And what about research assistant professors?

"How many Brukers were there at Hereford?"
Credit: poodfoison.wordpress.com

An astute reader writes in to ask:

Within my little research niche, I've noticed a lot of "research assistant professor" positions popping up.  The duties seem to be summarized as "chief post-doc with a more respectable title and no teaching responsibilities." 

This might be good news: Slowing the Ph.D. production rate somewhat and providing jobs for those already out there.  I was wondering if you or any of your readers has noticed these positions...and had any idea why they might be becoming more common.

I haven't seen this very often in the ads, but there have been so many run-of-the-mill assistant professor ads recently, I can't really remember.

If they're becoming more common, it's probably because certain institutions have enough soft money to support the position for the short/medium-term, but not for the long term. (Also, could these be "holding pattern" positions for favored postdocs?) It's my guess that the problem with these positions is that they're "soft money"-related, so as soon as the funding runs out, you're in the wind.

Readers, you know so much more about this than I do. Please, feel free to tell me what's up.

Anyone have anything to say about Kelly positions?

So I tend not to talk about the 100 bazillion Kelly Scientific Research positions that tend to pop now nowadays. It's mostly because I don't find them particularly relevant to Chemjobber's readership.

But a reader writes in with a good question: "Are these legitimate job postings that I should be applying for, or should I not waste my time?  I guess I do not fully understand what these are and am curious to know what you think about them."

It seems to me that they're mostly aimed at, for example, enticing employees from other companies (i.e. experienced workers). Here's a nice example: it's a temp-to-hire position in West Lafayette in process chemistry/formulation. They'd like you to have experience in:

"Polymorphism and Salt Screening in Pharmaceutical Systems, X-ray Powder Diffraction, Differential Scanning Calorimetry, Thermogravimetric Analysis, Optical Microscopy, Crystallization Studies, Co-Crystal Screening, Crystal Form Isolation, and Crystallization Kinetic Studies. The ideal candidate would have a bachelors or masters degree in chemistry and at least one year work experience in a lab."

So an young, but experienced B.S./M.S. process chemist -- why would they want a temp position? (unless, of course, they were out of work or were coming to the end of their previous contract.)

There's also a lot of lab technician or midnight QC chemist positions available. There's nothing particularly wrong with them, but they just don't seem to be very tempting. So I'm pretty "meh" about Kelly, which is why I don't post on a lot of their jobs. Readers, you've probably had a lot more experience with them. Any thoughts? 

Daily Pump Trap: 11/6/12 edition

Good morning! Between November 1 and November 5, there have been 106 new positions posted on the C&EN Jobs website. Of these, 32 (30%) were academically connected and 56 (53%) were from Kelly Scientific Resources.

Seattle, WA: Seattle Genetics is hiring a principal scientist for its chemical development team. They've been hiring a lot for their process team, recently.

Ahh, you again: Millenium is once again advertising itself as having positions. Are they real? No one knows.  (There are 4 positions for the search term "chemist" on its career website, none for synthetic.)

Colorado Springs, CO: Pxyant Labs is looking for a B.S./M.S./Ph.D. analytical chemist with lots of experience with mass spectrometers and GLP.

And you, too!: Phenomenex is also looking for multiple positions.

Ivory Filter Flask: 11/6/12

Good morning! Between October 30 and November 5, there were 46 new academic positions posted on C&EN Jobs. The numbers:

Total number of ads: 46
- Postdocs: 6
- Tenure-track faculty:  37
- Temporary faculty: 1
- Lecturer positions:  2
- Staff positions:  0
- US/non-US: 43/3

"Anne of Green Gables" novel not included: (Sorry, PEIers.) The University of Prince Edward Island is hiring an assistant professor of chemistry for a position to start next summer. 

High Point, NC: High Point University is hiring for 3 positions: the chair of the department, a biochemistry faculty position and for an assistant professor of organic chemistry.

Northern paradise?: Stockholm University is advertising what appears to be a pre-doctoral fellowship position to study materials chemistry. 28k to 40k/year, with pension for your last two years. Huh.

Central paradise?: Indiana University-Kokomo is looking for an assistant professor of environmental biochemistry.

Evanston, IL: Northwestern's chemical engineering department is looking for a postdoc in lithium-ion battery research.

To make glorious benefit nation of...: Nazarbayev University (Astana, Kazakhstan) is looking for professors of biology... on the website of the American Chemical Society.

ACS Webinar on the doctoral glut

ACS Webinars is holding one on "Are there More Scientists Than Jobs?". This is with Professor Richard Freeman (Harvard). It is also with Professor Paula Stephan (Georgia State), author of "How Economics Shapes Science." It will be moderated by Patricia Simpson, Director of Academic Advising and Career Services for UIUC's School of Chemical Sciences.

Let me be blunt and say this up front: Professors Freeman and Stephan are well-respected scholars on this issue, and have more-or-less come out on the "Yes" side of the equation above.

Tune in on Thursday, November 8 at 2 pm Eastern. I'll be listening (and Tweeting/liveblogging), and I hope you will be as well. 

ACS resources for unemployed chemists

Looks like there's going to be an online job club for unemployed chemists, run by ACS, on Tuesdays at 2 PM Eastern.

Click on the link for other ACS resources towards finding a job (I guess Chemjobber doesn't merit a mention -- sigh.) 

Human stories abound in C&EN's employment outlook issue

Credit: C&EN

From Linda Wang's excellent, yet excruciating story on unemployment among pharma chemists, some terribly sad stories:

“I’m listed as employed,” says “Eric,” 46, who was laid off in 2007 from his position as a senior chemist at Johnson & Johnson and is now an adjunct professor at three different colleges and universities. “I got reemployed, but is this what employment should be like for someone at my level?” [snip] 

...He teaches as an adjunct professor on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, splitting his time among three colleges and universities that are 50 to 70 miles apart. He leaves around 10 AM and doesn’t get home until after 11 PM, leaving little time to spend with his twin daughters, who are nine years old. 

Because of the length of his commute and the high cost of gas, Eric sold his car and bought a used Suzuki with better gas mileage. “The previous car was costing me about $1,000 a month in gas, and that was not sustainable,” he says. He has roughly $400 left in his 401(k). “Four hundred bucks is no 401(k); it won’t buy you a plane ticket anywhere,” he says. But he’s not one to dwell on his difficulties. “It’s tight financially, but the fact is we’re still surviving. It’s just a little harder, that’s all.”

I found this comment on ACS' Salary Survey data kind of amusing:

“The data that ACS has is for the most part self-reported, and that’s always going to underreport the truth,” says Lee H. Latimer, a consultant and longtime ACS volunteer, who was laid off from Elan in 2011. “Many may have a job, which keeps them from collecting unemployment, but they’re not working either in their field or in a position that comes anywhere close to matching their previous income”—meaning, he says, that they’re effectively underemployed.

And how about the PMP, that certificate of awesomeness from a couple of years ago?:

“Michael,” a Ph.D. organic chemist in his 50s, living in California, knows just how unsettling this roller-coaster ride can be. Since he was laid off from a biotech company in 2008, he has applied for more than 10,000 jobs, some 7,000 related to the chemical sciences and 3,000 outside of science. 

Meanwhile, Michael has earned certifications in clinical trial design and management, regulatory affairs, quality assurance and control, and project management. But “by the time that I finished, not only did the number of these jobs decrease, employers weren’t going to take anybody who doesn’t have experience. The training is not enough for them,” he says. “I went and retrained myself, but I still cannot get a job. 

I don't think it's a coincidence that most of the people in these articles are in what is supposed to be the prime of their careers (late 30s to 50s). That it has become brutal for mid-career chemists (the people who are probably going to be most productive and have the most ability to innovate) is fundamentally clear. It is beginning to be clear that not a single organization (not ACS, not the pharma companies, no one in government) has any idea what to do about it. What a shame.

C&EN's 2012 employment issue: the numbers

I don't want to have the new numbers released from the ACS Department of Member Research and Insights from the March 2012 ACS Salary Survey to be lost in the shuffle, so here they are, pulled out of Sophie L. Rovner's article, which is worth reading in full:

• Overall member unemployment: 4.2% 
• Ph.D. member unemployment: 3.4%
• B.S. member unemployment: 5.9%
• Industrial member unemployment: 5.4%
• Academic member unemployment: 2.2%
• % of members unemployed at anytime during 2011: 8.2%
• % of members unemployed at anytime during 2010: 8.4%
• % of newly graduates unemployed in October 2011: 13.3% 
• % of newly graduates unemployed in 2010: 10.6% 
• % of Ph.D. graduates unemployed in October 2011: 8.8%
• % of B.S. graduates unemployed in October 2011: 13.6%

Also, check out this chart from the article (right), which indicates the brutal reality facing new graduates in chemistry.

Credit: C&EN*

Anyone who buys into facile claims that America needs more scientists and more chemists needs to be able to explain this graph. 

Also, the larger picture for the chemical manufacturing sector:

Zeroing in on the U.S. chemical manufacturing sector, employment totaled 799,600 on a seasonally adjusted basis in September 2012, up 0.2% from the prior month and up 0.7% from September 2011, according to preliminary figures from BLS. That’s good news, but it’s little comfort to the hundreds of thousands of people who lost their jobs in prior months. At the start of the Great Recession in December 2007, employment in the sector was 857,600. Five years earlier, it was 921,500. And 10 years before that—in December 1992—chemical manufacturing employees numbered 1.03 million.

Yikes.

*[NOTE: Corrected number for 2004 for ACS members. Numbers include unemployed and seeking employment. Data for 2012 on new graduates are not yet available. SOURCES: ACS Starting Salary Survey, ACS Comprehensive Salary and Employment Status Survey.]

Chemjobber welcomes ACS leadership to early 2009

Chemical and Engineering News is running its annual employment issue. I'll be covering it more tomorrow, but I am taking the following passage from Linda Wang's truly excellent story on unemployment in chemistry as a sign that this blog (and its truly excellent readership) was ahead of the curve and that the leadership of the American Chemical Society was behind:

The impact of this recession has been unlike that of previous recessions. “The fact is that the number of jobs has declined,” says Bassam Z. Shakhashiri, president of the American Chemical Society. And the usual methods for obtaining a new job aren’t working. “If the jobs aren’t there,” Shakhashiri says, “no matter how much you network, you’re not going to find them.” 

“The situation today is a tragedy of national proportions,” says Madeleine Jacobs, ACS executive director and chief executive officer. “It’s devastating to individual lives, and it’s devastating to this country.”

More in the AM, but I just want to point out that we have NEVER heard this kind of language from ACS leadership. Welcome to Chemjobber, my friends -- I suggest you start at entry 1. 

What's the best disaster planning for a chemical laboratory?

I am sure that all of you were horrified by Hurricane Sandy and its continuing aftermath, especially the situation with the NYU medical center and the loss of all the research mice. From Derek Lowe:

...thousands of genetically engineered and/or specially bred rodents were lost from an NYU facility due to flooding. The Fishell lab appears to have lost its entire stock of 2,500 mice, representing 10 years of work. Very bad news indeed for the people whose careers were depending on these.

Here's C&EN's coverage of Hurricane Sandy and its effects on both chemical academia and the chemical industry.

I think it is worth having a conversation about whether/if it is possible to disaster plan for an academic chemical laboratory or a small chemical company.* If it's a relatively slow-moving disaster like flooding or a hurricane, one imagines that there's planning that can be done ahead of time (things like regular backups of digital data, etc.) If it's an earthquake or an alien invasion, there's not much to be done. Obviously, physical safety and security is of primary importance. (Ready.gov is a great place to start for these sorts of things.) Get your car gassed up ahead of time, etc. Board up your house, get your stuff ready to go, whatever.

But are there steps that chemists can take, if they believe their laboratory will be affected by a natural disaster or they might have to evacuate? Here's what I'm thinking about:

• Graduate students and postdocs, in case of evacuation, make sure that your laboratory notebooks are  at hand, and that you have multiple copies of your digital data. 
• Attempt to secure instruments (especially expensive ones!) that might be affected by the oncoming storm. For example, here's @TheModernScientist, talking about what to do with their NMRs. (I believe this chemist is in the NYC area.) 
• I think there should be an effort to power down or decommission any obvious chemical hazards. I'm thinking about the clichéd THF still or what have you. 

Readers, what do you think? Am I crazy for thinking about this stuff? Do you have experience from Katrina, Midwest floods or crazy blizzards that you can share? 

*(I'm basically saying that if you work at a large company, they should have the resources to deal with this on their own; it's much less likely that you'll be like See Arr Oh, chainsawing a tree out of the boss' driveway, or whatever. Whatever relationship you have with a large corporation, it is unlikely that they'll rely on you, the individual chemist for disaster planning, except for maybe the laboratories. Correct me if I'm wrong, naturally.) 

Thoughts from a campus recruiter

Since we were talking about corporate recruiting visits earlier, I thought I would talk to MP, a mid-career chemist who visited a major research university as a representative of their employer, looking for people to hire. I asked for general impressions of what it was like to sit across a table and attempt to evaluate graduate students and their work. What follows is a mashup of the e-mail back-and-forth, lightly edited:

Should you dress up? Most people wore a suit and tie (or suit for the women). I would say how they were dressed was the least memorable thing about the interview unless it was extremely casual. I would recommend dressing up for the interview.

What's the best way to present your work? It was best when the interviewee came prepared with a short overview of their research. One thing that surprised me was how little some people came prepared to talk about things they wrote on their résumé. Least effective interviewees were ones who wouldn't elaborate on what they did, what were their duties, etc. IMO, shorter, concise resumes are better. Some people had appended other items.

Cultural differences: I interviewed both chem engineers and chemists and I noticed a big difference. The Chem Es all had some kind of industrial experience, either internships or actual business classes. This was very rare in chem students. Chem Es were also more clear in their duties, like saying they supervised these people, they were in charge of this group duty, etc. I'm not sure if this is a chem/chem e cultural difference.

What distinguished the students who got it right from those who didn't? The ones who got it right had more things to talk about than just their research. The ones who got it "wrong" we're unable or unwilling to elaborate on things or were perhaps a little too honest (like admitting to hating certain tasks which would be a big part of their jobs.)

Any other general comments? As far as other advice, I'd recommend trying to take interview training, I think that would help some a lot. I'm also rather indifferent to the follow-up thank you email but I suppose it couldn't hurt.

Thanks to MP for insight into what a scientist is thinking during a recruiting visit. 

Unemployment rate up 0.1% in October, U6 unemployment down 0.1%

Credit: Calculated Risk blog

Fresh electrons from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: the unemployment rate in October was up slightly to 7.9%, from 7.8% in September. The broader U6 measurement of unemployment was down 0.1% to 14.6%.

Chemical manufacturing payrolls increased by 1,600 jobs to 802,700 for the sector.

The news will be about the total nonfarm payroll number, with an increase of 171,000 jobs for October. Less discussed, but equally significant are the upward revisions of ~80,000 jobs for August and September.

There are 12 million people who are unemployed -- best wishes to them.

Thanks, as always, to Calculated Risk for the graph. 

...And that's why I don't work retail

From the New York Times, the uncomfortable reality of attempting to work retail In Our Times -- that you'll be working shorter and shorter shifts:

At its store here, just east of San Diego, Shannon Hardin oversees seven self-checkout stations, usually by herself. Typically working shifts of five or six hours, she hops between stations — bagging groceries, approving alcohol purchases, explaining the checkout system to shoppers and urging customers to join the retailer’s loyalty program, all while watching for shoplifters. “I like it. I’m a people person,” said Ms. Hardin, 50, who used to work as an office assistant at a construction company until times went bad. 

But after nearly five years at Fresh & Easy, she remains a part-time worker despite her desire to work full-time. In fact, all 22 employees at her store are part-time except for the five managers. She earns $10.90 an hour, and with workweeks averaging 28 hours, her yearly pay equals $16,500. “I can’t live on this,” said Ms. Hardin, who is single. “It’s almost impossible.” 

While there have always been part-time workers, especially at restaurants and retailers, employers today rely on them far more than before as they seek to cut costs and align staffing to customer traffic. This trend has frustrated millions of Americans who want to work full-time, reducing their pay and benefits. “Over the past two decades, many major retailers went from a quotient of 70 to 80 percent full-time to at least 70 percent part-time across the industry,” said Burt P. Flickinger III, managing director of the Strategic Resource Group, a retail consulting firm.

If you read further, large retailers like Jamba Juice have software that surges employees around lunchtime, and then cuts them shortly thereafter.

When I was coming up on the end of my postdoc, I thought to myself, "The worst case scenario is that I will work at the Walmart at the bottom of the hill." (the one next to the Fry's, for San Diego readers) But I am well-aware that retail is, in its own way, a terrible Wheel of Pain.

If that much is not clear, Mr. Flickinger, the retail consultant puts a little English on the ball at the end of the article:

Mr. Flickinger, the retail consultant, said companies benefited from using many part-timers. “It’s almost like sharecropping — if you have a lot of farmers with small plots of land, they work very hard to produce in that limited amount of land,” he said. “Many part-time workers feel a real competition to work hard during their limited hours because they want to impress managers to give them more hours.”

When you're comparing your workers to sharecroppers, you know that things aren't going so well for workers. Thank goodness that chemistry doesn't make people work part-time. Right? Right?

Corporate recruiting visits at Harvard Chemistry: The New Normal (?)

This is the 4th annual analysis of corporate recruiting at Harvard's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. As the graph at right shows, the recruiting season (so far) indicates a slight drop from 2011, but the situation more or less staying the same. (NB: the 2012 recruiting season is not over.)

It's surprising to me that corporate recruiting has not recovered back to 2008 levels. After 4 years, it appears that 10-15 companies is the new normal for Harvard. One presumes that full-bore large-company hiring of entry-level research chemists will be back for good when Harvard sees a big increase. It does not look good now.

(Those who want to see other universities' corporate recruiting schedules, click here for a look at Stanford in 2010 and here for MIT's corporate recruiting from 2002-2011.

Daily Pump Trap: 11/1/12 edition

Good morning! Between October 30 and October 31, 30 positions were posted on the C&EN Jobs. Of these, 9 (30%) were academically connected and 18 (60%) were from Kelly Scientific Resources.

Ugh: Recently, it seems that there are more chemical engineering positions than chemist positions. Certainly, today, when there were 3 positions posted, one of them was for a chemical engineer.

Orange, TN: Invista is a polymer/fiber company; they're looking for a B.S. chemist to be a lab technician. 2+ years laboratory experience, experience with high-pressure equipment desired.

Richland, WA: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is looking for an Ph.D. analytical chemist to be a postdoctoral fellow (must be within 5 years post-graduation.) Program is "focused on the nuclear forensics applications of functionalized nanoscale materials. This position is responsible for collaboratively developing trace level organic and inorganic methods using advanced materials and methods." Hmmmm.

A broader look: Monster, Careerbuilder, Indeed and USAjobs.gov show 276, 685, 2567 and 11 positions for the search term "chemist."

That said...: It looks like the Army Research Laboratory is taking CVs for chemists (and other scientists with M.S. degrees or higher.) 

Where was this app in 2009?

It's never too late for just a little fun.

(courtesy of Pic Monkey)

This is immature...

Based on this blogpost

...but quite satisfying to me, anyway.

Look -- there's a lot to be criticized about modern industrial agriculture and how it does things. But chemophobia and fear, uncertainty and doubt attacks are really annoying. 

But what do I know? I'm one of the people who makes money from chemicals. 

P.S. Bittman's "Minimalist" recipes are, indeed, pretty great. I like them a lot. 

NPR covers #chemjobs in the RTP area

Listening to All Things Considered on the way home yesterday, a fascinating #chemjobs story in the middle of a series on financial success (and lack thereof). It's based out of North Carolina's Research Triangle area, so it's not a surprise that there are pharma/chemical industry ties:

Donald Zepp, 67, and his wife, Carmen — 26 years his junior — have a 4-year-old son together. Both have been married before and both were well-employed before. Donald taught at Cornell and worked for the multinational agrichemical company Rhone-Poulenc until he was downsized. Carmen worked in the finance department of the pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline but quit after surviving ovarian cancer. 

"It was eight years before I joined the legion of people who on getting out of corporate America say, 'That was the best that ever happened to me,' " Donald says. "It took eight years, but I did reach that point where one day I said, 'You know, I'm really happy, this beats the hell out of working.' " 

The Zepps live in Wendell, N.C., 20 miles east of Raleigh, where they bought the local music store. Together, they've gone into business selling banjos. [snip] The Zepps cheerfully describe their economic situation as "dismal" and say they get by, for the most part, on his pension and Social Security. [snip]

...Phil Luby is another refugee from corporate life who struck out on his own. He says he used to make $200,000 a year marketing pharmaceuticals. When he was downsized in 2008, he rolled the dice on the used car business. It was a tough business to get into then, but he says things are improving.

Dr. Zepp appears to have been laid off from Rhone-Poulenc from a position as a Ph.D. entomologist. I don't wish to speculate too much on Dr. Zepp's career, but one imagines that he tried at least a little bit to find other work in his field. The same goes for Mr. Luby, I'll bet.

That two of three people formerly connected with the chemical/pharma industries were laid off is no surprise, I suppose. While both people seem to have landed on their feet (and Dr. Zepp seems genuinely happy about his new job), one wonders if, in better economic times for our sector, whether they would have stayed in their positions.

Best wishes to all of us. 

Process Wednesday: data comes from the weirdest places

There sure seem to be a lot of articles about working with hydrazoic acid safely in Organic Process Research and Development recently; all to the good! In the latest one (González-Bobes et al. [1]), the authors perform an "enantioselective palladium-catalyzed desymmetrization of a meso-bis-ester using TMS-N₃. They do quite a bit of work towards making sure that there's not too much hydrazoic acid in the headspace -- after all, it's both terribly toxic and explosive. From the article:

To maintain safety during downstream processing, a high pH and/or near complete reaction conversion must be achieved. Since the process required an acidification for intermediate stabilization (approximate pH 3.5), our control strategy relies on achieveing high reaction conversions (low residual free azide.) Therefore, the next step in the quantitative analysis becames the determination of the accetable residual free azide level after the palladium-catalyzed desymmetrization reaction. To accomplish this, we first interpreted data from the PUREX process, a nuclear fuel reprocessing method which forms HN3 as a byproduct. Using this data, we established a gas phase limit of 0.625 vol % which is based on the enriched condensate LEL in equilibrium wit the solution and gas phases. 

As a relative youngster, I'm not really aware of the PUREX process, so I thought I would take a look at it. It's pretty remarkable stuff, being able to extract out uranium and plutonium from spent nuclear fuel with tributylphosphate. Here's an excerpt from a random ORNL paper from 1977 on using hydrazine (the source of the hydrazoic acid) in the PUREX process:

In order to separate uranium and plutonium from each other in PUREX processing of nuclear reactor fuelds, advantage is taken of the fact that uranium (VI) is readily extracted from nitric acid solutions into the tributylphosphate-diluent organic phase while plutonium (III) is relatively inextractable. The uranium and plutonium are usually coextracted from the nitric acid fuel dissolver solution as uranium (VI) and plutonium (IV) and are then differentially stripped. The plutonium is reduced to plutonium (III) which strips into a dilute nitric acid solution leaving the uranium (VI) in the organic phase to be subsequently stripped with water. In some flowsheets, the plutonium is reduced prior to the uranium extraction in order to achieve the desired separation.  

Plutonium (III) is not stable in nitric acid and, without the addition of a holding reductant, rapid and complete reoxidation to plutonium (IV) may occur. This can lead to reextraction of the plutonium during reductive stripping and plutonium recycled within the countercurrent contacting apparatus... Holding reductants are routinely added to solutions of plutonium (III) to destroy the nitrous acid which is continously formed by radiolytic decomposition of nitric acid. Very few reagents have proven useful as holding reductants... 

Hydrazine rapidly reactions with nitrous acid, and the favorable kinetics of this reaction make hydrazine a practical holding reductant. With excess hydrazine present, the condition prevailing when hydrazine is used as a holding reductant, the fast reaction  

N₂H₄ + HNO₂ -> HN₃ + 2H₂O 

occurs which stoichiometrically yields hydrazoic acid, HN₃. Hydrazoic acid is relatively stable in nitric acid solutions. 

There's something amusing about a situation in which rocket fuel gets added to nuclear waste to generate a "relatively stable" explosive waste product. My (figurative) hat's off to Kelmers and Browning for an education in nuclear fuel reprocessing, and to González-Bobes et al. for leading me there.

[1] González-Bobes, F.; Kopp, N.; Li, L.; Deerberg, J.; Sharma, P.; Leung, S.; Davies, M.; Bush, J.; Hamm, J.; Hrytsak. M. "Scale-up of Azide Chemistry: A Case Study." Org. Process. Res. Dev. ASAP. DOI: 10.1021/op3002646

Daily Pump Trap: 10/30/12 edition

Between September 25 and September 29, 91 new positions were posted on C&EN Jobs. Of these, 21 (23%) are academically connected and 62 (68%) are from Kelly Scientific Resources.

Sigh: More Kelly, more academic positions. When the academic positions go away, it's going to be all Kelly, all the time, if things don't pick up.

Cincinnati, OH: Shepherd Chemical Company is looking for a Ph.D. synthetic inorganic chemist for a product development position. I suspect it's entry-level to mid-career, but I can't quite tell.

Hmmm: TSG is a company that performs regulatory consulting for chemical companies; they're looking for a Ph.D. chemist with 5+ years experience to be a "senior managing chemist." Looks TSCA-related. (I wonder if the "Safer Chemicals Act" will never get off the ground to replace TSCA; unlikely, I'll bet.)

Berkeley, CA: The Pesticide Research Institute is searching for a Ph.D. chemist to be an associate scientist.  Looks to be risk assessments on pesticides -- you know, the exact thing that gets drinks bought for you in the Bay Area. The pay looks a little paltry (50-70k), but maybe that was just to fill out the form.