Monday 31 January 2011

Aggregators: What’s on offer?

Aggregator sites are a method of job hunting that I’ve found fairly frustrating. A single job may be advertised by multiple agencies, across multiple sites, often multiple times per week so it appears near the top of a job board. Then along comes the aggregator which collects up all these postings like some kind of fishing trawler and dumps them in one place – resulting in what looks like hundreds of jobs but is in fact a mass of duplicates that need to be sifted through.

The supposed advantage of aggregators is that because they source from a wide range of sites (including individual companies and their own listings), the job hunter only needs to search once rather than visiting lots of individual sites. However, different aggregators fish in different pools: simplyhired.co.uk has a high proportion of jobs from britishjobs.net; jobisjob.co.uk covers jobsite.co.uk, jobstoday.co.uk and jobsearch.co.uk; whereas indeed.co.uk has a little bit of everything (this will be examined in more detail in another post, and thanks to Charlie for flagging these sites)

Love ‘em or hate ‘em though – aggregators are another tool in the job searching arsenal, so that can only be a good thing.

For a snapshot of what’s on offer, I ran two searches: 1) all “chemistry” jobs posted in the last week at jobisjob; and 2) a selection of “chemist” jobs posted in the last week at simplyhired.

Of the 640 jobs listed, almost 20% were for teachers, but only 11% were for a “traditional” lab chemist role (mainly organic chemistry). There were also high hit rates for experienced executives/managers (10%) and at the other end of the pay scale, lab technicians (8%). While some of the categories are skewed by duplicate adverts (I must have read about a dozen variations for a single semiconductor position), it appears the in-demand jobs are in sales/tech support and analytical chemistry. Encouragingly, there is still a lot of variety for those looking at a change in career while remaining in the sector, with some demand for regulatory, EHS, chemical sourcing, and further afield, instrumentation and software.

The more focussed “chemist” search categorised 160 jobs from the last week. The good news was that over 80% were for permanent positions, even in the current climate; and synthetic chemists appear well represented with around 60 positions advertised. However, given the comprehensive nature of the aggregator sites, this either means there aren’t many jobs for chemists being advertised in the UK, or they’re not being exposed by these sites. And that’s a topic for another post.

In the meantime, here are my top aggregator tips:

1) Think carefully what you’re searching for. “Chemist” will return a more focussed hitset if you want a specific role; but “Chemistry” may return jobs you may not have considered

2) Use the site’s advanced search to increase the number of jobs/page from 10 to something useful to avoid endless clicking. If their maximum isn’t high enough, select it then modify the appropriate number in the address bar url

3) If you’re overwhelmed by teachers, analysts, managers and sales in your results, you may be able to block these in the advanced search settings

4) Don’t forget to order the results by date, and go for 7-14 days as an upper limit. Any longer and there’s a higher probability of links being broken and reading duplicate adverts causing you to throw your monitor out the window.

Sunday 30 January 2011

Weekly Stats Round-up: 30th Jan 2011

All UK chemistry-related jobs added to the main sites in the last 7 days:

NewScientistJobs
“chemist”=17, “chemistry”=71, Chemistry section= 75
Monster
“chemist”=30, “chemistry”= 88
Reed

“chemist”=59, “chemistry”= 259
ChemistyWorldJobs (RSC)
all jobs=1
Jobs.ac.uk
all academic chemistry positions=36
Jobisjob.co.uk
“chemist”=129, “chemistry”=655

Weekend job roll: 30th Jan

Play CSI! Cellmark Forensic Services are advertising the National Forensic Recruitment Roadshow – visiting 5 locations over the next 5 weeks. Experienced hires and graduate opportunities await.

REACH for the sky! An established company in Ealing, London are looking for a strong project manager to ensure their clients are compliant with REACH legislation and to stay abreast of developments in regulation. Training can be provided for the right candidate if lacking in specific experience. £26k.

Graduates! Merck are offering £22k in Southampton for a chemist to join their Organic Electronics team. Preparing and dispatching custom formulations, you will report to the supply chain coordinator.

GSK are recruiting a chemical registrar in Ware to oversee the chemical registration process. This will include supporting and training chemists in various data handling tools. Pharmaceutical experience and awareness preferred, as are a desire for quality and attention to detail. Salary unspecified.

A serious package is being offered for a technical specialist (chemicals) in East Anglia. A strategic role advising on chemical sourcing and supplier development, the personal criteria appear to be more about potential than specific qualifications: “graduate calibre, ideally chemistry degree qualified…ability to gain knowledge of supply chains and work with suppliers …ability to co-ordinate, lead and develop the supply base as well as define and implement the right strategy.” £45k + up to 50% bonus + car + some international travel – got to be worth a speculative CV!

5-10 years experience in industry and looking for a challenge? Why not become a research and technology associate in Milton Keynes? For what sounds like a very senior role – including overseeing all technical aspects of projects, project management, product development, regulatory, production, QC support and working as part of the “new idea” submission team – you will be rewarded with a salary of ~£35k, and potential travel to the US and EU.

Thursday 27 January 2011

Midweek job roll: 27th Jan

There’s an escape-the-lab theme this week – normal service to resume at the weekend!

A leader in R&D software is looking for a permanent software support consultant to provide support and training to customers. As well as MS.net or VB.net programming experience, an “excellent understanding of the business processes involved in new product development of food & drink, paints and coatings or other similar industries” is required. Frankly, knowing what the similarities are between those industries will probably get a foot in the door. Up to £45k, multiple locations stated.

Are you well organised, an excellent communicator and have a good understanding of the UK higher education systems? The RSC are advertising for a regional coordinator to support and promote their education department at the University of Edinburgh. Sounds like a great opportunity in a great location – 2 year fixed term, £30-36k.

Pharmaceutical company seeks computational chemist with PhD, years of postdoc experience and knowledge of MOE/Maestro software for 12-month relationship involving ligand/structure-based drug design. In return, you’ll receive £39-47k and be based in W Sussex.

Finally, Syrris are looking for a technical applications specialist to be based in Royston, Herts. Awesome opportunity to spend 50% of your time traveling the world to carry out installations, demonstrations, training, product testing and support work for this designer and developer of quality automated lab products.

Tuesday 25 January 2011

LabMonkey visits

ChemJobber for a spot of Q&A. Thanks for the opportunity to reach a wider audience!

Sunday 23 January 2011

Weekly Stats Round-up: 23rd Jan 2011

All UK chemistry-related jobs added to the main sites in the last 7 days:

NewScientistJobs
“chemist”=15, “chemistry”=66, Chemistry section= 69
Monster
“chemist”=21, “chemistry”= 21
Reed
“chemist”=63, “chemistry”= 119
ChemistyWorldJobs (RSC)
all jobs=7
Jobs.ac.uk
all academic chemistry positions=29
Jobisjob.co.uk
“chemist”=115, “chemistry”=597