I've been a CRC for 5 years. The jobs can vary between institutions and even between departments in the same institution. It also depends on the type of research you're doing, someone who does a lot of sponsored research is going to have a different experience than someone who does more NIH funded research or investigator initiated.
Do you have clinical research experience? I was a clinical research assistant in college which helped me hit the ground running but it's definitely a job you can be trained to do but it's important that you pick a place that you feel confident will train you and not leave you floundering to find your own way, that's how big mistakes are made and in clinical research even the most innocent mistake can have far reaching consequences.
Good questions to ask - why did the previous person leave? What do you need to accomplish in 90 days to be successful? In 6 months? what is an average day/week like? What kind of studies do they do (Investigator initiated, sponsor trials, NIH studies, other)? What is the breakdown between prospective and retrospective studies? How are the responsibilities divided between patient visits, IRB work, monitor visits if applicable, working on publications/presentations, research meetings? Is there an opportunity for you to be published? To present at a regional or national meeting? Is there funding for you to attend meetings? Who does the research team consist of (PI, other coordinators, research assistants, other health professionals, statistician, etc)?
My experience- like I said I was a clinical research assistant in college, this was at a big ivy research institution, I learned a lot but also had a lot more guidance and supervision because I worked on a team with two coordinators and 5 assistants. My first job as a coordinator was at a personal care brand so we did studies on like sunscreen and nasal spray and it was interesting but not very challenging. Most of the time our PIs were not even MDs. It was very different than academic clinical research, I worked there for 2.5 years and went back to academics. For the last 2.5 years I've been a research coordinator at a hospital that is affiliated with a medical school. It's a little different than my experience in college because my undergrad was a research machine and had its own hospitals. My current employer is just a hospital, the MDs are faculty at the med school but they don't pay the bills. We don't have any research assistants, most departments have one coordinator, I work in the highest volume department and have about 60 open projects and 20 pending publications at any given time. There is no supervision. I see my PIs once a weekish, sometimes more, sometimes less and otherwise I go about my business and they call me if they need something and vice versa. I have to stay super organized and stay on top of my schedule, it can be very stressful sometimes but I've appreciated the experience. Hope that helps.
My PIs- I am the coordinator for the whole ortho department so I have multiple PIs, they all do research to an extent but I'm fairly close with the ones that do the most research. Two of them wrote LORs for me. They really integrate me into the team, they invite me to journal clubs and educational events that they have for the residents (and there's always free food!), they give me a lot of opportunities for exposure.
Premed peeps - at my undergrad, one of the most common things for people to do for their gap year(s) was research. I know of a lot of pre med clinical research coordinators. I moved to a different part of the country after undergrad so where I am in the South, it's not as common. Most clinical research coordinators are former nurses. That's nice because the salary is much more competitive down here than many places. I'm making almost twice as much as some of my friends who are coordinators in the northeast. But I know the hospital one of my friends works at is tired of the crc/medical school revolving door so they are raising salaries and looking for more long term/career crcs.
Favorite things - patients are my favorite. I work at a children's hospital and I love our patients and their families. Also, no day is the same (unless I'm in the middle of a huge chart review and have to lock myself in my office for long periods of time), there's a good mix of patient contact, boring paperwork, chart reviews, data entry, and some writing opportunities. My co-workers and PIs are also pretty cool.
Publications - I have one publication and two that have yet to be published. I don't know if it's like this in other fields but in ortho there is a looong time between a publication being accepted and actually seeing it in print. So hopefully you have 1 (or more) accepted publication when you apply, even if it hasn't been published yet it's fine, still talk about it in your interviews. I have a bunch of posters/presentations (much quicker turn around on those, had several on my application). My PIs are very encouraging, they're always pushing me to take the lead on projects, which I have tried to do but it's sometimes hard balancing everything.
I think that's all for now. Sorry for typos and anything that makes no sense, I typed this on my phone. Hope that's helpful, let me know if you have any other questions. Good luck!
Edit: saw ridethecliche's party after I submitted this and ditto what they said too.
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