The iJOBS program organized a visit to the Eli Lilly and Company site in Branchburg, NJ on April 6th of this year. Eli Lilly and Company was founded over 140 years ago and has a long history of quality pharmaceutical products including several well-known drugs such as Cialis, Cymbalta, and Prozac. The morning of our visit, we were greeted by the smiling face of human resources manager Amy Springer while getting our badges. Amy first led us into a meeting room where we met five Lilly employees from both the Branchburg and Brid
gewater Lilly sites for a discussion and Q&A session. These employees covered a range of areas from statistics to manufacturing and their contact emails can be found here. Overall, the take-home message I got from the session was about two key factors Eli Lilly looks for in its employees: teamwork and flexibility. Resumes, of course, focus on the hard skills learned during your PhD; however, your soft skills also need to be emphasized. Both industry and academia use teamwork, and panel members stated that examples of when you used teamwork successfully should be included in your resumes when applying. Mention specific times when you worked in collaboration with other labs, managed projects and/or people, or worked together to create new ideas. Hiring managers want to know, outside of your technical ability, what you bring to the table. Panelists also indicated that flexibility is a necessity when going into industry. Applicants should be flexible with their career trajectory and keep an open mind. Be willing to reinvent yourself! You may not initially be hired for your dream position, but once you are in the company, you have a lot of freedom to explore further opportunities. Eli Lilly may even provide training opportunities for those employees who want to switch fields within the company. The Eli Lilly and Company main headquarters is located in Indianapolis, Indiana, but there are also three Lilly sites in the New York/New Jersey area. The Lilly Branchburg site houses manufacturing, quality assurance, and quality control facilities. There is also a site in Bridgewater that is mainly clinical and operations oriented. Manhattan is where some research and discovery takes place. Our visit also included a tour of the biochemistry and microbiology quality control labs. Biochemistry quality control facilities test the stability, efficacy, and purity of finished drug products. The microbiology quality control labs are where Lilly tests for contamination, monitors sterile solutions, equipment, and the environmental conditions (i.e. air quality) for mold, bacteria, and endotoxins. A majority of the laboratory staff here are those who hold bachelor’s degrees. Supervisory positions of quality control labs here are often run by PhDs, and there are plenty of other research and non-research roles within Lilly for PhDs. You can find more information about careers at Eli Lilly and Company here and the Eli Lilly internship program available for all levels of education here.
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