June Career Coach Insights: Job interviews, pulled offers, and unhappiness at work

Our Career Coach column in Biospace just dropped this week, so I'm going to go over all of the questions in that column in greater detail here in this podcast. Some people like to read, some people like to listen, some people like to watch. So however you like to consume the answers to these questions, it is up to you. We aim to please. So with that, let's get into the three questions I answered this month in our Career Coach column.

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, you're.

In the right place. First question is something I hear really often actually in the community in one form or another. But a few weeks ago I answered a very specific question and it was this. We have a member who's interviewing for two positions at a company. She actually networked her way into one of the roles. The recruiter at the company also thought she might be a fit for a different role, so she agreed to go ahead and interview for both to see which one would be a better fit. That said, she is a little bit more excited about one of the roles and the reasons she gave were that the title is a little bit higher for the role she's more excited about and she thinks it's more in line with her career goals. Now she's wondering how she should communicate this. At the time she asked the question, she was going to be speaking with both of those hiring managers in the upcoming week. So first of all, awesome job networking your way into those interviews. That is absolutely the goal of networking is to get those soft introductions and then to have good conversations with the folks in the company. In this case, it opened a door to a potential second job, which if you listened to the podcast last week, the more jobs you get to interview for, the higher your chances of getting those coveted offers are. So I personally would not turn down the opportunity to interview for a job in this market, even if it's something I'm only marginally interested in or maybe even not interested in. Honestly, you never know. And here's why. I have seen so many really interesting stories of candidates that have taken an interview, not been really excited, maybe even downright like, well, this isn't the right thing for me, but I'll have the conversation. Over the years, I have had so many candidates end up accepting jobs and being thrilled with their career, their job, the new path they're on, despite being really hesitant at the outset because they didn't think the job that they were interviewing for was exactly the right thing for them. If you were in this boat, I encourage you to go into these interviews with an open mind because you never know what you're going to find out. You might absolutely click with the hiring manager and think, wow, this person can teach me so much. I'll be so well served by this role in the remainder of my career. I Or you might see that, wow, the job description didn't do it justice. There's actually so much more to be done here. Maybe the title is negotiable and the recruiter actually knows that and they think, oh yeah, let's have this person interview for the other role because if the hiring manager likes them, we'll just upgrade that to a director level or a senior director or whatever you're going for. Over the years, I have seen so many really fascinating cases of people taking jobs and being really excited actually about the jobs in the end, despite being hesitant at the outset when they first had the interviews. And their hesitations might have been that they didn't think they wanted that particular job or they didn't think they wanted to be in that department. But after speaking with the hiring manager, the team, and really getting a feel for the job, they realized that it was a great opportunity that actually would be great for their career. Maybe they just really connected well with the hiring manager and they saw the potential for a person who would really develop them and care about their career progression. Maybe they saw an opportunity to learn something in the role that they didn't find totally obvious in the job description or at the outset. Or maybe they just realized after speaking with people what a great career path this could be for them, something they hadn't considered before. In any case, I can think of so many examples over the years of people ending up in really interesting roles because they took the call. So my encouragement here is to go into these interviews with a really open mind and to not mention anything at the first stage, go in on a fact finding mission and take it all on board. Ask questions, interview them, make it clear that you are trying to figure out what's best for you and your career. Both roles sound really exciting and you want to know all about the teams, the opportunities, the growth areas, all of the things that you can contribute, how they see you fitting into the role. Maybe something amazing emerges from that. After that hiring manager meeting, maybe something emerges as the leader and that's when you can start to get a little more serious about making sure you're pursuing the correct role, the one that's going to be the best for you. Maybe you keep working with both roles in tandem, and if the company is fine with that, that's also okay to continue the interview process with two roles in the company. After the hiring manager interview, it's also appropriate to go back to HR and level set your title expectations. If the two titles are different and understand why they might be different, or if there's some wiggle room if you were to be hired into one or the other role, what would their expectations of leveling be for you? Remember that titles are different in different companies and so what you may have in your head for a title because it's what you historically were may be different in this company. So be open minded during the conversations with HR about that because they may have really good reasons for titles that they bring forward to you that are more to do with the internal equity and the specific titling of the company than perhaps the last title you held. And the final consideration with regard to title might be that if one of the roles that you are interviewing for is a total departure from what you're doing, but puts you on a new career track, you may expect to have a lateral move, meaning you don't get a bump in title or even a step back. It is up to you whether that's something you want to pursue. But I have seen that before where a company will be happy to give someone the opportunity to switch tracks, but they know that there's going to be a lot for that person to learn and they're willing to do that, but they're not willing to do that at the title that maybe that candidate had in their previous role. So just be open minded to that. Your career is your decision. You get to pursue what matters to you. And I've seen people take title and pay cuts in order to change tracks and completely change their future. It is in your control and you get to make those decisions, but you can't make those decisions unless you've had the conversation. So just try to be super open minded with these conversations because you never know what's going to come out of them. Our next question is a bit of a bummer and it's something that you will potentially have happen to you at some point in your career and it just really stinks. So we have a person in our community who got to the offer stage, actually had a verbal offer, was expecting the written offer at any moment, and then the company pulled it and they said they actually heard straight from the board that the board wanted somebody in the role that had a different skill set, one additional skill set that they did not possess. And ouch, that really, really hurts. At this final stage, you've done all the things, you've jumped through all the hoops, you're down to the wire and you think you're getting an offer and then you don't and it's because the board said something. While you may not experience the board stepping in, depending on your level, you might experience a pulled offer because the company lost funding. Maybe they did have a board meeting and it wasn't directly related to your role, but the board said don't hire at all. Hiring frees right now, I've seen a number of cases where we have at the 11th hour had to walk things back and not give the candidate an they were expecting and it just sucks. So I want to tell you a few little tactics that you can be employing to at least understand what might be happening and how you can move forward. So in this particular case, the board wanted a candidate with a certain type of experience and the references had already been checked. However, the interview didn't focus around that missing piece of experience and nor did the reference checks. So what I advised this person to do was actually to go back to the recruiter with a quick write up of their skills or transferable skills related to this missing skill that the board really, really wants and maybe an additional reference that's willing to speak on behalf of that skill set or transferable skills so that they have one more data point. Because here's the thing, the board recommended a couple of additional candidates that they're going to interview, but those candidates might not end up being really impressive to the members of the interview team and in that case, HR might be able to push back and say you what? We really want to hire the original candidate. They actually provided some supporting documentation, they would be able to perform this additional duty function, skill and they might be able to sway the board back to giving you an offer. Now, should you sit idly by while you're waiting for all this happen? No, definitely not in this case. I advised this person to continue their other interviews, continue moving forward, not to put all their eggs in one basket, which you should never be doing in a job search. Again, I'll point back to last week's episode. This is a numbers game, so play it that way. Make sure that you have lots of interviews going on. You are highly in demand. That's also to your advantage. When you're kind of down to the end of the search and maybe you have a few companies that are coming to the offer stage, you can use that in your negotiations to speed things up, to maybe get a little bit more money to work on your offer situation in your favor, as opposed to only having one company at the end where maybe you don't have quite as much power as you'd like in that situation. In this particular case, this individual was a later career person in a more executive type role. But this could happen at any level. Like I said, I've had the board at several companies put a complete hiring freeze at all levels for the next six months while they finished a funding round. It happens. So if you are interviewing for a research associate or a scientist or a senior scientist role, this could happen for you as well. My advice still holds. If they pull the offer because of a lack of a certain skill that suddenly the hiring manager remembered they needed urgently, try to provide some supporting documentation. Not in some desperate way, in a very helpful way, in a way that allows them to continue the process with you confidently and realize, oh, they just made a mistake because they didn't ask about that and no problem, you actually do have that experience. And here's a reference to speak to that. That's how I would proceed. If they pull the offer because there's a hiring freeze, there is not much you can do about it. That is where having your eggs in multiple baskets comes in and just really making sure you're playing a bit of a numbers game. You're continually applying for jobs, you're continually interviewing. It is not over until it's over. And in a few very rare cases, I have had companies pull offers after they've been accepted already before the candidate starts. In that case, it's really messy and it's not something I wish on anyone. It was a really bad funding situation. Both companies ended up going under. But just know that it's really not over till it's over. And sometimes it's not even over then. If this happens to you, keep your head up. It's biotech. These things do happen. There are lots of other jobs out there. Just continue marching forward and make sure you surround yourself with a good network because sometimes you just need someone to vent to in these situations because you don't have a lot of power at the end of the day. If the company literally does not have money to pay you, then it's probably not a place you should be working. But you might want to have a drink or a coffee with friends to vent about it, and that is totally within your power to do. 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. My last question is a career development question, and we have such a great community, and a lot of the folks in the community are not job seekers. They're actually trying to get promotions and, you know, move their way through this career we call biotech and just feel like they understand what's going on. And what I find so fascinating is that we in the life sciences industry spend a lot of time in school. And I looked up a statistic recently. The average age for a PhD graduate these days in the life sciences is 30 to 31 years old. And then people often go on and do a postdoc as well. Many times we have people coming into a career in biotech for the first time, having kind of a real job. Of course we have a job when we're researching all very important and we're doing good work, but it's not corporate and it's a very different work environment. So what we see is people coming into these jobs and not being maybe totally prepared for how to navigate their careers and get promotions and advance and be a good colleague and be a good leader and a manager. And they may have graduated their PhD, their postdoc, they're married, they have kids, but they don't have this critical life experience that other members of the population often get when they're like 22 years old, right? They finish college, maybe they don't do a four year degree, they enter the workforce, they get some life experience. It's sort of expected in your early 20s that you're maybe not like the best employee. It's okay if you make some mistakes, you say some silly things, you don't wear the right outfits, or you make mistakes in the common rooms, or maybe you're not totally professional 100% of the time. You learn those things and you learn them through experience. Okay, so this brings me to the question that I was asked. This individual got started in their company, they've been there for a few months and it's not going really well. They're not finding that they're fitting in. They feel that the things that are being asked of them are not aligned to what they interviewed for or what was in the job description to begin with. And they also think their boss is kind of a jerk. So kind of struggling with this transition and they're wondering, is this normal? Is this just work? Is this just how it is in biotech? And to that I would need to know a lot more, right? I would need to really kind of shadow them day in the life, understand how they're interacting with their boss and all of these things. But what I can say is that you should be pretty happy in your job. It shouldn't be a slog, it shouldn't be miserable. You do hear people talk about toxic work environments and bullying at work and all of those things. And they do happen. They don't need to happen to you. You do not need to stand for that treatment. So what I would recommend is starting to document some of the things and journal on some of the things that are happening that are making you dislike the job. Is it interactions with your colleagues, your boss? Is it that people are frustrated that you don't seem to know how to do things that you are maybe supposed to know or they think you should know? What are the things that are happening specifically that are causing you angst in this job? What are the things that on Sunday you are thinking about and dreading in the week to come? Those Sunday night thoughts, those Sunday scaries, as we like to call them, they don't happen to everybody. Sometimes you have a job you like and Sunday night is not a bad thing because you're looking forward to seeing your colleagues. You're doing work that's meaningful. You are maybe not thrilled to be going back to work because you had a great weekend, but you're not dreading it. It is not a source of anxiety for you. And that should be how your job is. That is normal. Maybe it's not the best job in the world or the end all be all job, the job of your dreams, but it shouldn't be the job of your nightmares either. So you have some power and agency here. Once you have journaled on and really documented the things that are stressing you out, you can start to tackle those things individually. And I know I sound like a broken record because I'm always suggesting that you have a weekly meeting cadence with your supervisor, but it is really important. That is your venue to talk about things, especially after you've journaled on them and really thought about how to present the anxieties, the fears, the insecurities you're feeling that are weighing you down. When you have the language around that to then speak with your manager and say, you know what, here's how I'm feeling and I really want to get over this. I really want to find a way forward so that I don't feel I'm letting my colleagues down, letting you down, not functioning in the highest capacity. If you have a good manager, you can make a plan to overcome some of the struggles that you're experiencing. If you don't have a good manager, you may need to learn to manage up. And we have some great resources that we talk about in the community. We done some book clubs that you can actually refer back to that specifically talk about this topic. I released a podcast episode a few weeks ago where I took you behind the scenes of one of those book clubs where we talked about Radical Candor by Kim Scott. And the full recording of that book club is freely available in our community. So if this is you and this sounds like something that you are dealing with, it's definitely a must. Check out book club topic. We also have. It hasn't been on the podcast yet, but it will be. We had a great discussion around Dare to Lead by Brene Brown. So we want to give you the tools to be able to manage up and have some conversations that need to be had. Sometimes they're difficult, sometimes they're not comfortable, but they do need to happen in the workplace. And I feel that in academia sometimes we don't have those conversations because the atmosphere is a little bit different. You're not gunning for a promotion, right? You're just trying to finish your next paper. You do need to work well with people, but it's not in the same goal oriented way that biotech is. The timelines are a little bit different. It's Just a different environment. So sometimes those conversations can be put off or not really fully had. Have you ever started a conversation that kind of wasn't going well and you kind of agreed tacitly never to talk about it again and move on, not ever having resolved the actual issue? That happens a lot in academia. I can remember some of those conversations that can't happen in industry because a lot of money is on the line. There are timelines on the line, there are life saving drugs, clinicians, clinical trials, things like that on the line. So you'll have to learn to have those conversations. And as a last resort, if you have really tried, you've had those difficult conversations and things are not improving and you don't feel that this manager really has your best interests at heart, it's time to think about a new job and that is totally in your power. People change jobs all the time to find a manager that's going to be a better match for them from a career development standpoint, from a professional development standpoint, and from a personality standpoint. Sometimes you are going to butt heads with certain people and that can't be avoided. And that is also just part of being a human. So to sum this up a bit, there are so many tools available to learn to have these conversations, to learn to be a better employee, because yes, that is a learned skill. That is not something we are born knowing how to do. And those of us who have gone through multiple degrees, we are now entering the workforce at a stage where society feels, feels like we should kind of know what we're doing and yet we don't always. And being part of a community that gets that and talks openly about that is really, really important. So if you're feeling like you're struggling with this again, I'm going to invite you to our free community where we talk about issues like this really openly and candidly because it is a confidential, safe place to do that. And you can learn from other people how they've attacked some of these same situations that you might be facing or similar situations. Nothing's ever 100% the same. But the discomfort you may be feeling, the interpersonal relationships you may be experiencing, there's probably somebody in there who can relate and give you maybe what they did or what they did that didn't work. Sometimes that's just as valuable to know what didn't work for somebody as what worked really, really well. And I would just encourage you to have more conversations about this. We kind of bottle things up and this is true across biotech I talk to leaders who bottle things up and I talk to entry level people who bottle things up and we don't talk enough about the shared experiences and so they don't feel shared. So I really encourage you to start to chat to people about their tactics and techniques for overcoming some of these really common, really understandable growing pains that you may be facing in your early career in biotech, where it is very different than academia. That's it for this week. I hope some of these questions were interesting to you. Maybe you can relate. Maybe it's something that you could, say, see having an impact on you in your future career. Any way that you use this podcast, I so appreciate it when I hear from you that something resonated, that something helped you. I get messages Every day on LinkedIn from podcast listeners who connect with me, which you should definitely do, and let me know something impactful for them. And if you're in my community and you're asking some of these great questions, they might show up in my podcast and column because I do think it's important for the world to know that their questions are also being asked somewhere else and they're not alone. So jump into my free community and I can't wait to answer your questions in there. Bye for now. Thanks so much for listening to the.

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