r/biotech

Hi all,

Had final interview for senior level position just shy of two weeks ago now. Employer told me the Tuesday thereafter (so last Tuesday) I was the first final interview, that they’d be wrapping up the final interviews by end of that week, and they’d be debriefing to make final decisions about offers early the next week (ie, this week). They asked about where I was in any other interview process, to which I told them I’m about halfway through some others. They thanked me and told me to update them if that changes and they’d have “more details shortly”

Yesterday morning, I emailed them to ask for an update and informed them I have been moved to final round interviews with another employer. Nothing, no response. If I don’t hear anything back by EOD today I’m just assuming they went with someone else.

Am I cooked? Or are they genuinely still getting this stuff worked through the corporate powers that be? It’s not a particularly massive company.

More of a rant for funsies. It drives me nuts when strangers ask for referrals on LinkedIn. Like I appreciate you sending an intro and resume but Idk anything about your work ethics, personality, etc. Majority of the time these referrals are for different sites like wtf lol. Im middle of the latter so I doubt I have much influence in your application plus Im not putting my ass on line for a stranger (if we are in the same company). In the beginning I would kindly decline and wish them luck or if it’s genuine enough I connect them to someone else but now it happens so often I dont even open the messages.

In all seriousness, I do understand how hard the job market is and the desperation is real - I been there. I genuinely wish everyone luck in their search.

On a side note, it kinda feels like they cast out a mass of these messages to people working at their company of interest. Im curious if anyone actually had luck asking referrals from strangers?

Sorry to bring negativity to the group, but I’m feeling incredibly lost after getting rejected from a final round panel interview at a dream company yesterday.

I've been unemployed since December 2025 and have been relentlessly applying. I’ve submitted 600 applications across the entire US since then, landed interviews with 15 companies, made it to 3 final rounds, then failed all of them. I feel like the job landscape might be shifting a bit recently, as I’ve seen more posts about people landing jobs instead of the endless layoff threads from a few months ago. Even so, I still haven't been able to secure an offer.

I think what sucks the most about applying and being rejected repeatedly is that I'm starting to lose my sense of self. I can no longer accurately judge my own performance or my resume because I just don't know what I'm doing right or wrong. None of the hiring managers will provide feedback. I understand their concerns regarding legal liabilities, but it is so discouraging. At this point, I'd rather hear someone heavily criticize or even scold me for what I've done wrong, just so I have a baseline of what to improve.

I have no problem accepting that there are better candidates. I think any PhD who has gone through grad school is sadly familiar with the feeling of encountering someone who is smarter, works harder, is luckier, or all three. I just really want some feedback. I want to know what i've done wrong. I tried asking for referral from acquittance, cold-messaging people on linkedin, attending off-line social events as much as I tolerate (although it's really killing me as an introvert). None of it works. Most of the online workshop invite speakers who are senior roles from pharma/biotech. They share valuable information about their perspective, but for the love of god, the time they got their job is so different from the current job market.

These past six months have felt like shouting into the void with no echo at all.

I do have three points that I summarized from my failure about current job hunting tho:

1. you better match 95% of the job description. I know I should apply for any position that i match 60% of the jd and I do that, but honestly the companies are so spoiled with candidates nowadays that they just want to grab the person who can do the job immediately
2. you better to be local. same reason for the super oversaturated talent pool
3. you should be slightly overqualified. Can't be underqualified for the same reason, and you can't be too overqualified either (like PhD apply for research associate or MS level positions). The companies know they're exploiting the candidates so they wouldn't risk you leave as soon as you find a better one

Any thoughts, judgements, comments, response are welcome. I'm so lonely

BTW I have PhD of biochem (protein glycosylation) and 4yrs industrial postdoc of cancer signaling and protein interaction. Open to relocation. I still love science and I want to be able to keep loving/enjoying it. If you happen to know any opportunities that my bg can contribute to, please DM me for any role. I'd really appreciate your kindness

Just want some opinions on this..

I am a principal scientist at a top pharm company and i smoke weed. This is a new position and my parents are telling me that I am in a career and it makes me look “bad” and “immature”.

If you are a scientist do you smoke weed? If you found out that your coworker smokes would you look at them in a negative light?

Just out of curiosity, can some of the more experienced people here tell us what the biotech job market was like betore the COVID boom? I mostly started paying attention to the market post-2020. My main point of confusion is around competition. Even before the pandemic, a typical job posting was probably still only looking to hire 1-2 people, so l imagine competition for good positions must have still been fierce. Was the macro environment just completely different? Were there more total jobs, or fewer applicants?

Have an interview scheduled with Roche tomorrow for 45 minutes, it’s for one of the QA positions and in Canada.

I am really nervous and kinda desperately want to crack it, if anyone had experience please provide advice on what to prepare for or any tips and tricks to crack it.

Please suggest me an online certificate course for bioinformatics along with programming and AI for this summer

I am a 2nd year biotech student and i want to get some knowledge about dry lab

Hi all,

I have been unemployed for almost 14 months at this point. I have phd and have worked for 5 years in technical development and cmc in mid sized companies. Last year I had been focusing more on opportunities in technical development. There were few interviews where I reached final rounds but didn't get through due to overqualified folks accepting a lower position, the position getting canceled or just not getting through. I have also been applying to a bit of diversified areas like project management, regulatory affairs and supply chain, with no luck.

I wanted to open up a discussion on folks who have diversified into roles outside of their organization or post layoffs and see if there's advice on what steps did they take to enable that. I am hoping to get a broader view of what groups I can try diversifying into and potentially understand the steps i can take (coursework, certification, etc).

I work at a clinical research organisation in Australia. I came from a science background before moving into the clinical trial industry, so I have seen both ends of this.

Biotech pays reasonably. Clinical research pays noticeably more for comparable experience. Most people with biotech backgrounds either do not know this or have not seriously looked at how their skills transfer.

Here is a realistic salary picture for someone moving from a biotech background into clinical research.

Clinical Research Coordinator (entry level): $65,000 to $80,000 in Australia. This is the realistic first step and it is accessible for people with a biotech background. The regulated environment experience, documentation standards, and scientific literacy you already have are directly relevant.

Clinical Research Associate (mid level): $85,000 to $110,000. Requires prior trial experience, usually as a CRC. The gap with equivalent biotech roles starts to widen here.

Clinical Project Manager (senior): $110,000 to $145,000. At this level the income difference between clinical research and biotech careers is substantial.

Why does clinical research pay more? The industry is commercially driven and globally funded. Trials run to tight timelines with serious regulatory consequences for errors. Organisations pay for the combination of scientific literacy and operational precision that people with biotech backgrounds already have. They just do not know to look for it in biotech candidates because biotech candidates do not apply in the right way.

The transition is more straightforward than most people think. The main barrier is knowing how to translate biotech experience into the language clinical research hiring managers are looking for.

Happy to answer questions about how the move works or which roles suit different biotech backgrounds.

I applied to a position in BMS, completed all around of interviews in about 3-4 weeks. However, they told me they’re interviewing other candidates and they don’t have a timeline on when the final decision will be made. Does this mean I’m not the top candidate? Or does BMS always go through all rounds of interviews for all candidates before coming up with a decision? Genuinely curious

Looking at moving from process development into a CMC role (currently interviewing). Closer to the end product so potentially more job security? (if anything at this point can be considered secure...) Any insights would be appreciated.

It's crazy getting rejection after rejection only to see how successful being a grifter is in biotech leadership. From that "first two person billion dollar company" a few months back to these industry heads, the sleaziest people are seemingly getting away with fraud in this era of bio med while regular workers get diminishing wages and insecure jobs and worse healthcare outcomes/access (at least in america)

Maybe I should make an anti-aging GLP-1 AI peptide start-up at this point, have it exclusively connect to biometric surveillance tech with some daily gatcha game mechanics on top of that. Maybe I'll get a CDC job doing kegels in a cold plunge with RFK Jr and Kid Rock

I'm so tired of this

Not likely from what I understand.

Currently mid career (manager level PhD + 10y experience) and looking for someone with biotech expertise to take a look at my resume/LinkedIn

I would appreciate any recommendations. Thanks!

I currently work(ed) at a biotech startup where my original contract was for one year to help develop part of their technology platform. After the contract period ended, the CSO suggested that we continue by preparing a manuscript for publication and presenting the research at an academic conference.

The CEO agreed to cover conference-related costs (flight, registration, hotel, etc.), since I’m presenting the work on behalf of the company. Because of that, I assumed the manuscript preparation and presentation development were still considered company work. I spent a significant amount of time preparing the manuscript and slides to a high standard — I’m still early in my career (about one year out from my bachelor’s), so the process took me longer than it likely would for someone more experienced.

For a recent two-week period, I billed around 70 hours total, including time spent helping rearrange the lab as the company was preparing for a possible shutdown/restructuring.

The CEO later reached out and said he had only expected billing for the operational/lab rearrangement work, and asked me to revise the billed hours accordingly. He framed the manuscript/presentation work more as professional development opportunities rather than directly billable company work.

There was never any explicit discussion beforehand about whether publication and conference-preparation work after the contract period would still be billable, so I think this may have been more of a communication mismatch than bad intent on either side.

The situation has also made me more cautious about understanding what should and should not be considered billable work moving forward, especially in startup environments where roles can become loosely defined.

For people who’ve worked in startups or academia/industry crossover environments:

- Would you generally expect manuscript/presentation preparation to be billable in this situation?
- Is this mostly a communication issue?
- How would you handle this professionally moving forward?