Good morning! Between February 1st and February 2nd, there were ~450 (not a typo) new positions posted on the ACS Careers website. Of these, not very many were academic positions (????%).
Wha happened??: Merck decided that ACS Careers was a great place to look for chemists. There are a couple of chemistry positions buried in here; Merck also decided that ACS Careers was a great place to look for maintenance mechanics, manufacturing supervisors, a Russian national field force manager and a payroll supervisor. I am not kidding. It appears to me that Merck posted close to 443 positions, approximately 50% of which have to do with science and about 10 of which have to do with chemistry.
There are so many positions that they're not even coded into the rest of the search engine yet, which is really annoying. If you ask it to search for "Merck and Co" positions, it will tell you that there aren't any. Awesome.
I was under the impression that I could chew through these this morning (it pegged the heck out of my RSS reader, too, which is impressive), but it'll have to wait for tonight. Sorry, folks.
UPDATE: Not much help, but this is something I learned last night. There are (again, not kidding) 110 ophthamology sales positions all across the country (100 sales reps, 10 or so team leaders.)
Wha happened??: Merck decided that ACS Careers was a great place to look for chemists. There are a couple of chemistry positions buried in here; Merck also decided that ACS Careers was a great place to look for maintenance mechanics, manufacturing supervisors, a Russian national field force manager and a payroll supervisor. I am not kidding. It appears to me that Merck posted close to 443 positions, approximately 50% of which have to do with science and about 10 of which have to do with chemistry.
There are so many positions that they're not even coded into the rest of the search engine yet, which is really annoying. If you ask it to search for "Merck and Co" positions, it will tell you that there aren't any. Awesome.
I was under the impression that I could chew through these this morning (it pegged the heck out of my RSS reader, too, which is impressive), but it'll have to wait for tonight. Sorry, folks.
UPDATE: Not much help, but this is something I learned last night. There are (again, not kidding) 110 ophthamology sales positions all across the country (100 sales reps, 10 or so team leaders.)
Um CJ, 10 out of 443 is 2.26%...your optimism is still admirable though. ;)
ReplyDeleteA6:11a: science != chemistry, necessarily. :)
ReplyDeleteYesterday I complained nicely by email to ACS Careers about the Merck spam. Shades of Kelly. Brings in the $$, but doesn't really serve their clientele.
ReplyDeleteSo, did someone at ACS not actually look at these job announcements, before they were posted? They weren't suspicious that Merck suddenly had 433 positions available for chemists, when the total number of other positions posted on ACS are around 150-200?
ReplyDeleteWhat do the people at ACS Careers actually do? Is this how they help chemists get jobs?
It's the winter of recovery!
ReplyDeleteWhat do the people at ACS Careers actually do? Is this how they help chemists get jobs?
ReplyDeleteYou know, that's a damn good question. It's amazing, they advertise this "Personal Career Consulting" service and make it sound like you'll get all this attention and help finding a job from people in the business. I just went to look at it again and it's equally worthless as it was when I looked at it a few years ago. Look for an organic chemistry consultant in industry. It'll pull up 13 "consultants", of whom 4 are actually willing to do any consulting. The rest are "not available". The pharmaceutical/industry consultants are even more laughable. 2 of 8 will take your appointments.
Then again, why should the ACS care about anybody getting jobs as long as they're making millions off of their current business model and enjoying non-profit status?
I realize this is a few days late to ask this question, but are any of the other chemistry societies any better with their career services/counseling? As it is right now, I'm only an ACS member for two reasons (resume booster, & book discounts). So far though, I have yet to really explore their other services.
ReplyDelete-Still in graduate school comparing the benefits of a M.S. vs PhD in organic synthesis.
Thanks!