This book is an excellent resource for job seekers in all areas of the biotechnology industry, at all stages of their career, providing detailed descriptions of various positions in the biomedical/drug discovery industry. It is particularly adept at advising on how to change career paths or steer your career in a certain direction by contacting the right people and seeking out appropriate work experience.
What it's great for:
One star deducted for:
A "one-stop" shop for career info
This book is a valuable "one-stop" resource for anyone seeking job opportunities in the biotechnology and drug discovery industries. It contains detailed information on a broad spectrum of positions from the obvious laboratory positions in discovery research to the not-so-obvious fringe jobs such as those combining science and law, business development, communications or management consulting.
For students and anyone thinking of making the move from academia, to those transitioning from other career paths, the book offers insightful advice on how to prepare for the many roles found in a biotech company. It is divided into sections that take a chronological approach to describing the drug discovery process from beginning to end, and the involvement of each type of position along the way. Each chapter explains what to expect for that position in terms of salary, job security, responsibilities and possibility for advancement. Although this is all useful information, it can be repetitive as you read through each chapter and various roles that can, at times, be very similar. However, if you use it as a resource for searching out specific types of jobs, the organizational system works.
Broad generalizations
Also discussed for each job, are the pros and cons to that position in terms of what activities a typical day may bring, how you can expect to be treated by your company and peers, challenges on the job, sources of job satisfaction and angst, and how to tell if you are a good candidate for that position. This is where I think, in places, the book fell flat. I felt that some of the broader generalizations took away from the professional tone of the book. In particular, generalizations were made about personality types that are found in each job, and they seemed, at times, a little over-presumptuous.
I also found that the often repeated declarations that job satisfaction in this industry comes from "happiness derived form making a difference", "helping people", and "improving world health" were a little bit overplayed, making it sound like Ms. Freedman has a personal agenda to improve the bad-guy reputation of the drug industry.
