Pharmacy sucks or I'm a failure?

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all4rx

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Ok,

A little bit of my background: I graduated from a school of pharmacy which is well-known and considered highly competitive in my state. I also managed to graduate in top 10% of the class (GPA -3.90). Prior to school, I volunteered at a hospital's pharmacy for a summer. During school, I didn't really work which now I think is a major mistake. I did have a summer internship at a major retail chain to get some community experience. I was semi-active (officer of one organization and members of a whole bunch others). I thought of residency during my last year's rotations and was drawn into clinical aspect of pharmacy.

Applied and didn't match (!), only later to find out the reason of rejection from at least one hospital was that I didn't have a good list of clinical rotations prior to Match day (well, it wasn't my fault, my rotation places were given to me from the school and based on their random selection + availability of the sites/preceptors at the time).

Long story short, soon after I didn't get matched, I started to apply like crazy. At least 1-2 applications/day....But rejection after rejection .... many hospital prefer residency-trained or experienced candidates, retail want to take their interns from within regardless of how I tried my best to explain my sincere interest in the cover letters. Even my old retail chain where I did my internship said they were having a hiring freeze until some indefinite time in the future?!

I already started to expand my options to more rural areas for almost any types of positions: independent, retail, hospital, LTC, etc. Still no hope at least until today, almost a month after my graduation! So what is this about the so-called lucrative field of pharmacy? I felt hopeless as the days go by and my email box is now full of "Thank you for your interest; however, we are unable to offer you..." or "Although your references and resume are impressive, we are sorry..."

My family started to make me feel bad. My parents think that I was so wrong to choose pharmacy to go for whereas my other cousins who went for MD, DO, PA or RN have all already secured their jobs. And it doesn't help when my classmates who knew somebody from within or were good enough to match into a residency spot posted about their new jobs on facebook ... I still like pharmacy as a profession and think that pharmacists are still able to make positive impact in health care and patients' lives, but why does it have to be so competitive? Blame it on the booming of schools in an already saturated market of pharmacists or is it me who tremendously suck?!

I don't know...I think I might have depression and with this much of pressure, I don't know if I can take it any longer if I can't find a job soon. I don't know if there's a plan B for me. Going back to school is a no-no since I have accumulated enough loan and interest!

Sorry for all the whining....I know it's bad, but I need to write something on here to warn those who are still in school need to know how to prepare for this madness in the next few years. I might be a complete failure, so don't be like me! Be smarter!
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Exactly 4 years ago, you will have at least 6 jobs lined up and $30k sign on bonus like me doing 1/2 of your activity in school... not anymore.

Yep, Pharmacy sucks, get 5 other state licenses and keep trying... welcome to a long list of doom and gloom stories
 
Pharmacy sucks right now. It's a cyclical thing. We started school when pharmacy was still booming and at it's peak. My supervisors back in 2006 when I started working as a tech were telling me the projections showed that by the time 2011-2012 class starts, we'd be getting $150K starting. Haha.

I'm shooting off about a 100 applications a day all over the country. It's pretty much spray and pray now.
 
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Times are hard. It may take you longer to find something, but you will. I'm sure that you've thought of this, but look for PRN, rural, out of state, and hit up your network. Your school looks bad too if you don't find something. Your professors should be willing to help you.

Look for an outlet for your stress. Your perceived "failure" is more circumstance than anything else. Sure, you could have done things differently, but that is water under the bridge. You have a tremendous skillset, but the economy is tough right now. It may take a while to find a pharmacy position and you may need to make some sacrifices to get it.

I graduated with a PhD in mid-2010 into the worst job market for scientists ever. I went through a traumatic divorce a few months prior. I felt like an complete failure. Finding something positive that I could channel my energy into, that was not drinking, and was unrelated to the economy was so important. For me, that was my hobbies, exercise, yoga, and meditation. I was lucky that my graduate advisor had funding, and I've been able to stay on as a postdoc while I looked for jobs and ultimately transitioned into pharmacy.

It just takes time.
 
Let me guess you're an ethinic minority with a family emphasis on academics only.
You screwed up by not working.
And your family sucks. I would move far away from them but stay in touch frequently.
 
Everyone here is being so negative.

Look on the bright side. You can do income base repayment on those loans.

Just take a crappy job that pays 30K a year. Set your loans on income base repayment and pay the min on that. PROBLEM SOLVED.

Yeah, you are gonna be broke for the rest of your life but so is about the other 20% of pharmacy students graduating from pharmacy school. You aren't the only one.

If you count all the people with residencies that can't find jobs than the percent will be near 50% so don't feel bad most people are in your shoes! If you choose pharmacy then your chances of being broke is near 50%...but at least you won't be dead with income base repayment! So be happy, broke yes, but HAPPY!

Good luck! 🙂
 
I have almost the exact same story as you, if it makes you feel any better. It was frustrating to work so hard in pharmacy school, not match and just feel like a fool in the end with massive student loans and no gainful employment in sight. Academic achievement isn't valued so much by pharmacists; a lesson I learned too late in the game. I think the lack of working and/or networking is what hurts people the most, at least I believe that is where I fell short.

Don't let your family make you feel bad. I know that's hard to do, but they probably don't really understand the pharmacy job market. I ended up getting a hospital position in a rural hospital. Now this is without any hospital experience and a retail summer internship only, so I have to believe that jobs are out there if you look hard enough and just keep trying. The jobs might not be in the country's most desirable areas but they are definitely there. Go rural, get your experience, and move on if need be. And keep your chin up...you worked hard for the degree and obviously did well in the program.

P.S. Agree with SHC above (about loan repayment, anyway). If you have federal loans, get your income based repayment paperwork filled out asap so you don't fall behind on payments. You can always pay more towards your loans once you find a position.
 
Its Z said:
Let me guess you're an ethinic minority with a family emphasis on academics only.
You screwed up by not working.
And your family sucks. I would move far away from them but stay in touch frequently.
Click to expand...

Watch it Z! 😛 My parents give me money the entire time I was in pharmacy school and told me not to work b/c I must get good grades. I got a 4.0 GPA my P1 and P2 year....

I hope it's worth it at the end. 🙄
 
mustang sally said:
I ended up getting a hospital position in a rural hospital. Now this is without any hospital experience and a retail summer internship only, so I have to believe that jobs are out there if you look hard enough and just keep trying. The jobs might not be in the country's most desirable areas but they are definitely there. Go rural, get your experience, and move on if need be. And keep your chin up...you worked hard for the degree and obviously did well in the program.

.
Click to expand...

You graduated 2009? 2010?

Yeah, back then you can go rural and be saved...but now? Most likely not.
 
mustang sally said:
I have almost the exact same story as you, if it makes you feel any better. It was frustrating to work so hard in pharmacy school, not match and just feel like a fool in the end with massive student loans and no gainful employment in sight. Academic achievement isn't valued so much by pharmacists; a lesson I learned too late in the game. I think the lack of working and/or networking is what hurts people the most, at least I believe that is where I fell short.

Don't let your family make you feel bad. I know that's hard to do, but they probably don't really understand the pharmacy job market. I ended up getting a hospital position in a rural hospital. Now this is without any hospital experience and a retail summer internship only, so I have to believe that jobs are out there if you look hard enough and just keep trying. The jobs might not be in the country's most desirable areas but they are definitely there. Go rural, get your experience, and move on if need be. And keep your chin up...you worked hard for the degree and obviously did well in the program.

P.S. Agree with SHC above (about loan repayment, anyway). If you have federal loans, get your income based repayment paperwork filled out asap so you don't fall behind on payments. You can always pay more towards your loans once you find a position.
Click to expand...

Which state that you found the job? And may I ask how you know and your application process with that job? I don't have that many connections that lead me to rural places. I just found openings on the web, such as Indeed, Monster, and also go to the hospital's website.
 
SHC1984 said:
Watch it Z! 😛 My parents give me money the entire time I was in pharmacy school and told me not to work b/c I must get good grades. I got a 4.0 GPA my P1 and P2 year....

I hope it's worth it at the end. 🙄
Click to expand...

Let me guess. You're an ethnic minority with a family emphasis of academics only. Barring music lessons etc.
 
Its Z said:
Let me guess you're an ethinic minority with a family emphasis on academics only.
You screwed up by not working.
And your family sucks. I would move far away from them but stay in touch frequently.
Click to expand...

Its Z said:
Let me guess. You're an ethnic minority with a family emphasis of academics only. Barring music lessons etc.
Click to expand...

Do I hear an echo?
 
Its Z said:
Let me guess. You're an ethnic minority with a family emphasis of academics only. Barring music lessons etc.
Click to expand...

Yes, I am. My family loves straight A(s) and the piano. I was only allow to watch the news channel growing up. 🙁


In all seriousness, please God, don't let me end up like the OP.

Her post sounds just like ME! 😱

I really do not want to be on income base repayment and broke for the rest of my life!!!! Dear God, please help me! aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!
 
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all4rx said:
Which state that you found the job? And may I ask how you know and your application process with that job? I don't have that many connections that lead me to rural places. I just found openings on the web, such as Indeed, Monster, and also go to the hospital's website.
Click to expand...

I did ask some of the pharmacists I know to let me know if they heard of any jobs; however, I mainly used indeed for my job search. It helps to have connections but you can still find a job without one, sometimes it's all about luck and timing. Look for ads that say things like no experience necessary, new grads welcome, rural setting, etc. I'm going to work in Wisconsin. I wouldn't say the job market there is great but the market for hospital pharmacists seems better than in some other states.

You might want to try and figure out which areas have the best rural market around the state that you went to school in, since it will be more likely that pharmacists there will be familiar with your school and hold its grads in a favorable light.
 
Its Z said:
Let me guess you're an ethinic minority with a family emphasis on academics only.
You screwed up by not working.
And your family sucks. I would move far away from them but stay in touch frequently.
Click to expand...

Your guess is partly correct. I'm an ethnic minor, but my parents didn't force me to concentrate on academics only. There are both objective and subjective reasons for me not to work during school. First, I don't know if I myself can handle the load of school work and working at the same time. At least, I thought that I still needed good grades to keep residency viable as an option. I also wanted to stay with the retail that I did internship. They don't have any stores where my school locates, so I couldn't work with them during school year. They emphasized that they didn't like to take back the interns who jumped to other competitors after getting experience with them. Call me naive, but had I known that even they shut me out later, I would have chosen to work for a different retail/community. I only regret that I didn't manage to find an intern position in a hospital while I'm in school.

Anyway, thanks for the advice! I hope I have good news sooner or later....
 
1 month looking for a job is NOT a lot in this economy. Really. But for some general advice:

Location, location, location. First of all, as has already been suggested, get a job. Any job, whether in pharmacy or not. The longer you go being unemployed, the more undesirable you will be to employers--they will wonder whats wrong with you that nobody else has hired you, and this will make them less likely to take a chance on being the one to hire you. So definitely start working as soon as possible.

Next, there are pharmacy jobs out there, but you may have to move out of state to find them. I don't know where you are, but I'm guessing you are on one of the coasts or in a big urban center. Get licensed in states that still have a lot of rural areas looking for pharmacists, and then work on getting a job there. Once you've gotten a year or two experience as a pharmacist, you will be in a much better position to get a job in your desired location.

And last, do what you can to stay to keep your knowledge base current and fresh. It's amazing how easy it is to forget stuff when not working with it every day. Attend CE's, pharmacy conventions, etc.--stuff you can informally mention during job interviews to let your potential employers know that you are working at staying up-to-date.
 
I agree with the moving to rural areas. I've been applying for jobs for almost 2 years and I only got one offer and that was a hospital job in Long View, Texas. It was for a 2 year contract with a sign on bonus and relocation assistance. I found out about it from a hiring agency for pharmacists. I didn't take it since I just bought a house. Try contacting a hiring agency for pharmacists like RPh on the go. You just need to be willing to relocate.
 
We are hella short of pharmacists and techs in my chain's district right now... Shoot, there are way more shifts available than I can even work. This is seriously sick!
 
PharmDstudent said:
We are hella short of pharmacists and techs in my chain's district right now... Shoot, there are way more shifts available than I can even work. This is seriously sick!
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This is summer and most pharmacists with kids tend to take their vacation in the summer thus tons of ot available. Hiring new rph with benefit doesnt make sense when u cant guarantee them full time hours after summer. Same thing happening in my district, it dries up right around fall and early new years/spring.
 
When I printed out my schedule, I forgot to tell it to only print page 1. With all the open shifts, I had 4 pages. We are really short right now. What makes it sad is that they laid off a number of pharmacists, mostly part-timers, this past April.
 
Right now I'm looking at a potential job at an independent. My best friend's dad owns a bunch of hookah lounges here in Queens and he's pretty good friends with a very successful independent pharmacy owner (he owns like 7 independents in Queens and is about to open up another one). So I'll probably be starting off as a grad intern at his newest pharmacy and once license is in, start working as a pharmacist there. Interviewing with the guy next week once he gets back from Palestine.
 
That's how you make 1M/year. 7 indies x 200k net – winner!
 
Momus said:
This is summer and most pharmacists with kids tend to take their vacation in the summer thus tons of ot available. Hiring new rph with benefit doesnt make sense when u cant guarantee them full time hours after summer. Same thing happening in my district, it dries up right around fall and early new years/spring.
Click to expand...
Nah, floaters would have been scheduled to cover vacation requests six months ago. The current shortage is due to pharmacists leaving the company after this last round of intense budget cuts. Management may have to start making 24 hour pharmacies non-24 hours and reducing non-24 hours stores to 12 hour days to offset the shortage. It's crazy... It dries up like this every spring and summer, at the time of year whenever new grads aren't licensed and pharmacies begin to slow down for the summer. Sooooooo stupid.
 
As a current 2012 Graduate let me start off by saying that there are jobs. In fact i was offered 3 jobs yes THREE jobs with salaries that ranged from 95 to 121k. The job that paid the most was in a super rural area but the one that paid around 55 an hour (full time)is in a major city.
You might say why did i get so many offers, simple answer: i worked with a retail company for several years and other competitors just love to steal you away sometimes, not that i went with the competitor bc i didn't.

I strongly feel though that this year's class and next year's class will obliterate and eat up all the remaining pharmacy jobs in just about anywhere even in the most remote areas. Graduating at the top of your class doesn't get you nowhere bc i've seen the smartest not get into residency and no job offers as of now for a few who graduated this year. Long story short, if you graduated or in pharm school then you are stuck and just have to think positive or think about jobs when you graduate and simply try to be an intern with the big chains to bump your way up like me 😀
 
SHC1984 said:
Watch it Z! 😛 My parents give me money the entire time I was in pharmacy school and told me not to work b/c I must get good grades. I got a 4.0 GPA my P1 and P2 year....

I hope it's worth it at the end. 🙄
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but there is no way on earth I would hire a 4.0 GPA pharmacy student with zero experience. No freaking way. Reminds me of all my classmates in school who would make As on exams yet have panic attacks during our retail and compounding labs. Or the 3.9 "graduate of the year" whose interactions with patients are similar to an infants interaction with a chew toy, minus the slobber.

Something people on SDN generally aren't willing to admit is that after graduation, it's usually about WHO you know more than WHAT you know. Why else are my Rho Chi no work experience classmates unemployed while I'm starting a great job?
 
How many students go through school without holding down at least one internship anyway? I can't think of any from my class. Even the ones with silver spoon in their butts kept at least 1, might just do minimum hours to stay on the payroll and resume.

Pharmacy practice, the practice part implies it takes hands on experience. By the end of P1 year, students should have figured out that having an internship is a given. It's needed regardless whether you go for residency or a job.
 
So I just found out that another pharmacist is leaving. 😱
 
PharmDStudent, why don't you clear out your message box so we can message you.

You can also provide us some hints where those enticing pharmacy jobs are located.

I finished a year with the Army. My advice: apply in September for the few active duty spots. DON'T do civilian Dept of Defense-Army. They'll lay you off quicker than a contractor. Every year the based rotates through a new set of victims.
 
Minette,

I started applying around the middle of April. I would advise not to get frustrated if you don't find a job right away because there is a lot of advice floating around on these forums that you have a better chance getting a job after you are licensed in that state (for hospital, anyway).
 
My advise is this: if you truly like working as a pharmacist, then go for it. If you think it is easy money and there will be plenty of jobs, think again. That was 5 years ago. Also, pay back your student loans as soon as you can!
 
I guess great news tends to come late...At last, I've just got an offer a clinical staff position for a mid-sized city's hospital. Yes, it's not any major urban, but it's not like the middle of no where either. And the hospital also has some tie to a local school of medicine. My position will allow me to do clinical work including rounding, patient interventions, discharged counselings, etc., general things that a typical PGY1-trained pharmacist would do.

I think I scored the interview well showing my sincere interest about the job, and my passion for clinical pharmacy despite not being matched. I even brought to the interview my collection of work I did during my clinical and hospital rotations just to impress. I'm also greatly surprised at the level of clinical competency the staff pharmacists have at this hospital.

Thank you for all the encouragement and great advices! Yes, there are jobs out there, just have to be open-minded and keep your hope up through tough time... I hope I will be a great pharmacist!

Thanks!!!
 
Sparda29 said:
Right now I'm looking at a potential job at an independent. My best friend's dad owns a bunch of hookah lounges here in Queens and he's pretty good friends with a very successful independent pharmacy owner (he owns like 7 independents in Queens and is about to open up another one). So I'll probably be starting off as a grad intern at his newest pharmacy and once license is in, start working as a pharmacist there. Interviewing with the guy next week once he gets back from Palestine.
Click to expand...

good luck man! happy you can stay in nyc! you moving out of long island any time soon?
 
nycrxdream said:
good luck man! happy you can stay in nyc! you moving out of long island any time soon?
Click to expand...

Moving out of Long Island, probably not unless my best buddy wants to split an apartment with me in Manhattan. I was actually just granted an interview for a residency in Manhattan this week, so that's my #1 objective now.
 
all4rx said:
I guess great news tends to come late...At last, I've just got an offer a clinical staff position for a mid-sized city's hospital. Yes, it's not any major urban, but it's not like the middle of no where either. And the hospital also has some tie to a local school of medicine. My position will allow me to do clinical work including rounding, patient interventions, discharged counselings, etc., general things that a typical PGY1-trained pharmacist would do.

I think I scored the interview well showing my sincere interest about the job, and my passion for clinical pharmacy despite not being matched. I even brought to the interview my collection of work I did during my clinical and hospital rotations just to impress. I'm also greatly surprised at the level of clinical competency the staff pharmacists have at this hospital.

Thank you for all the encouragement and great advices! Yes, there are jobs out there, just have to be open-minded and keep your hope up through tough time... I hope I will be a great pharmacist!

Thanks!!!
Click to expand...

Congratulations! I guess my answer to your original question would be none of the above. 🙂
 
Yikes all the negativity, well maybe I should reconsider my options....LOL.
 
ellwoodis said:
PharmDStudent, why don't you clear out your message box so we can message you.

You can also provide us some hints where those enticing pharmacy jobs are located.

I finished a year with the Army. My advice: apply in September for the few active duty spots. DON'T do civilian Dept of Defense-Army. They'll lay you off quicker than a contractor. Every year the based rotates through a new set of victims.
Click to expand...
My message box is available now.

I am licensed in Louisiana.
 
I wasn't aggressive enough after P1 year in my efforts to find an internship. But during and after the P2 year I've aggressively searched for internships and have been unable to find absolutely any. Looks like my only experience after graduating will be that obtained from IPPEs and APPEs. I've accepted the fact I'll have to live in an absolute **** hole to actually work as a pharmacist at first.
 
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