I am very interested in drug discovery research and would like to apply for a position at biotech companies. What should I do at the preparation stage?
Are you in college?
There are a wide variety of positions at a typical biotech. For drug discovery take a look at some job descriptions. The hiring managers will typically want to see bench research experience and history of publications. A PhD is preferred, but sometimes they will consider masters degree holders.
If you have a PhD then an industry post-doc is also helpful.
You can get entry level positions that are related, but to do the type of work that I think you want to do you will need an advanced degree.
What is your major and what experiences do you have so far?
As @sgopal2 has correctly stated, there are a wide range of positions available in biotech companies.
One daughter graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology a bit more than two years ago, traveled a bit (she had avoided debt and had money saved from internships), then started working in a biotech company specifically involved in looking for drugs to treat a particular genetic disease. Given that she only had a bachelor’s degree in biology, I was pleasantly surprised with how easily she was able to get several (actually three) good job offers.
In her case I think that the key was that in university she discovered that she loved lab work and was very good at it. From sophomore year on she took essentially as many lab courses as she could, and also got a lab-related internship and worked on lab-related research. She happened to graduate while COVID was still going on, so some of her job interviews occurred via zoom, which meant that I got to overhear a few of them. They got into a lot of detail regarding what she had already done in the lab. This experience seemed to be quite important in her job search.
I do think that an advanced degree would help her get into more interesting work. She is thinking about what sort of advanced degree to go for. However, in the mean time she is doing well in an entry position with just a bachelor’s degree plus some appropriate experience.
This does lead to two obvious questions: What stage of your education are you currently at? Do you have any related experience?
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My daughter (biology degree) worked as a clinical research coordinator. The work she was involved with focused on treatments for a specific genetic condition.
Her undergraduate background included research, publications, and lab work.
She needs an advanced degree to do more at this job, but I was also surprised at the entry level offers she had with her BS.
My daughter’s friend worked in a lab for a drug company before going back to school.
OP can you tell us what experience you have so far?
There’s not enough information to help you very much. What are you looking to do? Biochem engineering, research, secretary, marketing, pharmaceutical sales? Are you in high school or college?
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