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Tag: teams

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For Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows navigating their future career paths, Dr. Christa Heyward's journey so far is an inspiring reminder of how unconventional experiences can make someone a phenomenal pharmaceutical industry candidate.

She graciously let me interview her for this blog over an extended phone call. Our conversation meandered quite a bit, though I did start off posing the following questions:

  • What attracted you to industry and how did you decide to pursue a career in industry?
  • What are your current responsibilities as an Investigator at GSK?
  • Are there key similarities and differences between working in industry and in academia?
  • Has anything surprised you about working in industry?
  • What were the experiences in your background that have been useful as you tackled your first job in industry?
  • How can PhD students or postdocs prepare themselves for a position in industry?
  • Any application or interview tips for PhDs who are interested in pursuing an industry career?

Read on to see how we tackled these questions and many more. 

Dr. Christa Heyward, Immunologist, Investigator in Discovery Science. Photo courtesy of Christa Heyward
...continue reading "Getting Your First Pharmaceutical Industry Job: Advice for Ph.D. Scientists from Dr. Christa Heyward"

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Working in a pharmaceutical or biotechnology company often means interacting in a cross-matrix environment. Project teams are made up of people with different responsibilities. They represent different functions, and they all come together to work on a project. Team members may have conflicting priorities and motivations, and even the team leaders are not their direct managers. Therefore, learning to “influence without authority,”  that is, to influence others without directly managing them, is a useful skill for succeeding in this work environment 

Woman needs to influence without authority in virtual team meeting on her laptop
Influencing without authority is even more challenging in today's virtual work environment. Image by Jagrit Parajuli
...continue reading "Proven Strategies to Influence Without Authority on Cross-Functional Teams"

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In one-on-one meetings, it’s easy to start the conversation by asking how the other person is doing. In larger team meetings though, it’s harder to do a check-in for each person who attends. Last year, my manager introduced the energy/mood plot as a quick check-in at the beginning of each team meeting. 

Do you know how your team is doing today? Icon credits below.
...continue reading "Use an Energy/Mood Plot For Your Team Meeting Check-in"

Nurturing and evolving a culture to integrate the five key ingredients of total wellbeing will pay dividends in the long-run and will result in a thriving culture of high performance.
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Editorial note: It's impossible to leave the stresses of life (whether financial, relationship, health, etc.) at the door before entering your workplace each day. At Genentech over the last six years, I have been surrounded by caring co-workers and able to take advantage of many benefits (e.g., therapy/counseling, medical expert second opinion, mindfulness activities) so that I can bring my best self to work. Thus, I was absolutely thrilled that Nancy Vitale, the former senior vice president of human resources at Genentech, who was likely responsible for nurturing the workplace culture as well as for my employee benefits, agreed to share a guest post about her vision for wellbeing.

...continue reading "5 Ingredients for ‘Total Wellbeing’ that leaders should integrate into their teams – Guest Post"

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The postdoctoral position in the pharmaceutical industry is a unique position. Companies typically open these postdoc positions to hire early-career scientists who will help explore and understand the biology related to its therapeutics. And the postdoc position exposes the scientist to drug discovery or drug development.

For the early-career scientist, there are several considerations when exploring postdoctoral opportunities in industry.

...continue reading "Exploring Postdoctoral Positions in Industry"