In these tough times, the biotech job market looks promising, if you know how to sell your skills. 

Take one look at the nation’s unemployment rate, and it looks as though now isn’t the time to make a career move. Unemployment increased by half a percentage point from April to May, the largest monthly jump since February 1986. At 5.5 percent, it’s at the highest level in nearly four years, and a full percentage point higher than a year ago.

These numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics are consistent with a down economy. The real estate bubble’s burst, subprime mortgage crisis, and surge in crude oil prices is clearly having a ripple effect on the labor market. Continued layoffs—324,000 since the beginning of this year—signal a recessionary job market.

But while employment in many industries—including manufacturing, construction, retail, and temporary help services—is falling, biotech remains a bright spot. Employment throughout healthcare, including biotech, continues to rise, with some 34,000 jobs created in May alone. That brings the number of jobs added over the last 12 months to 383,000.

Although this indicates a healthy employment outlook for biotech researchers, it doesn’t mean getting a new job will be easy. It’s a great time for researchers to make a career move and build their careers—if they take the steps that are most relevant and meaningful in today’s hiring market.

This means increasing their marketability using three tactics: demonstrating to human resources managers how they’ve added value to their current employer, developing an employee brand, and networking online.

Week 2001 2007 2008 Change from 2007 4 100.18 115.28 111.58 -.5% 8 102.11 115.96 110.55 -2.7% 12 103.04 112.81 112.49 -.8%                   The Yoh Index of Technology Wages reached a first quarter low of 110.55 in February 2008, when indexed to January 2001 (1/2001 = 100), indicating a 2.7 percent decrease in wage growth, when compared to the same period in 2007. (Source: Yoh)

Identifying hot jobs 
The Q1 Yoh Index of Technology Wages reported that wages were at 110.55 in February, 2008, indicating a 2.7 percent decrease in wage growth, when compared to the same period in 2007. Slow wage growth coupled with higher unemployment rates makes a hot sector like biotech even more attractive as a career path because of its stable hiring outlook and strong growth.

The primary driver behind the industry’s job growth is its maturation supported by a strong product pipeline. After three decades, biotechnology has “come of age.” By 2010, it is predicted 60 percent of revenue growth for big pharma is projected to come from biologics. Within the biologic space, it is expected that monoclonal antibody products will see the greatest revenue growth.

This is driving several major employment trends. First, hot jobs. Innovation demands high investment in R&D. As a result, biostatisticians and clinical research associates are the nation’s No. 1 and No. 3 most in-demand jobs, respectively, according to the Yoh Index of Technology Wages.

Other hot titles in the industry include regional monitors, analytical and quality control chemists, clinical lab scientists, drug safety associates, protein purification and cell culture scientists, clinical data managers, and clinical project managers.

For example, within pharmaceutical and biotech, there is a big push for the development of biologics, where even manufacturing jobs are in demand. Manufacturing a biologic product is more complex than traditional small-molecule drugs, so skilled labor is critical to the production of these products.

In this area, investment is being driven by several market factors, perhaps the most important of which is generic competition. Traditional small-molecule drugs have tremendous exposure to generic competition and the development of biologics provides protection for pharmaceutical and biotech companies. This is fueling an increase in positions such as vaccine researchers and scientists with therapeutic protein experience. It’s also ratcheting demand for researchers with biology degrees, representing a market shift.

In the past, it was very common to see individuals with biology degrees working as analytical chemists. But, with the growth of biologics, more bio grads are finding job opportunities in that field. 

Pinpointing hot geographies
Biotech companies have tended to cluster in certain areas, straight up and down the East and West Coasts. In California, the highest concentrations are the San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, and San Diego.

The Bay Area continues to be a big biotech employer. It’s home to the largest number of biotech companies with 820, and employs some 250,000 professionals, according to the San Francisco Center for Economic Development.

With the recent medical and research facility construction boom—California alone has 12 stem cell research centers in the hopper—it’s likely the Bay Area will continue to dominate the biotech job market.

On the East Coast, Boston and the surrounding New England area, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Research Triangle Park are the recruitment hotbeds. Several top 10 biotech firms are located there, including Biogen Idec, Cambridge, Mass., Genzyme, Cambridge, Mass., and Charles River Laboratories, Wilmington, Mass.

Becoming a hot candidate
At first blush, it seems a biotech researcher is fortunate to have employment numbers tilted in his or her favor. Certainly, it makes getting a job easier. But the numbers are tilted in all researchers’ favor. That creates mighty competition among job seekers.

Getting the job you want requires you to stand out from other candidates and become attractive to employers. In today’s environment, one of the best ways to achieve this is by marketing yourself. Build your name and professional recognition for your role in and impact on the industry.  This involves three tactics:

• Show your value-add. One of the most common interview mistakes researchers make is rattling off their past titles and job descriptions, without demonstrating how they added value to the organizations. Hiring managers take resumes and responses at face value. They don’t assume researchers were an integral part of an organization simply because they held a senior title. It is crucial to explicitly demonstrate how you added value to, made an impact on, and facilitated success in past workplaces. Rather than listing scientific and technology skills, relate them to where and how you used them. The objective is to show how you’ve applied your skills and knowledge, and what you accomplished as a result. This could include ways you lessened a product’s time to market, cut costs, boosted profits, or increased morale.

• Develop your employee brand. Perhaps the most important tactic is to build an employee brand that makes you synonymous with the industry. That way, when employers are searching for a candidate in your field of expertise, they automatically think of you. One easy way to do this—without being overly obvious—is to build up your online profile. Start off by improving the search-ability of your name. When you Google your name now, what comes up? How much of the results list is the real you? You can increase your visibility by posting comments on blog, or creating your own blog. While this is a great platform for getting your name, experience and ideas out to the industry, being overly promotional may not come across well. Instead, use online techniques to highlight your skills discreetly.

• Link in to link up. Recruiters are increasingly turning to professional social networks, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, NotchUp, and Jigsaw, to scout for candidates. There’s good reason. These social networks have become gravity wells of talented individuals. For example, LinkedIn has 8.5 million members worldwide representing 130 industries. Indeed, many recruiters regularly search LinkedIn’s database for people with skills and experience relating to their organization and needs, and contact candidates that match their needs. But just signing up for LinkedIn won’t bring recruiters to the door. You must take proactive steps to build a profile and network in a way that attracts recruiters to your page. Start by creating a detailed profile. It’s crucial to incorporate all industry buzzwords and resume skills. Recruiters search by these words to find profiles. So without them, your profile won’t appear in recruiters’ search results. Then connect with other members to build your network. Search LinkedIn, and you’ll likely find many current and past employers, coworkers, clients, partners, and vendors. Like traditional networking, they are paths to job leads.

Marketing yourself is not unlike marketing a product. In fact, you are the product. You define your skills and value-add (features and benefits). You explain those skills and value-add to employers (target audience). You deliver your product to the company and customers (consumers).

In today’s high-impact talent market, the most successful job seekers are those who understand the principles of marketing, and take them to heart to develop their job search strategy.

About the Author
Peter Ferguson is the President, Health and Life Sciences at Yoh Scientific. He holds a BA from the University of Maryland.
Michael Gamble is Director, Strategic Sales at Yoh Scientific. He received his BS in Biology from Ursinus College and holds an MBA from Saint Joseph’s University.