Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 14:00:19 -0500
Reply-To: "Shilling, Brian" <Brian.Shilling@ASTRAZENECA.COM>
Sender: "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From: "Shilling, Brian" <Brian.Shilling@ASTRAZENECA.COM>
Subject: Re: Off Topic--Job Hunting in the Pharmaceutical Industry
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Charles,
Thanks for your input here.
I am actually one of the instructors of the Covance/Phila U. SAS course.
We are off this semester, but are currently taking applications for the
fall term.
Tom and Randy, please feel free to contact me with any questions about the
program.
You may also want to visit www.philau.edu for more information about the
program.
Thanks for the suggestion, Charles!
Brian
-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Patridge [mailto:Charles_S_Patridge@PRODIGY.NET]
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2002 1:44 PM
To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Off Topic--Job Hunting in the Pharmaceutical Industry
To Tom and Randy,
I can sympathetize with each of your situations with respect to trying to
breakin the pharmaceutical arena when you do not have any experience.
I was lucky back in 1993 when I was downsized from my then current employer
and was forced to become a SAS consultant. With the help of my friends at
HASUG and the willingness of several people at Bayer, I managed to acquire
a 4 month contract to do pharmaceutical programming. I did take a lower
than expected hrly rate but realized the experience and learning was worth
the risk given my situation.
I am not sure what or why there is such an emphasis on having the
pharmaceutical experience as I was given VERY SPECIFICS requirements to
start on when I arrived, and was programming within hours of my first
assignment. Granted, I needed to learn and understand the terminology but
basically I was coding within hours and completed my projects ahead of or
on time required.
In addition, I was assigned probably lower level types of coding but in my
honest opinion, data is data - no matter where you go. However, I did find
I was employing a number of different techniques than I was accustom to
when I worked in the financial/insurance industry but quickly adapted to
these as well as new ones which I did not see being employed but hopefully,
they (pharma people) found effective.
A couple of suggestions that may or may not work are:
1. consider taking a lower hourly rate to break in, if possible.
2. network with your local user groups as much as possible.
3. Covance did have a special course concentrated on SAS programming in
Pharmaceutical projects (see http://www.sconsig.com/covance.htm , and maybe
it is still active or maybe able to talk with someone about your dilemma).
4. try some agencies who might be willing to try to broker you into a
pharma project - depending on the number of available experienced SAS
professionals for a specific client, it could persuade possible clients to
give you a try.
HTH,
Charles Patridge
Email: Charles_S_Patridge@prodigy.net
