Friday, June 19, 2015

Daily Pump Trap: 6/18/15 edition

A few of the industrial positions posted on C&EN Jobs in the last week or so:

Warminster, PA: Gamry Instruments is an electrochemical instruments company; they're looking for a B.S. chemist to be a salesperson. Claimed salary is $60-70k.

Indianapolis, IN: Lilly looking for a senior bioanalytical chemist.

Huntington, WV: Remember Parabon? They're looking for a Ph.D. chemist to do research on their DNA nanotechnology.

Woburn, MA: I see Organix is trolling for recruiting Ph.D. chemists, both experienced and less so.

Hannibal, MO: Interesting to see what BASF looks for in a production manager for a pesticide plant.

And now for something different: I see the National Pork Board needs a Senior Vice President of Science and Technology.

A broader look: Monster, Careerbuilder, Indeed and USAjobs.gov show (respectively) "1000+", 646, 9588 and 22 positions for the search term "chemist." LinkedIn shows 759 positions for the job title "chemist", with 84 for "analytical chemist", 38 for "research chemist", 7 for "organic chemist", 4 for "medicinal chemist" and 2 for "synthetic chemist." 

11 comments:

  1. Not sure why the senior VP for the Nat'l Pork Board position was posted here:

    "A D.V.M or advanced animal or meat science degree, or equivalent technical and industry experience is preferred."

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    Replies
    1. Do you have to have a postdoc experience in application of synthetic de-worming agents?

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    2. No, but I'm going to trot out my best Lord Emsworth impression for the interview. Where's my Whiffle?

      Seriously, I don't know what this was doing in C&EN - this is an animal health/livestock industry/public health job.

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    3. No, SJ, a wild (greased) pig chase -- much more entertaining! :-)

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    4. No, I meant like the original WGC. You know... Romeo and Juliet style.

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    5. There are quite a few people who started out with chemistry degrees and moved into food science and/or animal science for graduate work. I've been funded through pork board research grants before (as a chemist) and I'd guess 1/3 of the staff there have chem degrees somewhere in their background. And ACS has quite an active Ag/Food division with a lot of mixed chemistry/ag/vet people in it, so it makes complete sense for them to advertise in C&E.

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    6. Original post writer here - All of what you say is true up until the last clause of the last sentence. As the ad says, they are really looking for animal health/livestock industry people. The vast majority of such professionals have some chemistry education (at a minimum food science professionals' non-specialized chemistry education includes some organic and biochemistry), and many even have a bachelor's in chemistry - but usually that's where their connection to the discipline tops out. Especially for D.V.M.s - those three little letters have gotten awfully expensive.

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    7. Perhaps, but C&EN also has a track record of posting adverts for 0%-chemistry relevant job openings. Try doing a search on their engine, using the term "organic" and see what you get back. I have been giving them heat about this for a while. The only response that I've received is to justify this in terms of revenue stream.

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  2. That plant of BASF's in Missouri has an interesting history: " The herbicide plant was destroyed in 1977 after an explosion, and rebuilt in 1978 and 1979." From their environmental assessment: http://dnr.mo.gov/env/hwp/permits/mod050226075/information.htm

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  3. Why do you describe Organix as "trolling" rather than "recruiting"?

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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