Wednesday, April 4, 2018

couldn't resist

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17 comments:

  1. qvxbApril 4, 2018 at 8:05 AM

    Has anyone seen Paul Teutul Sr. and John Bolton together?

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  2. KTApril 4, 2018 at 9:33 AM

    We advertised a QC technician position at my last job, and the resumes that came in depressed the hell out of me. People with BS and even MS degrees who had worked a succession of crappy Kelly/Aerotek/Yoh temp gigs (often with long gaps in between) and were chasing after a job that we used to fill with promoted plant workers.

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    1. AnonymousApril 4, 2018 at 2:35 PM

      We had a entry level chemistry Phd position open recently and I was shocked at the number of applicants who had been postdoc'ing since 2010-2012. Very very depressing.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousApril 4, 2018 at 3:55 PM

      Ive been, in essence, a post-doc since 1998. Very, very depressing....

      Delete
  3. AnonymousApril 4, 2018 at 9:48 AM

    I've always felt like I missed that class on transferable skills in my fourth year of graduate school. Happy to see all schools are offering it now.

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  4. P=OApril 4, 2018 at 9:50 PM

    I graduated 1.5 years ago and I did not see any transferable skills class.

    I agree with comments above very depressing. I recently reviewed applications for a scientist PhD position at our company and we received over 600 application with all sorts of experience: BS, MS, fresh PhD grads, 1-2 years postdoc a, eternal postdocs and even people with industry experience

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    1. ReverendJApril 5, 2018 at 1:43 AM

      I always wonder when I hear stories like that, is it because so many people are looking for work or because the time required to apply for any job is almost nothing with automated systems?

      Delete
    2. KTApril 5, 2018 at 12:38 PM

      I think it's a sign of desperation and frustration. My last job hunt, I was seeking advancement while currently employed, and I only applied to carefully chosen positions. I admit I've applied to some wildly inappropriate jobs out of sheer frustration in the past, when I suspected my applications were all going down a black hole and never getting read by a person.

      Delete
  5. AnonymousApril 5, 2018 at 10:00 AM

    I have an MS with a few years experience at a CRO. I moved to a large biotech in the past year or so and my coworker said the sheer amount of bad applications with credentials outside of the job posting was astounding to him, his coworkers and supervisor. There were MANY decade plus experienced PhD's, bachelors people with no experience, and analytical/QC-type people applying for a lightly-experienced MS-only position in organic synthesis.

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  6. James E LutzApril 5, 2018 at 11:46 AM

    I am very happy to be here because this is a very good site that provides lots of information about the topics covered in depth. Im glad to see that people are actually writing about this issue in such a smart way, showing us all different sides to it. Please keep it up. I cant wait to read whats next. office furniture Jacksonville

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  7. AnonymousApril 5, 2018 at 2:12 PM

    I feel depressed every time we have a chemistry technician position open at our lab. We put out the ad for a week and usually get 100+ applicants with dozens having PhD/postdoc experience for jobs that require only a B.S. and pay lousy for it (low-30Ks, which is always mentioned in the ad.)

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    1. AnonymousApril 5, 2018 at 5:13 PM

      To Anonymous (Apr 5 at 2:12 PM)
      Would you mind saying where you are located (geographically)? I'm stating the obvious, I know, but low 30 Ks is not even a living wage in the Northeast and California.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousApril 7, 2018 at 1:03 AM

      Mid-South (Kentucky/Tennessee) As a native Californian myself who did my postdoc in the Northeast, I'm well aware of the costs of living in those areas, partly why I advise all students to move to the South or Midwest if you want a viable middle class career as a chemist these days. The increased salary you might get on the coasts will never, ever make up for the increased cost of living and you have far more flexibility to move from low cost of living areas when the recession hits and you inevitably have to find your next job, which is the key to survival in 21st century America.

      Delete
  8. AnonymousApril 6, 2018 at 12:17 PM

    I realize that the point of this blog is employment in chemistry, but aren't the vast majority of degree training programs decoupled from employment demand? I'm trying to think of a discipline that where production is totally in-line with demand.

    The only example I can think of is that in medicine labor supply is artificially constrained to keep wages high. Do engineering undergraduate programs look at the labor market each year before deciding how many majors to admit?

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    1. ChemjobberApril 6, 2018 at 12:56 PM

      I agree that there are no market incentives for graduate schools to restrain demand in just about any field.

      Regarding engineering, I don't know. But I do know of at least one department that has made moves in this regard: http://chemjobber.blogspot.com/2013/11/a-fair-warning-to-petroleum-engineering.html

      Delete
    2. AnonymousApril 7, 2018 at 5:05 PM

      That's actually really cool: "our program’s board of industry advisors are recommending..."
      I've never heard of anything like that, but it's a neat idea. Unfortunately the incentive structure is turned upside down. Trying to shrink your graduate program in the name of the greater good is a solid way to ensure that you get less done per sponsored research dollar, which will get noticed when you apply for new grants or renewals. Next thing you know you've slid down the rankings.

      Delete
    3. AnonymousApril 8, 2018 at 12:27 PM

      Interesting, its been shown that labs with only one grant are the most productive per research dollar, so it would be good for an advisor to scale back for the greater good, but not in his/her interest in terms of promotions (going from associate to full professor).

      I think what would be needed is for the government to step in and say any instiutions below a certain ranking would no longer receive federal funding, sorta of like they did in the UK about 10 years ago. Ain't gonna happen here in capitalistic USA.

      Delete

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

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