February 2025 Career Coach insights: NIH Funding Freezes, Transferrable Skills, Networking Templates, and More

Karina I'm Karina Klingman, scientist turned CEO of a talent strategy consulting firm. I've helped over 85 biotechs hire and develop thousands of amazing employees so I know what works and what doesn't work when it comes to landing a job and then excelling in it. I created the Biotech Career Coach Podcast to give you simple, actionable, step by step strategies to help you land your dream biotech job then move up the career ladder. If you are exploring career paths, looking to learn about biotech, or simply striving to be the type of person who makes an impact and gets promoted, your in the right place. I just want to say welcome to everybody. This week I'm taking you inside of our monthly Ask Me Anything event. For those of you who have not yet met me, I'm Karina. I'm the founder of this collaboratory Career Hub. I host the Biotech Career Coach podcast and I write a monthly column for BioSpace. A lot of these questions get turned into the content for that column. So thank you so much for submitting great questions. It helps me to know what's top of mind. We have a lot of different resources. I just just updated our website. If you haven't yet been to the new storefront, we have a bunch of new fun resources so I do want to just share that with you quickly so that you know where to find those. I would love for you to take advantage of some of the new resources that I have just updated. If you head over to the store tab@library.collaboratorycareerhub.com, which basically is in every email I send you so you can get there quickly. Here I have some new free resources. We have an annual goal mapping dashboard. So if you are mapping out your job search, if you're mapping out how you might get promoted this year or any other goals, this is a great resource for you. I also have updated our Biotech resume template and that is so if you even if you have the old version, go grab the new version. It's within notion now and it has some help to actually get you to a more complete version of your resume. This is also contained within our resume course, but in that course there's a bigger, more blown out tool that also includes tailoring the resume so specifically for job applications. So but this free version of the template is available to you. We have an outreach guide. I get a lot of questions about how to actually reach out to people on LinkedIn or after a networking event or something like that to get them into your network. This gives you templates for how to reach out to people without seeing spammy or kind of turning them off. That's always a concern, right? The 50 questions to ask your interviewer I think is a really fun guide. This is just going to give you an ability to go into those interviews confidently. And some of these questions are angled to showcase your expertise as well. It's definitely a guide worth grabbing. And then monthly this Q and A. So check out our new free resources. They're there for you. And let me know what I should create next. All right, to kick things off, we have a ton of pre submitted questions. The first question, and I think this is something that is probably on a lot of people's minds right now, is about the biotech job market and what the new administration and the freezes in funding through the Health and Human Services NIH might be doing to job prospects. And I don't have a good answer for it. We're all kind of in limbo right now. The consensus is that it's probably these freezes are probably somewhat temporary. We don't really have a way of knowing that. But I can say that my clients who are hiring right now have not actually canceled any jobs at the moment. So. So we haven't had anything go on hold or pause. Most people who are looking for jobs in biotech are going to be looking for jobs with funding that comes through private equity, venture capital, et cetera. So that's not necessarily affected by the NIH funding freezes, but we're all waiting to see. So hopefully more to come in the next few weeks. I do know that it's heavily affected people who are looking for academic jobs. And I know a lot of labs are, you know, kind of panicked about what they're going to be able to do in terms of hiring or paying the people that they have already on staff, especially if they were waiting for a grant disbursement. So that's kind of two separate topics in biotech though. We haven't seen a bunch of hiring freezes, but we only are like a week into this, so it's hard to tell what what may come. The next question is how do I present a longer employment gap on my resume from raising my child through the pandemic, which was about two years for this person. Oh, and it's been about four years. So a bit self conscious, but really wanting to work again. So there's a couple of ways you can do it. Honestly, these career gaps are not uncommon these days, so you can Own it. You can call it a sabbatical to raise your kids. I love the word sabbatical. I just want to back up and say that men take sabbaticals all the time. Women should also own their sabbaticals. What did you learn? How did you grow in that time? Because you definitely did. So call it a sabbatical, call it a career break to raise your children, that's also fine. Honestly, whatever you want to put on your resume, own it. There is no wrong answer here. And when I look at resumes and I see those career gaps, they are life and life happens and it's really the sum total of your other experiences. So we have our office hours membership where I do go over resumes. If you are worried about this and want to look at your resume with me, I'm happy to do that. We strategize on this a lot. So this is a really common topic of how do I present this gap? And we want to just market it as not a bad thing. It's a good thing. You learned, you grew, you did something cool. So don't worry about it too much. But I'm happy to look at it if you'd like to. Next question. I'm struggling with how to use my connections effectively and what's acceptable. I was recently rejected after a bad interview, but the company is still hiring and I'm still interested. A friend connected me with someone who works there. What should I say to them? Without knowing the details of why it was a bad interview, it's a little bit hard for me to answer. Also, the size of the company matters a lot. If you have an actual bad interview, let's say you bombed it, which I doubt is what happened. Let's just say that say you absolutely bombed your interview and it's a 10 person company. Well, that's a different story than a 200 person company or Pfizer multi thousand person company. So I would need to know a little bit more about the context of it. But let's take the mid level company. Most of the companies that I work with are somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 to 150 people. So this is a different department, a different group. I would just go ahead and connect with this person that your friend referred you into. And I wouldn't necessarily mention details of the other interview except to say I was fortunate to interview recently with another group in the company which solidified my interest in the company. Although I didn't get that job, it made me even more excited about the mission, the vision, the Therapeutic area, whatever you want to say there, so that you can kind of turn that into, hey, I learned a lot in this interview and it made me even more excited about the company. If it's a really big company, it's often going to get lost in the, the entire shuffle. Right. If you're applying to a multi thousand person company, maybe there's even a different site. You don't really have to worry too much about it. A lot of the times we think we had a bad interview, but that's more in our head. So I would have to know why you thought it was bad. What really about it triggered your brain to think this was a bad interview. And is that perception universal or is that just how you saw it? Because they may have said, oh, it was a fine interview, this person just wasn't the right fit for the job. Or maybe you did perform a little bit less well than other candidates. That doesn't mean they went and wrote in the applicant tracking system, like, bad interview, never interview this person again. So there's a lot of perception, like you might have walked out and been like, oh, I shouldn't have said that thing. I'm cringing at the way I came across. That might not be their perception. So just keep that in mind as well. All right, the next question is, I'm just starting to look for a job after a long break with a possible change in career path. Where do you think I should focus first? Should I work on the LinkedIn profile or the resume? And that's the first part of the question. I'll circle back to the next part. You get to do both. I think it's important to do both. And if you are a full time job seeker right now, you can split up your day. You don't have to just sit there and bang away the resume all day every day. You can spend a couple of hours working on LinkedIn and a couple hours working on the resume. Especially with the new resume tool that I just created for the resume course, which I know this person is in my office hours membership. So I know you have access to this. Definitely work on that resume. And you also have access to the LinkedIn workshop that I did previously. If you can't find that, let me know and I will make sure you get access to the notion template that helps you to create your LinkedIn presence as well and update that they're related. Right. So parts of the resume are going to be pretty much directly what you put on your LinkedIn, like your experience section. But parts of your LinkedIn are going to be more about personal branding. And I think it's really important that you have a unified presence. So at this point, I think the statistic is that 85% of interviewers, from the recruiters all the way through your interview team, if you're doing panel interviews, are going to visit your LinkedIn profile page. And most people don't put a ton of stock in it. But what you don't want to happen is for them to land on your LinkedIn page and be confused by it. So we want to make sure that they're congruent. We want them to click through from your resume, land on that LinkedIn page and go, oh, this makes sense. Or better yet, oh, I learned something. Or this person looks really cool. Or I love that they thought to put this on their LinkedIn. So what can you put on your LinkedIn that's maybe a little bit unique from your resume because it is written in a different voice, but that supports your resume. So we talk a lot about that in the LinkedIn course, how to brand your LinkedIn so that people are excited about it and that you kind of make them scratch their head with your. In a good way, with your headline on LinkedIn so that you're giving your value proposition and not just a job title. So both. And is my answer then the second part of this is they want to know if they should reapply for a position that's been posted for more than 30 days. And I'd say if you've already applied for it once, let's start to use your network as the second application. So now if you've applied for it and it's still open, yeah, you could reapply. And especially if you have a better resume now, if you've really worked on your resume, go ahead and get that in the system. But also at the same time, let's think about how we're using our LinkedIn to network with people and to get people talking to you. So other scientists at the company, research associates, people that would be the peers that you're sort of shoulder to shoulder with. And I'd have to revisit your resume to know who those folks would be, but we can strategize on Thursday during office hours to think about who those folks are. What you want is to identify a group of people that would be very willing to help you because often there are referral bonuses within companies. So where you've already applied, they may not get that referral bonus, but they might. I would give it to people if they come forward and say, oh, I spoke to this person, I really like them. So what we want is people to be talking to you about the role, about the company, about the area they live in, whatever it is, so that you start to get conversations rolling and you can parlay that into perhaps a little coffee chat or something like that. That's the best way to go about a long application. And when I think about 30 days. So we're, we're just in February here. If they opened the position early in January, that's not an uncommon length of time to have a position open. Actually the most common, I think it's 65 days is the average right now. In biotech to have a position open doesn't mean it's filled, but that's how long things are open online. So it's not uncommon to have that length of time. We just need to get smarter about applying. So not just applying, but applications plus networking. The next question is, I'm very interested in a company that isn't currently hiring, but a friend knows the chief scientific officer who confirms they will be expanding during a Series B, probably right after the Series B lands. Plus I have another connection to the founder through my mentor. How can I leverage these connections to create an opportunity? I would need to know more about your level because often you're not going to create an opportunity through the founder or the cso. You're going to create an opportunity through the people that would be more at your level or the hiring manager for your role. So I would just need to know who that is because we strategize on this according to your level. So let's say you're applying for a scientist role. Maybe this is your first role at a company and you would then want to be identifying the departments that would be the ones you'd work in. So maybe it's R and D, maybe it's analytical, whatever that is. And we would be networking with people in those groups, in those departments and name dropping the CSO or the founder because you do have those connections. Those people aren't necessarily people to, to create the role. Let's say head of, head of Discovery. They know the pain points in their group and they're like, they're thinking, yeah, I do need to hire somebody down the road for xyz. And then you come along networking your way into their circle, name dropping that cso, that founder, they're going to be much more likely to sit up and take notice of you and their brain might start ticking over in the sense of like, oh, this person has an interesting skill set. I could see that being really applicable. So this is how we strategize on these things. Typically, going straight to the top is not the best way because they don't actually know the pain points day to day within the groups, if that makes sense. All right, the next question. We got such good questions this week. Okay. Hey, I just want to cut in to say that if you are enjoying this podcast, you may enjoy the Building Biotechs podcast from our sister company, Recruitomics Consulting, which is a talent acquisition strategy firm that specializes in helping small biotechs hire exceptional talent. In that podcast, we interview amazing people who are building biotechs. They are industry leaders in all different verticals and it will allow you to explore career paths in biotech and to get to know companies that maybe you've never heard about. So if you are a biotech fan, you are exploring careers in biotech, I highly recommend the Building Biotechs podcast. We'll link that in the show notes or you can search for it on Apple Podcasts or anywhere else you get your podcasts. All right, back to our show. What is the recommended way or resource to translate experience from academia and between different entities of industry? Like clinical research can, like a clinical research coordinator can become a clinical trial associate. Many clinics experiences can be transferred to research monitoring. Okay, so this person has academic clinical experience. So we often call that site side. So they're actually at the, at the locations, the hospitals, the teaching hospitals, the institutions that are doing the clinical trials and working directly with the patients. But they want to get into industry where they would be then coordinating with those sites. And so it's a little bit of a different job, but the same underlying skill sets. So what's interesting, I'll share this with you. A lot of the time when I hire somebody for industry for these clinical jobs, the request from the hiring manager often is we want somebody with site side experience previously because those people understand what actually goes on at the sites. So I think it's really important to lean on that specifically if we're talking about clinical, I can also talk about it more generally if we're talking about research. And anything that you have done in your past can be transferable experience. So we just need to find the marketing keywords. And so that comes down to looking at the job description, seeing what the keywords are there, what are they specifically looking for, and using some strategic marketing language to show that you've done that in another situation and so will strategize on this, I'm looking at who this person is. I think, oh, no, I don't think you're in office hours if this person is not who I'm thinking of. But typically we'll sit down and we will take line by line. What, what are the things in the job description they're looking for and how can we then use your experience to market into those so people really underrate their experience. It is all transferable. Even if you worked at Starbucks before? I used that example because I worked at Starbucks in college and I used that experience to parlay my way into a PhD program. Like that was transferable experience. So you can do anything with your previous experience. It really is just how you are going to market it. So in the clinical research realm, what I would say is if you were a clinical research coordinator on the site side with patience, and they're looking for somebody with a patient centric skill set. So typically in industry, you really want to show that you're passionate. So saying that you've worked directly with patients at the site side in your research coordinator role has given you a tremendous appreciation for what the patients are going through and for the mission and vision. So you can parlay that into how mission focused you are. And now you want to take that skill set, come into industry where you're going to be actually affecting the drugs that are coming down the pipeline, higher, upstream. So that's how we sort of start to think about things. For your resume and your cover letter, I hope that helps. It's. It's hard when it's abstract like this, but if I was looking at a job description, we could come up with specific language. The next question is how to enter biotech. This person was working as an analytical scientist in manufacturing and they want to switch into bioanalytical scientist. I think in biotech they have some theoretical knowledge on bioanalytical techniques gained during a master's program. Okay, so again, this is back to the transferable skills. So going from pharma to biotech is actually not as hard as maybe it seems. I know it sounds like it's a big jump, but the mentality is already there. So it's actually easier to do that than to come from academia. And here's why. In all of these roles, we're going to be looking for somebody who understands a corporate culture. And when you're coming from academia to industry, you've got to convince people that you are going to make that jump effectively. But you've already done that because you're already in Pharma. So that box is ticked. What we need to do then is simply communicate the transferable skills. And so where you are trying to get into bioanalytical and I'd have to know the exact assays that you're talking about because each company's analytical group is going to focus on different types of assays. If they're a gene therapy company, it's going to be very different analytical assays than a device company. So knowing the underlying assays and then how does that translate to what you did during your master's? Was that work done in a lab? Was it done in a co op? Was it just done in classes? We'd need to understand that. And then we would craft some language to show those transferable skills while making it very clear that you're business minded. So when you look at my resume template, you will see I really harp on having numbers in there being data driven in your resume, because that is the language of business and that's why it's very important. And so when we're talking about your transferable skills, even if they were in a master's program, we're going to be taking those and we're going to be putting numbers to them. So we have to think carefully about how to do that. But typically you're going to be talking about how much better did you make an assay. Especially in analytical development, we're trying to make assays really, really good and tight so we can transfer those out to CROs. What percent improvement did you see? Did you develop eight potency assays for unusual cell types? We really want numbers in there. And so that's how you would show that you're able to do that, even if it's transferable skills. Next question. What is your advice on an entry level worker, assuming they don't exactly have much experience in biotech that isn't just school. So I'm going to actually refer back to the question I just answered there. We're going to be using transferable experience in a very quantifiable way. So grab my resume template and you will see what I mean by that. In my resume template, you're going to use a little bit of ChatGPT prompts to help you to start to brainstorm how to think more like an industry person, how to quantify your impact, not just what you did. And so that's really important. And I'll tell you this, almost nobody does it. And we have entry level jobs open, so we're going to hire people straight out of Academia, it's going to happen. Almost nobody has the right marketing language on their resumes to show that they're already thinking in that way. And so because almost nobody does it, you have almost no competition. If you get this right, you will get more interviews than anybody else because I am going to be impressed immediately by your ability to think more like a business person than just an academic. Next question. How can I start my own biotech company in Michigan? So you will want to start to look for accelerator programs. So I'm not a consultant usually on starting a biotech, but I can give you a little bit of insight here. The very best thing to do is find a great accelerator program and apply to it. So I'm assuming you have a good idea. I'm assuming that something from your research has given you excitement about forming a company around an idea to help patients. And there are great accelerator programs out there that will help you with that. So an accelerator is basically a home for baby companies. Typically you will apply to be in a cohort and that cohort is going to give you a peer group of other founders that are in the same stage. So starting a baby company, often it's geographically related. So you may be able to find some accelerators that work maybe with UMich, maybe just located in the lakes area, I don't know, something like that. There are a lot of accelerators out there. There are also accelerators you can apply to that are not in that area, but they don't care where you are. So for instance, MassBio has a great accelerator program and you don't have to be located in Massachusetts or Cambridge. They have founders from all over the place. The Termer foundation has a great accelerator program as well and they're focused on first time founders from diverse backgrounds. So that's a really cool peer group there of people who maybe wouldn't have gotten to form a company previously because of how funding is doled out. So that's a great accelerator that you could look at. And it's usually a year long program, sometimes more. And you will get mentorship guidance and a little bit of funding from it. So that's where I would start if I were looking to found a company today. All right, those were the pre submitted questions. I'm going to jump into the chat and look at some questions. Do you have a specific guidelines for cover letters? I do. In fact, cover letters are very important and I recommend a T style cover letter and so maybe that's a future thing that I could make as a resource right now. That's included in our resume course. And there's a template for that with ChatGPT prompts to help you with it. A T style cover letter is a very brief cover letter. And here's the thing. The only people who are going to read the COVID letter most likely are the hiring managers and maybe a couple of the interviewers. Recruiters. We don't read cover letters. We don't have time. So what you're writing the COVID letter to do is convey your mission and why you applied for the role. It is not a place to just dive right into how you're the perfect fit. By the way, I never want to see people saying they're the perfect fit for roles. Nobody is a perfect fit. I get that all the time. I'll get candidates following up after a conversation. I'm. After our conversation, I'm the perfect fit. That's just not true and that's overstating it. And as a scientist, you know that we can't prove anything and nobody's perfect. So jettison that from your vocabulary. Alternatively, how are you a great fit? And how is the company and their mission a great fit for you? I want to know that too, and so does the hiring manager. The hiring manager wants people who are excited to stick around. So within the first couple of sentences of that cover letter, we establish the mission and how it aligns with your excitement. Then, the T style is a very brief bulleted list of exactly what the qualifications are and how you are qualified. Really brief. I'm talking a few words. So on the left side we have the qualification and on the right side we have like three brief bullet points. Bam, bam, bam. These are the reasons why I'm qualified. And then you round it out again with your excitement. And that's it. That's a cover letter. All right. One of our students says, as she's doubled the amount of interviews since using my resume template. I'm glad to hear that. And that's not an uncommon comment because the reality is nobody is tailoring their resumes right. And when I teach you how to do it very simply, it's just clear to recruiters why you applied for the role you applied for. And since nobody's doing it, you stick out like a really good sore thumb. It's really easy to pick out people who have tailored their resumes. Okay, next question. Any advice for someone with broad industry and startup experience but isn't sure exactly where they fit in? Yeah, your search is all over the place and it's exhausting. I hear that, yes, my advice is to journal. You really are going to need to get clear on what you want to do and your why. So in our resume course, in the full resume template, which is not the free version because it's really, you need to know how to use it. But the first step is career journaling and it's that for a reason. You need to get clear on your why. What in the past has energized you and what has sucked the energy out of your day. And everyone has these things. I can tell you for me, there are certain things that I do in my day to day that I find really draining and I'd like to do less of. And there are certain things that are really energizing. Like this, I love this. I could sit here and it could do these live events all day. Now they're draining to me because I'm an introvert, but I really like them. And so if you can get clear on the things you've done in the past that are very exciting to you, it will help you to start to narrow down on what you should and shouldn't be applying for. And I love chatting with large language models now. So you can also create for yourself a little chat in ChatGPT to have it ask you really insightful questions about what you love doing and don't love doing. And then to think about what job titles might align with that and to get really creative because different companies call different jobs different things. So that is one thing you can do after connecting with someone from a company you're interested in. How soon or at what point should you ask for a referral to a job? Never. You should never ask. So I know that's not what you want to hear. There is a real method to building genuine connections on LinkedIn. You need them to offer and so you have to strategize about how these conversations go to get them excited to refer you into a job. And there's an exact science to this. So the first thing you're going to do is a connection request where you compliment somebody and you ask an open ended question about their job, about living in a certain area. Let's say they're in Boston and you're thinking about moving there, but you want to really compliment their company, their job, their career path, something like that. And get them talking with the open ended question and after a couple of messages really lean on their career path and how interesting that is and ask to buy them a virtual coffee. And then in that virtual coffee, usually they won't like make you pay for the coffee. But if they do do it, it's worth it. During that little chat, really come from a place of curiosity and don't expect to ask for anything except their expertise on where they've been, what they learned, what they would do differently. Just get really curious. And thanking them should be something along the lines of, oh, thank you so much for your time. You've really solidified my interest in this career path or this company or moving to Boston or whatever it is. And then say something very open ended like I'm going to be looking for jobs that are going to fit exactly what I want to do. And you know, I'm just so impressed by your career you leave that hanging. And if it was a good conversation they're going to offer, okay, that's the key. People get really turned off by the ask. Not to say you should never ask for anything, but we're talking people you're closer with, right? If you've known somebody, you worked with them before, whatever, that's the time to ask brand new cold people that you have never spoken with before and you're just getting to know. It's a real turn off to be asked. But it feels good when we can offer something. So if I have a great conversation with somebody, they haven't asked for anything and I'm like, you know what, I bet you'd be really good at this company. I know someone over there. Let me make a connection for you. That's how it happens. Okay, I hope that helps. That is all for today. I really appreciate these questions. They were really, really good. I hope to see some of you in the future and if you have any questions about where to find resources or anything, give me a Holler@helloollaboratorycareerhub.com you can reply to any of the emails that I send and that all gets back to us. So I hope that was helpful and good luck in your searches. I know it's a hard time. It's a little bit crazy right now. All right, see you soon. Thanks so much for listening to the Biotech Career Coach podcast by the Collaboratory Career Hub to join our free Slack group and to get access to other great free resources and materials. Head over to CollaboratoryCareerHub.com and be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn. When you connect with me on LinkedIn, you get instant access to my entire network of biotech folks, which is powerful for your career. 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