Below, former grad students share their job-hunting advice and experience. If you want to share your experiences as a UO alum, contact Lynde at lynde@uoregon.edu

"Brad"

Resume Preparation
By far, the most comprehensive advice for resume preparation came through the ACS. Words cannot describe how helpful Dr. Warren B. (a couselor with ACS) was. I was unable to attend his seminar, but I got his e-mail address. I don't know if he goes this far out of his way with everyone, but I sent him a copy of my resume. He sent me back 9 pages of detailed comments, suggestions, advice, and even re-formatted portions of it. However...this information will get you started with a "paper resume". In this day and age, paper resumes are only of limited use (ie handing out personally at meetings, back-up copies at interviews, etc.) These days, everything is electronic. At some of the larger corporations, they will take your paper resume and scan it into their database and do their search by keywords. So once you have written a resume that you are happy with (hopefully using the ACS guidelines), the next step is to translate it into acceptable electronic form. These are the basics:

1) Set your margins for 1" on the left, and 3" on the right.

2) Change to Courier 12pt font

3) Ditch all bullets, underlines, bold, and italics

4) Adjust all of your formatting so that it looks pretty (but do not use tabs...spaces only). Start a new paragraph at the end of each line so that the text does not wrap around.

5) Save it as an ASCII or "text only" file

6) Cut and paste it into your e-mail to the company to which you are applying.

7) Always send an electronic cover letter as well, using the same format requirements.

For excellent, and more detailed advice on electronic resumes, the best site is: http://www.eresumes.com. In the near future, I will be creating a web-resume. These are really slick, and you can attach your publications, add animations, and really let your creativity run wild.

The best sample web-resume that I have found (I will be modeling mine after this one) can be found at: http://jowsey.com/resume/index.html

Job Hunting
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Hands down, the best web site out there is http:www.biospace.com. Beyond that, a lot of it depends on where you want to end up geographically, and of course what you want to do for a living. Personally, I knew all along that I wanted to be in California doing pharmaceutical-related work. Excellent resources for California are: http://www.jobstar.org/ http://www.bajobs.com/ If for some unknown reason I wanted to work in a different city, you can do really well entering keywords into any search engine "seattle pharmaceutical". That will send you to all sorts of corporate web sites that usually have job opportunity links. If you're doing inorganic chemistry, materials science, or are heading for academics, I can't be of much help. The ACS is a pretty good resource,for both academic and industrial positions. The problem is that these jobs are all posted in C & E news, so the competition is fierce.

Misc. Hints
1) Invest in a cellular phone. They're cheap, handy, and convenient. There's nothing worse that having to run across the lab after turning down the radio, or missing that important opportunity.

2) Keep a journal of places you've applied. Cut and paste a copy of the advertisement, and as always, do your homework. Make notes to yourself in terms of what the company specializes in, so when you get that phone call you don't find yourself asking, "I'm sorry...I sent out 50 applications...which one are you?"

3) Carry a notepad, pen, and a calendar with you at all times

4) Prepare a 2-page research synopsis. When they ask you to tell them about your project, answer the question, of course, then offer to fax him a copy of this report...very handy tool.

5) Network, network, network. You must know somebody who is out there in the real world, friends of the family, friends of friends...all you need is the name of someone to send your stuff to other than the black hole known as human resources. Saying something like, "Joe Green suggested that I write to you..." will go a long way.

6) Utilize the UO Career Center for letters of recommendation. Kristi has better things to do than stuff envelopes for the 50 applications that you are sending out. For no charge, the UO Career center will manage this for you. They can be contacted at: http://uocareer.uoregon.edu

I spent quite a bit of time browsing through company websites for employment opportunities, and found quite a few positions that I was interested in. The problem is that some of these companies do not update their web pages frequently. Not to say that you should ignore this approach altogether (especially because you can get tons of background information on the company and the type of research that they do). It's just something to keep in mind.

The most current available jobs can be found at science-related job sites such as:

1) http://www.biospace.com (still my favorite)
2) http://www.scijobs.org/
3) http://career.bio.com/careercenter/index.jhtml
4) http://www.bioview.com/homepage.html
5) http://www.jobspectrum.org/ (affiliated with the ACS)
6) http://www.medzilla.com/

These are all really good, very current, and you can search by keyword, job-type, location, etc. The only drawback are the occasional jobs posted by temp agencies which they seem to use to lure you into their clutches. Surprisingly, I found my current position through Monster.com, which ordinarrily I would not reccommend, but hey...you never know.

"Tom"

I think that my job hunting experience was pretty typical. I sent out many many CV's and cover letters via web, fax, and snail mail. From those, I got 4 phone interviews (3 of which turned into real interviews and then job offers). The one thing in common with every interview I got was that I had a contact within the company. I had a 0% success rate on resumes sent in cold. Most companies have online job applications and make it very difficult to send in a resume any other way (ie they won't post the name of hiring managers or HR personnel). I put my resume in online at one company where I later found a contact person. I never got a response from the online resume, but I ended up with a job offer when I put the same resume in through my contact person. From my experience, I learned several important things: Keep in mind that my experience applies to industry jobs. I have no idea how applicable this is to academic positions.

1) Share your CV with your boss, fellow students, and postdocs. It was difficult for me to do this since I really talked up my abilities and skills and was afraid to look like an ass. However, the response I got was extremely helpful in making a polished final version. If you know people in industry and are looking for a job there - send them the resume to look at. They will have a different view than those people used to acadamia.

2) Find the companies you are interested in and send out the short list to everyone you know to see if they know someone there. A contact person is invaluable - even if it is just a friend of a friend. Keep in mind that most companies pay a bonus to anyone that brings in another employee. These people want to help you to get the job because it puts money in their pockets! Ask them specifically to hand deliver copies of your resume (which you should mail to your contact if you want them on nice paper) to the hiring managers. Then bug them after a week to see how things are going.

3) Be confident both on the phone and in person, but also be accepting of your deficiencies (without flaunting them). This is difficult to explain well, but it is important. I got a job offer from all 3 companies that met with me face to face. I think that this is because I came across as confident, but not arrogant. Do not try to bullshit anyone about abilities or skills that you don't have. Instead, express confidence in your ability to quickly learn any new skills needed for the job. If you like what you see during an interview and want the job, tell the people that you interview with just that. It seems a little silly and you might think that it is assumed, but it is not. They know that the interview is there for you to check them out as much as for them to check you out.

4) Send thank you emails to anyone you interview with - get their cards as you go from person to person to make this easier. Also, check back with your contact person.

5) If you have an offer on the table from one company, let the other companies know. Offers have a time limit on them and the other companies will understand that. Once I had one offer, both of the other companies I interveiwed with expedited their process' and got offers out to me very quickly.

Along with sending out the resumes, I also went to several job fairs and put my resume in a couple of online job finders. I got information about the companies at the jobfairs, but no job offers. A friend of mine did get an interview from a jobfair. She said that she got it because she went back to the same booth several times and chatted with the people there. She told them directly that she was interested in a specific job and they put a note on her resume tagging it as a definite second look. I got calls for months from headhunters from my monster.com online resume - all east coast positions that I wasn't interested in.

"Chris"

Without having much experience, I would think that the UOregon Career Center may be quite useful for BS/MS people. For PhDs, nothing's better than the network your advisor(s) and profs can hook you up with. Hmm, I think I will sound like a career center person saying that personal contacts are most important.

For my job search right now I am interviewing with companies through the on-campus thing. I try to track down people I know who either work at a particular place or know someone there, so that I can make a reference to a particular person when sending my application. I have not yet sent out blind applications to companies, but I may do this a bit later. For getting my postdoc, I just sent out applications to the people I wanted to work for. In my case neither DT nor Ken (who wrote my reference letters) were good friends with the profs I applied to, but both Ken and DT knew them personally, so I guess that helped with respect to the letters of reference.