What’s Hot – July

We’re flying through the Summer here in Life Science Towers, with plenty to keep us busy. Here’s our latest monthly round-up of some of our active jobs:
I’m looking for Clinical Research professionals in many guises. From CTA to CRA and a Clinical Operations Specialist, it’s an area we seem to be seeing a lot of [...]

Explain Yourself!

We see a LOT of CVs on a daily basis (I even see CVs in my sleep on weekends – OK maybe not!).
Some points that occurred to me recently that are very important:
-NEVER address an email to Sir / Madam or “To Whom it Concerns”. This is lazy. Go onto LinkedIn, find the name of [...]

We’re growing!

We’re delighted to welcome James Cassidy onto the Life Science team. Coming from a strong Scientific / Business and Recruitment background, James fits into the Life Science mould perfectly.
As James says:
“I’m delighted to join the team in Life Science as principal medical device consultant. Having worked for the last 2 ½ in the life science [...]

What’s Hot – May

Wow, June is nearly upon – that was quick!
It’s been a good month in Life Science Towers on various fronts, here’s a run down of the roles were working hard on currently:
Health Quality professionals. We’re working exclusively with this Client to provide them with a number of people who have previous experience in the Healthcare [...]

Using Social Media to Recruit

OK, this isn’t quite the magician sharing his secrets, but below are our views and what we believe are the advantages of using social media to recruit.
Facebook. Having 500+ fans, we can get our message to a large, active and interested audience immediately. From feedback to blog posts to actually getting candidates to respond through [...]

Keeping your finger on the pulse (while not working)

So you’ve just graduated and are looking for your first job, or recently been made redundant? It’s important to keep that fire burning by staying in touch with current scientific issues. This will come across very well at interview when they ask you something along the lines of: “so what are your interests?” or “tell [...]

Would you fire this person?

I had an interesting online conversation with a friend who is based in the States last night.The chat came round to a lab supervisor who was upset that a person they had recently hired had “embelllished” and added details onto their CV. Essentially, they had lied in order to get themselves ahead of the pack. [...]

Career Advice from Industry Experts

I’ve tweeted and posted this on Facebook already (as well as blogged about it before), but I think it’s worthy of a lot more than that.
All Life Science jobseekers should check out this video: HERE.
It’s 4 Irish industry leaders: Owen Treacy (GM, Novo Nordisk Ireland), David Lloyd (Dean of Research, TCD), Joe Keenan (Director Sales [...]

“The Future of the Life Sciences Industry” article

Below is our article as featured on pgs 46-47 of the “Life Science Industry” Reference/Yearbook 2009/2010.
Brian Christensen from Life Science Recruitment examines how the recent economic difficulties have affected the Life Sciences industry in Ireland.
The Life Science industry in Ireland has weathered the economic storm relatively unscathed. A sweeping statement perhaps? But one we believe [...]

Study (for free) in Sweden

While reading a recent issue of New Scientist which got delivered to us (thanks New Scientist!) yesterday, I fell upon an add which brought me back to my college days. They weren’t that long ago….

Having graduated from Medicinal Chemistry, I onluy knew 1 thing, I didn’t want to work in a lab. I was uninterested in teh daily lab work during my research project in Madrid, and wanted to try something different. So if it wasn’t a PhD and it wasn’t a job in an industrial lab, what was it?

What’s Hot (December)

Plenty of interesting new roles since last time – a quick rundown:

Clinical / IT / LIMS Applications Specialistsl: we are working on one project for a large Client. They require people skilled in various IT applications across all Life Sciences sectors. So if you (or anyone you know) has experience in LIMS / PACS (Picture Archiving and Communications System) / Patient Management systems and is interested in a new opportunity with huge scope for flexibility, then do get in touch. We have been personally very involved in the recruitment process for this role, having gone as far as taking the online assessment tests ourselves (and passed!), so we are in a strong position to be able to guide candidates through the process.

More CV tips

An interesting CV arrived in last week, something I had not seen before. At the bottom was a whole paragraph of tags, which the candidate was obviously hoping would be picked up by our database as it scanned the CV for key word skills. He CV would then show up in more searches which he then hoped woudl result in his CV being more visible to us and us calling him more often in relation to available opportunities. This is similar to “black-hat” webpage search optimisation which has since been discovered by Google. People would hide a multitude of keywords in the background text on their website, often in the same colour oas the background itself (say white words on a white background which would be picked up the the search bot). Needless to say, this did not look very good on the CV and didn’t strike me as being hugely professional, for someone that had a lot of experience.

What’s Hot (November)

Continuing from our last “What’s Hot Right Now” spot, we’ll continue this and hereby promise to make this a monthly section on the blog.

Areas we’re particularly busy in currently:

Reg Affairs – we are working on some very interesting work in this area on the Medical Devices / Diagnostics side of things. Anyone with significant experience in this area – do get in touch! These skills are particularly in demand for companies launching new products or new start-up organisations developing / taking over new products. The trend towards more specific and niche products means more regulatory (and associated quality) filings, valuable skill sets to have for the future.

Graduate Do’s and Don’ts

As a recruitment company we receive a huge amount of traffic and applications from graduates. We give each one a non-automated response, and return all emails requesting advice / tips, but it would be nicer to equip each one with a bit more information about how to approach the job seeking process. So here goes:

What’s hot right now

I intend this to become a semi-regular (semi so I’m not nailing myself to the cross!) on what areas we are seeing particular levels of activity in. So let’s get started:
Pharma / Medical Device Sales. My colleague Richard is always on the lookout for superb candidates who have extensive experience in these areas. All of [...]

Managing your web footprint

Now the following is mostly applicable to jobseekers, but most if not all of us will be jobseekers in the future, this applies to us all. With people spending more and more time on the internet, footprints are left. Most of these are deliberate, what’s important is that your footprint represents who you are, or [...]

Crisis as University Science Drop-Out Rates hit 40%

Recent reports have indicated that a very high percentage of university students are dropping out of science and technology courses after their first year in college. In DCU, heralded as the cutting-edge technology campus, drop-out rates of 39% have been reported, while in UCD a drop-out rate of 26% was reported and countrywide, the seven universities averaged 20%.

The Web 2.0 Recruitment Era

Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Blogs, Technorati, MySpace, Social Media…. the list in endless… but what is all the fuss about and how can it find me a job, i hear you ask…

Web 2.0 is simply the catchy term for the next generation of internet technologies. In the same way mobile phones evolved from Analogue (088) to GSM (087) to GPRS the to 3G and HSPDA; from just making a standard call to making a video call, the internet is in a state of flux. A tidal wave of new rich applications are now available, enhancing the internet for the end-user. This has been made possible by the widespread peretration of broadband to the masses, combined with a reduction in the cost of computer hardware.

So how does it increase my chances of getting a job???

How to Get an Edge in the Job Search

It has become evident in the last 6 months that the search for jobs in science has become much more difficult. There are fewer jobs and more competition – two forces which combine to make the task of even getting an interview a challenge. Here we explore some tactics which may give you an edge in the job search.

Your Curriculum Vitae

Your CV is a representation of yourself and as such you should put significant work into it to ensure that it represents you in the best light possible. Not wanting to state the obvious, make sure it has no spelling mistakes (spell check!), that your career is in chronological order with most recent first, and that it starts with a 5 or 6 line summary of yourself (summary, objective etc…). Make sure it is formatted correctly (same font throughout – Arial, Verdana), Headings in Bold 12pt, Subheadings in Bold+Italic 11pt and body text 10pt. Avoid multiple colours (Monochrome Dark grey/Black OK) and don’t put your picture on it. People like conformity and are resistant to change unless it is very beneficial. View and download some templates on the lifescience.ie site here.