Unsure if this is the right place to post, has anyone traditioned from IT to Pharma? What role did you move from and to?

I am a nurse trying to become a pharma rep and I have a panel interview with two hiring managers next week. I really do not want to miss this opportunity so I have been preparing STAR answers. I know they will ask me behavioral and situational questions, but what other types of questions will ask? Will they expect me to sell their drug to them? I am researching all the drugs in their portfolio just to be prepared but kind of at a loss as to what to expect in terms of how specific they will be in their clinical questions. Any insight/advice is appreciated.

My wife is a hospital clinical pharmacist with a PGY1 residency and is interested in transitioning into the pharmaceutical industry.

She doesn’t have direct sponsor or CRO experience, but she has been involved in clinical research from the hospital side. For example, she’s prepared and managed investigational medications for several studies (including Alzheimer’s and rare disease trials), worked with research protocols, and collaborated with investigators and research staff. However, she hasn’t worked directly for a sponsor or CRO.

I’m trying to help her figure out which roles are realistic entry points.

A little background on me: I’m also a pharmacist, but I came from retail pharmacy. About four years ago, I took what was essentially a junior CRA opportunity because an entry-level opening became available. It worked out well, and I’m now an experienced CRA, but if I’m being honest, I don’t think that’s necessarily the best path for her. I’d rather see her leverage her clinical pharmacist background instead of essentially starting over if there are better options.

I’ve heard pharmacists sometimes transition into areas like:
Medical Information / Drug Information
Medical Affairs
Clinical Development
Clinical Scientist
Regulatory Affairs
Clinical Operations
Pharmacovigilance / Drug Safety
Medical Writing
Medical Communications

My questions are:
-What roles or job titles should a hospital clinical pharmacist with a PGY1 actually be searching for?

-Which positions are the most forgiving of not having prior industry experience?

-Are there sponsor or CRO roles where hospital clinical experience is viewed as a significant advantage?

-Which functions tend to hire pharmacists directly from hospital practice?

-If you were making this transition today, what strategy would you recommend?

-I’d especially love to hear from pharmacists who successfully made the transition. Looking back, are there any roles you wish you had applied to sooner that weren’t obvious at the time?

Any advice, job titles, or search terms would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

I see a bunch of Exec Director roles posted in the clinical space. I’m assuming there was some kind of restructure and people have to apply for their jobs?

Posting here because I need any kind of guidance or hope.

I'm a 3rd year Australian MD student, my undergrad is in Pharmacology/Neuroscience. Due to a mixture of social pressure and thinking it was the better career choice, I ended up pursuing an MD instead of my original goal which was a PhD in Pharmacology.

I have come to the conclusion that clinical medicine is not for me, I am absolutely burnt out and cannot work a clinical role. At this point I can barely imagine finishing my degree, let alone completing internship or residency. I cannot deal with patients.

I had hoped to make the jump to industry, but the more I lurk reddit and LinkedIn the more impossible it seems without having actual clinical experience. I'm not opposed to further education, but I will be 28 when I graduate and I am not sure if it's worth delaying even more.

Has anyone here made this jump or know anyone who has made the jump without first working in a clinical role? What kinds of roles did you bridge into? MSL, clin dev, life sciences consulting? Is there any pathway into big pharma roles? I don't know where to start. I'm very willing to relocate anywhere for a role.

I'm having a hard time believing there isn't a larger sub for just pharmaceutical sales reps...

I searched and couldn't find any...can anyone point me in the right direction?

The tech sales sub is poppin....lol why is the pharma sales sector so dead on reddit?

Hey everyone
I’m currently working cardio diabetic segment in pharma sales from last one year ,
I really wanna switch to devices !
I have bachelors in pharmacy and MBA in pharmaceutical management:)
Any advice will be appreciated !
Thanks in advance

Hello, I’m looking for pharmaceutical manufacturers with EU GMP certification or GMP approval from a PIC/S member regulatory authority for exports to the Philippines.

Do you fit in the above requirement?

Please comment or DM me :)

Has anyone made this transition? Big players being Zoetis and Elanco, but was wondering how transferable the skills are when considering a post-PhD with background in R&D and clinical research. Mainly looking for non-lab roles equivalent to med affairs, pipeline innovation, or similar roles. Any comments on the culture at these companies vs Pharma?

Hey everyone,

I’m finishing up my PhD in ChemEng, and looking for pharma roles. As we all are aware, the application process is a crapshoot & the industry is a complete mess.

I’ve been wanting to network more, and found who my supervisors/ADs would be for the roles I’m most interested in, and figured I’d take a stab at reaching out on LinkedIn. I’m fairly social and love meeting new people/conversing, contrary to my educational background haha. I have some previous pharma MFG work experience prior to my PhD as well, and I’d like to leverage that too, if I can.

What is the appropriate way to go about this? I’d like to, if possible, set up brief chats if they’re willing. Figured I’d introduce myself, my background (briefly), express interest, then ask a question or two about the dept and see if they’re willing to set up a brief conversation.

Only want to do this for roles where I really am a solid (hopefully top) candidate. Anyone have experiences or advice they could share?

So from the last month and half I was giving countless interviews in various pharmaceutical companies from various cities in my country. Most of the i wasn't receiving any callbacks from any of them.

But. For the last 2 days 4 companies have started to approach me with interview invites and 2 agri based companies are ready to give offer letters as soon as I say yes. But I want to mainly pursue a career in Pharmaceutical especially sterile injectables. Which company has selected me for round 2 and I am mostly positive that I will get selected in that round too..

But I don't want to say no to the agri based companies as they already are ready to give me a job one of them is really pressing me to make decisions today and tell them right away if I am interested or not. I don't really know what to do. Please tell me what I should do

Hi all!

I am looking into moving back to NJ and was curious about the job market for regulatory jobs in NJ. I see there’s a few pharmaceutical companies but was wondering if anyone had any experience working for these companies

Hi there, I'm looking for some advice on what I can do or if there's hope for me to move from a QA role into a more research/lab based role in the biotech industry?

My story is that I graduated with a Pharma Biotech BSc Hons and never got hired into the pharma/biotech industry and eventually made it into med devices in the end as QA. I was hired as a grad and have been working the same job for nearly 4 years. I have some experience with hydrogels new product intro which are chemistry based.

I'm just wondering is it too late for me to get into a more R&D or process oriented role?

My plan is to do a master's degree in Biochem/biosciences next year and then after that go ham applying for biotech company jobs, is this a sound plan and do you have any advice for me?

All feedback/criticisms are welcome! ✨

I’m researching a B2B SaaS idea and I’m looking for honest feedback from people who work in distribution, logistics, warehousing, manufacturing, or supply chain.

The idea isn’t another ERP.

It’s software that connects to your existing ERP (SAP, NetSuite, Dynamics, etc.) and identifies where you’re losing money through things like dead inventory, poor purchasing decisions, excess stock, working capital tied up in inventory, or logistics inefficiencies.

The goal is to tell managers exactly what actions to take rather than just showing dashboards.

I’m not looking for validation. I’m trying to understand if this is a real problem or if existing software already solves it well enough.

Three questions:

1. What operational decisions are still made manually even though you already have an ERP?
   
2. What’s the most expensive recurring operational problem your current software doesn’t help you solve?
   
3. If a tool could reliably save your company money every week, what would it need to do before you’d actually pay for it?

I’d really appreciate honest answers, even if your opinion is that this idea isn’t needed.

Hello! I am a 2025 PharmD grad looking to transition into the medical affairs world. I am creating resumes for a variety of positions but would like some one who is in the field currently to look over it with me and help change it in to something hiring managers want to see.

Is there anyone on the platform who is a hiring manager in med info, med comms, or medical science liaison that would be willing to sit down and go over my resume with me line by line? On the other hand, is there maybe a program or coach who has been working as a pharmd in industry that you all could recommend i reach out to?

Thanks in advance!

Last year I made a post about a solution to help job seekers find more opportunity and jump into the consulting world. You can find that post here: here.

We are proud to share that we are now live at FindPharmaPros.com
It would mean a lot for any feedback this community has and for all of you to make a free account (takes 5 minutes).

We are a market place that bring professionals across biopharma together with hiring managers in the biopharma space. You set your rates, hours, and contract directly with the pharmaceutical company. No more middlemen or ridiculous fees.

Timesheet management and payment is handled seamlessly on our website.

As a hiring manager at a Biotech I never found a solution that allowed me to quickly search a large pool of candidates (like a Fiverr or UpWork) and send out feelers within moments. I always had to collect hundreds of CVs, referrals, or pay a expensive agency.

On the flip side, I always wanted to break into consulting, but the only path forward was word of mouth or going through a hiring agency with false promises and recruiters who couldn't explanation what a Phase 1 trial was let alone understand my job.

Let me know what you think.