Employment Outlook?

Off-topic conversations and chit-chat.

19 posts Page 2 of 2
We're having another downsizing within a few months.... even I might be pounding the payment then...these days loyalty is apparently a one-way street...
When looking for jobs are you looking for chromatographer positions? There were so few listings that were looking for chromatographers, I would search for "chemist", "analytical chemist", or "instrumentation."

Then if I got a call for a job, it would usually be for a lab tech position. When I asked about instrumentation, there would be a long pause...and then something read off a piece of paper to the effect of:

"Yes, you will be using complex laboratory instruments such as analytical balances and pH meters. Also titrations." (No joke, this was said to me!)

I would ask, "How about instrumentation like GC or GCMS?"

And the answer: "I'm sorry, what is that?"

John
The hunt is still ongoing... I have an interview this week with a small local company. The job description explicitly states I'd be operating under supervision analytical instrumentation such as LC(/MS/MS), IR, GC, GC/MS, TLC and physical chemical tests. So we'll see how that goes.

There has not been a huge glut of jobs to apply for, but I do have a good response rate. At least 50% call me back.

Also a possible opportunity has opened up at my alma mater department, where they have a new facility used for research and teaching and it's understaffed. They have yet to succeed in making a case to the department for hiring a helper, but it was suggested I could come in on a volunteer basis for a little while and see how I do and whether that helps make a case for funding. That would be very helpful to me, too, as it would get my hands on equipment after some time off. And for a little (not a lot) while longer I can afford to live off my savings.
This is a sad thread for sad times. In the UK, it's getting harder and harder to encourage the public, particularly students, to come and work in science. I feel positively unethical advising young people to go into a career with poor structure, poor prospects, and worse rates of pay than they will get by moving into more conventional careers centred on sales and middle-management. At the very least, the students who are strong on biology would usually be better advised to keep themselves as medical as they can.

It's doubly sad that when there are new initiatives to boost some area, the modern order of priorites (highest to lowest) seems (to me, personally) to be infrastructure, buildings, equipment, staff. This is all very well if you want a superb road network serving a reasonably-impressive building, housing a certain amount of useful equipment, which stands idle most of the time because there aren't enough skilled staff to keep it working (and possibly because no one really thought about what it was for, and the process of getting it took so long that needs had changed before it arrived).

The good thing about a career in science is that it makes it easier to move into teaching so that you can inspire another generation of people to enjoy science until their careers crash (about age 35), so they can become science teachers too.

Perhaps I'm exaggerating, but sometimes I feel that if a country decides to make a living by selling financial services and buying everything it wants from abroad, it doesn't need science graduates. But if the whole world decided to try this, we would be cold, hungry, and paying excessive mortgages on very well-insured caves.
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