PostdocTransformation show for scienctists leaping into business
Get to know companies which hire people with a doctor title!
Episode 0040 Shownotes
In this PostdocTransformation Show episode, Candice Zarrei from Pharmuni shares #FutureOfWork opportunities in careers in the pharmaceutical industry. The interview includes advice on employability skills, the importance of continuous learning and personal branding, and opportunities within startups and SMEs.
Additionally, it discusses ethical considerations, misconceptions, and essential skills for success in a corporate pharmaceutical and medtech career, featuring insights on Pharmuni's recruitment tool.
From an HR & upskilling perspective, Candice also shares inspiration for students in industrial and occupational psychology, highlighting Pharmuni's University Partnership Program and the collaboration with universities to bridge the gap between academic and industry needs.
Subscribe to our weekly show on your favorite podcast platforms: Why? Postdoc scientists & PhD students / candidates will learn the basics for their career transition from research into business & industries AND will get to know a company that hires early career scientists!
About our PostdocTransformation show
Invest in your PostdocTransformation. Welcome to the seasonal show for scientists leaping into business. In every sponsored episode, we are happy to recommend employers of choice for you. Make sure to check your readiness to leap out of science with us for free, as linked in the show notes. For your career transition, we offer customized career transition e-courses and memberships, also at graduate schools all over the world.
Maybe yours too. And if your university isn't yet our customer, enroll in your free email course for career transition made simple as linked in the show notes. I'm your host, Professor Dr. Eleonore Soei Winkels, with my team who is rooting for you. And let's build your PostdocTransformation with this episode.
[00:01:05] From Academia to Industry: A Personal Journey
Eleonore:
As a seasoned professor of industrial and occupational psychology in Germany, and knowing what bachelor and master students learn in theory, I have to recognize that companies often complain about fresh graduates lacking workplace preparation and project management skills.
And I haven't been in academia only, so I can also testament to when I leaped into my first role as an IT analyst at an international grocery discounter right after my PhD in neuroscience in 2008, I was literally overwhelmed and, I had to learn how to survive in the corporate world. That was quite a culture clash coming from academia.
So, on top of that, I had to learn what was needed being a good IT analyst in business. So, if I could go back in time, I would disentangle these learning curves and luckily, times have changed.
Now, I recommend Pharmuni e-courses which you can do before leaping into business. So, if you are a master, bachelor student even, or a scientist without professional industry and business experience, I recommend to level up your employability with Pharmuni e-courses and certificates in for example, cultural sensitivity, time management, team collaboration, emotional intelligence, supplier management, business communication skills, preparing for job interviews, and maybe even agile principles and project management.
Taking these courses will prepare you for an international corporate career, just like mine, before you onboard into your first role, so you can hit the ground running in your role specifications. If you are a scientist with a STEM research background who wants to leap into the biotech, medtech, life science, pharmaceutical companies, I recommend the Pharmuni e-courses and certificates in pharmacovigilance, compliance, and quality assurance.
These are all courses for both novices and seasoned professionals. which will boost your industry excellence. And best of all, it's not just in theory. No, you get a certificate and all the job qualifications are endorsed by the esteemed ISO 9001 2015 Certified Zamann Pharma Support GmbH in Germany.
[00:03:28] Introducing Candice Quinn Zarei:
Upskilling expert at Pharmuni
Eleonore:
And for this episode of our PostdocTransformation Show for scientists leaping into business, I'm excited to welcome Candice Quinn Zarei, who is the Pharmuni Group Manager.
She's Australian, living in Germany, and that's why you will listen to a different voice in this show. She's all about bringing a new way to upskill, qualify, recruit, and retain talent in the pharma industry. And that's why I'm so happy to have you in my show, Candice, not only for my PostdocTransformers, but also for my own students of industrial and occupational psychology.
So, without further ado, dear Candice, the stage is all yours. Tell us what is your role at Pharmuni apart from being the group manager because I've seen you all over the place in media as well. And yeah, the stage is yours.
[00:04:20] Candice's Insights on Career Versatility and Skills in Pharma
Candice Quinn Zarei:
Well, firstly, thank you so much for having me today. I've been really excited to talk to you yourself, knowing your experiences in the industry of coming from tech and also as a teacher for organizational behavior and psychology and HR, which as some big things that we talk about here at farm uni, but for me, my name is Candice and yes, I originally come from Australia and moved to Germany about five years ago to step into Zamann pharma support where I originally was doing business improvement and project management.
So, looking at optimization of the business and really very quickly stepped into the world of learning and development and training. So, taking, what we can do here and how we can upskill and qualify our own internal teams. Even though we were very small, four or five years ago, we had a very small team and have grown quite quickly, over the past few years.
And yes, I do quite a lot of roles at Pharmuni aside from being the product owner, which is the person responsible for making sure that we have a really great ed tech platform that is all centered around the end users, customer and user centric designed, but also making sure we have really great e learning content that has learning objectives at the center of everything we do so that when you get qualified and you get the certificates from us, they show that you can actually do something at the end.
I'm involved in the social media, I do the interviews, I do podcasts, really kind of the full scope, but that's really a great part of what I do and being essentially in the startup arm of what we do is you have to have multiple different hats.
So, my goal is to tell you guys how you can get into the industry and really kind of set yourself for success at the end of the day.
Eleonore:
Oh, that's music in my ears really because I really try to sort of like help my students to embrace all kinds of roles and not just to stick into one role. At the beginning of the career, I always think that you shouldn't just drill down, but instead you should open up and try all different kinds of roles, because you'll never know what the future will hold for you.
The more versatile you are, the better your chances are to move up the career ladder.
Candice Quinn Zarei:
Was also probably my case as well is, I have worked in so many diverse fields, within the realm of project management and business improvement, but I've worked in finance, I've worked in engineering, I've worked in IT, I've worked in highly regulated industries like workers compensation, pharmaceuticals and life sciences.
And you really do find that the more skills you have, being kind of like that multi skilled employee, you have multidisciplinary approaches to what you do can really set you up for being able to move into so many different career paths. You might start in one direction and then with the skills that you gain, find that you really enjoy something else.
And then you can kind of divert into that path and then just branch off into wherever you can go from there.
[00:07:24] The Importance of Transferable Skills and Industry Readiness
Eleonore:
All right, that's a reel in itself already about transferable skills and I will probably dissect that and post that also on social media because I really do think that the more you can approach things from multiple angles, the more you are valuable and bring something to the table. All right, so looking at the multiple angles that we have already talked about.
For the pharmaceutical industry, which of the disciplines are relevant or is it all industries or all disciplines? What do you think? Is there a general educational scientific background that is a booster for a career in pharmacy in pharma industry?
Candice Quinn Zarei:
I think, you definitely have to start with your technical scientific capabilities, because when we're talking about the pharma and medtech industry, you have to have those core academic competencies, because if you're doing research and development into drugs, or if you're looking at mechanical engineering for prosthetics, et cetera, you have to have that technical background, and that's where the higher education and academic setting really plays an important part. At the same time, when you're stepping into the world of finishing academia and into the business of working for a company that actually then wants to make and sell these products, and how you can contribute to that for yourself and for the communities is you do then need to factor in, The modern world that we now live in, it was very globalized industries.
We have supply chains that run from Europe into South Africa, into Canada, into South America. And in regards to that, you need to now be a multi skilled employee. And this is something that I was recently researching and looking about is, last year, we had a really big focus on AI and the introduction of new technologies. We have a need to be very responsive to global pandemics very quickly, as we saw, probably from 2019, 2020 onwards. Therefore, we need people who are not just trained in probably traditional research methods, but also really up to speed very quickly on new research methods. And then also we need people who are looking at things like personalized medicine.
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Candice Quinn Zarei:
So, we have to start putting people at the center of all the designing of products and services in the industry. So, when you're talking about, is there one thing that people need to further themselves in the industry? I would say there's a core and that's probably going to be centered around what they're actually doing, whether it's a drug development, research, if it's to do with medical devices, but there's all the other things that you need.
You need project management. You need to be a great leader. You need to understand documentation, and you can do that through the further education and training that you might not be able to access in academic setting because professors are very, very busy. They have a lot going on, they have their core curriculum that they need to teach. And then, you've got other people like ourselves who try and come in and kind of support that process for them. Yeah.
Eleonore:
Candice, that's, that really is again music in my ears because I I also have humanities and social sciences PhDs in my community, and within the PostdocTransformers so I really do think that for project management becoming a leader. And, you know, working at the interface between development, but also bringing things to the market, sales and marketing, I think that there is a place for social scientists through qualitative research to understand what is really needed. On the individual level, instead of just the broader quantitative level. So, that really is encouraging for many disciplines.
[00:12:30] Navigating the Pharmaceutical Industry: Opportunities and Challenges
Eleonore:
You already mentioned the pandemic. Are there any other recent global events that have an impact on the pharmaceutical companies or pharmaceutical industries?
Candice Quinn Zarei:
I think, , for the pharmaceutical industry in particular, there is a really big shift, that we're seeing probably in the last four to five years and that's around personalized medicines and patient centric approaches because you see lots of things in the news where in certain regions of the world, it's very expensive to buy medications, and the things that are really quite essential for a person's health and safety, whereas in other regions of the world, these things are more accessible.
And I think this shift now is starting to change, whereas we're wanting to now make sure that the industry globally is more focused on making sure they have people and community at the center of what they do. And that really then falls into how we then educate and train people. Bringing up the leaders of tomorrow to have quality and patient safety at the center of everything that they create, which means that we need leadership skills. We need people from different disciplines moving into the industry, and that's why you're seeing probably as well in employment trends in pharma and med tech, there's a really big shift for human resources, is a really big shift for marketing and sales is a really big shift for IT Which is a very big up and coming role, not just for developers, but people who can lead and manage IT teams and how you integrate the world of agile development processes with a very rigid quality management system approach and how you kind of connect these two departments together, which is luckily, something we did very successfully here, we worked very hard of integrating our IT and quality management teams together. So there's a really big shift in the structures of companies, the different roles, and that's all to facilitate more people centered approaches in regards to creating medicines and devices that really, Improve the quality of life of people and doing it in a way where it's community focused and not profit focused.
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Eleonore:
That's great news. The last bit, what you said about, it's not just profit focus that really is probably important for many scientists because scientists like I, myself, I didn't go into science because I wanted to earn a lot of money.
I mean, you are probably more idealistic in the sense that you want to cure people's.
diseases. Do you want to help make the world better? But I see a lot of scientists being dismayed at the slowness in science in the sense of, you know, you are researching on cancer and therapeutics and medications. And then it's so slow that at the end of the PhD, nothing evolves out of that,
So, Candice, I want to switch gears a little bit. So, As I have now someone also who is trained in HR. What specific skills and experience, knowledge, or even certifications are needed to be successful in a corporate career in pharma industry?
Candice Quinn Zarei:
When we talk about corporate and we talk about the different arms of research and development, I think that they're two different skill sets. They have some overlapping, but they are two very different skill sets. So, when we're talking about the world of corporate, from my perspective, and also from my experiences of as well of working in a corporate world for many, many years now, is you need to be an outside the box thinker, you need to be a great problem solver, and you need to be creative in that, you need to be a great communicator, have leadership skills, and you also need to, in regards to your communications, particularly if you are coming from the technical side of things.
So, just say you're in research and development, you might be wanting to explain what you're doing to this side of the business. You need to do that in a way where it's really easy to understand. So, taking the technical jargon of what you might really easily understand and translating that in a way that people in the board can understand, you might have a project sponsor, you might have people who are sponsoring the funding for your research and you need to explain things in a way that are really easy for them to understand, but also vice versa.
If you're working in the corporate world, you might be in human resources. You might be in management. You might be doing strategic management. You might be in other arms where you're deciding where the business wants to go and you need to communicate that in a way to your developers, whether it's technology, pharmaceuticals or medtech in a way that they understand as well.
Candice Quinn Zarei:
And so, I would say the major skills for both, these arms, regardless if it's corporate or the technical side of things, is fabulous communication, great leadership, great time management. You need to be organized, organized, organized in this industry because it is fast paced, and all of the companies, regardless of what size, if you're a startup or a large corporate entity is, you always need to remain competitive.
So, everything's fast paced in the industry. And then just probably one last skill that I don't think a lot of people consider in the industry, is that you need to be able to also sell yourself in regards to you need to sell the great things that you do.
So, if you're a tech person and you're wanting to move up into more leadership roles of quality assurance or getting into business development, firstly, you need to be able to communicate in a way that these guys understand, but you need to be able to say this is the great work I've done. This is how it's benefited the business.
And this is how it's going to put you into the eyes of people who make the decisions about where you go in your career.
And also the same on the other side as well, you want to move up the corporate ladder. You're in a junior role in HR. You need to be able to show and demonstrate, things that you've done that have contributed to moving the business in a positive direction.
Eleonore:
Love it. I really love it. I mean, you've seen me laughing. There are two things that you mentioned. And one is this being able to translate. Whatever you are conveying in your message for the target group.
And I have been always preparing decision papers or presentations for the steering board, but also I had to go down to sort of like the IT architects and talk about their latest development. And they were talking about non functional, you know. And it was like, arguably important, but that's nothing that I can present to the board.
So, you have to find the balance, and to understand the gist of the things.
And that's really a skill that will help you survive and also move up the career ladder. And the other thing that you mentioned was really about the selling aspect. Many scientists think that marketing yourself into a role and whatever, is cringe.
I can see myself being also dismayed about that. But I had to learn that working at Accenture, the global consulting company. And every year we had to campaign for ourself in the sense of what were my contributions? Why were they important? What did I do? What made me excel in that role? And how do I discern myself in the competition against the others?
And that was the best learning curve that I could have ever have. You know, these two or three years in learning that in the sense of what it makes me stand out today is the ability to say, yes, this is what I did, and this is why it's helpful, and please share and support my causes. I think that everyone who wants to succeed in corporate needs also the mindset of an intrapreneur.
This entrepreneurial mindset in the sense of you need to craft yourself into a job. You need to market yourself into a job. Whatever skills you need for the next position, it's your homework. No one will teach you that it's your homework and you need to identify whatever is needed and level up.
Personal branding
Candice Quinn Zarei:
It's also like the element of personal branding, and I think it's such a key word in a lot of corporate companies I've worked for before, and honestly, early in my career, I didn't take it very seriously at all. I thought, you know, my work will speak for itself. You know, at the end of the day, what I've produced is going to. They're going to look at that and be like, you're the one for the job, and it doesn't work like that. We, as human beings, when we talk about organizational psychology, people are very driven by, what they see, how you present yourself, how you talk, how you network.
I really didn't understand networking when I first stepped into the corporate world, but it was really important. Getting to know people, introducing myself, telling them about my work, spreading the word, and that becomes then an impression that they have of you. And then that combined with your work is really balancing out and setting the stage for you to be someone that people can look to when they're wanting to fill a position or they're wanting to put you in charge of a particular project because they also know you a bit more from , outside of just your work perspective.
So, personal branding is super, super important that goes into how you present yourself online, your LinkedIn, what things you talk about, how you engage with different projects and community activities. We live in such a massive globalized world these days, and probably maybe 7, 8 years ago, it was only very new for HR to probably go online and see what people are doing, but it's very, very common now.
And so it's really important that with your own personal branding, whether it be in the company and the work that you do, and being able to, to market yourself in that way. You also have to remember that online, you've gotta market yourself the same.
Eleonore:
Absolutely. And it's also this external marketing is not just confined to the online presence, which is arguably easier, I would say, because you need to also stay, you know, up to date with networking at industry events that you have with suppliers,
So, once you want to have more of the stakes, you have to also level up and find key stakeholders, and these are not always online.
So, you have to also be able to network and level up your networking.
[00:25:10] Ethical Considerations and the Future of Pharma
Eleonore:
So, when we switch gears again, Candice, what do you think are the most important ethical considerations in the pharmaceutical companies or industries?
Because when I look at personalized medicine and the way it's accessible through the different regions that you have mentioned.
Candice Quinn Zarei:
I think there's a multitude of ethical considerations in the pharmaceutical industry, starting at everything from the focus of companies, you know, why are you creating your products? Are you creating them just to make money or are you actually creating these products to benefit humanity and society as a general, which falls into who can access these products?
Is this just a product that you're going to sell in your region? Or are you going to make this a product that's accessible, not just location wise, but financially wise for people? Because, in regards to the historical context of the industry, and when we're talking about money, this is a trillion dollar industry.
When we put it all together, it is a great way for companies to make a lot of money. However, in the long run, when we're talking about making sure that we have people in the industry, we have an aging population and there's a big gap in the aging population. So, we have a lot of people who are in the baby boomer age groups that are now setting into retirement and there's a massive age gap here. And the younger people are not stepping into the industry because they don't know that it's not just about making money in the industry.
You have an opportunity to really make a difference, so, ethical concerns, I think from a money side of things, we should really make sure we keep a focus on so that when we're bringing people into the industry, we're educating them on what they can do what intrinsic benefits there are, as opposed to the extrinsic benefits.
And also, when we're talking about ethical considerations for things like AI, I'm a big believer in tech. I love tech. I build an edtech product. I love AI. I think that it has the opportunity to really benefit us in a way, whereas we can do a whole heap of things, and not take so much time in order to do them, which can free us up to be more creative thinkers in ways. But at the same time, I think we need to be careful with that because what we feed into AI is what we get out of it.
And so I think, there's always pros and cons to these things. So I think it just is a matter of when we're engaging with technology, it's how we use the technology, how we feed information into the technology, and then also making sure that the data sets we do give it are not just based on a particular region or a particular philosophy or ideology, that it is really everyone globally feeding the information in so that it can learn, and we can foster that learning in a way that's really productive for us.
Person job fit
Eleonore:
That really brings us to the term of person job fit, I also teach my students to understand that your personality is important to consider and whatever your values are, that should also drive your applications for this company or this company, even within a given industry like the pharmaceutical companies, right?
You need to understand what drives you and maybe you want to rather work for a startup that is more aligned to your own vision of life, and all your values that are important for you instead of joining a big major player who probably is very mature, who won't change because everything has been working so fine for them.
So, why should they change? So, there are important considerations for your own job application and I think that you have mentioned a lot of things that should be factored in.
You were talking also about opportunities and that sort of like rang a bell. So, what are the biggest opportunities for growth in the moment in your industry?
Candice Quinn Zarei:
Ithink the biggest opportunity is for firstly IT, because there is a really big boom now in regards to technology in the industry, whether it's from digitalization, um, you know, there's still a lot of companies that are paper based, in today's modern world, which It's quite a surprise for me. And so it could be as simple as digitalization right through to having a data analysts who are going to manage all of your big data, IT developers who are going to be creating bespoke in house software, and that then brings an opportunity for HR. And the learning and development teams, because you then need to start getting your head around, how to hire these different roles. So, IT has a completely different, working mode, different principle. When we're talking about agile methodology, Scrum, Kanban, Waterfall, all of these things, you know, some, people in recruitment might go, Oh, I don't know what these are, or learning and development might go, now we need to train maybe some of our managers who are going to lead these teams in these principles and values so that we can integrate them into the business. And so I think there's a lot of opportunities for growth in IT. I also think there's a really massive growth opportunity in regards to project management, because we are now seeing lots and lots of startup companies in the pharmaceutical and medtech environment.
I work with lots of them here in the Hessen area, particularly down in Heidelberg and what they really need is people to manage these projects to help them get their product from research and development. We've got a product. We have it here now. We have no idea what to do with it to get it on the market.
Okay. How do we project manage this? Okay. We need people in quality management and quality assurance who understand the regulatory nuances of getting it into clinical trials and then getting it packaged. Okay. If we need packaging, then we need people in marketing and sales who know how to package a market for the pharmaceutical industry.
Again, it's an opportunity for HR to start recruiting and bringing in these new roles into the industry. So probably IT, HR and training, learning and development, to be able to bring new roles into the industry. Which means they need to upskill themselves in what these roles do. How do we integrate them from an organizational behavior sense in merging these very flexible yet very static departments and also for marketing and sales as well.
There's a really big opportunity to work with smaller startup companies who need that assistance in how to get their product from. I have a great idea can really help people. So how do I now get it out into the world?
The good manufacturing process (GMP) as an example for a supply chain
Eleonore:
And the technology to manufacture, is it changing for pharmaceutical companies? And also the manufacturing practice, are there any do's and don'ts and how do you manage the manufacturing?
Candice Quinn Zarei:
I would say, the first probably part of that when we're talking about GMP and good manufacturing practices is this is such an important topic that requires not just initial training, but retraining consistently every year. So, as a general compliance training in the industry and to also make sure that the philosophy and principles of quality at the center of everything you do in GMP is always reiterated. That involves whether you're doing training online, like with Pharmuni and our GMP courses that we have in there, and then those people then being able to train other people within the business in that aspect.
I think GMP, doesn't really just encompass the process of as an example, in a production facility where you have a thing starting here and going through the production line, getting packaged and sent out. GMP covers things like quality management. It covers batch production. It covers documentation.
It covers pharmacovigilance. It covers compliance. So, there's a whole different set of sub topics or focus areas within the kind of realm of GMP and GMP in itself is a global standard, that's regulated, it's governed. The FDA has some very clear regulations around that. And that's why there's global standards set in place for that. And then when we're talking about GMP in regards to technology changes, this is where we again come into different topics like device qualification, computer systems validation, and you need to have staff who are trained in these, and they might be trained in sub areas of these topics. So, for computer systems validation, you might have the people who need to write all the user requirements for that, then to be tested and validated.
For device qualification, you might have sub areas within that where you need to upskill people in how to request the demand from the supply for the device. You need to then do user specification checking. You then need someone to test it at the factory facility, test it on site, validate it. And then if the device comes with software, again, you need to do CSV with that. So, as technology changes in the industry, which we are going to see, new practices coming into the industry.
In regards to testing, particularly with robotics and such coming in, more so than this manual hands on approach, we're seeing a really big buildup of that. You need to have in the world of GMP, device qualification, CSV, GMP practices, compliance, supplier management, the full kind of end to end life cycle.
Eleonore:: Thank you for this detailed overview of the supply chain, I love it because I'll take this bit and show that to my students because I'm always talking about the supply chain and that they have to understand who's next in line and after that position so that they understand the value that is created, the value add, etc.
So, that is a great practical example. So, thank you for that, Candice.
Biggest misconceptions about working in pharmaceutical companies
Eleonore:
When we are talking to the various disciplines who are sort of at the fence of applying to the pharmaceutical companies because they don't bring the specific core skillset that you have mentioned, what are the biggest misconceptions about the pharmaceutical companies and industries?
Candice Quinn Zarei:
I would say, the biggest misconception is that the larger companies are where you are going to get all your opportunities. Because I would say particularly when we're talking about if you're wanting to have an impact in regards to what you can develop, what you can't develop, whether that's the medicines or it's IT is, and this is also a mistake I know I made early in my career is that going for the larger companies, because thinking that they have all the resources, they have all the money. This is where I'm going to be able to excel because they're going to give me those opportunities.
But the misconception there is that, in larger companies, if you're really fortunate enough to get placed in a team that gives you that freedom to do that, that's fabulous. But the majority of the time you might be placed in a team where they just want you to do this thing. They want you to process this and that's it. And that's because they have multiple layers of decision makers, and your decision making power might be down here, whereas there's five levels up in the hierarchy of someone making a decision here strategically, where they want that to go.
Whereas I found that, in the industry, there are so many SME companies, small to medium enterprises, even startup companies where you could be placed in a position or in a team where you have more decision making power in regards to what you're going to develop. So, if you're talking about us at Pharmuni in regards to our IT development, our IT guys have a really big play and say in regards to which direction we go down, because I'm not an IT developer and I'm not experienced in that area.
And so we really collaborate in a way, whereas we give them that power to help make decisions in regards to what this is going to look like, how it's going to be used. We give them the information from a business strategic sense in regards to this is what we want to do. This is why we want to do it. And then you can tell us how we can do that.
Then also if you're looking at from maybe a corporate side of the business, when we're talking about maybe human resources, if you're stepping into an SME, or a startup company, you're really going to have more of an opportunity to define things like the onboarding processes, how you train people, deciding what type of user roles you have in the business and who needs to be trained, what, when, how, and also then having more of a decision making power into employee experience programs, like how your teams are actually experiencing the workplace environment.
And so I think, yeah, to summarize that really the misconception in that big companies is where you're going to find all the opportunities. You might find great money. That's awesome. And if that's your goal, then go in that direction.
If you have a different goal in mind for yourself, if you're someone who wants to really feel like you could make a difference somewhere, and you're focused on creating great products and great tools, and you're focused on helping people, then I would look at small to medium enterprise and startup companies, because I think that's where you're going to find your opportunity to really make a positive difference.
Eleonore:
Wow, that's something that I would echo as well.
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[00:39:34] Leveraging Pharmuni for Career Advancement
Eleonore:
You have pharmaceutical companies who are also in your job board at Pharmuni and who are waiting for the candidates who took the courses that are even certified ISO 9001 2015. So, can you elucidate which of the companies are partnering with Pharmuni?
Candice Quinn Zarei:
Well, currently we have a few partners in there that are a part of our test program. Cause we've just launched the recruitment tool. So, we have obviously ourselves, we have a couple that are now being verified as well. One of the things that's really important for us here in this space of the recruitment is that we know in the pharmaceutical industry and med tech, it's really hard to find particular roles and people for particular topics and focus areas. And so everyone who comes into the platform and takes our courses or job qualifications, you're building your CV profile in there while you're doing that.
So, we have the resume builder, we have the cover letter builder and we have all your certifications stored in there and you can elect to share that in the talent pool, which is what the recruiters will see. And so, when the recruiters come in, and post their jobs, you can actively apply for those roles.
But at the same time, the companies, if you've enabled the talent search abilities, then they can come in and search for, I'm looking for people who, in education, your resume, you have a bachelors in this, but you also have good manufacturing practices, or I'm looking for people who have computer systems validation.
I can see these people have done this certificate and they will actively contact out to those people through our application. And so the goal of that is to make sure that we can match make these people together, and be have more of a proactive approach in regards to the recruitment process.
For companies when we're talking about startups or SMEs as well as giving them the opportunity to actively seek people and candidates who they know are qualified for particular topics. And, it is very hard to find people in regulatory, QA, CSV or device qualification. And so our goal is to make sure that when you go through the courses, we know exactly what you've been trained.
We know, what areas that need to be covered for these roles. And so when you get the certification, which has the ISO notification on that, the companies can be assured that, okay, we're getting someone that we know is covered the focus areas that we need.
Eleonore:
That is great. And that echoes what I already said, right? So when you join a company right from the bench, you don't have this business experience. And then you can do this already during grad school, in your final PhD years, or even as a postdoc, but before you onboard into your new role. All right. So, that's great.
[00:42:32] Closing Thoughts and Future Aspirations
Eleonore:
And now I'd love to learn more about you, Candice, because I know that you have been doing so many things in business already, and now it's time to, maybe you want to share that, but what are your own career aspirations? What are your own plans?
Because that really is inspiring for my own students of industrial and occupational psychology, because maybe learning and development is not the final take for them, but what else is there for someone like you.
Candice Quinn Zarei:
Wow. I really do have many aspirations for myself because I am a very driven person and I found the older I get, the more driven and the more aspirations I have, because as you grow and evolve in your career and you start building on that skill set, you realize how much you can do, and what areas that you could possibly step into.
Probably for myself in regards to Pharmuni, what I'm doing, I really want to make sure that after we've finalized all of our new recruitment tools and our inner application processes is that we start building our skill tree.
So, making sure that when you're in the application, you can go through an assessment to kind of look at a skills gap analysis, see where you could up skill. Or alternatively, if you're looking at particular roles in the industry, you'll be able to map out where you need to qualify yourself.
You'll be able to see it visually, and then that will feed into the talent pool for the recruiters so that they can see, wow, we've got heaps of people here qualified for device qualification or even being an IT product developer or product owner, which is my role. We've got so many people here qualified for this now that we know who to hire. So, that's probably one goal for me is to make sure that having this really great end to end tool ready to go.
In regards to my own learning, though, and own career development, I really want to step more into the world of probably some technical topics of It. I'm starting to become really interested now in more of the analytical side of things, how to track customer journeys, what we need to do in regards to code snippets for Google tags and Google analytics and Google ads, and then that feeds into learning more about marketing.
So, now that I've kind of stepped into that area as well, I'm starting to get quite interested in communications, being able to understand the process of engaging with your ICP, your ideal customer profile, and how you can bring that person through a journey to engage with you and your product in a way that is valuable and meaningful for them. And it's actually quite interesting. It's quite tricky. It's not as simple as putting out a post and hoping people engage with it. It's a lot of work, it takes a lot of brain power, a lot of creativity.
And I think for me delving into some technical stuff with analytics and also more into the marketing and communication side will be a professional goal for me, probably over the next 12 months and then we'll see where we go from there.
Eleonore:
Wow. We need to talk offline about that.
Candice's final advice for PostdocTransformers and students of industrial & occupational psychology heading into HR
Eleonore: So, for all PostdocTransformers who've been listening and thinking of how can we join Pharmuni and how can we capitalize on the things that we can do already during grad school to make ourselves visible for potential employers. Is there anything that you can share with us?
Candice Quinn Zarei:
Absolutely. I would possibly pop two hats on with this answer. And one would be from the employer perspective and one would be from a grad perspective. So, if you're studying, if you're postgraduate, if you're a bachelor's, master's, whatever level you're currently at at the moment, I would really highly recommend heading over to Pharmuni com because you can sign up for a free account on Pharmuni and take some of our free courses already on there. Experience the platform, see how we educate, go through the course, the assessment, get your certificate and start building up that profile because there really is in Pharmuni no time limit in what you can do that.
So, you can schedule this in with your current, timetable that you have for your studies and your curriculum. So, moving and making that , flexible around your own schedule, which is really important for us because we know you guys are very, very busy.
But also then from a recruiters perspective, I would highly recommend that you also go to Pharmuni, sign up for a free Pharmuni business account. So it's free to have an account in there and you can go in and post your job for free. Go in and have a look at the application, engage with that, and go in and see all the courses we have, because it might also be that maybe you've got some people in your teams that you want to upskill as well. So, head on over and take our courses.
Eleonore:
All right, and to make sure that you have all the perks, please make sure that you use the link in the show notes that goes to www. pharmunity. com, but it essentially is my affiliate link so that everyone knows that you're coming as a PostdocTransformer, well qualified already, and with the right appetite to digest all the e courses at Pharmuni.
And then, we also need to talk about this gap at universities where we, as professors, may lack in the qualification. And I know that you have also some collaborations with other universities, right? So, can you allude to that also? Maybe there is someone within the PostdocTransformers who can make a difference at their graduate school at their university.
Candice Quinn Zarei:
Yeah, definitely. We have a program called The UP program, which is a university partnership program, and the sole goal of that is to help universities enhance the academic experience by filling the gap. They don't have time or the resources to teach these additional things that the industry is really looking for. So, the UP program offers universities completely free access to the application for their students. So, they come and sign up, on board with us. We do between six and 12 months, depending on what they feel like. And the students can come in and take all of the courses, for free. And then for us, what we do is collaborate with the university to make sure that, they will be able to enhance, their likelihood of the students moving out of academia and into employment.
So we're currently writing a GMP Annex 1 course in alignment with them and they'll continue for another 12 months for their students. And they've decided that for this summer intake, they're actually integrating Pharmuni into a quality management course as part of their bachelor program.
Eleonore:
That's great. And I also teach intercultural psychology. We haven't discussed that. But when I looked at the course that you have at Pharmuni, I was like, I'm just offering them an exam, but that same content could become a certificate that really makes a difference in your job search.
So, I recommend highly, I highly recommend joining Pharmuni when you are at university, when you are in graduate school, so that you can hit the ground running in your role specific qualifications.
Candice, it was such a pleasure to talk to you!
So, we are at the end of this episode, and I would love to have you, PostdocTransformers, to contribute to season four. We have a PostdocTransformation show newsletter where we inform about upcoming episodes, or we lay out the planning for the next seasons so that you are able to forecast who you want to ask as well as role models, or maybe you want to ask a couple of questions certain guest that is upcoming.
This PostdocTransformation show was brought to you by Prof. Dr. Eleonore Soei-Winkels
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Thank you for reading our full transcript of this episode.
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