[philfrasty]

Would you mind sharing your opinion/learnings on your time contracting? My wife (molecular biologist) is currently interviewing for a similiar position through one of these middleman companies (Agap2).

Edit: (bit of background) from what I see (through her) really hard to get directly into Pharma here in Germany/EU even with a PhD and decent CV.

[jonlucc]

Gladly! I'm in the US, so it may be a bit different, but here is my experience.

To start, would I do it again? Yes, in a heartbeat. I was fresh out of undergraduate with a degree in biology, but very little experience in labs. I spent several months applying to jobs and not hearing back at all. I eventually answered a very odd job ad, and they were basically so desperate for bodies that they interview almost everyone who applies with the appropriate degree.

There were two systems for that company at the time, but both were on-site in the pharma company's facility, using their equipment. The first was a core lab that did a bunch of cell culture and other various work and only interacted with people at the pharma company as clients. The second is essentially a contractor embedded in a pharma lab, doing whatever work the lab needed.

I was in the second type of lab. I had some basic computer stuff on my resume, and they decided that matched well with a lab that needed someone to do CT scan analysis. I only saw my boss at the contracting company in the halls or at monthly check-ins; otherwise, all of my daily interactions were from the lab's PI and pharma employees. I eventually was a supervisor to the other contractors in my department, and I was on the management track, but I wanted to stay in the science.

I spent a few years as a contractor. That original PI retired and I moved to another lab that I still work in. Getting hired as a contractor is a pain in the ass, because the job has to be posted internally first, and I wasn't allowed to apply until it was posted externally.

In my mind, the contract company served to hire people with little experience, give them the necessary basic skills (pipetting, weighing, maybe ELISAs, TaqMan, etc) and weed out people who couldn't learn new things, which is of value to the pharma company. As a contractor, I learned all of the practical stuff that hadn't been taught in college, and I got to network with tens of labs. I was somewhat fortunate that I love the lab I was placed in, so I didn't hesitate to apply for a full-time position when it became available, but I also was very aware of a couple of labs I would have been miserable in, which is also more information to have than a true outsider would have.

Lastly, the majority of people at my level (hands-on research) who are hired from outside without knowing someone on the inside are hired for very specific skills, and I had none at the time.

I'm happy to answer more specific questions if it would be helpful. My email is my username @ gmail. Good luck to her!