Is there any hope for me getting a job in what I graduated in?

Will Graham

So I have an MSc one year taught masters in the biotech field, and I graduated in this a very long 6 years ago. I had a gap year between the undergrad and the masters, and I only did the masters because I couldn't get a job after completing the undergrad and didn't have any other plan. Things went downhill during the masters. The third semester (and final) of the MSc was meant to be an industrial based placement. After the interview for the first placement I later refused to give a urine sample to them because I had not yet been offered the position; and this might have been why I did not get offered it. The second position that I succeeded in getting via a phone call interview, I later lost, because when I visited their site I showed up slightly late and apparently seemed "uninterested". So in the end the university had to get one of the professors to come up with some 3 month research thing for me to work on on campus.

The other thing about this masters was that I accidentally missed a 2 day lab training session because it was carried out during the mid-term, and I completely forgot about it. There was no way of substituting for it. So I basically had the whole MSc material covered, but had to return a year later for 2 days in order to complete that module. Therefore I technically didn't graduate until 2019. As a result of this I was put in a dilemma for how to present my CV. I could either mislead anyone reading it into thinking it was a 2 year masters (by putting the dates as 2017-2019), and hope that they wouldn't look up the course... or to list the MSc dates as 2017-2018, and thus risk the date of 2019 being spotted on my scroll when asked for proof. The former way of course may look better, as any idle time since graduation would go unnoticed. As I got a 2:2 in both my undergrad the masters, I thought I'd eb in a good position to get hired, but apparently not.

I didn't get a proper job until 2022 which is in an unrelated field. However I am now on 43k a year, only there's little room for progression in this job and I don't like it very much. So the two main problems with trying for a bioscience job, are that I don't think I'd be willing to take a pay cut, as well as the fact I'm very rusty by now. However, I still get emails from recruiters via linkedin messages, which makes me wonder if there'd be hope. A lot of these surprisingly are for 'senior' lab manager roles, which I wouldn't stand a hope of anyway. I was getting so many email updates from the recruitment websites that I've either blocked or unsubscribed from them. The last person who reached out to me pretty much ghosted me after I told her I'd little lab experience outside college.

I did hate the interview preparation racket. It gets very disheartening when you realise how much knowledge you could actually gain in the amount of time you've spent preparing for interviews. You could nearly go mad when you're memorising answers to hypothetical questions that are very unlikely to be asked. And when you hear yourself repeating the same spiel for the third time in a different interview, you really feel like a fake, and it gets hard to say it with any conviction. The recruitment reps won't lose anything from sending on the wrong candidate to the client… it's the interviewee that will lose, as they are the person that will have to get in their car and travel to the interview. Also, a lot of the job specs read in such a way as if to deliberately give away as little as possible about what the role actually involves. I'm very tired of seeing things like LIMS/Trackwise and Bioburden on job specs, as I haven't covered them in college. Anyway, I would like to hear yer thoughts.

Thanks for reading

Flinty997

Know nothing about biotech I suspect you'll have to take a low paid job to get time in the lab and in the tool sets you haven't used. Then you'd have to do some networking with industry events, and make some personal contacts to get you in the door. The longer you spend away from the steeper the mountain it will become.

No offence but you don't speak with any enthusiasm for the work or the sector. I assume thats coming across in your applications and interviews. Maybe get some coaching on how to present yourself and do interviews.

Agencies are the worst. But you need to learn to master that part to get past it.

Jim2007

I would not put much store on agents contacting you via linkedin etc… I'm 6 years retired and even though my profile has been cut down to the minimum and states I'm retired I'm still getting lots of hits. Agents need to have a list of possible candidates to show a prospective client that is all.

Since you have not got anything to loose, why not respond to one and see how far you get?

Oscar_Madison

Better you take a pay cut now and learn the ropes than wait any longer - that’s if you can get a job in that industry - see if there’s a post grad diploma or certificate part time that can help you bridge your knowledge gap - you’ve 40+ years of working life ahead of you so if you really feel this is the area for you, then get working on it.

Suit of Wolves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122297958#Comment_122297958

they don't even read your profile properly so

Will Graham

@Flinty997 No offence but you don't speak with any enthusiasm for the work or the sector. I assume thats coming across in your applications and interviews.

No it isn't, and yes it annoys me when people try to point that out.

@Flinty997 Maybe get some coaching on how to present yourself and do interviews.

What I think coaches don't realise is that any confidence I would lack in an interview, is solely as a direct result feeling I don't have adequate experience/knowledge of the actual job itself, and not knowing what I could be asked. I have no qualms about meeting a stranger for the first time and being able to relax, present myself well, and hold my own… which is the only thing the coach claims they can help you with. I think some coaches assume you're this stereotypical nerd (who knows it all) but who can't look someone in the eye or something, and that's what they're ready for. The bottom line is that the coach often can't help someone improve in the way they actually need to improve. I think it would be better to reach out to someone in the industry than get a coach.

I went to an interview coach once. At one point he said to me, like as if he'd known me all his life, "you are good enough for this job, and you deserve it... I'm going to help polish off the way you present yourself when you meet them". The fella knew absolutely nothing about my technical ability. I don't know why he couldn't just say "I know nothing about your technical ability, or whether you deserve this job, but it's my job to try and get you through the interview regardless". He also told me that when he comes to the end of the interview, and they ask me if I've any questions for them, that I should not ask any, and that my response should be "I'm satisfied with everything"! I asked what's wrong with asking a question, and he basically said because you could fcuk it up! So he completely contradicted what he had said about knowing that I was good enough for the job, if thought I shouldn't ask any questions.

Will Graham

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122297958#Comment_122297958

I did. The guy wanted to have a 5 minute chat, which I said I'd my as well prepare for. He'd said he was about to head off on holidays for 2 weeks, and that Sean would be on to me. I got the impression Sean was from the actual real company itself… don't think I was told otherwise but Sean was just a colleague of the initial guy working with the recruitment company. Sean rang a few days later and asked the same questions that the first guy did. But this time he'd said if I could put my answer about my lab experience in an email. I spent a good bit of time trying to make sound like it wasn't just repeating the same stuff from my CV, and making sure that what I typed made sense. Didn't get a response from the email and after about 2 weeks I eventually decided to ring the other guy I was initially in contact with. He apologised for not getting back to me, and said it was because he'd so much to catch up with after coming back from holidays. Said he'll have me in mind for any future positions!

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122419795#Comment_122419795

Get a better coach then.

If I'm not the only person pointing out the lack of enthusiasm then maybe consider why that is. I think you need to simplify how you think about this.

Don't get called for interview then it's the CV (incl skillset and experience) needs work. If you get 1st interview but no second interview or offers then the CV is ok but there's something going wrong in interviews. Simple as that.

At the end of the day it might be dysfunction on the employers side or simply a numbers game where you're not in the top 20% applying for a role. Which is why you improve yourself and just keep trying.

When I see people who get where they want to be, it's generally because they have just kept trying. Long after I'd have given up.

I suspect you'll disagree with me.