Pharmaceutical IT recruitment
pharmafile | October 1, 2003 | Feature | Business Services |Â Â IT, recruitmentÂ
Most pharma companies split IT use into several different core groups, where other commercial companies will usually keep IT within the IT department. Pharma companies use IT in at least three distinct areas: head office, sales force support & management and drug development. These various IT departments within pharma companies are all hugely diverse in terms of the skill requirements for each employee.
Head office IT
Head office IT departments frequently use large application software like ERP products from SAP and BAAN. Most IT departments have large RDBMS databases like Oracle, running on huge server networks. Recruiting for these departments is much the same as recruiting for commercial IT departments and both require similar skills. Pharma companies have a good reputation for implementing software properly and carefully, and this reflects well on candidates with experience implementing SAP or other generic packaged software applications, giving them good transferable skills. Pharma companies also offer good career progression and extensive training, which will obviously be of great value to any prospective employer, as little or no technical training will be needed.
Sales IT need
Pharma companies can have hundreds of sales people and they have specialist sales management software to manage them. Both sales forces and their IT departments often operate out of completely separate offices and buildings.
The sales function will have a CRM application or some client management software, with the technical skills for this centred on large RDBMS databases and a network of servers. The size of the sales force and the fact that most of their time is spent on the road requires specialist sales management software and pharma companies are probably the this applications biggest user. Recruitment within this section of pharma companies is quite often software-specific, so if the company use Siebel for CRM, they will want a Siebel person, regardless of their business experience. As a result, this is very much an area where non-pharma IT people can move into the sector.
R&D IT
The pharma companies R&D arm also have their own IT departments with specialist software for managing, manipulating and interrogating huge quantities of data and this requires a significant number of specialist data managers and clinical trials IT people with skill sets very different from normal commercial IT groups. They use specialist software, such as Oracle LIMS and Clintrials, in a completely different job role to their commercial equivalents. Within this group staff focus on getting drugs from the earliest stages of clinical trials right through to their regulatory approval. They often work hand-in-hand with statisticians and SAS programmers who have highly developed pharma-focused technical skills.
Data managers, statisticians and SAS programmers from the pharma industry are extremely valuable to a recruiter because of their mix of technical and clinical knowledge and experience, and because their scope for movement is far more limited. To move into another industry, they would need to retrain in terms of what data they are looking after.
Similarly, data managers from other industries would rarely be of interest to a pharma company unless of course the person is willing to start at the bottom. For these skilled IT people, the difference between them and their IT departments or indeed IT people from other industries, is their specific, clinical understanding and exposure to clinical trials. This has great worth within the industry as they provide the link between IT departments and the clinical associates, scientists and salespeople who have little or no IT experience. However, this skill mix is not transferable outside the industry.
Another reason clinical data managers, SAS programmers and statisticians are valuable is because the pharma industry also occupies quite a small space in the IT and technical market and employees tend to stay at companies longer. Where two years is the average time for permanent staff to stay with IT companies, in pharma this rises to three to four years.
The state of the pharma IT job market
Although the IT industry is currently candidate-rich, the opposite is true for pharma. Available positions currently outnumber suitable candidates, who generally need an understanding of the clinical trial process, differing phases and various therapeutic areas as well as strong experience of various clinical software applications.
Of course, within other specialist industries, like banking or finance, data analysts do have specific knowledge gained through working in their particular environment. But, by nature, these industries are larger and use a wider range of systems, allowing more scope to transfer IT knowledge to a different industry. It is a mix of IT and mathematical skills that makes these people valuable, rather than their industry-specific experience.
Positions vacant
Although pharma may not be booming at the moment there is still demand for experienced CRAs, statisticians and data managers.
In a wider IT market yet to return to its late1990s peak there can be hundreds of skilled people out of work at any one time. This has led a lot of people, although unhappy in their work, to stay put even as they see colleagues get made redundant and receive little or no training and no annual pay rises because the company is struggling.
Similarly IT/IS people within pharma are also staying put as the prospects for future employability, progression and job stability are better, increasing the opportunities for those looking to move on.
Kirsty Brett is Permanent Recruitment Consultant at Abraxas. For further information click here.
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