Thursday, August 5, 2010

Chemjobber C&EN Index: 7/19/2010

Industrial positions (non-academic, non-governmental):
Total number of ads: 0
- Postdocs: 0
- Permanent positions: 0
- Ratio of US/non-US: 0
Area: 0

Governmental positions (US, international):
Total number of ads: 0
- Postdocs: 0
- Permanent positions: 0
- Ratio of US/non-US: 0/0
Area: 0

Academic positions:
Total number of ads: 9
- Postdocs: 0
- Tenure-track faculty: 25 (?)
- Temporary faculty: 1
- Lecturer positions: 1
- Staff positions: 2
- Ratio of US/non-US positions: 28/1
- Area (square cm): 593

It's that time again: for the No Industrial Job senryu...

No industry jobs!
What is the solution now?
Another postdoc?

Ruff: It's not the "dog days" of summer yet, but it might as well be. Not many ads overall.

Small college of the week: St. John's University (Queens, NY, student population: 20,069, SA-LUTE!) is looking for a visiting assistant professor in organic and general chemistry. Want to teach at a half-decent basketball school? Here's your chance!

10 comments:

  1. you should take an inventory of more websites than C and E. That could make an interesting post.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You know what? I'm gonna try, guys. But it's a little more difficult.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I know it's a little more difficult ... I would suggest taking an inventory from websites that have helped out your devoted readers. Then doing like a special once a month with the featured job site.

    Medzilla is a VERY easy one to scan, as is tinytech, there was one database that was great for start ups, but I'm not even sure they exist anymore. Those were the best looking most interesting jobs in my search. For what you are trying to do, I would ignore career builder, monster, or indeed ... or shudder ... even the ladders.

    ihirechemists and ihirebiotechnologists ... they are completely and totally worthless.

    We do all know that posted jobs are rather misleading, they are really for legal obligation, usually to the union. They must have an internal and then external posting to make sure you satisfy the legal requirement to provide competition, but must make the description explicit enough to make your buddy the best candidate.

    ReplyDelete
  4. That said ... I mean, Jobs are like the single hot girl who would rather just stay in on a Friday and Saturday night than go out ... too much noise too much desperation. She would rather stay in watch a movie ... Career fairs are like, ballroom dancing classes.

    Sad the to say, maybe the best thing you can do as far as getting a job in this economy is be less of a studious fucking lab rat working 60 hours a week and running columns. It stifles your creativity and your ability to see the world at large. Any adviser worth his weight in fecal matter should have recognized this years ago, and actively send their students to conferences and really try to encourage job searches that are unconventional. Hell, a happy hour once or twice a week might do more good at finding people that might hire you, and sharpen those forgotten conversation skills. Maybe being a research scientist is NOT a valid career choice anymore, maybe we have to sell cars or lab equipment.

    Remember those days in middle school, we all thought if we worked REALLY REALLY hard, we can achieve a living based on our merits and the world won't be a popularity contest? Now it seems that people skills are more important than ever, and our people skills are retarded from long hours and spending way way way too much time with cynical ass holes who have no people skills. I mean we don't have to be pretty, dynamic, or stellar athletes, but we should have a couple of t-shirts without chemical holes a nice pair of jeans and exercise proper hygiene. Being workaholics for little to no compensation, current and future, also adversely affects the quality of our lives, and really drives people away from us who could potentially want to help us.

    As synthetic chemists, I think we need to learn how to be analytical chemists as well ... really really spend those extra hours tweaking the mass spec, get really good at running your HPLCs. Learn how to fix and tune the NMRs properly. Really talk to your tech and show that you have interest and demonstrate aptitude for the instruments you are working on. I don't think the real world would care if you issolated 19 mg of enantiomericaly pure compound, but I think the real world would care about how well you understand their fancy pieces of equipment and how your knowledge can help maintain and sell them.

    I don't think the real world can not see or recognize your existence when you are just pounding away molecule after molecule, column after column. I think many potential bosses look at our determination, and it breaks their heart ... I think they wish they could harness it for something useful, but we are too trapped in "academic synthesis land" lost our social aptitude and require too much time to retrain for their practical purposes. Our advisers are the last ones to tell us this, they have problems of their own, even the most altruistic have to kiss ass to the old guard or they don't get their funding renewed.

    As a result, I think we have to wait for most of the old guard to die or retire before things change much. Maybe we have to learn to accept our Ph. D.'s to be like all Ph. D.s personally enriching at their best, but do not give us jobs.

    ReplyDelete
  5. You should do a search on USAjobs if you want a real number for govt positions. I'm a chemist at a govt lab and we are prohibited from advertising on external job sites except for administrative searches. (GS-14 or above) Everything else goes through USAjobs and only USAjobs.

    Of course, the competition for govt jobs is unbelievable right now so I feel for those on the market. I got lucky in jumping away from academia 3 years ago just before all hell broke loose. I don't know that I could get the job if I were applying today.

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  6. If rapidly rising pay is the primary signal of a market shortage, then the United States has a shortfall of CEOs, professional athletes, entertainers, and hedge fund managers, not scientific and engineering specialists.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hey, Anon 9:47-

    If you're a chemist at a gov't lab, then maybe you could shed some light on the actual numbers of positions that will be filled from the "DON1320-HQ" advertisements.You know, the resume collection exercises. They are hypothetically filled at levels from GS-9 through GS-15.

    Every time that I put this question to the Navy, all I hear is waffling.

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  8. Just got back from a site interview for the VAP position at St. John's University. They actually have three positions to fill.

    Over the phone, I was told that the teaching would involve two courses/term. In person, it turned out to be four courses/term.

    Over the phone, their chair was willing to accommodate the VAPs research on the side. In person, the faculty were much less enthusiastic.

    Oh yeah, all three of the VAPs will share a small office.

    Don't know if such a job is everyone's piece of cake.

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  9. fentonh-I remember applying for some of those types of ads when I was on the market. Never heard anything. Don't have any first hand info for you as my agency doesn't do them.

    ReplyDelete

looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20