Returning to the World of Employment

After spending a couple months relaxing and enjoying the domestic life in San Diego, I decided to start looking for a job out here. Biotech, here I come!

I had always planned on having a career in the biotech industry. Although I have been strongly encouraged to do a postdoc in academia, I didn't see a reason to suffer through 2-5 MORE years of high stress, long hours, and low pay. I NEVER had the ambition to pursue a career in academics... I was looking for a career that challenged me, yet provided a 40 hour (and hopefully not much more) work week, job security, and financial stability.

Almost 2 months ago, I decided I was ready to start applying for jobs. I didn't want to wait too long; I heard long stretches of unemployment worked against you. Also, Dave had told me that whenever I got a job offer, I could go out and buy a car. :) Whoo-hoo! Talk about an incentive! Ha ha ha....

It was difficult to find suitable biotech positions for me. There are plenty of Research Scientist positions out there, but the majority required prior industry experience. And then I was overqualified for the rest of the positions. But that didn't stop me from applying to them! I did get lucky and found 2 PostDoc positions available at local biotech companies. Those are pretty hard to find. One of them was at a good company focusing on cancer therapeutics through chaperones. I thought I had a good chance for that as my thesis focused on a chaperone protein, but shortly after I applied, the listing disappeared. Shucks, must've applied too late...

But after sending out around 15-20 applications, I got an interview! It was for the other postdoc position I applied for, at a small company using mass spectrometry for genotyping. My previous experience made me a good candidate as I used to work at a sequencing facility and did a little bit of genotyping during grad school. Honestly, I wasn't very thrilled at this prospect as I wanted to continue protein work (similar to what I did for my thesis), but I couldn't be picky at this point. Anyways, I had a phone interview-- went great! Two weeks later, had another phone interview with the Director of the Department-- eh, went okay. Two weeks later, I had an onsite interview-- went well I thought. By this point, I was getting a little fed up. They told me at the last interview that I was one of 3 candidates remaining (whoo-hoo!). However, if the race was close, there was potential to be called in for ANOTHER interview involving an oral presentation.... Oh, did I forget to mention that this position was only for ONE YEAR?!?!? (Yeah, didn't really fit my description of job stability)

Anyways, around the time of that last interview, I saw an opening at Stratagene (A nice familiar name whose products I've used before. Heck, I first used one of their kits at my first lab job in 1996!) and decided to apply. Two business days later, had a phone interview, was asked to come back for an onsite interview in 2-3 days. 3 days after that, a JOB OFFER!

6/13/07 Update: I decided to take the Stratagene position!!! Although Stratagene has now officially merged with Agilent, I have been reassured it was a "good thing", and will be joining on as an Agilent employee. The potential for growth is great!

On another note, I was asked for a phone interview for another Postdoc position I applied for a MONTH ago! It's at a good reputable company, but alas, the timing just wasn't right... but it was so nice to get the email. At one point during the job search, I thought my chances were so slim, but yay, I CAN be competitive!

Ooooh, now for the car search!