:16
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KernelSlanders posted:I had heard that R&D people had pretty tenuous jobs though. For example if you're in neuro and the company decides cancer is where it's at this year, you and your whole division are out on the street. Is that an unrealistic caricature?
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Jul 19, 2014 21:09
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I know a bunch of people who used to work there, and from what I have heard the experience of working there has gone downhill since they got acquired by Roche. It might still be better than average, but the company I was at was getting 30 Genentech resumes a week. I also heard that there are a lot of career dead-ends there, where you can end up in a relatively low level position with no room for advancement. All second hand information, and it is obviously biased because I only work with people who left Genentech, which probably trends negative . It definitely was the company everyone wanted to work for before Roche acquired them though.
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Aug 14, 2015 22:43
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Sundae posted:Ahh, well that's a different matter. I have lived in a bunch of different cities in the SF bay area. South San Francisco and San Bruno (right next to South San Francisco), are the cheapest cities if you don't want to be driving from somewhere crappy in the east bay. Coincidently they are also the closest to all of the biotech stuff there, so your commute would be really short. I lived in SSF 10 years ago and paid $1600 for a 2 bed 1 bath house. I don't know exactly how much rent would be now, but I would guess you could get a 2 bed/1bath or maybe 2 bed 2 bath for $1800-$2500. Currently I live about 14 miles south of SSF, my commute is typically 20-35 minutes depending on traffic, so not too bad. Depending where you live on the peninsula (or in SF), it is very possible to take public transportation. I can walk to a train station in 5 minutes, and then walk a half mile to work from the stop in SSF. Also, San Bruno has my favorite $/quality sushi place. A simple list of non SF cities ~ within 15 miles of SSF: Brisbane - Don't really know much about this city other than it is on a hill, cheaper than some places, more expensive than others. Daly City - I know the least about this city because I never go there, but I think it is pretty cheap. Pacifica - I know a bunch of people there and it is cheap and relatively nice, but whenever someone asks me to go there I am annoyed because it is on the other side of some mountains and there is no convenient way to go there from my house. It is not too bad going to SSF though. SSF - Lived there a few years and liked it. Cheap for the area, though from what I hear schools are kind of crappy if you care about that. San Bruno -- Essentially the same as SSF. Millbrae - Also lived there. Mostly expensive upper middle-class city. Might be able to find something around El Camino for $2500. Burlingame - Too expensive. San Mateo- Biggest city on the peninsula, ranges from cheap to expensive. I lived in one of the cheaper areas for a while and it seemed fine. Foster City - Kind of expensive landfill city, the blandest of suburbs. Belmont - Expensive upper middle class suburb. Not as bland as Foster City because it has a hill. San Carlos - Same as Belmont, but less bland since it has a downtown. Redwood City - Has cheap really crappy areas, also has areas that are expensive without feeling as nice as more expensive cities nearby, not sure why. I know a lot of companies will give tours of residential areas as part of their interview package trip if they fly someone out, could always try and get an interview for a free trip if nothing else. Pain of Mind fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Sep 1, 2015 |
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Sep 1, 2015 06:33
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spacemang_spliff posted:Trying to relocate back to Kansas City (stuck in central KS right now), wish me luck on the search. Places pharma is not bad: San Francisco Boston San Diego? NJ if you like giant companies that are constantly laying off. Not sure why you would work anywhere else unless you like moving every time you get laid off. Pain of Mind fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Sep 16, 2015 |
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Sep 16, 2015 04:04
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I cannot count how many experiments have been made useless because someone cut corners and skipped a group (even if there was a positive/negative control), and then you get weird results and have no way of interpreting it.
Pain of Mind fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Sep 19, 2015 |
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Sep 19, 2015 22:14
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Lyon posted:Not sure if anyone was interested but Big Pharma Game was released at some point, https://www.bigpharmagame.com. Apparently I have been doing everything wrong, will suggest more conveyer belts to upper management.
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Sep 29, 2015 06:54
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packsmack posted:Hey, I hope someone here can help me. I work in a laboratory for a major company running tests for r&d, product certification, and investigation purposes (ie what part is contaminated and why). Ive been a temp here for 1 year. Now they're bringing me on full time. Just to confirm, do you have a degree? How many total years of experience do you have besides your 1 year as a temp?
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Nov 6, 2015 02:01
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Bastard Tetris posted:Yuuuuuup, contacting a labor attorney tomorrow. Doubt I have a case, but "my lawyer advised against it" will shut my department up when they're asking me to help un-gently caress their microfluidic chip loading methods in the following week. I was under the impression there was a minimum # or % of employees laid off to qualify for WARN, something like 50 people?
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Dec 19, 2015 20:58
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Ended up working for a big east coast pharma again. I am not sure if it is big companies that love bureaucracy or east coast companies that love bureaucracy, but it seems like east coast companies are the only ones that drug test.C-Euro posted:As someone currently in Regulatory I wish I could go back to QC/QA, though admittedly at my last QC position I got to do a bunch of cool non-QC stuff so that probably clouds my perception of it. That is entirely dependent on company, there are tons of research jobs that do not require a PhD where you are actually contributing to the science, and not just a set of hands for someone with a PhD. I have known Director level people without PhDs that had multiple PhD level people reporting to them. That is somewhat rare, but scientist level non-PhD people are fairly common. I have worked with hundreds of chemists without a PhD who do bench work.
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Feb 10, 2016 18:05
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knox_harrington posted:I've been doing my new clinical job in biotech for 5 months now, it's really enjoyable, I'm kicking rear end at it, recognised as doing a great job and working significantly above what I was brought in to do. I'm in the UK but my boss is in the US. How soon is it OK to ask for a raise? 6 months? By raise do you also mean a promotion/title change? It is probably pretty early to request a title change. Everywhere I have worked has had small annual raises of ~3% whenever they do yearly bonus stuff. Promotions vary a lot from company to company, one company I worked at would give a promotion about every 4-5 years, other companies I have worked at could give promotions after 2 years. Honestly, it did not seem like performance had much of an impact unless you were a complete disaster. I recall at one place I was working at 3 titles above my position (they had a checklist for the responsibilities of every position level), I always had good performance reviews, and it still took 3.5 years and only after my manager kept harassing her manager for 2 years to allow me to get a promotion. Also, a lot of it is political. Not in the sense of "this person does not like you" type stuff, but more "we are allowed 2 promotions in our department a year, otherwise the Eye of
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Feb 22, 2016 10:42
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Sundae posted:Hey, science hiring managers--a question for you. I was at 2 companies for less than 6 months, once company for less than a year, and two companies for ~5 years. I am jealous of the people who somehow manage to stay at a job for 10+ years, but the concept seems alien to me. If the company is doing well it gets bought and you get laid off, if the company is doing poorly you run out of money and get laid off. Maybe someday I can find that mediocre company that no one wants to buy but investors keep giving it money, or they have some product that just makes enough money to keep the lights on. I get asked about the number of companies I have worked at, but since most of them no longer exist, it is not too hard to justify why I keep hopping jobs. When interviewing people I don't care, as long as they have been somewhere for a decent amount of time. Most of the time I can recognize the company and the year they left and recall that is when the company had layoffs or shut down. 2-3 years average is plenty. I recently started working at a big company, and it is kind of strange. People constantly talk about how money is no issue because they have big company money behind everything, but the place is a dump with 30 year old freezers where the doors literally fall off. I am not sure if the site head is just stingy or what. Also people have either been there for 10+ years or 1 year, nothing in-between. Maybe they just don't know that even small companies buy new equipment when stuff breaks?
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Mar 24, 2016 15:26
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No headphones if you are working directly with other people, headphones if you are working alone. Use crappy earbuds without the volume blasting so you can still hear people talking if someone comes in, not fancy noise cancelling headphones that cover your whole ear.
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Mar 25, 2016 02:55
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Dik Hz posted:You should not be working alone in a lab with dangerous chemicals. Full stop. Yea, I am not a chemist. I just assume they hibernate or crawl back into a burrow or something once they are done making my chemicals so they probably do not even need music.
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Mar 25, 2016 07:51
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