iJOBS Event Summary

Last month, iJOBS hosted employees from Aerotek and Staff Icons for the Job Search Using Staffing Agencies Panel. Cori Murray, Amanda Timpano, and Nicole Tenebruso represented Aerotek, the largest privately held staffing agency, while Michael Buckley represented Staff Icons, a small firm in Northern New Jersey. Each contributed a unique perspective on the benefits of working with a staffing agency.

On October 6^th, the Rutgers Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences invited Dr. Eric Prager, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Neuroscience Research, to speak about the problem of scientific reproducibility, how to avoid common pitfalls in conducting research, and best practices for publishing a scientific paper. (Interested in science publishing as a career and/or how Dr. Prager became an editor at Wiley?

The iJOBS Networking Event for Students, Postdocs and Alumni was held on September 15^th in the Research Towers on the Rutgers Piscataway campus. This casual event, held after hours, provided a fun (and food!) filled informal, stress-free environment where several Rutgers alumni shared their job hunting and career experiences with current students. Attendees had the opportunity to directly interact with alumni to gain insight into what they have been up to since graduation.

Last week we briefly overviewed the Interdisciplinary Job Opportunities for Biomedical Scientists (iJOBS) program in its first two years of training biomedical graduate students and postdocs to be successful in a variety of non-academic careers. The NIH BEST grant funds five years of the development for the iJOBS program and expects the program to be self-sustainable after the grant period.

In late April, Rudy Bellani, founder and CEO of Oystir, came to Rutgers and gave career advice and information about his company. For more about Rudy, see Myka Ababon’s interview here. Rather than a “how-to” for becoming a science writer, this event was more of an informal all-around career advice session with a slight focus on science communications. Rudy was personable and had wisdom to offer from his own career transition.

By: Chris Lowe

The advice to keep unprofessional or embarrassing pictures from Facebook and Instagram has long been impressed on all of us. But why not take it one step further?

By:  Dharm Patel Dr.

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

One of the most oft-repeated advice for students and postdocs on a career search is to NETWORK, NETWORK, NETWORK.

Matthias Birk’s “How to Pick the Right Career for You” workshop was an enjoyable reflection on what strengths, joys, and values we each have. Matthias was a candid speaker, and related much of what he taught to his own experiences- both good and bad.