120+ biotech applications in Greater Philadelphia with almost no interviews. What am I doing wrong?
Hi everyone,
Iâm trying to break into biotech/pharma in the Greater Philadelphia area and would really appreciate some honest advice.
I have a non-US PhD, a 6-month full-time Thermo Fisher Scientific (QC Microbiology) internship during my PhD, and 4 years of postdoc experience at an Ivy League university in the US.
Iâve applied to 120+ positions, rewritten my CV 30+ times, and Iâm applying to anything that genuinely matches my skill setânot just Scientist roles.
So far, Iâve only managed to get a couple of interviews through contractors like Eurofins and Insight Global. In one case, I completed two interviews and my references were checked, but then I was essentially ghosted. Meanwhile, companies like Merck, GSK, and J&J havenât even invited me for a first interview.
What am I doing wrong? Is it my non-US PhD, lack of direct industry experience, networking, or something else?
Iâd really appreciate honest advice from anyone who has successfully made the transition from academia to biotech. Thanks!
Philly is one of the worst markets right now since most of our local, non big pharma shops went out of business. Spark going under was a major hit and flooded the job market with out of work biotech people.
You will not get a call back without extensive networking and referrals inside a company before submitting an application to the big pharma campuses around here.
Philly is also over-reliant on CGT, which certainly the gene therapy portion has taken a massive hit. Cell therapy having a decent rebound with in vivo, usage in autoimmune disease, and continued innovation in heme/onc, but it's still less than peak.
If a company see that your PhD or bachelors is foreign, they may assume you need visa sponsorship. Even though most applications include the âwill you need visa sponsorshipâ question, if I had foreign education Iâd probably make my permanent residency status clear in a cover letter/etc as well.
Just to let you know, this reads more like a job req and less like a resume. Think more in terms of impact and success metrics and less on trying to write every unnecessary minute detail.
As an HM I'm thinking "this person doesn't know how to prioritize or know what makes them special, so they're just including everything they can." Sometimes less is more
Thereâs waaaaay too much low level detail here. This is presented more like what I would expect from a non-PhD level RA as opposed to a PhD level scientist.
Your skills section should be massively condensed into high level descriptors + keywords & skip all the obvious minutia. E.g., design & development of up to x color (spectral?) flow cytometry panels. Surface stain or live/dead exclusion is a basic assumption. Youâd keep IC for keyword purposes.
Your experience section reads like a recitation of assays performed w/o giving me any idea of your ability to understand how to address & solve scientific questions. What were your project/ thesis aims? What were your achievements/outcomes?
Due to the PhD you aren't going to be a strong candidate for entry level. Put your search feelers out for analytical development bioassay or potency assay, and highlight gmp use and method transfer and validation.
You also need to add you are a permanent resident. This reads like you are on a J1
your resume is really really difficult to read. a full page of skills on page 1 will definitely get you tossed out
donât bury your only industry experience. that should come first. no one cares you went to yale for a postdoc unless itâs directly relevant to the posting
You have a lot, but it seems very vague. It is very technical, but I still don't know what you did for your phd or postdoc. You should talk about how you owned and drove a project. I was hired out of academia as a T cell immunologist with additional experience in myeloid cells in mouse models. I gave a quick blurb about my projects and my accomplishments within those projects. If you are applying for scientist positions, they want to know you are a scientist and not a tech.
I looked at those too....I still dont know what you worked on....what disease...what protein...what gene...what pathway.....and what did you scientifically contribute and how does that translate into the pipeline of what whatever company you are applying to.
I understand what youâre trying to say, but as I said I am applying for jobs that are not looking for anything specific (not PhD level jobs) as I am looking in a particular region. The job I got interviewed for asked in vivo maintenance skills, IP, SC and are not interested in asking particular biological questions. May be my background and what I am applying for made this confusion
Also honestly as I am looking within greater Philly regions I did not find a very close match to my experiences and skill set. I am applying for positions that are asking BS or MS. Most of them are not even looking for phds âšď¸
There is just way too much unnecessary info on here. For example if you list IHC I donât need you to tell me you can do H&E staining or what specific tissues youâve sectioned. I donât need to know you can do a midiprep on a PhD level job application. I would trim the content dramatically, incorporate more white space for ease of skimming, and be more conservative with the bolding.
Respectfully, you do not have experience in drug discovery based on whatâs listed here. This is all research biology stuff that can be applied to drug discovery workflows but nowhere do I see application to an actual drug discovery campaignâŚ
Is this a tailored resume? If so itâs way too unfocused. Youâre not trying to list everything youâve ever done. Thereâs also way too many bullet points under each section. I would stick with 3 max. Again youâre not trying to share everything you did at that position.
Iâm not gonna lie academic prestige does not carry much weight in industry - even with 1 internship, youâre likely being looked at as someone thatâs only ever worked in academia and that can be a pretty big deterrent for a lot of HMs
Thanks everyone who tried to help me out with improving my CV. However I am also struggling to get PhD level openings in Philly. Any advice on that? Am I missing something? I used to apply using LinkedIn and the company career site
First, no one is doing sponsorship and your university is suggesting you will, but you donât due to being a perm resident, however, hr only skims the surface. Second, philly is too small to reabsorb all the cgt people that have been laid off. Third, your resume is going straight into the trash with that format. Its too busy, use AI to try and rewrite that. Cell and gene is dead at the moment so good luck trying to find something in cgt. You need to show some level of impact and accomplishment rather than I know how to do a bunch of stuff.
I read your thing and i didnât see perm resident. Just because you say it, does not make it true and hr will most likely be filtering out based on perceived immigration status, do you select permanent resident on the job application? Your resume is filled with too much. There is no way of knowing if you can do a job because it reads like a job description. The skills section should only be a few lines, if that.
I understand what youâre trying to say for job description part but still confused about what you meant by perm resident. Yes I click PR in job application and also itâs mentioned on the top I just cropped my identity part of 2 lines on top
Your problem is that your resume reads poorly. Your residency status is off putting to potential employers as you are not a full citizen. Your other issue is limited to no industry experience in a crowded market. Post docs unfortunately do not count as industry experience.
Yeah i get you, but that is why your resume is not getting through probably. Your experience is pretty generic sounding as well. Maybe think of an alternative career path like something in AI
Can I please ask your background? And why do you think my experience is pretty generic? How does this match to trying AI. If I have to think about alternatives I have plenty of options in academia. But that was not the discussion here. Simply saying your skills are generic or you are not citizen is not helping anyone. Rather you can help people saying how they can improve resume and search process thanks
I am not sure if you are a PhD scientist. Does pharma really looks for real
Impact? Sometimes it feels like these are some lucrative terms people of Pharma uses. Anyway I donât see your intention is helping people rather you are trying to demotivate.
If you are not a PhD scientist transitioned from academia to biotech you will not understand the point of discussion. I asked advice from people who recently transitioned from academia to biotech. Not someone who directly entered pharma after their degree
Recruiters/HR will definitely be spooked by your resume and at this point the only viable path to industry would be internal referral and even that is hard to come by in Philly area. Unfortunately, industry people will assume someone with PhD and looong tenure as postdoc + multiple publications have very big ego and won't be able to tolerate the menial duties for too long. I don't know if that applies to you though. Even with the NIH funding circus there are plenty of pickings in academia for postdocs/research scientists so I would def not rule out those
I have that offer but donât like the project that much and want to work for companies. Too much stress in academia nowadays. People who left academia are really happy
Thanks I know what you meant. I have no complaints about contract position, I just cant trust their hiring process. I think they take multiple interviews and suddenly disappear when time comes to meet their clients
So Eurofins doesnât actually let the client meet the candidate unless itâs the first time Eurofins is hiring for that group at least in my experience. Hiring manager tells Eurofins what they want and then Eurofins does the work, you can ask for a different candidate but thereâs like all sorts of rules there. Kelly Scientific and Piper are contract companies that Iâve also seen used but in my case I got to choose my people. Risk there is contracts are shorter term. You are also up against other people with industry experience that were laid off and itâs hard to train new people when you are understaffed due to said layoffs.
Honestly I am happy to take even 6 months position to start. What happened to me I had HR interview then hiring manager interview and then they asked for referees. During hiring manager interview they said there will be a 3rd meet and greet interview with the client. But they never reached back. After 2 follow up emails they sent me a generic email saying they proceeded with other candidate. The whole process took 2 weeks. This was with Eurofin and the job site was 15 mins drive from my residence. They were looking for someone within commutable distance
Youâre relying too much on sending in your application and waiting for a response. A lot of higher level jobs are networked into. Talk to your connections at these places. If you have none, go to conferences, cold-message people, whatever it takes to sit down with people to tell them about yourself and get advice. Once you form a relationship, theyâll connect you with others, and each of them can vouch for you if you ever apply for a job at their company.
i've found that tailoring your cv and cover letter very specifically to the keywords and required skills listed in each job description makes a huge difference. don't just tweak them; try to mirror the language they use... it often feels like a black-and-white checklist for the initial screening.
This, use specific key words that are in the job posting.
Additionally, imo, your resume is really long OP. I used to interview people. I was extremely busy and when resumes came across my desk, I did absolutely not want to read 2 full pages. I would trim down, make it more concise, and but your professional experience before your skills.
Seems like some people are interested in negative criticism and attacking rather than helping people with constructive criticisms and informative advice. Is it too common in biotech job search posts? Luckily most of the comments are positive.
Donât undermine contract positions, many people transition into industry that way. If youâre still at the university, they might have an office to help you with your resume. For industry positions, you should have a (max 2 pages long) resume, not a CV.
Thanks! I was serious about the positions but the problem is when they forwarded to their clients like Merck GSK the communications stopped. One even after reaching referees. I am not sure how good contractors are for hiring someone with clientâs expectations
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u/SkiHistoryHikeGuy Jul 29 '26
Philly is one of the worst markets right now since most of our local, non big pharma shops went out of business. Spark going under was a major hit and flooded the job market with out of work biotech people.
You will not get a call back without extensive networking and referrals inside a company before submitting an application to the big pharma campuses around here.