Good morning! Between February 19 and February 20, there were 5 new positions posted on the C&EN Jobs website. Of these, 4 (80%) are academically connected.
Hmmm: Of course, the one industrial position posted in the last two days is for a civil engineer. Of course.
Who are they looking for at 3M and Cambrex?: One in my continuing, irregular series of looks at companies on the Chemical Week 75 list, 3M seems to have 72 positions related to being a chemist; most of them, I suspect, are not really aimed at chemists per se. Cambrex seems to have 4 positions related to being a chemist.
A broader look: Monster, Careerbuilder, Indeed and USAjobs.gov show 201, 733, 2421 and 12 positions for the search term "chemist." LinkedIn shows 95 positions for the job title "chemist", with 7 for "research chemist", 22 for "analytical chemist" and 4 for "organic chemist."
Postdoctoral expansion: Here's an ad posted on LinkedIn (with the recruiter's contact information) for a synthetic chemist (emphasis mine):
I am seeking outgoing, driven individuals who would thrive in a collaborative environment. My client is seeking a PhD synthetic organic chemist with 2-4 years of post-doc work in chemical synthesis. This is a development position with Fortune 1000 company....
[snip] PhD Organic Chemistry with at least 2 years relevant experience in an academic or industrial environment.I sincerely hope this was the recruiter's doing, and not the Fortune 1000 company; I can't imagine that they're looking for a 4 year postdoc, right?
But 4 years isn't the lower limit, 2 is. I know plenty of people that have done 4 years of postdoc (unfortunately). At least they can get looked at by this company, Bruce Roth won't even give you the time of day if you did 4 years, unless you went to Stanford.
ReplyDeleteHa! I'm in my fourth year of post-doc at a hot-shot top 10 University working for Prof. Duzzwell doing natural product synthesis....we do exist unfortunately because well you know...making a giant molecule takes awhile
ReplyDeleteYeah, I have noticed here on CJ that there is an extreme negative connotation attached to 2+ year postdocs, but at my University, a large state school, there are plenty of postdocs who have been here 4 years and longer. The reason most give when asked about why they are here so long is that they are being highly productive, have a good PI, and just aren't able to find a position they really want. It kind of goes back to the "MUST LEAVE HOME WHEN YOU POSTDOC" idea, if you say it enough I suppose it comes true??? No reason to run away from a nice postdoc situation after two years b/c its the "norm". I suppose they should all go take lecturer or adjunct jobs somewhere instead of staying in the lab and producing good manuscripts???
ReplyDeleteIf people do so by choice, uh, more power to them.
DeleteIf people do so because the economy is poor, that's unfortunate and a trend that will hopefully will end.
If people do so because they are being forced to because of employer expectations, that is a bad trend that should be discouraged.