From the inbox, a small company looking for organic chemistry postdocs:
Nano Terra is a product development accelerator headquartered in Cambridge, MA, USA. We leverage our expertise in surface science, printing and patterning, advanced materials, chemistry and polymers, rapid prototyping, and engineering and modeling as we work with our partners to develop revolutionary new products. We have worked on joint development programs in a range of industries, including consumer goods, aerospace, automotive, oil and gas, materials, chemicals, packaging, life sciences, and electronics. Our past and present customers include innovative industry leaders such as 3M, Boeing, Honeywell, Motorola Mobility, Merck, ITW, Infineum, and various agencies in the US government. We are looking for individuals who are dedicated, passionate, and creative to join our team.
Nano Terra is seeking candidates for 1 year Post-Doctoral Appointments. These are entry level positions for Ph.D. level organic chemists who have just completed their degrees, and are looking for industrial experience.More details here. Best wishes to those interested.
Much like I prefer companies to be honest and say "we fired a bunch of people to save money" rather than "as a result of a corporate reprioritization we are right-sizing our workforce" I wish small companies would be honest about these positions and just write "we want a temp with lots of skills and education but we don't want to pay market rate, so we'll pretend it's 'training' (even though there's no way in hell there will be any papers out of this".
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Deletethere is lots of shenanigans in hiring chemists but I hope it will go away because of labor market is improving - Vertex is has still been hiring 6 month temps for positions in medicinal chemistry this year (with a dangle to make it a permanent position). I hope they realize they are not getting the best applicants in this way. Or not.
DeleteBut how does this help people get the '3-5 years of industrial experience' that every PhD level posting seems to require?
ReplyDeleteAlso, they get to suck a lot of knowledge out of that person during their short stint. Odds are they will try to hire someone who mastered some specific technique, skill, intrumentation, etc during grad school that the company would like to implement. Once that "post doc" transfers that knowledge to the company, the post doc becomes expendible and replacable. Rinse and repeat.
ReplyDeleteIsn't Nano Terra Whitesides' company?
ReplyDeleteI think it is. a PDF in Whitesides' lab would have, IMO, much much more value (as long as not stuck doing just corporate crap---I've seen corporate PDs in academic labs, seems a horrible option).
Delete"Vertex is has still been hiring 6 month temps for positions in medicinal chemistry this year (with a dangle to make it a permanent position)."
ReplyDeleteM'eh, stated or not, any position is a 6 (or 12) month 'temp to hire' position. At least VRTX is up front about it. I doubt they have any trouble recruiting.
The difficulty is that if you take this kind of temp job without benefits for crappy pay, you give up any negotiating leverage. It says "I will take whatever you offer. Please please make it a permanent position, I will try very hard." This is slightly better than the pressure tactics I have seen in 2011 with one unnamed CRO, who would do a group interview without presentation - they would put all the promising applicants in the same room for an hour, describe their future job duties, and tell them they will take one out of 5 people, then sent them home. A really crappy offer followed. - I don't understand how someone wants to build company like this.
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