One Scientist Survives Reorganization

File Photo Breaking into an industry research job may seem like breaking through the blood-brain barrier: You can't find out about every job on the company's web site, and when the job is listed in the classified ads, the firm gets flooded with applicants. It can be tough even if you already work in industry. For a time, it seemed to Dalai Yan, a microbiologist and antibiotic researcher with Cumbre, a small biotech in Dallas, that fate would keep him from doing the research he cared about. Before joining Cumbre, he was a senior scientist at Eli Lilly and Co. in Indianapolis. During a recent round of layoffs at Lilly, he was asked to switch from a research position to a nonresearch department such as development. But he didn't give up on his quest for a position that allowed him to do science. Yan looked internally and in the Indianapolis area, but he could not find a research-oriented position that suited his career goals. He worked at Lilly for two years, and after nearly a four-month search, he started at Cumbre in early March. In Yan's search, his leads came from friends and colleagues. After Lilly asked him to change his focus, he heard through colleagues that Cumbre had an opening for a bacteriologist with industry experience. So Yan contacted the recruiter. "Other than that I hadn't started looking at anything outside Indianapolis," he explains. Yan visited Cumbre and interviewed for the position. The position seemed a perfect fit. The technique that helped Yan remain in research resulted from lessons learned during his postdoctoral training at the University of California, Berkeley. Yan moved from the university to Lilly using what he calls his "limited network." Through his postdoc mentor, Yan established contact with a Lilly research adviser after a speech in Berkeley. At the time, Lilly had no immediate job openings. "Several months later, the adviser called me and asked whether I was still interested and told me there was an opening for a senior scientist," Yan relates. "At the time, I was just starting my job hunting. So I simply followed this through. The rest is history." Two tools allowed Yan to continue in research: A network of friends and colleagues, and a determination not to give up his dream, even though it would have been safer to let go. His wife, a senior microbiologist at Lilly, is also using the web and friends to find a position with a "reasonable fit" for her in Dallas. In this column, I've been writing about folks like Yan and his wife for eighteen months, and I consistently get emails with questions about job-seeking, grant-writing, and career-switching. Now The Scientist wants to give you the opportunity to get personalized advice from some of the experts I've talked with over the years. If you have a workplace or career question or concern, contact me at karen4careers@the-scientist.com and I'll get an answer for you. Karen Young Kreeger (karen4careers@the-scientist.com), is the author of Guide to Nontraditional Careers in Science. function sendData() { document.frm.pathName.value = location.pathname; result = false if (document.frm.score[0].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[1].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[2].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[3].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[4].checked) result = true; if (!result) alert("Please select") return result; } .myradio{background-color : #94bee5} Please indicate on a 1 - 5 scale how strongly you would recommend this article to your colleagues? Not recommended 1 2 3 4 5 Highly recommended Please register your vote

One Scientist Survives Reorganization

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