Planning to go into a specialty or non-traditional area of pharmacy? Please read.

[PharmtoCS]

Some of you might have your eyes set on a specialty or non-traditional area of pharmacy. This may include ambulatory care, industry, informatics, transplant, critical care, research, etc. It may be because these areas genuinely interest you. Some of you plan to go into these areas because you believe you will enjoy the work-life balance more, or that you believe there will be more job security.

The reality is that the real chances of you landing a job in these areas are slim to none. All of these combined make up probably 5% or less of all jobs available to pharmacists with about 70% of them in retail and the rest in hospital staffing. Many of us practicing pharmacists call these "unicorn jobs" because they are so rare, and when one pops up you have thousands of pharmacists fighting to land one of these.

If you're looking at non-traditional areas of pharmacy, i.e. informatics, industry, etc. there are much better paths. For informatics you should just study IT. For industry or research you should just get a PhD. Unlike pharmacy, most of these fields of study cost far less tuition and time compared to a PharmD. These fields will do a far better job of fast-tracking you to the job you desire compared to pharmacy which the vast majority of pharmacists end up with sub-FT hours in retail, many not by choice.

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[DOOM N GLOOM]

Some of you might have your eyes set on a specialty or non-traditional area of pharmacy. This may include ambulatory care, industry, informatics, transplant, critical care, research, etc. It may be because these areas genuinely interest you. Some of you plan to go into these areas because you believe you will enjoy the work-life balance more, or that you believe there will be more job security.

The reality is that the real chances of you landing a job in these areas are slim to none. All of these combined make up probably 5% or less of all jobs available to pharmacists with about 70% of them in retail and the rest in hospital staffing. Many of us practicing pharmacists call these "unicorn jobs" because they are so rare, and when one pops up you have thousands of pharmacists fighting to land one of these.

If you're looking at non-traditional areas of pharmacy, i.e. informatics, industry, etc. there are much better paths. For informatics you should just study IT. For industry or research you should just get a PhD. Unlike pharmacy, most of these fields of study cost far less tuition and time compared to a PharmD. These fields will do a far better job of fast-tracking you to the job you desire compared to pharmacy which the vast majority of pharmacists end up with sub-FT hours in retail, many not by choice.

To add to this, residency is not a golden ticket to getting one of these “unicorn” jobs. When there are no jobs, there are no jobs. Doesn’t matter how hard you work, how specialized/skilled you are, what credentials you have. There is a massive oversupply of pharmacists and we are really starting to feel it in 2018.

 

[PharmtoCS]

To add to this, residency is not a golden ticket to getting one of these “unicorn” jobs. When there are no jobs, there are no jobs. Doesn’t matter how hard you work, how specialized/skilled you are, what credentials you have. There is a massive oversupply of pharmacists and we are really starting to feel it in 2018.

In many areas there are already PGY1 grads who cannot even find a staff position in a hospital and have to resort to looking for retail jobs or relocate. Residency training counts hurts your chances of landing a retail position since you're 'overqualified.' They believe that you'll jump ship to a hospital position at the first opportunity.

Residency is very tough to get. Even if you land one you are still not safe from saturation.