Quote:
Originally Posted by Argentium
As usual, thanks for the insight IndustryPharmD. Why I asked was because I imagined the number of qualified candidates for something like a drug or medical information fellowship would be far higher than a business development or marketing fellowship since the pharmacy curriculum and degree lends itself to drug info more so than the others I have mentioned. Care to throw in your two cents?
|
I don't think so, having interviewed for both. Good candidates are those who have had a strong interest in their position for a while and have worked towards that end. Plus, it's not necessarily hard experiences, it is a different set of soft skills. When I interview candidates for different positions, I ask a different set and often a different type of questions because I am looking for a different personality and different way of looking at things.
And the most important thing anyway is the personality fit. Most students get pretty much the same education. While during my first couple years as an interviewer I was dismayed by students' answering that no, their school did not teach that, I have since learned that a) I went to an exceptionally good school, b) some of those students just did not pay attention in class and c) if everything else is there, they can learn whatever they did not learn in school. Also, most of them will have really no relevant experience to speak of. Unlike most real jobs in industry, which tend to seek a specific set of skills, fellowships understand that these are just newly minted pharmacy school grads, they have no real experience. Even if they did three months worth of an internship or a couple rotations - it was only to get them a taste of what industry is like, it is not really an experience that would let them perform a job independently. Therefore, candidates' CVs are judged more from the point of how these reflect their personality. Most good candidates can be taught any job, it's just the matter of selecting the right person, who will learn fast, be pleasant to work with, and won't embarrass you.
Plus, I can tell you from my personal experience extremes. There was one year when a commercial program had only 15 people express interest in it at Midyear. Two of them were awesome, four were OK, and the rest were not people you wouldn't hire unless you were absolutely desperate for anyone with a pulse. There was one year when a medical affairs program had almost 50 people express interest in it at Midyear. There were two clear front-runners, another five or six OK candidates, and the rest again were not worth hiring even if the top ones turned us down. So while one program had three times as many interested applicants, it had only a couple people more who were worth bringing on site. There is no linear relationship between number of applicants and number of good candidates, in my opinion. I guess it is harder for medical positions to hire people, since there are a lot more programs who could lure away your best candidates... since they probably interviewed the same people and made the same picks!
Quote:
|
Was also curious if pharmacy students had picked up on some of the new sexy things in industry like market access and HEOR.
|
I have no idea. I know that there are several managed markets and health outcomes fellowships being offered now, and a few years ago when I was putting a list together after starting on this forum, there were only two, I think. One with Rutgers and one with Thomas Jefferson... Though I remember there was one year when a friend of mine who used to precept at one of these programs told me they decided not to get a fellow that year after they had no suitable candidates. That has happened occasionally in my memory, but not very often, that the program would decide they had no good candidates at all, and would skip a year.