What kind of person do you have to be to work in industry?

[shenzys]

It seems to be the hardest and most challenging route to take after graduating, sop what kinds of qualities would you say a person has to have to be able to thrive in the pharmaceutical industry?
Thanks.

[johnep]

Ability to find any industry in UK at all. Best to be from Eastern Europe, China or India.
johnep

[vanquish s]

Its not the hardest just people dont bother looking into it as they want the £40+ salaries straight away. Just do a google and you will see their are plenty of jobs. My best advice would be to do a masters or summer placement. Or work in hospital and do a diploma in clinical trials, quality assurance, medical info etc and transfer to a pharma company.

[Robert]

It seems to be the hardest and most challenging route to take after graduating, sop what kinds of qualities would you say a person has to have to be able to thrive in the pharmaceutical industry?
Thanks.

If you are considering the industry and if you are interested in regulatory affairs, consider doing a masters in regulatory affairs (TOPRA has a good programme). There are very many regulatory affairs jobs, also in the UK.

[TigerSwift]

Doesn't it depend what area you go into? I suppose someone who goes into R&D will need different qualities to someone who goes into marketing or regulation.

I imagine someone who works in R&D would need to be focused and be able to think outside the box in order to develop their research and get to the intended goal. You'd obviously need to enjoy doing research and working on your own and part of a team.

Someone who goes into regulatory affairs will need to be super organised and be able to absorb facts and law. They'd probably have to enjoy paperwork i imagine!!!

Don't forget there's marketting and formulation and stuff to go into as well.

[Robert]

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[Heidi]

It seems to be the hardest and most challenging route to take after graduating, sop what kinds of qualities would you say a person has to have to be able to thrive in the pharmaceutical industry?
Thanks.

It will depend on which area you are interested in and what you want to do.. there are a lot of opportunities in industry. But not every one started off with a good package. I started off in production, moved into medical, then service development in primary care and now in marketing.
It all depends on what they are looking for at the time and whether you can match their requirement. I have seen quite a few CVs with law degree, PhD and masters and they weren't the ones on the shortlist.

[Hector]

I agree with VanquiSH. Its not hard to get in industry but the starting salaries are lower. I'm working in Ireland where there is no jobs in community/hospital pharmacy, so i don't really mind that the salary is lower.

[Nikolai]

Research and development at AZ was something I was considering about 1 year ago. Things like this AztraZeneca R&D sites in the UK to close | PJ Online make me kind of glad I didn't go down that route.