iJOBS Blog

By: Huri Mücahit The following blog post was written after attending the iJOBS Workshop: Strategic Online Networking to Propel Your Career on January 18th, 2018. With this workshop, iJOBS once more offers the opportunity to expand networking skills with the program 2Actify. Following the success of the pilot program launched this past summer, (see Fatu Badiane's experience with 2Actify), the founder, Penny Pearl

As individuals, our personality is unique; however, there are basic shared characteristics among us and it is important to understand our personality as it impacts the relationships with those around us. A simple definition of personality is our natural or preferred way of being. Naturally we feel competent, productive, and energetic, and sometimes are not aware of our innate way of being. Knowing our strengths can be a good asset, but it can also be a liability if they are used inappropriately.

The Rutgers iJOBs site visit to Ferring Pharmaceuticals on November 30th marked the first time when Ferring hosted students from a university for an onsite visit. Ferring was established in Malmo, Sweden by Dr. Frederik Paulson in 1950, and today, has offices all over the globe, including the corporate headquarters in Saint Prex, Switzerland.

I attended a two-day workshop called “What Can You Be With a PhD?” (WCUB) on November 4-5, 2017. This article is published as the second in two-part coverage of the “Teaching and Education” panel during WCUB. What exactly can one do once they are deemed an expert in their respective field? The answer to that question turns out to be: many things!

I attended a two-day workshop called “What Can You Be With a PhD?” (WCUB) on November 4-5, 2017. This article is published as the first in two-part coverage of the “Teaching and Education” panel during WCUB. What exactly can one do once they are deemed an expert in their respective field? The answer to that question turns out to be: many things!

When I imagine myself in industry I often see myself wearing a suit performing a task, but the details of those tasks are unclear. After speaking to other trainees about what tasks they envision performing in industry, they describe job definitions, but not specific tasks. This becomes problematic because while you may think that you are a good fit for a profession, performing those unknown duties might make you feel differently. I am surely not the first PhD student to ask the question: what job duties would I do in industry, more specifically Medical Affairs?

I didn’t know what I expected on Thursday when I traveled to Bridgewater, NJ to visit GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) Medical Affairs office. This was my first opportunity to get a day-in-the-life industry perspective during my time in graduate school. If you read any of our previous blog posts or even just the description of the iJOBS program, you will understand that its sole purpose is to expose graduate students and post-docs to non-academic career options.

On November 1, 2017, iJOBS hosted a site-visit to Bayer in Whippany, NJ. This location is Bayer’s U.S. headquarters for the Pharmaceuticals and Consumer Care divisions. The day began with a talk by Edio Zampaglione, MD, Vice President of U.S. Medical Affairs for Women’s Healthcare and Neurology.

Huri Mücahit and Yaa Haber If you’re looking for a career in which you can plan, organize, and oversee all aspects of a project to reach a specific end goal, then project management is the career for you! In this iJOBS workshop, Kristin Fitzgerald, Director of Global Project and Alliance Management at Merck & Co., covered the day-to-day aspects of project management within a pharmaceutical company, as well as the skills required to succeed. In order to understand project management, it is first necessary to define the term ‘project’.

This post was written following my participation in the 2Actify Online course offered by the iJOBS program from July 17 to September 15, 2017 We have all been there: you’re attending iJOBS and (Alliance for Career Advancement) ACA events to learn about potential career options, you’re updating your resume and curriculum vitae to be ready for that first application, but then you suddenly hit a brick wall when you realize your LinkedIn profile hasn’t been updated since college (ack!!).