Jobs related to Life Sciences IT Applications

[Tinevisce]

I'm currently with an MNC providing services to Novartis for supporting Clinical Data Management applications such as Oracle Clinical, Thesaurus Management Systems, etc.

Currently, my role is techno-functional and my daily life involves:

• Specific application knowledge and workflows because I need to troubleshoot issues and work closely with the clinical teams and their milestones
• Utilise my ITIL certification to streamline operations and set up steady-state processes

Are these skills too specific to go as-is on my resume? If yes, how do you think they are best leveraged?
(Or is there no demand at all for these skills in Canada)?

 

[next2015]

The issue shouldn't be your skills being too specific, but how they relate to the job you're interested in. Sounds to me like your doing a business- analyst-type role, and the demand for Business Analysts is high. If you were to apply for a BA job, you'd say you have experience in project management, workflow analysis, requirements gathering, and have experience using various techniques such as interviews to identify user requirements, which I imagine you do when working on processes. The activities and certifications you listed above are then used to prove that you have this experience. Basically, when writing your resume, indicate:
- the project and its objective
- your role on the project
- who you collaborated with
- the tools you used e.g. MS Visio for diagramming or MS Project for project management etc, Excel, Oracle, SQL, whatever...
- the methodology you used e.g. the ITIL framework etc.

Example:
- Implemented 9 process improvement initiatives using ITIL framework; reduced risk, improved turnaround time and customer satisfaction - this shows your project management abilities and knowledge
- Conducted over 10 interviews with business and technology stakeholders to identify requirements for optimization of Oracle Clinical - this shows your communication skills (interviews), collaborative skills (various stakeholders) and analytical mindset (purpose of the requirements).
- Analyzed data using Excel pivot tables to identify and measure KPIs and reported on diagnostic analytics to aid decision making - this shows you data analysis capabilities, MS Excel proficiency, and presentation abilities (reported).

So, its about structure, and yes being specific with WHY, WHAT and HOW. For info on life sciences opportunities, do searches on job boards. Otherwise, you can move from life sciences to any area.

All the best.

 

[Tinevisce]

The issue shouldn't be your skills being too specific, but how they relate to the job you're interested in. Sounds to me like your doing a business- analyst-type role, and the demand for Business Analysts is high. If you were to apply for a BA job, you'd say you have experience in project management, workflow analysis, requirements gathering, and have experience using various techniques such as interviews to identify user requirements, which I imagine you do when working on processes. The activities and certifications you listed above are then used to prove that you have this experience. Basically, when writing your resume, indicate:
- the project and its objective
- your role on the project
- who you collaborated with
- the tools you used e.g. MS Visio for diagramming or MS Project for project management etc, Excel, Oracle, SQL, whatever...
- the methodology you used e.g. the ITIL framework etc.

Example:
- Implemented 9 process improvement initiatives using ITIL framework; reduced risk, improved turnaround time and customer satisfaction - this shows your project management abilities and knowledge
- Conducted over 10 interviews with business and technology stakeholders to identify requirements for optimization of Oracle Clinical - this shows your communication skills (interviews), collaborative skills (various stakeholders) and analytical mindset (purpose of the requirements).
- Analyzed data using Excel pivot tables to identify and measure KPIs and reported on diagnostic analytics to aid decision making - this shows you data analysis capabilities, MS Excel proficiency, and presentation abilities (reported).

So, its about structure, and yes being specific with WHY, WHAT and HOW. For info on life sciences opportunities, do searches on job boards. Otherwise, you can move from life sciences to any area.

All the best.

Oh wow, thank you so much for the detailed response- this really helps me figure out how to tweak the resume draft I have. Well, I'm not sure I'm working as a BA: my current role is technical L2 support.
However, it's a mature project with live applications and data: so we often need to work extensively with business leadership to plan various support activities or solving issues because those need to be planned around their milestones.

The ITIL knowledge just helped me create robust processes from the IT support perspective.

Yes, I understand moving out of Life Sciences will definitely broaden the scope- it's just that I really like the industry and would like to continue working in/with it.

 

[next2015]

If its tech support, remember to mention the ticketing system used, tickets closed per day etc. Quantify whatever can be quantified.

I'd suggest the following approach:
1. Identify companies in Canada operating in Life Sciences - google search is sufficient.
2. Establish if their office locations are in your preferred cities, if not determine if you're comfortable settling in the respective cities
3. Determine if they hire directly for your field by searching opportunities on the companies' career pages - some companies outsource IT work, as you may know, so they don't hire directly.
4. Connect via LinkedIn with individuals currently working at those companies in your field, start a conversation, may be take them out for coffee. Learn from them as much as you need about the company and the work, and make known your desire to work there and your expertise. Good relationship building through networking should earn you a recommendation, which earns you an interview, at that point its all up to you - market your self.

All the best.

 

[Tinevisce]

If its tech support, remember to mention the ticketing system used, tickets closed per day etc. Quantify whatever can be quantified.

I'd suggest the following approach:
1. Identify companies in Canada operating in Life Sciences - google search is sufficient.
2. Establish if their office locations are in your preferred cities, if not determine if you're comfortable settling in the respective cities
3. Determine if they hire directly for your field by searching opportunities on the companies' career pages - some companies outsource IT work, as you may know, so they don't hire directly.
4. Connect via LinkedIn with individuals currently working at those companies in your field, start a conversation, may be take them out for coffee. Learn from them as much as you need about the company and the work, and make known your desire to work there and your expertise. Good relationship building through networking should earn you a recommendation, which earns you an interview, at that point its all up to you - market your self.

All the best.

Thank you so much for the detailed responses! Canada seems to be such a nice country to live in; but since I don't have any friends or family there, it's getting to be a bit intimidating to figure out how the job market works.

(Fair warning: I have the tendency to get a bit rambly- so let me know if it gets too much! Haha)

I'm currently in the IT tech support of the Life Sciences industry; and yes, pharma companies usually outsource that work- after all, that's how I landed my current job.

To tell you the truth, I'd really rather not work with IT support anymore and move into the Life Sciences bit entirely if at all possible.
From a practical scenario, I think I'd really be able to leverage my tech support experience there because I know the precise stuff that trips the application up.
With that said, moving to a whole new country is daunting as it is, can hardly ignore job openings.

I see a few postings from universities with the kind of job profile I'd really like to do: do you think it would be a good idea to approach them via email and ask if they would consider working with me? Here in India, people usually don't respond to emails like that (universities especially so)- but I'm not sure what the norm is in Canada.

Thank you again for all your help and time.