How Soon to Apply for a Job

[Scotty knows]

I am not very familiar with the job market for Clinical Research Assistant (not bench) jobs. I've lined up a job with a BB, but I am seriously questioning 80 hours a week for 2 years-->burnout. I've checked out the HR departments at a lot of schools and there seems to be a lot of these jobs out there. So how soon is too soon to start applying for these jobs. Say I want to start in July, when should I submit my resume?

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[BiopsychStudent]

Job market is pretty terrible almost all around, and research assistant positions are very competitive: in addition to premeds and science-grads who are gunning for PhDs there can sometimes be competition from master's level candidates.

If you can't 'start' until the summer it might be a little premature to be sending out resumes 6 months early. But it wouldn't hurt to start in late winter/early spring and see if you can't line something up.

 

[courtnes]

In my experience, e-mails regarding clinical research jobs starting in the summer start surfacing in Feb/March so they can get the interviewing out of the way early and then have enough time to train you when you start the position without messing up schedules for all parties involved. You'll see even more in April and May though. The competition can be tight - they limited the posting for my job just to my postbac program and still had ~40 people sending in resumes for 2 RA positions.

If you happen to have some connections in a research hospital, right now it wouldn't hurt to talk to the attendings you know and see if they will have openings in the future or know anyone who would. Otherwise I'd wait on coldcalling people until closer to when you'd like to start.

 

[Catalystik]

At my university sending out resumes in February isn't too early for a start date in June/July..