Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Daily Pump Trap: 10/1/13 edition

Good morning! Between September 26 and September 30, 82 new positions were posted on the C&EN Jobs website. Of these, 37 (45%) were academically connected and 38 (46%) are from Kelly Scientific Resources. 

Madison, WI: Hydrite Chemical is looking for a process development chemist; looks to be a B.S./M.S. position, sounds interesting. (Can't wear contacts, interestingly...)

"Europe and China": This SyngaschemBV position sounds interesting/weird:
You are expected to work in our Beijing laboratory for 2 – 3 years, starting 2015. In preparation you may be seconded to a high profile European research laboratory for one year. Together with your colleagues you will participate in the scientific leadership coaching and training program of Syngaschem. For more detailed information visit our website www.syngaschem.com 
Candidates should have a PhD in surface science or fundamental catalysis from a renowned university, and publications in leading journals of the field. Candidates for team leader positions should have 3-5 years of experience as a postdoc in areas such as experimental surface science in catalysis, or in situ characterization of catalysts at synchrotrons, and a track record of quality publications. Salaries are competitive according to academic standards, starting significantly above the senior postdoc level in The Netherlands. 
Deadline for First Round: October 31, 2013 
NOTES: 10 openings.
It seems to me that the Fischer-Tropsch process will become more important over time, as opposed to less, but what do I know?

Troy, MI: Akzo Nobel is looking for an analytical chemist; B.S./M.S. desires, 5+ years experience with polymer analysis desired.

Scottsbluff, NE: The Western Sugar Cooperative is, once again, looking for a quality control chemist. I don't know why, but I find this to be a terribly intriguing position. I'm going to guess it's not, but I guess I would like to know more about it. 

10 comments:

  1. Who will hire these Post-Docs?
    The answer is easy: nobody. And nobody “has to”. This is the point that essentially everyone in the self-centered-head-up-their-own-a$$ little world of grad school miserably fail to understand. Just because at some point in the late 90’s to early 2000’s some golden boys with PhD’s from top school decided that a job in big pharma was to be a reward for grad school study, as per their own experience, this did not mean that private cies were going to accept to finance the easy life of the mob-style “made-man” of big pharma R&D forever. Its about time that pharma slash the deadwood that clutters office space. I have seen personally principal scientists not even bothering to show up to work anymore, being promoted to fellow levels, just because they go whoring around at the Gordon conference every year to present someone elses work, work that they are too utterly stupid to do themselves. Nobody cares about your 25 JACS in grad school anymore. RIP. You better be ready to hit the ground running when you start, so don’t burn yourself in grad school: you wont be “made” in the pharma biz with an office job and 2 associates right off the bath. Or any time after, for that matter. This era is over. Interestingly, pharma now hires chemist to do….., chemistry, not an overpaid office clerk who spend 1 month to write monthly reports about R&D that is too little and basic, but in their own self-inflated egotistic little minds, is nothing short of Nobel prize material. It cost 200K$ per employee in the US, on average, if you factor in 401K contributions, health care and retirement benefits, compare to 20K$ per FTE at WuXi. You think these little queens of entitlement deserve this? Really? Merck just slashed another 8500 jobs in research: Good! Let the real scientist hit the bench and get rid of the posers who survive by flashing their Ivy League education in-lieu of any actual relevant work

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  2. Wow. Somebody didnt like their ivy-league educated PhD boss...

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  3. You sound like HR. Yeah, we are wasting millions per year in R&D for people who can barely pull half their weight and signaling to upper management that we collectively sucks, but lets talk about you: "what is YOUR problem with this".

    No wonder R&D is being outsourced oversee.

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  4. Your missing the plurals. Chinese, perhaps?

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    Replies
    1. Making a grammatical error while criticizing someone else's grammatical error. Idiot, perhaps?

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    2. It's like ten thousand spoon when all you need is a fork.

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  5. I get a lot of comments everytime I rant about the mediocre state of pharma R&D in the US and what I think are the real reasons for it. And yes, there is some pushback when I hint that the ones responsible are the panzies who try to eradicate meritocracy of achiements for a stinky credentialist system that allows golden boys to receive a lifetime of promotions based on 5 years of grad school work. Yes, thats great that you developed iteration number 8500 of yet another phosphine ligand that nobody needs, but what have you done here exactly? Doesnt matter actually, because they will be right on track of a bigger paycheck, thanks to their managers who laid down the path before them. Should shareholders know about this ponzi scheme? Too late anyway, the bean counters already solved the problem by shipping work elsewhere.

    There is only one thing however that I take back from conversations every single time. The fact that nobody ever told me that I was wrong.

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    Replies
    1. Meritocracy has its faults too.

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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