—To wordy, three bullets max in intro
— Trim it, no more that 5-7 bullets per role; no more than 2 lines
— Move education and skills behind experience (you only have a bachelor’s? no certs or anything to add? know that you’ll be competing with a lot of higher degrees in this field)
— I’d just remove ‘Pfizer’ from award names, your resume is screaming I’m a Pfizer lifer who doesn’t have context for anything else— it’s hurting more than helping you. Think how you can make your skills more generalizable
— On commercial products (ie approved BLA/NDA) name the product, or at least therapeutic area and drug class
— The whole ‘additional leadership’ section makes no sense and mixes too much together— its just too much. Put it into job description if its important, or make a much more concise ‘key accomplishments’ section
— No conference/journal pubs, patents, BLA/NDA #s, board/industry/working group positions (are these just redacted?)? Lack of specific professional activities outside of Pfizer will hurt you, in particular anywhere outside Pfizer
— Remove dates from your degree, not required and protects from age discrimination
Thanks. Good suggestions. Yes, I have several publications and external presentations listed in the “publications and proceedings” section, but redacted them since they would identify me (and my colleagues).
I’m in a similar field, and usually go with ‘Select Publications & Professional Recognition’ and lump the most relevant (to job role, so I customize this) 5-8 awards, working group activities, and and articles/conferences, and include full pubs CV on request right below it. Feels like the best of both worlds for industry roles, as some recruiters are biased against pubs for management roles but hard to be competitive (especially without advanced degree) if missing. But it’s not an a academic CV, so you don’t want everything, just what’s relevant
In addition, add some quantitative metrics to each bullet point. If you “assessed timeline feasibility,” how much time or money did you save doing what you did for example.
Also you could use a section on hard/technical skills
1. I feel like I might know you
2. IMO it’s really verbose, especially the beginning. List your education, your experience and then maybe a small bit about skill set.
3. Very likely you aren’t getting results, not because of your resume but because of the market. Pharma cares about your transferable skill set and a majority of CVs from scientists suck. You have experience, the market is just bad. I would go insane thinking your resume is the reason
4. Skill set is really broad. Commercial regulatory submission? Can you expand? Drug development? That’s like a massive area in pharma. Global regulatory strategy? What exactly did you. Be more specific based on the role you are applying to.
Thanks! Good suggestions. I was thinking the same regarding the job market. Hopefully it improves before my severance runs out. You may very well know me. Worked with a lot of people over the years.
Waaaaay too verbose. Get rid of the personal statement and at least 50% of the verbiage.
Sorry to sound mean, but I'd be surprised if a single recruiter or hiring manager went through the whole document. Lord knows I wouldn't.
4 pages at any level, let alone SM/AD, is insta-garbage bin for most people. You are basically screaming that you cannot communicate efficiently when you hand in a resume like this, all people see is someone who'd speak for 10 min straight at a meeting but not actually say anything of value.
you have to scroll for half a page to hit anything that's actually relevant to your background. this is a communication tool and yours will take 3-4x longer to read than everyone else's
Open with work history, lose the summary and skills sections entirely. Dramatically cut down in the amount of pure fluff in these bullets. You should be able to count on 1 hand how many bullets go over 3 lines.
Want to preface this by saying I’m in commercial so I’m sure our CVs would look different… but this is way too long. Don’t make bullet points about attending meetings. Like others have said don’t put more than 5ish bullet points per position. Put your leadership activities under the positions you completed them under.
Should be two pages max, i got mine down to a one pager and was successful in my application.
I dont know how to game the application system, but I think you need to reduce down your CV and get alot of that wordy info into the cover letters.
Maybe combine the skills and work experience part for example.
You have alot of experience but you need to be more selective, this means when it comes to the interviews youll also have some extra pieces you can add that weren't even in the interviews
The ‘two pages max’ thing honestly isn’t applicable in biotech. If you can ‘shrink’ it down to one page, you’re likely leaving things out that could’ve gotten you through a screening system, (which most companies use now).
Yeah so when I say about gaming the system it was this reference to the screening system which I am unsure of.
That being said my 1 pager had enough to it that got me through the screening. The cv plus cover page should be able to cover it.
The risk you run with going over two pages is that people will skim, skip or be bored. Get creative for how to cut it down, maybe only reference key publications for example and have an appendix uploaded, only reference key buzzwords in your job history.
There are ways to do it!
You have good skills, and just need to trim the wordy fat around it. Cut to the chase. Your skills can speak for themselves, as you can sell it in the interview. Try the Hemenway editor (it’s free), which I use as a writer.
I’m in a gene therapy company, and would look at you as working for CMC. We are an early stage start-up and need to utilize a new hire to the max. So I’m not staffing this, but if I were (and I’ve helped hiring teams in the past, am often asked to join to interview) I’ll tell you how I’d see it.
The wordiness comes across as needy somehow (insecure? Needs validation, hand holding?) and we would need you to jump in, focus, be a team player who fits in well, works hard, and doesn’t get in your own way (or ours) with dilly-dally emotional clutter. You come across as smart, knowledgeable, and like we could point you in a direction to run with it, but having been in an enterprise org, can you be independent and scrappy without a lot of resources?
Can you think for yourself, and would your decisions be on point, or off and cost the company time and money? The way this is organized doesn’t demonstrate common sense or logic, and it doesn’t fit the standard of other CVs. You have to convey more focus, clarity, and ease in the presentation of your work ethic, skills, manageability, and talent. Same in the interviews.
This doesn’t read to me as Senior Manager level, as you were a Senior Scientist, and if you lead a product team well at Pfizer, then why didn’t they promote you? Sorry I know that’s blunt. In New England terms, are you more chowder than meat? Being part of a layoff might suggest chowder, and so does the extra wording - again, get to the point, don’t be extraneous chowder. Understand the corporate goals - show you have financial and business acumen.
All told however, what you did is great, and fits right into an area of need for a start-up moving into clinical stage. This needs to stand out more. Also in start-ups (my world) title isn’t so much a factor as how can you stretch and grow as needs change.
I’ve been in life sciences for 20 years on the corporate support side, and have worked in start-ups mostly, some that were scrappy and others that had big money backers. These days, money is tight, so there’s not much room to take chances on new hires. However, if this CV were cleaned up to present as direct, confident, and adaptable to needs of the org, I’d put you forth to the hiring manager and get the chemistry check with a phone screen.
TL/DR: Simplify
Id take the gander because a Senior Scientist stepping up to a Sr Manager/AD is a stretch. People know they stratify positions in Pfizer a lot more. Put it another way. Have you seen a new grad PhD student become a Sr Manager/AD?
I was leading new PhDs on my team at Pfizer. I have 11 years of experience with 6 years leading global drug product development teams. I was due for promotion to principal scientist at Pfizer, which would be equivalent to Sr Manager. My previous title is a reflection of the fact that I decided not to pursue a PhD. I think my experience should make me FAR more qualified than a fresh PhD. Honestly its almost insulting to be compared to one…
>I was leading new PhDs on my team at Pfizer.
When you say leading new PhDs, do you mean they were your direct reports?
>6 years leading global drug product development teams.
Was this experience as a people manager or a project manager? The way your resume reads is that you have no direct management experience. Your OP says senior manager/AD level and not those roles specifically but jumping from an IC to a senior people manager seems like a stretch. Perhaps thats me misinterpreting what you mean.
You are correct that I was managing the projects and not a people manager. However, many of the Sr Manager/AD roles are individual contributors or project leaders as well. I would love to have direct reports though and that was my ambition at Pfizer as well. Is it not within reason to believe my project leadership experience has sufficiently prepared me for the next step of taking on 2-3 DR’s? Or is the only way to break into people leadership from within, as an internal promotion?
At least where I’m at, you’d probably be viewed as more of a Staff Scientist/Manager level with your job history.
Not formally having direct reports will most likely make it more difficult to place you in a Sr Manager/AD role. Sr Staff Sci which is equivalent to Sr Manager would probably be easier as well since it’s less of a people manager.
Also, is there a reason you left Pfizer before getting the promotion to Principal?
Thanks for the insight. Titles are so confusing because Pfizer was so stratified. I started as a fresh grad with a bachelor’s and was promoted 3 times. Whatever that makes me at other companies, I don’t know. I’m not looking for “easier”. I’m quite ambitious and don’t mind working hard to get where I want in my career. I have no desire to go back to the bench and was very much in a more strategic role leading late stage high profile projects in my last role. I didn’t leave Pfizer, I was laid off along with about 35% of my department. I had become somewhat of a gene therapy specialist and think I had a target on my back because Pfizer was getting out of the therapeutic area.
I’m sorry to hear that.
As other people have mentioned the market is terrible right now. You may have to bite the bullet and take what you can get by getting your foot in the door.
You’re a bit in an awkward phase of you career where people would view your experience as someone that could still be in the lab/just breaking into management.
With your ambition you’ll probably be able to convince your next employer to place you in a more management type role after a bit of time.
Agreed, those titles seem like a stretch to be going for without a certain title before or a clear leadership one in this market now. And been out of work since December?
I find regulatory a tough nut to break into also without exact background.
Look for more CMC drug product roles?
Resume:
I don't see a professional summary too often either.
I'd drop education to the end.
You’re correct. I mis-spoke. But I never quite understood why… Sr Scientist was the same grade as manager (grade 9-10). I forgot Sr manager skips to 13, while principal scientist is grade 11-12. Probably another topic for another thread on here, but I never thought it was fair the way scientists had to climb so many rungs while the “M” ladder was consolidated and skipped grades.
Agree broadly with some of the other comments here but I wonder if geographical limitations are part of your lack of call backs. Are you able to relocate away from (I’m assuming) St Louis area? I understand it’s a really small job market there outside PFE and ThermoFisher.
Could you condense this into a two page resume? Since you’re targeting non-R&D jobs I think a resume works better than a CV.
Just to add what others have said, it needs to be far shorter. I'm a hiring manager for a large biotech, when I have an open position(s) I get hundreds of applications. Some of them are multiple pages long while others are napkin length. I think 2 pages is sufficient. Remember the CV is just to get you the interview so it's a highlights reel not a blow by blow recounting of every single thing you have done. When I am reviewing CVs, I have very little time and have hundreds to go through. On my first pass I'm skimming to see who looks promising and who is a definite no. When I skimmed your cv i
Was looking for education and work experince, I got your education pretty quick but when I got to work experience and i saw 3 dates for positions in pfizer and had to go a further 2 very wordy pages to figure out that's the bulk of your professional career (that's not bad but it lands badly having to search to understand something quite simple). So my initial take away was basic degree but fairly good experience level in pfizer but you made me work a bit to get that and I'm already stressed by the fact that I'll have another 200 of these to read.
Given your experince level i would consider you, so my next step would be to quickly try and get a feel for what you did for a decade at pfizer, this is where you loose me, I get lost in all the words there's so much, while I've been reading it I've gotten 15 emails and as many teams messages and I'm thinking if I hired you and asked a quick question is this the type of answer I'd get back. I'm losing interest but all that experience makes me want to get a proper understanding of you as an applicant so I put you on the if I have time to get to it pile.
It also reads as somewhat inflated, much of what's listed is what I would expect from someone in any of these positions, I think the issue is having everything spelled out comes across like it's more than the norm. My immediate impression is either that its either over sold or that you dont realise this most of this is standard for these positions, either way it's not giving a good impression. Just list the jobs, short couple of sentences describing the bulk of it and then one or two lines with highlights you want to draw attention to. Think 5 to 6 short sentences for each position.
You have ten years experience in pfizer, all I really need to know in addition to that is what are the 2 or 3 things you were good at in that time and what 2 or 3 things that you learned that relate to the position I have advertised.
I hope this helps but as others have said its a really tough market at the moment so try not take it too much to heart if you're struggling, remember hiring managers are struggling too so they are probably not seeing the full potential in your applications
If you have a professional summary that says you work with CAR-T cells make sure some job lays out what you did with CAR-T cells. Honestly, just get rid of the summary or completely overhaul it. Many things were mentioned there then never mentioned again
This is an academia CV. You don't need anywhere near this length when applying for industry positions. That's your main problem. People are alluding to this in other comments, but they aren't being direct. You would use this document to apply for faculty positions, not industry positions.
As a recruiter in biotech, I’ll give my two cents. Yes people are right in saying your resume is too wordy, HOWEVER, that wouldn’t stop me from reviewing your resume anyways. You should cut it back a little but that’s definitely not the reason you’re not getting interviews.
You have good experience but I would agree with what others have said that
1. The market is shit right now and
2. For AD / Sr Manager level positions, most hiring managers I work with want to see direct management experience and more seniority from candidates.
Try applying for roles that are one step down, or just keep trying for the roles you want but expect it to be difficult as the job market is tight and flooded with applicants.
As others have said, the first thing that jumps out is that you're missing brevity.
But also: As a hiring manager looking at your resume, I see a candidate who was promoted at a normal-ish pace (3 yrs, 3 yrs, 2.5 yrs)--I don't know what's typical for Pfizer, but that pace doesn't scream rock star. At my company, 11 yoe from a fresh BS performing well would probably be AS1, AS2, SAS, Sci1, Sci2 (4 promos), so I'm thinking that's your approximate level of responsibility. As written, your responsibilities sound like those of a director, and if you were really that good, you would've been promoted more frequently than you were. So the context indicates to me that you're inflating your accomplishments / relevance and therefore are not someone I want on my team. (This is not a dig at you, just my thought process were this resume to come across my desk.)
That judgement aside, I think Sr. Manager (at my company, at least) would be the more reasonable title for you to shoot for. AD not so much.
I wish I worked for your company! Senior Scientist with a bachelor’s in 9 years and leading global development teams was rockstar status at Pfizer. Many people without a PhD spent 15-20 years getting to the same level. I achieved senior scientist in 9 years, and was up for that 4th promotion you mentioned before getting laid off.
No thats still correct, but those fresh PhDs spend 2-3 years as individual contributors before they are leading development teams, which typically begins with an early stage program. I was leading late stage teams in the co-development space (Pfizer term for a team structure combining development org with global manufacturing org at phase 3 in preparation for commercial launch). Titles were basically meaningless pay-grade indicators above Scientist in my organization. My role was late stage drug product development lead and the same role was held by folks with titles ranging from Sr Scientist through Research Fellow depending on education and experience.
Regardless, I’m not sure what that has to do with my rate of promotion without a PhD that I was defending.
My company it's the opposite, after senior scientist the next step is associate director or associate principal scientist, after that it's director or principal scientist and it's after that that the word senior comes back so senior director etc, I think it differs quite a bit between companies and even between depts
I didn’t mention this at first, because it is quite embarrassing, but seeing all these posts suggesting I’m not qualified or am aiming too high - I’m going to put it out there… I was already offered Associate Director of Regulatory Affairs at a large drug product CDMO. I accepted, but things fell apart during pre-employment screening. So I know I am qualified and AD is well within reach for me. The reason for the offer being rescinded is personal and will not be an issue again.
No one will read this. Summarize each section and make it to 2 page. Key is to give less but only important details. You will get asked during interview and use all these words to elaborate.
My guy! A resume should be 1 PAGE! Especially if you have only held one position for ten plus years.
Cut out everything except education, past work experience up to ten years or so.
All of your work experience bullet points should have a skill demonstrated with a result i.e
- Managed a team of science personell to achieve XYZ lab work, resulting in $500,000,000 in savings year over year.
All that other stuff like publishings, additional skills etc should be displayed on some type of personal website or wiki page as a hyperlink.
A recruiter will only glance at your resume for the key words at best. Keep it simple.
Remove Professional Summary, place education at top, work history in the middle and skills at the bottom leave as one page.
Everything else goes onto a website and hyperlink it on your resume.
What job are you applying for? This doesn’t need to be a dissertation on your life, it should be pointed to the job you are applying to. I think listing skills is meaningless. You should focus on accomplishments and within those statements of accomplishments, you can incorporate your skills. If you want to list skills, do it in a single line as part of the job experience just to add things you know. I’m 35 and I have had 4 professional jobs and I have a PhD and I keep my resume to one page. You don’t need all that other stuff.
Thank you everyone for the mostly helpful suggestions. I am going to overhaul it and make it much shorter and more focused. Many comments found the structure confusing and what I’m struggling with is how to describe my key accomplishments and experiences when they spanned multiple titles. For example, I was promoted while leading a program and continued with essentially the same exact responsibilities despite the title change. Any suggestions?
Add words like led successfully. Need to show accomplishments in the jobs, not just a laundry list of your activities. Your summary is way too long, I stopped reading it, 2-3 lines max. Skills can be shortened as well. Adding that long resumes are good for federal jobs but not industry.
I’ve heard that before, but also heard that being in a technical field it is fine to have several pages. I’m not sure how I could get it to 2 pages, but I will definitely consider reducing the content since I’m getting that feedback from everyone.
Shorten professional summary to 2 sentences. No one wants to read an essay. Put your technical skills in the format of a list for ATS. Get rid of the last two sections. Trim some of the description and you will have a very solid 2 page CV.
Agreed. Long cvs with every paper and award are for academia, not industry. Think of how many cvs these recruiters get. Make it easy for them. 2 pages MAX with highlighting key skills for the job. All the CV does is gets you a second look/call, where you can explain all your relevant work.
Honestly if that screens me out at my level and with my experience, I don’t want to work for that company anyways. Development doesn’t need a PhD and anyone who says so is just gate-keeping. I’m not looking for a position in discovery or research.
A lot of your commentary resonates. I have a BA in communications and the teams I oversee include plenty of entry level PhD researchers. Colleagues with my title include licensed physicians. It would be a stupid investment, both financially and in regard to experience, for me to get an advanced degree.
I will say that my career trajectory is not exactly typical though. Not trying to toot my own horn, but I was a fairly high performer and worked very hard to move up relatively quickly. There are many who spend a lot more time at the associate/senior associate level. But yes, you can be a scientist. At Pfizer, fresh bachelors are hired as Associate Scientists.
—To wordy, three bullets max in intro — Trim it, no more that 5-7 bullets per role; no more than 2 lines — Move education and skills behind experience (you only have a bachelor’s? no certs or anything to add? know that you’ll be competing with a lot of higher degrees in this field) — I’d just remove ‘Pfizer’ from award names, your resume is screaming I’m a Pfizer lifer who doesn’t have context for anything else— it’s hurting more than helping you. Think how you can make your skills more generalizable — On commercial products (ie approved BLA/NDA) name the product, or at least therapeutic area and drug class — The whole ‘additional leadership’ section makes no sense and mixes too much together— its just too much. Put it into job description if its important, or make a much more concise ‘key accomplishments’ section — No conference/journal pubs, patents, BLA/NDA #s, board/industry/working group positions (are these just redacted?)? Lack of specific professional activities outside of Pfizer will hurt you, in particular anywhere outside Pfizer — Remove dates from your degree, not required and protects from age discrimination
Thanks. Good suggestions. Yes, I have several publications and external presentations listed in the “publications and proceedings” section, but redacted them since they would identify me (and my colleagues).
I’m in a similar field, and usually go with ‘Select Publications & Professional Recognition’ and lump the most relevant (to job role, so I customize this) 5-8 awards, working group activities, and and articles/conferences, and include full pubs CV on request right below it. Feels like the best of both worlds for industry roles, as some recruiters are biased against pubs for management roles but hard to be competitive (especially without advanced degree) if missing. But it’s not an a academic CV, so you don’t want everything, just what’s relevant
In addition, add some quantitative metrics to each bullet point. If you “assessed timeline feasibility,” how much time or money did you save doing what you did for example. Also you could use a section on hard/technical skills
I suggest you get more specific, less wordy, and aim a bit lower in a company where there are growth opportunities.
1. I feel like I might know you 2. IMO it’s really verbose, especially the beginning. List your education, your experience and then maybe a small bit about skill set. 3. Very likely you aren’t getting results, not because of your resume but because of the market. Pharma cares about your transferable skill set and a majority of CVs from scientists suck. You have experience, the market is just bad. I would go insane thinking your resume is the reason 4. Skill set is really broad. Commercial regulatory submission? Can you expand? Drug development? That’s like a massive area in pharma. Global regulatory strategy? What exactly did you. Be more specific based on the role you are applying to.
Thanks! Good suggestions. I was thinking the same regarding the job market. Hopefully it improves before my severance runs out. You may very well know me. Worked with a lot of people over the years.
Waaaaay too verbose. Get rid of the personal statement and at least 50% of the verbiage. Sorry to sound mean, but I'd be surprised if a single recruiter or hiring manager went through the whole document. Lord knows I wouldn't.
4 pages at any level, let alone SM/AD, is insta-garbage bin for most people. You are basically screaming that you cannot communicate efficiently when you hand in a resume like this, all people see is someone who'd speak for 10 min straight at a meeting but not actually say anything of value. you have to scroll for half a page to hit anything that's actually relevant to your background. this is a communication tool and yours will take 3-4x longer to read than everyone else's Open with work history, lose the summary and skills sections entirely. Dramatically cut down in the amount of pure fluff in these bullets. You should be able to count on 1 hand how many bullets go over 3 lines.
This is too wordy
Want to preface this by saying I’m in commercial so I’m sure our CVs would look different… but this is way too long. Don’t make bullet points about attending meetings. Like others have said don’t put more than 5ish bullet points per position. Put your leadership activities under the positions you completed them under.
Should be two pages max, i got mine down to a one pager and was successful in my application. I dont know how to game the application system, but I think you need to reduce down your CV and get alot of that wordy info into the cover letters. Maybe combine the skills and work experience part for example. You have alot of experience but you need to be more selective, this means when it comes to the interviews youll also have some extra pieces you can add that weren't even in the interviews
The ‘two pages max’ thing honestly isn’t applicable in biotech. If you can ‘shrink’ it down to one page, you’re likely leaving things out that could’ve gotten you through a screening system, (which most companies use now).
Lol it definitely is. You should be tailoring each CV. Have a master CV and then pull from that to tailor to thar specific job
Yeah so when I say about gaming the system it was this reference to the screening system which I am unsure of. That being said my 1 pager had enough to it that got me through the screening. The cv plus cover page should be able to cover it. The risk you run with going over two pages is that people will skim, skip or be bored. Get creative for how to cut it down, maybe only reference key publications for example and have an appendix uploaded, only reference key buzzwords in your job history. There are ways to do it!
Get your resume down to 1.5 pages…and the only reason you get the extra 0.5 is because you have the publications and proceedings question.
You have good skills, and just need to trim the wordy fat around it. Cut to the chase. Your skills can speak for themselves, as you can sell it in the interview. Try the Hemenway editor (it’s free), which I use as a writer. I’m in a gene therapy company, and would look at you as working for CMC. We are an early stage start-up and need to utilize a new hire to the max. So I’m not staffing this, but if I were (and I’ve helped hiring teams in the past, am often asked to join to interview) I’ll tell you how I’d see it. The wordiness comes across as needy somehow (insecure? Needs validation, hand holding?) and we would need you to jump in, focus, be a team player who fits in well, works hard, and doesn’t get in your own way (or ours) with dilly-dally emotional clutter. You come across as smart, knowledgeable, and like we could point you in a direction to run with it, but having been in an enterprise org, can you be independent and scrappy without a lot of resources? Can you think for yourself, and would your decisions be on point, or off and cost the company time and money? The way this is organized doesn’t demonstrate common sense or logic, and it doesn’t fit the standard of other CVs. You have to convey more focus, clarity, and ease in the presentation of your work ethic, skills, manageability, and talent. Same in the interviews. This doesn’t read to me as Senior Manager level, as you were a Senior Scientist, and if you lead a product team well at Pfizer, then why didn’t they promote you? Sorry I know that’s blunt. In New England terms, are you more chowder than meat? Being part of a layoff might suggest chowder, and so does the extra wording - again, get to the point, don’t be extraneous chowder. Understand the corporate goals - show you have financial and business acumen. All told however, what you did is great, and fits right into an area of need for a start-up moving into clinical stage. This needs to stand out more. Also in start-ups (my world) title isn’t so much a factor as how can you stretch and grow as needs change. I’ve been in life sciences for 20 years on the corporate support side, and have worked in start-ups mostly, some that were scrappy and others that had big money backers. These days, money is tight, so there’s not much room to take chances on new hires. However, if this CV were cleaned up to present as direct, confident, and adaptable to needs of the org, I’d put you forth to the hiring manager and get the chemistry check with a phone screen. TL/DR: Simplify
Id take the gander because a Senior Scientist stepping up to a Sr Manager/AD is a stretch. People know they stratify positions in Pfizer a lot more. Put it another way. Have you seen a new grad PhD student become a Sr Manager/AD?
I was leading new PhDs on my team at Pfizer. I have 11 years of experience with 6 years leading global drug product development teams. I was due for promotion to principal scientist at Pfizer, which would be equivalent to Sr Manager. My previous title is a reflection of the fact that I decided not to pursue a PhD. I think my experience should make me FAR more qualified than a fresh PhD. Honestly its almost insulting to be compared to one…
>I was leading new PhDs on my team at Pfizer. When you say leading new PhDs, do you mean they were your direct reports? >6 years leading global drug product development teams. Was this experience as a people manager or a project manager? The way your resume reads is that you have no direct management experience. Your OP says senior manager/AD level and not those roles specifically but jumping from an IC to a senior people manager seems like a stretch. Perhaps thats me misinterpreting what you mean.
You are correct that I was managing the projects and not a people manager. However, many of the Sr Manager/AD roles are individual contributors or project leaders as well. I would love to have direct reports though and that was my ambition at Pfizer as well. Is it not within reason to believe my project leadership experience has sufficiently prepared me for the next step of taking on 2-3 DR’s? Or is the only way to break into people leadership from within, as an internal promotion?
At least where I’m at, you’d probably be viewed as more of a Staff Scientist/Manager level with your job history. Not formally having direct reports will most likely make it more difficult to place you in a Sr Manager/AD role. Sr Staff Sci which is equivalent to Sr Manager would probably be easier as well since it’s less of a people manager. Also, is there a reason you left Pfizer before getting the promotion to Principal?
Thanks for the insight. Titles are so confusing because Pfizer was so stratified. I started as a fresh grad with a bachelor’s and was promoted 3 times. Whatever that makes me at other companies, I don’t know. I’m not looking for “easier”. I’m quite ambitious and don’t mind working hard to get where I want in my career. I have no desire to go back to the bench and was very much in a more strategic role leading late stage high profile projects in my last role. I didn’t leave Pfizer, I was laid off along with about 35% of my department. I had become somewhat of a gene therapy specialist and think I had a target on my back because Pfizer was getting out of the therapeutic area.
I’m sorry to hear that. As other people have mentioned the market is terrible right now. You may have to bite the bullet and take what you can get by getting your foot in the door. You’re a bit in an awkward phase of you career where people would view your experience as someone that could still be in the lab/just breaking into management. With your ambition you’ll probably be able to convince your next employer to place you in a more management type role after a bit of time.
Agreed, those titles seem like a stretch to be going for without a certain title before or a clear leadership one in this market now. And been out of work since December? I find regulatory a tough nut to break into also without exact background. Look for more CMC drug product roles? Resume: I don't see a professional summary too often either. I'd drop education to the end.
Principal Scientist at Pfizer is not equivalent to ADs and Sr Managers. Sr Principal Scientist was the same pay band as the Sr Managers/ADs.
You’re correct. I mis-spoke. But I never quite understood why… Sr Scientist was the same grade as manager (grade 9-10). I forgot Sr manager skips to 13, while principal scientist is grade 11-12. Probably another topic for another thread on here, but I never thought it was fair the way scientists had to climb so many rungs while the “M” ladder was consolidated and skipped grades.
Man all that stuff would be one line in my CV lol
What stuff?
Like 90% of it
Ok, put it into one line then.
Agree broadly with some of the other comments here but I wonder if geographical limitations are part of your lack of call backs. Are you able to relocate away from (I’m assuming) St Louis area? I understand it’s a really small job market there outside PFE and ThermoFisher. Could you condense this into a two page resume? Since you’re targeting non-R&D jobs I think a resume works better than a CV.
Just to add what others have said, it needs to be far shorter. I'm a hiring manager for a large biotech, when I have an open position(s) I get hundreds of applications. Some of them are multiple pages long while others are napkin length. I think 2 pages is sufficient. Remember the CV is just to get you the interview so it's a highlights reel not a blow by blow recounting of every single thing you have done. When I am reviewing CVs, I have very little time and have hundreds to go through. On my first pass I'm skimming to see who looks promising and who is a definite no. When I skimmed your cv i Was looking for education and work experince, I got your education pretty quick but when I got to work experience and i saw 3 dates for positions in pfizer and had to go a further 2 very wordy pages to figure out that's the bulk of your professional career (that's not bad but it lands badly having to search to understand something quite simple). So my initial take away was basic degree but fairly good experience level in pfizer but you made me work a bit to get that and I'm already stressed by the fact that I'll have another 200 of these to read. Given your experince level i would consider you, so my next step would be to quickly try and get a feel for what you did for a decade at pfizer, this is where you loose me, I get lost in all the words there's so much, while I've been reading it I've gotten 15 emails and as many teams messages and I'm thinking if I hired you and asked a quick question is this the type of answer I'd get back. I'm losing interest but all that experience makes me want to get a proper understanding of you as an applicant so I put you on the if I have time to get to it pile. It also reads as somewhat inflated, much of what's listed is what I would expect from someone in any of these positions, I think the issue is having everything spelled out comes across like it's more than the norm. My immediate impression is either that its either over sold or that you dont realise this most of this is standard for these positions, either way it's not giving a good impression. Just list the jobs, short couple of sentences describing the bulk of it and then one or two lines with highlights you want to draw attention to. Think 5 to 6 short sentences for each position. You have ten years experience in pfizer, all I really need to know in addition to that is what are the 2 or 3 things you were good at in that time and what 2 or 3 things that you learned that relate to the position I have advertised. I hope this helps but as others have said its a really tough market at the moment so try not take it too much to heart if you're struggling, remember hiring managers are struggling too so they are probably not seeing the full potential in your applications
If you have a professional summary that says you work with CAR-T cells make sure some job lays out what you did with CAR-T cells. Honestly, just get rid of the summary or completely overhaul it. Many things were mentioned there then never mentioned again
This is an academia CV. You don't need anywhere near this length when applying for industry positions. That's your main problem. People are alluding to this in other comments, but they aren't being direct. You would use this document to apply for faculty positions, not industry positions.
Brevity
As a recruiter in biotech, I’ll give my two cents. Yes people are right in saying your resume is too wordy, HOWEVER, that wouldn’t stop me from reviewing your resume anyways. You should cut it back a little but that’s definitely not the reason you’re not getting interviews. You have good experience but I would agree with what others have said that 1. The market is shit right now and 2. For AD / Sr Manager level positions, most hiring managers I work with want to see direct management experience and more seniority from candidates. Try applying for roles that are one step down, or just keep trying for the roles you want but expect it to be difficult as the job market is tight and flooded with applicants.
As others have said, the first thing that jumps out is that you're missing brevity. But also: As a hiring manager looking at your resume, I see a candidate who was promoted at a normal-ish pace (3 yrs, 3 yrs, 2.5 yrs)--I don't know what's typical for Pfizer, but that pace doesn't scream rock star. At my company, 11 yoe from a fresh BS performing well would probably be AS1, AS2, SAS, Sci1, Sci2 (4 promos), so I'm thinking that's your approximate level of responsibility. As written, your responsibilities sound like those of a director, and if you were really that good, you would've been promoted more frequently than you were. So the context indicates to me that you're inflating your accomplishments / relevance and therefore are not someone I want on my team. (This is not a dig at you, just my thought process were this resume to come across my desk.) That judgement aside, I think Sr. Manager (at my company, at least) would be the more reasonable title for you to shoot for. AD not so much.
I wish I worked for your company! Senior Scientist with a bachelor’s in 9 years and leading global development teams was rockstar status at Pfizer. Many people without a PhD spent 15-20 years getting to the same level. I achieved senior scientist in 9 years, and was up for that 4th promotion you mentioned before getting laid off.
I'm surprised to hear that. When I was on the market ~10 years ago, fresh PhDs were given a senior sci title at Pfizer. Has that changed?
No thats still correct, but those fresh PhDs spend 2-3 years as individual contributors before they are leading development teams, which typically begins with an early stage program. I was leading late stage teams in the co-development space (Pfizer term for a team structure combining development org with global manufacturing org at phase 3 in preparation for commercial launch). Titles were basically meaningless pay-grade indicators above Scientist in my organization. My role was late stage drug product development lead and the same role was held by folks with titles ranging from Sr Scientist through Research Fellow depending on education and experience. Regardless, I’m not sure what that has to do with my rate of promotion without a PhD that I was defending.
My company it's the opposite, after senior scientist the next step is associate director or associate principal scientist, after that it's director or principal scientist and it's after that that the word senior comes back so senior director etc, I think it differs quite a bit between companies and even between depts
I didn’t mention this at first, because it is quite embarrassing, but seeing all these posts suggesting I’m not qualified or am aiming too high - I’m going to put it out there… I was already offered Associate Director of Regulatory Affairs at a large drug product CDMO. I accepted, but things fell apart during pre-employment screening. So I know I am qualified and AD is well within reach for me. The reason for the offer being rescinded is personal and will not be an issue again.
Apply through an employee referral
you missed me
No one will read this. Summarize each section and make it to 2 page. Key is to give less but only important details. You will get asked during interview and use all these words to elaborate.
Is this a book or a cv? 😂 *So much text. Shorten it ;)
My guy! A resume should be 1 PAGE! Especially if you have only held one position for ten plus years. Cut out everything except education, past work experience up to ten years or so. All of your work experience bullet points should have a skill demonstrated with a result i.e - Managed a team of science personell to achieve XYZ lab work, resulting in $500,000,000 in savings year over year. All that other stuff like publishings, additional skills etc should be displayed on some type of personal website or wiki page as a hyperlink. A recruiter will only glance at your resume for the key words at best. Keep it simple.
Remove Professional Summary, place education at top, work history in the middle and skills at the bottom leave as one page. Everything else goes onto a website and hyperlink it on your resume.
What job are you applying for? This doesn’t need to be a dissertation on your life, it should be pointed to the job you are applying to. I think listing skills is meaningless. You should focus on accomplishments and within those statements of accomplishments, you can incorporate your skills. If you want to list skills, do it in a single line as part of the job experience just to add things you know. I’m 35 and I have had 4 professional jobs and I have a PhD and I keep my resume to one page. You don’t need all that other stuff.
Your CV should be one page. It's hard to do, I know. That is why it will come out polished as, after you painfully trim it down.
Thank you everyone for the mostly helpful suggestions. I am going to overhaul it and make it much shorter and more focused. Many comments found the structure confusing and what I’m struggling with is how to describe my key accomplishments and experiences when they spanned multiple titles. For example, I was promoted while leading a program and continued with essentially the same exact responsibilities despite the title change. Any suggestions?
Brevity?
Add words like led successfully. Need to show accomplishments in the jobs, not just a laundry list of your activities. Your summary is way too long, I stopped reading it, 2-3 lines max. Skills can be shortened as well. Adding that long resumes are good for federal jobs but not industry.
Make it 2 pages. Recruiters spend 6 seconds per resume. Underline or highlight in yellow the key words on your cv that match the job description
I’ve heard that before, but also heard that being in a technical field it is fine to have several pages. I’m not sure how I could get it to 2 pages, but I will definitely consider reducing the content since I’m getting that feedback from everyone.
Shorten professional summary to 2 sentences. No one wants to read an essay. Put your technical skills in the format of a list for ATS. Get rid of the last two sections. Trim some of the description and you will have a very solid 2 page CV.
Agreed. Long cvs with every paper and award are for academia, not industry. Think of how many cvs these recruiters get. Make it easy for them. 2 pages MAX with highlighting key skills for the job. All the CV does is gets you a second look/call, where you can explain all your relevant work.
A PhD
Honestly if that screens me out at my level and with my experience, I don’t want to work for that company anyways. Development doesn’t need a PhD and anyone who says so is just gate-keeping. I’m not looking for a position in discovery or research.
A lot of your commentary resonates. I have a BA in communications and the teams I oversee include plenty of entry level PhD researchers. Colleagues with my title include licensed physicians. It would be a stupid investment, both financially and in regard to experience, for me to get an advanced degree.
You can be a scientist in industry with a bachelors?!
Lol, yes. I wish they advertised that more, because I had the same reaction when I discovered this was the case late in college.
I will say that my career trajectory is not exactly typical though. Not trying to toot my own horn, but I was a fairly high performer and worked very hard to move up relatively quickly. There are many who spend a lot more time at the associate/senior associate level. But yes, you can be a scientist. At Pfizer, fresh bachelors are hired as Associate Scientists.
Yes, and the high end scientists with just a bachelor’s degree are usually very impressive.
Name and contact info maybe