A friend pointed me to a great article entitled The Real Science Gap , which explores the history of how the current educational system came into being, and how the various pressures have caused the current glut of scientists. The law of supply and demand is working exactly as expected, and potential scientists are reacting to the employment prospects by choosing other lines of work.
Makes a lot of sense to me! What do you think? Put your opinions in the comments below.
From Derek Lowe’s blog, In the Pipeline…..
“So that’s a piece of advice I can give to new chemistry hires in this business: get ready to learn everyone else’s business, too. ”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. The whole article is
Walk Around Some.
ScienceCareers.org just published a great article that summarizes many of the issues around temporary work, or what they call Short-Term Science. Contract work was once virtually unheard of in the sciences, but is becoming more and more common. Companies like the flexibility it gives them in staffing, and many scientists enjoy being able to test out a company or field before committing to a permanent position. Given the way the job market is going, sometimes a 2-year contract for a “temporary” position offers more stability than a “permanent” position.
The article includes a sidebar list of 7 agencies that specialize in placing scientists in contract postions. Most of these companies I know and have worked with, but there were a couple that were new to me.
If you’re interested in trying out a new company, or learning a new skill, think about contract work and check out some of these companies.
FASEB just published a wonderful report, correlating data from all sorts of national surveys on Education and Employment of Biological and medical Scientists. There is a detailed Powerpoint presentation, with notes which detail data sources and contact information, as well as a one page summary of trends.
The most interesting finding, at least to me, is that the number of tenure (or tenure track) academically employed scientists has remained relatively unchanged for the last 20 years. But he number of doctorate degrees awarded during this time has doubled. Not surprisingly, industry is the fastest growing employment sector for biological and medical scientists. Where else would they go?
What this means, of course, is that there are many more highly educated scientists competing for the same positions. Those who chose not to go that route move into industry, and many of them move into nontraditional careers.
The good news is this means there are more chemists out there blazing the way, who can provide guidance and advice for those coming behind. The bad news, of course, is that there’s more competition for those postions. This means it’s ever more important to figure out exactly what you want to do, and why you’re good at it. That way you can find the job that’s just right for you, and will be able to explain to the company why you are a perfect fit.
One of the things I tell new graduates is that they need to understand intellectual property – patents, trade secrets, copyrights, and so on. Protection of assets is a very big part of many companies, and it not taught in most chemistry graduate programs.
A recent article by Michael S. Malone entitled “Silicon Insider: Patent Weary” that talks about the current problems with the patent system, and how things may be changing. Food for thought…..