My wife is on a H4 Visa with a work authorization. She has a Master's degree in Industrial Biotechnology from a top institute in India. She's into molecular biology. She has been applying for biotech companies in the Bay Area for almost 3 months now. The routine is find a job in LinkedIn, apply, connect to employees (recruiters) of the company and message them, occasionally email. This has got her just 1 full interview which she couldn't clear. As things aren't moving much I recently started pitching in by messaging & email recruiters from her account. Everyday I spend about 2hrs on it now. But she isn't getting any interviews. It's becoming tedious and she is losing patience by the day. It's her first time going through this process. She worked as a Research Scientist in India but that was via campus career fair. Me, being in tech have been there and done that and it's an absolutely harrowing phase, the job search phase. Are biotech companies in Bay area hiring at all ? We are looking for different ways to get her a job in the biotech industry. 1 thing I was thinking of was attending any meetups or conferences in the Bay Area to network. Does anybody have any suggestions ? If anybody is willing to refer to any company we would be super grateful to you. #genentech #amgen #grail #mammoth #gilead #gileadsciences #biomarin
My wife has a BS and makes bank as a process validation engineer at a pharma company and has better WLB than me. Maybe expand her horizons? Her degree sounds well suited for the position
Hmm. Good suggestion. Maybe after 1 more month start looking at other roles in the same industry. Although she doesn't have experience in the area
I would recommend that she identify the companies she likes, identify people and start having conversations about their areas of focus. Invest in getting to know the people, learn their products, ongoing products. That way she will find out if there is anything she can contribute to
Biotech companies are in freeze right now unless it is a strategic hire. There are still layoffs happening. Please try directly messaging managers of startup companies and also look into contractual roles. Also, apply for the job as soon as it shows up on LinkedIn.
Look into university lab or non profit research positions too. Stanford, CZBiohub etc
What level of positions is she applying for? It's a tough time for hiring in biotech now but a lot of recruiters have been saying they expect an uptick in Q4
DM for referral
We just hired someone and are also sponsoring her. She is hired to manage cGMP compliance. So yes, there are jobs available
Hard to get with Indian degrees when you have graduates from US degrees and work ex competing for the same roles. Especially when there is a demand supply mismatch.
What do you suggest we do ?
What about research labs for the time being? (Private non profits as well as Universities) I think they are more indifferent to where the degree was obtained but will place more importance on the work done. Can get back into the industry once the market improves slightly? Just my two cents.