MCAA Career Development Group

This is a great initiative Brian!

Thank you for creating this group. I am the ER in the Marie Curie project which is going to finish shortly and I am actively looking for a job in the pharmaceutical inductry (Preferably in UK). I am open for any interesting opportunities and willing to transition into the Medical Communication field or Research Analyst.

I will be very grateful for any information that Marie Curie Alumni may be able to share :)

Greetings from Venice - Kate

Hi,

I totally agree this is a great initiative!! Here are a few links I found for Katarzyna who is interested in a transition in Research Analyst (I am also interested in such transition!) cityjobs.co.uk and efinancialcareers.com are the most popular websites for opportunities in investment banking (including research analyst positions) and I found them very useful to target some positions and recruitment agencies. You may also upload your CV and find useful information about careers as analyst.

Nicolas

Hi,

i agree as well in this initiative. I´m in the same position of Katarzyna since my marie curie contract will end in the next months (August 2016).

I´m a postDoc of a company in the Bioart Project dedicated to the development of new devices fro bioartificial Kidneys and Liver. I have experience in Tissue Engineering and I would like to continue to work in this field in Europe in University or in big companies that are very rare for what I know.

Someone knows links that can be useful for me or groups looking for a postdoc in my field?

Thanks a lot and we sse in Venice if someone of you is coming.

Valentina

Hi,

i agree as well in this initiative. I´m in the same position of Katarzyna since my marie curie contract will end in the next months (August 2016).

I´m a postDoc of a company in the Bioart Project dedicated to the development of new devices fro bioartificial Kidneys and Liver. I have experience in Tissue Engineering and I would like to continue to work in this field in Europe in University or in big companies that are very rare for what I know.

Someone knows links that can be useful for me or groups looking for a postdoc in my field?

Thanks a lot and we sse in Venice if someone of you is coming.

Valentina

Hi all!! 

At the present I’m working at Roche as Post-doc for an ITN, m contract is until February 2016, after this i already got an offer in Sandoz.  After two years as researcher here, I tried to take a lot of the training that the company offers at least in order for you to have an idea in which other area I could make a transition, so I could have more chances to find a job not only as a scientist.

One of the main things that help, to at least to have a clear what they do in other areas, was to have informal interviews; for example, people in manufacturing, methods validation, quality control, quality assurance, GMP, Downstream, Upstream, Technical Development etc. etc. I asked them to make a small tour to show me what they do, and to explain a bit what are their day by day responsibilities. Further on, I asked a lot of details in what had been their steps to get to the position where they are now. Considering that all of them came from academia, as us.

What I usually found as a common ground is that many of them arrived to their position because of the activities done outside their research area. One of them during their postdoc make a method for antibody conjugation that later was not used because I was not that efficient in target therapeutics but, he himself, talking to people, applied the same method as a comparison technique for quality control of external antibodies used as control for the development of the new ones in diagnostics. Now he work in Dpt. Process Improvement and Project Assembly.

For example Valentina, in this company, people that have work with tissue like you, work in tissue engineering trying to validate these methods as part of the preclinical stages. But besides the knowledge in Tissue engineering, you need to have at least the knowledge on what are the steps of pre-clinical and clinical trials. In Roche you can find positions Clinical Associate or Clinical Director in Diagnostics as well as in Pharma that might fit your profile. 

One of the person that i interviewed, told me something really really useful, that you must learn first to “transference your competences”, as an advice from what I have seen never look the jobs for names, search by department, because they are jobs for people with scientific background called like Process Analyst, External Innovation Associates, Technical expert; and if you don’t click to take a look what that means well you will never know that might fit your profile. 

The last and I think must important, is the cover letter, when you are looking for a transition, you must truly say from where did you get the idea that you can do the job, that is why doing research (Linkedin) on what people with a similar profile of what they are looking for is important. Sometimes, this cover letter is much much important than your CV. 

I have spoken with at least three people involved in Medical Communication and Scientific communication, which by the way, is nothing compare to be Scientific writer in industry, so for example adding that you have written papers is not much. All the people that I talk with, complained, that all the scientist working on their teams have problems to summarize is short periods of time, when what you need is a fast and clear answer.

I know that many of these details are already written in a lot of webpages about how to find a job in industry but, this is just my experience. For me was funny to see it clearly, that not only you need to be a top researcher but you also need to develop the vision on technology, processes and networking in order to know into what you want to transition. 

Please note that we have a jobs database on the MCAA site - see https://www.mariecuriealumni.eu/jobs-ex

We (the contractors) set this up some time ago to 'get the ball rolling', with the idea that members could usefully add to this with new resources and/or comments.

It would be great if this group could build on this basis - let me know if different features/facilities are needed.

Simon

Hi Bran and Michelle,

Thanks for the link and info of  Sandoz. programme !

currently i am ESR at BME Budapest and woking on enantiopure chemicals ! i will Complete my PhD in july 2016 and looking for opportunity in Industry or

Industrial post-doc position ! if some of you have more recoomonadation / suggestions please let me know.

Thanks.

Hi all,

Have someone submitted his/her application to become an Expert Reviewer for the EC? I have recently done it and I would like to have additional information about the process of selection and how to optimize my application.

Thanks