3rd yr pharm student, no job experience!

[hopefulperson212]

Hi y'all, I am interested in getting into a residency program (my interest is informatics), and I will be entering my third year of pharmacy school this fall. Everyday I hear the job market is saturated and gets more competitive, and on top of that it seems like everyone has some job experience. I am worried about my chances of getting into a program or even getting a job at this point, so I wanted to see if anyone here had any helpful advice/recommendations for me at this point in pharmacy school to make me a more competitive candidate?
The plus that I have going for me that I can think of off the top of my head, is that after finishing my community rotation recently, my preceptor said that I had an outstanding positive attitude.

Job Experience: I have absolutely no job experience. I have a pharmacy tech certification, but I never was able to secure a job in any setting and I've tried hospital, retail, LTC, etc. I tried looking for internships, and I was never able to get past the interview.
GPA: 3.2
Leadership: I never took on any executive positions, but I was SNPhA chair. I've been extensively involved in it for two years, and plan on being involved this coming year as well. We put on health fairs, do patient education, etc in my role in that position. I also am a chair for APhA as well, where we deal with a lot of reporting, etc.
Research: I helped a PhD student with their paper, and helped in making tables and diagrams for a paper they wanted to publish.
Shadowing: I have shadowed ambulatory care pharmacist and informatics pharmacist, both of which I liked.
Volunteering: I volunteered at the VA during my pre-pharm years. I volunteered at our local hospital related to taking med history for a month this summer.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[The_Blue_Pill]

My first question for you would be when state that you weren't able to get past the internship interviews, why was that? Nerves, experience, competition? That's what I would look into first. Residency is basically a large scale internship interview so interviewing skills might be where you want to start. Also, your P3 year is where grades matter the most. Kill it there and it make it count. Find an organization and lead it, be able to talk about it thoroughly. That's just the start. Good luck!

 

[ornithoptor]

The bad news, 3.2 GPA is not impressive. Lack of work experience really doesn’t help you stand out either. All the answers you think through and prepared for will sound immature and unreal. Why, because strong answers comes from your experience not something conjured up.
The good news is that you are thinking ahead and you have time to catch up. Get your grade up will help you tremendously especially when you lack working experiences. Your time and position at student organizations does not measure up to other people’s work experience.
Do some volunteering work, quantifiable projects with goals and objective with professor who can help you network and connect.
Good luck.


Sent from my iPad using SDN mobile

 

[sozetone]

Hi y'all, I am interested in getting into a residency program (my interest is informatics), and I will be entering my third year of pharmacy school this fall. Everyday I hear the job market is saturated and gets more competitive, and on top of that it seems like everyone has some job experience. I am worried about my chances of getting into a program or even getting a job at this point, so I wanted to see if anyone here had any helpful advice/recommendations for me at this point in pharmacy school to make me a more competitive candidate?
The plus that I have going for me that I can think of off the top of my head, is that after finishing my community rotation recently, my preceptor said that I had an outstanding positive attitude.

Job Experience: I have absolutely no job experience. I have a pharmacy tech certification, but I never was able to secure a job in any setting and I've tried hospital, retail, LTC, etc. I tried looking for internships, and I was never able to get past the interview.
GPA: 3.2
Leadership: I never took on any executive positions, but I was SNPhA chair. I've been extensively involved in it for two years, and plan on being involved this coming year as well. We put on health fairs, do patient education, etc in my role in that position. I also am a chair for APhA as well, where we deal with a lot of reporting, etc.
Research: I helped a PhD student with their paper, and helped in making tables and diagrams for a paper they wanted to publish.
Shadowing: I have shadowed ambulatory care pharmacist and informatics pharmacist, both of which I liked.
Volunteering: I volunteered at the VA during my pre-pharm years. I volunteered at our local hospital related to taking med history for a month this summer.

Please tell me WHY you chose pharmacy as a profession and your career. Also elaborate on why you want to practice/specialize in informatics please. I'm curious. Thanks.

 

[Pharmacy is a Scam]

Please tell me WHY you chose pharmacy as a profession and your career. Also elaborate on why you want to practice/specialize in informatics please. I'm curious. Thanks.

It seems like everyone is “interested” in informatics nowadays. Here’s a translation of what they mean by that:

“I’m beginning to realize that my pipe dream of being a “clinical pharmacist” might not be there when I graduate based on the saturation in the field, pharmacy not being what the deans of schools pitched to me as a pre-pharm, etc. Therefore I need to find a way to get out of this hellhole of a profession. Ah—informatics!”

 

[sozetone]

It seems like everyone is “interested” in informatics nowadays. Here’s a translation of what they mean by that:

“I’m beginning to realize that my pipe dream of being a “clinical pharmacist” might not be there when I graduate based on the saturation in the field, pharmacy not being what the deans of schools pitched to me as a pre-pharm, etc. Therefore I need to find a way to get out of this hellhole of a profession. Ah—informatics!”

The fact is I have been kindly asking these students for months now simple questions. What do you enjoy about pharmacy? What made you passionate about it, why are you pursuing this path...etc. and you know what? nothing but blank expressions. They always get mad and say I dont have to answer that. They are afraid to simply state , it looked like an easy job that pays 6 figures. If i heard that , i would at least give the person points for honesty. Too bad the 6 figure days are over, I already scarfed down the last of their lunch.....

 

[projektreverb]

Let’s ask a better question: what can we do? Discouraging prepharms and bitching on SDN are not choices. Let’s be real, we’re accusing prepharm of being lazy and chasing the money. But what about us? We’re armchair quarterback’ing this. What kind of impression are we giving them? He look prepharms, we have hours on hours of being paid xx$ per hour to bitch on SDN!! You’re in this field. It’s become ****ty. Are you just going to bend over and take it? Or are you going to do something about it?

 

[pharmBear]

Op, am I reading your post right? You have a pharm tech license and cant secure a pharm tech position when there is so much need for pharm tech?....

If that is the case, there may be more you need to work on than a positive attitude. Work on your clinical skills, interpersonal skills and practice pratice pratice interviewing skills.