Any students had their career fair yet?
Started by PharmD RPh
Get help with your application
Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.
We had ours late October. Plenty of companies showed, including IHS and tribes.
Not one person has received a job offer stemming from a company they met at that fair. Not one.
Oh, I am sure the companies are showing up, but the question is, are they interviewing or even accepting resumes?
Plenty of companies show up just to keep up the name recognition, so to say, but they will all say that they have no current openings. I volunteered to represent my previous employer at a couple job fairs last year or the year before last. It was kind of disheartening, to tell every student that no, we have no internships or jobs currently available, we are just here to tell you that an awesome company we are and how glad we would be to have you if we were, you know, actually hiring.
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
Ours was pretty busy as was the residency fair. I know several my classmates who've gotten offers, but most of them had pre-existing relationships with the companies. Classmates who are going retail are still interviewing though.
We had every major retail chain pharmacy show up at our career fair. I know a handful of people who received job offering stemming from interviews that occurred at the job fair. Full time float positions. Most of the people who received offers had prior relationships with the companies.
Two LTC/mail Order companies interviewed at the job fair and I believe they had a couple of positions open.
Not a single health system showed up to the job fair though.
Kaiser, IHS, Omnicare, Military did not show.
Two LTC/mail Order companies interviewed at the job fair and I believe they had a couple of positions open.
Not a single health system showed up to the job fair though.
Kaiser, IHS, Omnicare, Military did not show.
Oh yeah, we had all the chains in this area (Kroger, RA, CVS, Wags, Target, Kmart, Meijer) plus the Army, U of L Healthcare, Omnicare, Pharmerica, Humana and some others I can't remember. I had three interviews and got "second interview" letters but I haven't scheduled them yet b/c I think I'm not sure what my plans are. We'll see.
Did you or any of your classmates have humana rotations? If so, what did you think of pharmacist roles?
Good point. It's always good to show your face.
I didn't do a Humana rotation but some of my classmates did. Humana is supposed to be a great environment for pharmacists and they hire a lot to work at the HQ in my city.
We have a large PBM relocating here too. I can't remember the name of the company but my Dean was telling me about it at our last meeting. UPS Supply Chain is also hiring pharmacists in my city but it's dirty, physical work and definitely not for everyone. They do a lot of hiring through agencies or it helps if you know someone.
D
deleted205891
We had a career fair and places showed up. Not sure if they were really hiring too many people. My roommate is a P4 and interviewed with a bunch of places, retail and not. He still has no offer, even though he is Rho Chi and has retail and research experience.
We had our career fair in November. I am now working at CVS as an intern because of that career fair and about 6 or 7 of my classmates have jobs from there as well. A couple have hospital jobs but I don't know if they got that from the career fair. You have to be extremely persistent and you have to know how to market yourself. It's not easy but it's possible. I'm very fortunate to have found an intern position.
I'm not sure about the other posters, but I was referring to the senior placement conference where graduating students find pharmacist positions.
At my school it's the same event. Employers come to the job fair to hire both summer interns and graduating students. We have the same number of employers as last year, but fewer are hiring for summer intern spots (only CVS and Target are interviewing 1st and 2nd year students 🙁).
I don't know how the graduating class is going to fair (corny) compared to previous years' though. Same number of employers, but they may be hiring for fewer spots, I don't know.
We had ours in November and a lot of companies showed up. I was quite paranoid about finding a job, so I scheduled 12 interviews (each one 30 minutes long, right after the other) from 9AM-4PM with a 1-hour lunch break. I know I wanted retail, so all of these companies were retail - no hospital or residency or military.
Thank God I did, because of them I know 3 of them told me right up front that they weren't hiring or were only hiring part-time positions but they claimed that if other positions opened up that bc they interviewed with me they could consider me later for those. Which may be true, but I'm guessing it's more than likely to keep up a relationship with the university and to keep their name out there.
Only one of the companies didn't show up, which was an earlier appointment in the day. And that actually turned out to be a blessing because another company needed to reschedule me for earlier in the day and it just so happened that it worked out for me to interview with them and I got an offer letter from them.
However, out of the 11 interviews that took place I've received 1 offer letter, 3 rejections, 1 wasn't hiring and 6 of them at the moment are right now pending it seems. Out of those 6 pendings, the opportunities seem very slim. They seem to be placing positions for their internals first, then student interns then finally outside hires like other students, which only makes sense. Some of those companies said to look on their website for opportunities and apply online but there aren't many full-time positions available and others said that they would possibly contact us in February/March if they wanted an interview. I'm not holding my breath on those, so I took the one offer I got and running with it.
Thank God I did, because of them I know 3 of them told me right up front that they weren't hiring or were only hiring part-time positions but they claimed that if other positions opened up that bc they interviewed with me they could consider me later for those. Which may be true, but I'm guessing it's more than likely to keep up a relationship with the university and to keep their name out there.
Only one of the companies didn't show up, which was an earlier appointment in the day. And that actually turned out to be a blessing because another company needed to reschedule me for earlier in the day and it just so happened that it worked out for me to interview with them and I got an offer letter from them.
However, out of the 11 interviews that took place I've received 1 offer letter, 3 rejections, 1 wasn't hiring and 6 of them at the moment are right now pending it seems. Out of those 6 pendings, the opportunities seem very slim. They seem to be placing positions for their internals first, then student interns then finally outside hires like other students, which only makes sense. Some of those companies said to look on their website for opportunities and apply online but there aren't many full-time positions available and others said that they would possibly contact us in February/March if they wanted an interview. I'm not holding my breath on those, so I took the one offer I got and running with it.
Awesome you got a job. 👍
I couldn't name 12 retail pharmacies if my life depended on it. Maybe half that.
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
Thanks 🙂
Yeah, I didn't know half of them either before but they were listed on our school's career fair page and I was curious about them too. These included smaller pharmacy chains, a compounding pharmacy, some other more local/regional grocery store pharmacies and some big department chains that I didn't know had a pharmacy in them.
I'm not sure why I'm not including the names of the corporations but I don't want to make it look like I'm bad-mouthing them personally. The market is what it is - sucky.
Yeah, I didn't know half of them either before but they were listed on our school's career fair page and I was curious about them too. These included smaller pharmacy chains, a compounding pharmacy, some other more local/regional grocery store pharmacies and some big department chains that I didn't know had a pharmacy in them.
I'm not sure why I'm not including the names of the corporations but I don't want to make it look like I'm bad-mouthing them personally. The market is what it is - sucky.
I don't know if I can get 12 either, but let's try, shall we?
1. Walgreens
2. Target
3. Kroger
4. Rite Aid
5. Safeway
6. Meijer
7. CVS
8. Publix
9. Kmart
10. Cotsco
11. Wal-Mart/Sam's Club
12. ------------------------?
Close... but I'm sure there are others. 🙂
My list (I didn't include names I have only heard on SDN, only ones I know IRL):
1 CVS
2 Walgreens
3 Walmart
4 Kmart
5 Target
6 Winn-Dixie (wouldn't work for them again, ever)
7 Publix
8 Sams (cheating, I know)
9 Bay Street Pharmacy (local)
10 Eckards (local)
I did better than I expected! If I threw in SDN names I would have my dozen.
We used to have Winn Dixie here but they went out of business in my state. I thought of one more that we have in this area but I think it's owned by Kroger: Jay-C. Oh and Valu-Market, but I'm not sure if that's just a local chain or if it's regional or national.
We don't have Publix or Safeway here but I've been to both while traveling. The rest of them on my list are actually located in this region. I can't think of any others (chains).
We don't have Publix or Safeway here but I've been to both while traveling. The rest of them on my list are actually located in this region. I can't think of any others (chains).
Yeah, I worked for them during bankruptcy. It's a terrible thing working for a company that is failing. I was transferred to help shut down a store - it is really a very sad activity, knowing how many people are being forced out of work.
Meanwhile our VP's and above were awarded "retention bonuses" upwards of millions of dollars total while they were shutting down stores and laying off thousands of people. Every so often they would refinance their debt at a different bank while expanding their credit line just to stay solvent. It was disgusting. I liked my store (only reason I stayed with them for as long as I did), but the chain as a whole - terrible. It may be better now, I don't know.
On the plus side for pharmacy: very reasonable workload. (read: low volume) So the actually day to day for a pharmacists is probably quite enjoyable.
