Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Daily Pump Trap: 6/3/14 edition

A few positions posted on the C&EN Jobs website:

Pretty: I see that C&EN Jobs is changing its search box and adding some new tabs. It looks nice, and I note that a lot of the pfaff that has cluttered up the stream recently (the 14,000 irrelevant Pfizer positions, the hospital clinical chemistry jobs and the private high school science teaching positions) have gone away. An improvement, for sure.

Irving, TX: ITW Polymers Sealants North America is searching for a B.S./M.S. polymer chemist (3-7 years experience desired.) 70-100k offered.

Austin, TX: Sapling Learning is hiring 2 writers for its chemistry online learning team; B.S./M.S. in chemistry desired.

Miamisburg, OH: Sigma-Aldrich is hiring a manager for its stable isotope product line:
Manage products globally throughout their lifecycle by gathering and prioritizing product and customer requirements, defining the product/product line vision and working with internal departments and/or external parties. Achieve product revenue, profit and customer satisfaction goals by working closely with customers, sales and marketing support teams.  Ensure that the product and marketing efforts support the company’s overall strategy and objectives. 
Desired education: M.S. or Ph.D. in Chemistry, Biochemistry, or Biological Science; MBA, M.S. Marketing or M.S. Finance 
Experience:  5 years of technical experience, 3 years of which are related to assigned product line   
The salary offered for this magisterial position? 66-73k. Wow.  

17 comments:

  1. the polymer chemist job link does not work

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  2. Can't tell if the "wow" for the 66-73K is sarcastic or not. Then again, Ive always speculated I'm on the high end of the autism spectrum.

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    Replies
    1. It's sarcastic. Very sarcastic.

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    2. I am sure they are flooded with applications from people with the experience in the higher end of the desired range. I am not being sarcastic.

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    3. Sure, I could believe that.

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  3. Down here in the real world, 66-73k sounds not only reasonable, but maybe a bit high for an Ohio located job.

    All big pharma have outsourced their radio labelled division in the last decades, and there is a ton of unemployed "ever-so-specialized-credentialized-to-death-PhD's" out there that would rather take this job instead of questioning the rational for the first half of their existences. In a sense, these jobs would be filled at even 40K, because they not only represent employement, but function as a sort of psychotherapy as well.

    Again, it's not because you gobble the BS from chemistry faculty about a do-nothing big pharma job at 140K$ for every PhD chemists that graduates that somebody, somewhere, somehow, must pay you ton of money cauz you are so damn great with all those JACS papers. A 4 year engineering degree will get you 6 figures right off the bat in some markets. Sure, they can't blow smoke and flash a fake doctor degree during family reunions, but they are not deadbeats with little to no career prospects...

    Sorry to bother you with the facts....

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    1. There, are you happy that you got that off your chest?

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    2. Are you talking about Ohio, Wuhan? Being in OH, US, 66-73K for a PhD/MBA is not a lot. I'm pretty sure you can make almost that much here managing a Wal-Mart sans either a MS/PhD or an MBA (because I know someone who has). 40K for a dual degree would be expensive psychotherapy, because there are lots of things to do with at least one of those degrees that make more money that that here (again more second-hand experience).

      When someone tries to explain the "real world" to me, I assume I am in for either conservative political vomitus or BS.

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    3. For what it is worth, this position would put the jobholder at the 1st or 2nd income quintile in Miamisburg:

      http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_12_5YR_S1901

      From that perspective, the pay isn't all that bad. But from a "we want 1) a manager and 2) someone with 2 degrees and 3) with experience who can travel domestically and internationally, oh, and we're a major multinational corporation", it does seem a bit low to me.

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    4. Someone's bitter that they didnt get into a fourth tier grad school............

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    5. 'Miamisburg'. That's got to be pretty damn depressing. A second rate salary and a third rate Miami. They'll get the type of dedication to the job that they pay for.

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  4. Real world: this job will be filled in a few days at posted salary. Period. Even you should be able to draw some basic conclusions from this. But I am afraid you wont.

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    Replies
    1. Nah, they'll collect a few thousands applications, sit on them for 8 months, then run a heuristic algorithm, disqualify everyone and repost the position.

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    2. Yep, with a foreign national because there is a shortage of qualified chemist citizens who would take that job over managing a local Home Depot.

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  5. I know a MS from a top tier school/group who rejected an offer at Sigma Aldrich. Starting pay? 38K. The hoods the showed the candidate on the interview were caving in. Want to work in a lab built worse than most low budget academia labs and receive low pay? Go to Sigma Aldrich.

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  6. Sapling is a joke. A friend of mine works there and she said that the starting pay there is 48K for both MS and PhD level people and the company only gave out 2% raises this year which don't even cover COL increases in the Austin area. She also said that there's no room to grow in the company and most of the people working there took the job so that they could look for other work and earn more than they did in grad school. Seems like the beginning of a revolving door.

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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