Notes from a seminar about how to apply for an industry job

Notes taken by me - Liang
The speaker is Shawn Tang from Genentech
Time is last Saturday 1-4 pm in UCSF Medical Center
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Before the start

• what do I really really really want to do for the rest of my life?
• understand the differences between industry (more applied) and academia (more basic)
• understand the differences between big pharms and biotech companies
• what resoursces do I have now?
• what is my time frame? For industry jobs, start 3-6 months before you are ready

Also do the following research

• corp's mission statement, philosophy, pipeline, management team
• officer/hiring manager's profile, pubmed record, recent talks, etc
• job descriptions - evaluate your fit to the job, at least 50%

CV

• simple is more
• basic training, publication, area of interests
• adjust according to the job description, and have different flavors according to your future job preference - say you want to go outside of the lab, you should enhance relative training experiences
• cover letter should NOT be repetitions of your CV
• include 2-3 sentences of your recent projects
• always include PI/mentor's names - small world, everyone knows everyone
• separate full article from abstracts and presentations
• submission/in preparation does not equal to in press - wait for "in press" is better
• minimize other non-research experience
• list lab techniques towards the end of the CV - for some companies' keyword based selection

Power of the networking

• conferences, professional associations, PI's connections, recruiters, facebook/linkedin
• career fair - focus on less than 5 companies and do careful research on them; you only have 30 seconds to leave a positive impression to the recruiters as they are meeting over 200 people per day, never repeat cv, warm up the communication - just like the speed dating, use eye contact
• do not use headhunter with bad reputation, especially the ones with ethical issues - how to know, check their website and see their current clients

On site

• understand the job requirement
• ask who will be attending the seminars and rehearse it - it is a good idea to get some suggestion from the hiring manager before the talk about the talk
• leave extra time for the traffic and parking etc
• get a good night sleep - out of town then feel free to ask for an additional night before the talk

Questions to ask during the interview

• mission and research direction
• corporate culture
• structure of the department and the group
• detailed job responsibilities and expectations
• career/professional development plan, opportunities and advancement path
• management styles
• time frame for making the hiring decision - you will know when should follow up
• DO NOT ASK : SALARY

After the interview

• follow up by email or phone to both hiring manager and recruiter/HR - be friend with recruiters, they might be able to help you
• do not wait for too long, ideally couple days - i am still interested ...
• ask for honest and constructive suggestions/feedbacks
• clearly communicate other competing offers deadlines

Negotiate salary after they decide to hire you

• be open and direct
• understand the overall compensation - base salary, bonus, stock programs, retirement plans
• be flexible, bring all issues and concerns to the discussion
• ask and understand company's philosophy on sign-on bonus
• indicate other competing offers, potential loss due to leaving current position - pension, kid's tuition
• salary.com just as reference, do not use it as a reference

If do not join

• do not break bridges - industry is a very small world
• thank for the opportunity
• talk to recruiters/hiring managers for future jobs referring
• follow up the connection when you see other positions open

Good luck!