Dapi - more about expense reports.

Dapi, a couple of comments back said:

I would definitely be going home on the weekend but I wasnt sure if I could ask for them to pay for it but it totally makes sense to me!

and I sort of answered, but want to really spell things out for those not at companies right now. Everything you do when travelling for a company is reimburseable. I, now, automatically keep receipts even when travelling for personal travel. Then my wife makes fun of me, but it shows how deeply ingrained it is. Companies have travel policies that tell you what you can charge, eat, stay at etc... and you follow them and then they reimburse you for everything. Other companies have credit cards that you charge against so you don't even see the bill. This is totally non-negotiable. When you are travellling on company business, they pay the bill. End of discussion. If you trash their rules, they may choose not to pay for the stuff you did that violates the rules, but that was your bad not theirs!

This is a big change from academia where you are sort of committed to the lab and would maybe not get reimbursed for everything at a conference. In industry - get reimbursed. Keep every receipt. "I don't know if I can ask for that" - the way I look at this, they have to pay for your hotel and food and car to keep you there for the weekend. It's not that the weekend is free.

Just a different way of thinking, but wanted to make sure you thought of it.

Salary - Dapi Question

I guess I could answer in comments, but since I never look at those on other blogs I assume other people don't either.

Last post, Dapi Asked:

As for the $60K- pros would be it would provide me with experience in industry and I can always work damn hard and ask for a raise ...but I have a number in my head and I know what I am worth in relations to quality of life!

Can you give me an idea of the the base salary that a company like your company would offer to someone who has zero experience in industry? If this helps the company of interest has roughly 100 people..(rounded it up)!

I have a number in my head and i was want to know if its realistic!

I was paid $83K when I was employee #9 at a startup and as an application scientist. Start ups, in general, frequently have to pay better as you are taking risk to be there. OR they give you a lot of stock options. $80K is, I think, the high end.

After that, at the entry levels, salary falls the bigger a company gets.

For a product manager, with your credentials, we would be looking at $60-$70K with 10% bonus.

Bus Dev, with those qualifications, I probably wouldn't have hired you but if I had I would have gone $70 with minimal bonus.

App Scientist - $50-$80 is probably the range but that is far from the entire story. The app scientists at our company are closer to the upper end, but don't get a bonus/commission. They also don't get a car allowance. At the lower end, you have to get other things, like bonus's and car allowances etc... so you have to be careful not to fixate on the one number. The car allowance is $8K right there. The bonus could be $20K. SO - if you are at $60 you are making more than the guys at our company as your car + potential bonus gets you to $88K. This leaves out me even talking about health insurance and 401K matching etc... as you really have to look at the entire package. What is the out of pocket on the health insurance? Do they pay 100%? We don't unless you choose the absolute minimum HMO coverage (1 person, not family etc...)

A major consideration of this is understanding what kind of deal volume you will be involved with. Is each deal worth $1M? When I was an app scientist that is what I was looking at. A large instrument company would be looking at this. Smaller companies, where the deal size is in the $10K region will pay less.

It is important to get what you can, but make sure you keep the options in mind. What is plan B? Getting in to the business side is non-trivial. If you take this job, you are only really looking at 2 years before you can switch. I wouldn't get too hung up on the salary.

Stock options? (and do you think they are worth anything?)
Training? (i.e. will they send you to classes like sales training or negotiation?)

all of these things have to be taken at a totality to see if you are happy. If you fixate on the one number, and they won't get there, see if you can dump other stuff that you don't care about to get there, as the HR people will look at the total cost.

I realize I am all over the board here, but reading my past statements I see I am just as guilty as others in that I posted just 1 number (salary). As you seem to note, by mentioning the size of the company, the range differs by company size. It also differs by what you are involved in selling. It also differs by what else is in the package. The car allowance is huge. That is income right there that you may not have to pay income tax on (I don't think, but check that). That inflates your income in a disproportionate way.

At the end of the day, what it comes down to is whether or not you will be happy doing what they want for what they are willing to pay you. If not -> don't do it. If yes-> the ranges didn't matter.

I wouldn't fixate on the 70% travel -> we have all been there. It seems big, and it is big, but if you are going to go up the business side of things there will always be travel. I am down to about 50% this year, but I get on a plane tomarrow (fathers day....) as that is what has to be done.

Dapi does an interview, some follow on comments on salary

Dapi had her interview and it sounds like it went well. She talks about it here, but I want to life a few points from this.

Points 1-3 are all good. I, at the end of the day, go with my gut. You can analyze until face is blue, but for me the gut makes much of the call. Everytime (for the most part...) that I have gone against it - it hasn't worked out well.

2) I was coachable since I lacked industry experience

Exactly what I look for. For folks coming from academia, they essentially know nothing about this arena. They have some bogus ideas about sales reps, and maybe some inflated ideas about salary's, but beyond that they don't know a thing. The question, and it sounds like what they asked as well, is how coachable the person is. They will have to learn a lot quickly - will they be able to do it?

The bad - point 1 - Yeah...
point 2 - this is why we have HR. They are supposed to solve these problems.

Point 3 - quoted below

3) my STRONG academic record!!! They normally dont take on people who are so academic (normally fresh PhD's)-yes you are soo right! the postdoc hurt me!)...my resume was TOO good in that area...hahaha....scientists at that level become stuck in an academic mind set and they were worried about how i'd do in industry which is more detachable and fasted past...BUT they liked me and i proved to them that I'm not the typical academic! I worked hard to prove to them i was serious and ready for this job and this is what Ive wanted all along. Also said I was willing to learn and be trained!

Exactly. Well put. The more you have gone down the academic path, the more I think that is what you wanted to do and this "industry" thing is just an after thought. If you want to go to the bench in industry, that is fine, but if you want to make the jump away from the bench I start having the thoughts you outline above. I look at it as wasted time when you weren't learning what I need you to know, but this is an equally true way of looking at. This is where being trainable comes in. You have to overcome this.

The next point is HUGE in negotiation

4) I was TOO talkative- I agree! I was running on adrenaline plus i really wantd them to see that i was a people person...normally I am talkative but I have to admit I didnt want to create a void of silence...BUT again they said that they can help me with that and the VP of business development had the same problem (he was interviewing me) and he said he got a coach to help him not ramble!! haha I learnt a valuable lesson- in business...silence is good also! The talkativeness was however NOT a deal breaker!

The most important part of closing a sale/deal is knowing when to shut up. Say your bit and then shut up. People who are trying to ram a bad point down your throat will be uncomfortable about this and will babble to fill the void. They will end up giving away much more than they wanted. Sit there and smile while they keep talking. Me learning this lesson was huge, and it was pounded in to me very early on by a sales rep who talked a mile a minute - until we were negotiating at which point they shut up... I talk A LOT, but when in front of a customer it is far more important to listen. Listen to the questions they ask. See what they say to fill the void that you leave by not talking. They will bring up something of interest and you can sell them something else. Maybe they will talk about funding, in which case you learn budget and how much they can afford. Etc... you will learn much by being quite. If there is an uncomfortable silence DO NOT be the person who fills it. Let the customer fill it and see what they say.

The salary : Are you willing to walk over $60K? Is that a deal breaker for you? Make your mind up on that front now. Always strive for more, but make sure you know what the worst case scenario is. If they won't come up from $60 what will you do? Know that answer now. Don't tell anyone, but know.

The rest of the benefits are normal. I only get paid a yearly bonus, not quarterly, but I have heard of both so that isn't weird.

"will most likely fly me back to the US on weekend" ---- Ummmm this would, to me, be non-negotiable. I *AM* going home for weekends. Or, if you choose not to go home for weekends, know the stress this will put on your relationship. It is really exciting to travel, and the business world is wonderful, but I really really really really urge you to make sure you keep in contact with fiance and make sure he is on board with not seeing you for a month while you are in some other city eating at restaurants and staying in an OK/nice hotel. You will be doing exciting new, and he won't. I made this error and really want to make sure that others don't. This would be called a "tense" time in my marriage. Survived - made changes - but is certainly something that needs to acknowledged.

Good luck,

-signature

...forgot to answer a Dapi question... Know the company

Dapi pointed out that I didn't answer what I meant by "know the company". Quite right...

Umm.... know them!

Know the Press Releases they have put out so that you know what is going on to them as a business.
Know their technology/products so that you can speak to the technology.
Know the workflow that would be around their products. By this I mean know WHY people would use the product, WHAT questions the people are asking when they use the product, and what the next step in the experiments is that you do when you are asking those questions.

An example workflow might be.

Microarray -> Informatics -> QPCR -> Western

with the idea being that you find some genes your interested in, confirm them with QPCR, and then move to western blots to look at what the protein did. Simple workflow, and not totally complete, but I hope you get the idea. For whatever it is that you are interviewing on (and I have to admit to trying to guess based on where you are flying to, but you should NOT post the answer) you should be able to write/say some sort of workflow like this. Coupled to that, you should be able to talk a bit about how problems in 1 step can affect other steps etc...

Basically show that you know what a scientist would be doing with whatever it is that you are selling.

You can't know everything about the company, so don't try. You do, however, need to show that you bothered to look up as much as you could. Google the people you will be interviewing with. Google the company and read anything you find.

Knowledge is your friend in this case, and anything helps. Showing that you put in effort is what you want the outcome to be. Don't brag about it, just do it and trot the information out when it is needed.


I would NOT be too worried about being able to comment on something about every executive. I would, however, know their names and roles. i.e. Know who the CEO is, who the CFO is etc... You don't need to memorize where they went to grad school or what degrees they have, but you should know their names. I would spend more time making sure I had the tech under control than I would on this, but you need to know the names.

Dapi's continuing interview process

Last post we heard from Dapi in the comments about how her phone interview went, and I will excerpt some of that and comment a bit further below. Short version is that she is doing well....

Good summary of how to spin yourself on the interview. She is responding to my less than glowing summary of the interviewee questions she would ask. I hate doing this, and hate hearing them, and don't put a lot of value in them... Dapi's way of doing this is better written than mine, and I totally agree with it.

I reworded a few of them and asked the interviewer to talk more about the job, dynamics of the company and her history there. From there I asked direct questions which allowed me to highlight what my skills where. I also wanted to know what the personality of the people who i would be working with were.

Basically my weakness was my LACK of industry experience but I think i overcame it by emphasising that I have SKILLS needed for the job anyway. I outlined my presentation skills, the fact that I love to talk and I am a confident speaker...also i did have experience doing some PR work for our research foundation during my PhD years. I tried to push that i can speak to vendors and I made profits from the conferences, getting sponsorship etc...i'm apeople person and I learn fast!

and a question:

One more question- I'm ahh getting married this September and I would like to ask for 2 weeks off...1 because my family are coming from overseas and i havent seen them for 2 years and the other is for us to go on a short honeymoon...is this reasonable?

Yes - this is very reasonable. Raise it to the recruiter as they will position it with the company to get an initial read (this is how on the hireing side I am used to hearing about it). You should expect a YES. If you don't get a YES, do you want to work there? I wouldn't. They may or may not give you paid vacation across that. What I have done with the person I am hireing is put them in the hole on vacation. What I mean by that is that when she wants to take some time off she won't already have enough. I am letting her use what she has, and then she will wrack up negative time. For the following couple of months she will be working that off. Another choice is just to take unpaid time off.

On a side note: Congrats on getting married!

In any case - if they won't work with you on this I would take that as a huge red flag for working there. It gives you a very clear sense of their values and what they think of you.

I'm so excited but scared...I have to buy a suit and get some make up!! ARGHH!

This made my wife laugh in a knowing kind of way. Not having to use makeup is a big plus for being a guy!

What should I do to nail this job interview?

You seem to have this under control. Your first paragraph at the top explaining what you did to the question asking section shows you know what you are doing. Keep doing more of that.


Good Luck.

-*signature*

Interview question / answer from a comment

A couple of posts ago Dapi asked more questions, and has moved forward in her interview process... so I will dispense ?advice?mis-information?other? in response. Hope any of this is usefull. Cutting and pasting from the comment, so answers follow questions.

Her Questions are in Blue.

Do you have any tips on asking intelligent questions?

No. And I don't mean this to be harsh, but I have never been good at this part. When I ask people if they have any questions, they always asked some canned questions, as I see you line up below. When I have been on the "being interviewed" side of it, I have always been bad at this. I will get to your questions below, but the overall answer is that yours are no better/worse than anyone elses.

i'd like to know what types of questions have impressed you in the past when interviewing people?
Not many. Not what I am looking for. Read on....

I wrote a few out that I'd like to us ie:

-What does it take for me to be successful in this field?
HR question...the answers you get to this should be interesting as well.

-What skills are you looking for for this job?
HR BS question, but usefull in that seeing what kind of answers you get will tell you about the people you may be working with/for.

-what impact do you need me to make during the first month?
HR BS question. During the first month I expect you to NOT make an ass of yourself. I expect you to be learning at a feirce clip, but not helping too much.

-How long do FACS normally stay in their positions and where do they go from here in your company?
This is a really good question, but you should be careful in asking it that you don't appear too mercenary. Couching this in line of "I am interested in working at this company for awhile and want to grow here" rather than "what can you do for me". Fine line to walk, but I like the thought process here.

Do you have any tips for me?

Yes. Shocked?

I rated your questions from the bottom up, so to the extent there is order in my comments that is they way my responses should be read.

Your questions are, as I said, very similar to everyone elses questions. I have no problem with this, as the generic question that I ask "do you have any questions for me" invites this.

I would add to the list "What haven't you heard me say that will help me get the job" or something like that. You want to check in with people and see how you are doing. If your flopping, hear what they are thinking and then make changes to un-flop yourself. If you are doing well, or they say something complimentary, then try not to say anything to screw that up.

Write thank you notes to each person individually after you talk to them. Make sure you get enough contact information to do this.

Make sure you spell and type in proper english when writing those notes. We have killed more than one person because they write like they text ( or like I write this Blog). Proper English is the Proper thing to do here.

Be yourself. I can't say this enough. I really mean this. Know as much as you can about the company etc.... but at the end of the day just be yourself. If you don't get the job that way, then you probably shouldn't get the job. harsh, but true. You won't be happy.

Don't BS too much. It is annoying to listen to and helps nothing. Don't say too little either as then you are terse. Yes I realize this is unhelpful advice as I didn't really say anything....

After you answer a question - follow up with "did that answer your question?" as especially on phone calls it is hard to see peoples responses and too know what they are thinking. Doing this too much is annoying, but if it was a long answer it is appropriate. If it is "Yes" then it isn't.

Don't assume you know what they are going to ask, and make sure you answer what they do ask. See point above, but I really want to make sure that you don't interrupt them before they are done talking and start answering something they don't care about. You are likely smart, but you still don't know what I am thinking until I am doing saying it. NEVER assume you know what I am thinking. Scientists are HORRIBLE at this point. I have been horrible at it and continue to work on this aspect of my dealing with the world. My wife whacks me in the head when I do it to her, which does prove an effective reminder. Most customers/interviewers don't do that - they just think you are a pompous ass.

Ummmm....Go to it. You sound in writing like you should be fine.

Did I miss anything? Would you like more random ramblings directed your way?

Tell me how it goes please!

...why i didn't respond that quickly to comments

Normally the blog emails me when their are comments...

but it didn't.

I would really like to blame someone, but when you switch email addresses and don't update the field on blogger you are kind of out of luck on the whole "blame" thing.

So - the 1 month delay in asking a question is pretty much bloggers fault for not having the ability to psychicly detect that I had a new email address.

...My hiring is done.

My new person starts soon! She accepted and I am very psyched.

No Ph.D. but a lot of application scientist and lab experience + some time in marketing.

SO - the take home message here.... Experience matters. If you want to be in this game you have to start playing. Don't do a post-doc!!!!!

Application Scientist Salary...response to a comment

in response to about 3 posts ago I got a bunch of comments. Previosly answered 1, but here is the response to the second (from Dapi).

?He? posts asking about Salary range for an application scientist, and notes that all they tell him on the salary is that it is "negotiable".

Spells out his qualifications, but to sum it up.

Ph.D. + 3yrs Post-Doc looking for App sci position.
Is $80K fair for 70% travel (or how does $80K stack up?).

I think $80K is the right ball park in this day and age. You might bump it up a bit ($5K or so) and I would suggest always tacking 5 or so on to what they offer and asking for that. My mileage on this varies, and the recruiter should be able to give you some guidance on this if you say to them "I want 5 or so more" the recruiter will give you a great first pass read on whether or not that will fly. Either way - I think you are in the right ballpark.

Other negotiation points. You don't have any leverage on the vactation time, as they know you are in academia and don't really formally have any. You will get 2 weeks + other random holidays (personal holidays + company holidays). Some companies will give you 3 weeks but I haven't seen that so much at the application scientist level. I would be hard pressed to defend giving you that.

Signing bonus. Haven't heard of that for App scientists, but keep in mind that I would only know about it for 3 companies and one of them was a start up. Maybe other companies do that but I would doubt it. OR if they did, I wouldn't see it as that much money. If they don't have to relocate you, then maybe you can ask for $5K - $10K but I haven't heard of that being done.

Other things to ask about / ensure is that you have connectivity to corporate email from home. If you will based out of home, ask for help setting up a home office. Some companies do this and some don't. Since I don't know what company you are looking at I can't help you on guidance for that. Those that don't, don't. Asking doesn't hurt though. Asking at this stage may even show some foresight. If you will have an office in some building of theirs, then you will likely not get help setting up a home office (in fact I have never heard of this for an application scientist).

Email is your friend, so make sure you either have a blackberry or always stay in hotels with high speed internet. I have a blackberry, but still will flat out refuse to stay in a hotel without high speed internet. Getting large power point files moved around, or getting your email synced before you get on a plane requires high speed internet. To the extent you can - just say No!

On a side note here.... you will note that in summing up your qualifications I didn't talk about how many papers you have. ***News flash.... It doesn't matter anymore. Once you make this jump, and in fact when I interview people for these positions, I don't care. I care how you present to me. I care how you dress. I care how you sit in the chair and act while talking to me. I don't care about how many papers you have. I *need* you to be confident of what you are talking about, and be able to project that to me (thus my above comments about how you sit in chair etc...). I need you to be able to break the complex down to the simple quickly and succinctly and not make me feel stupid when you did it. If you make me feel stupid, I won't give you money (if I am a prospecitive customer).

Your proven track record of negotiation, if in academia with you negotiating lab buys, is not something that you will reference in a few years if you go in to this business. I was a lab manager before I got my Ph.D. and set up a new lab from putting the walls in up. The deal size is trivial next to what you need to be doing on the business side. Maybe $1M total in deals? If you are at a good company you better be involved in more than this per year or they aren't making money. On the sponsorship for conference side, I would use the people that you got the money from to ask questions about the business side of things. They are from the money side, so ask them questions as well. Ask them for job leads if nothing else... If you talked them out of money, they obviosly have some respect for you.

My only word of warning about going the App scientist route, and I give this to people interviewing with me and learned it through personal experience as well. TRAVEL SUCKS. I love it, I continue to be on the road a lot, and I firmly beleive that if you are in the customer facing/thinking side of a company that you better get out of your office and on the road. BUT - 70% travel is brutal. Make sure that if you are seriously involved with someone (wife, husband,boyfriend,girlfriend whatever...) that they are going to be able to handle this. Make sure you stay in touch with them once you start doing it. If you haven't done it before, you have absolutly no idea what you are in for. You don't know about all the airport lounges and the secrets of getting upgrades to first class etc... but you will learn! and you will either love it, and keep going, or you will hate it and quit in a year. Right now you have no idea which it will be as there is nothing I can say to you that will prepare you for it. It is something that either works or doesn't based on your personality and the personality of the people that you care about. I can only say to you that you really really really really need to keep in touch with anyone who you care about, as it is very easy to get wrapped up in the job and miss signs that you are drifting apart. I have seen several divorces come of people moving in to this and the significant other not being real psyched about it. It *IS* different than spending a stupid amount of time in the lab (and I didn't think it would be....)

My last word on taking this job is to recommend/require that you join every frequent flyer/renter/stayer program for every airline they make you get on, every hotel they make you stay in, and every rental car agency that they make you rent from.

I will never pay for a personal rental car again from either hertz, avis, or budget. OR if I do, I love the amount of vacation I was on.... I have flown my in-laws, my parents, and several grad students across the country several times first class. This gets you brownie points! AND I have taken a couple of vacations to Hawaii and not had hotel bills. You owe it to yourself to make sure you accumulate every perk you can, as on your down time is when you get rewarded for all that. My next thing is me+family free first class flight to Hawaii, 1 week in suite at Hilton, with free convertable car all courtesy of racked up points/miles. Don't miss out on this. This includes getting a credit card (or cards) that get you hotel or airline miles so that you rack them up all over the place.

Application Scientist is a supurb job for a few years. You should burn out after 2-3 years, but you are then all set to go in to marketing or business development. You are NOT set to go back to the lab, so make sure that you really are OK with not being in the lab anymore.

response to question.

In a comment here, a question was asked and I will answer here.

Summing up the question:
Person has MBA and business experience in NON-biotech.
Getting toward completion of Ph.D.

Would I hire them.

YES> This is exactly what I am looking for. You would, subject to all the parts of your resume I can't see, get a phone interview.

Non biotech-business experience is fine. The science background is the key for my position. Coupling that with some indication that you understand the whole idea of making a profit is what I am looking for. Whether that profit is in our business, or some other business doesn't really make a big difference to me.

A post-doc will do NOTHING for your move to business. Take ANY job in the business side of a company but do not do the Post-doc. Take product management positions or something, but don't go to the bench. Field application scientists or some such.

Do NOT take a position in a company at the bench. It is VERY rare for someone to be moved from bench to business within a company. Maybe that isn't true at other companies, but I have seen, and been told, that enough times that I think it is true. At our company it is totally true.

...yet more about interviewing, and my job offers

Last post, I mentioned that I put an offer out to a guy. On getting the offer he said " I really only talked to my fiance about moving as a 'theoretical' possibility" and so he had the weekend to think and in the course of the weekend 'theoretical' became real and he evaporated.

SO...please, anyone, before you go interview for a job you would have to move to take, talk to everyone who would impact that decision and get it straight that you *could* move if you got the job. Really...becuase if you do get the job offer and then pull this crap you will have your name lodged in my head as an unorganized person for quite awhile. When I run in to you at some point in the future (small industry...) I will be remembering this. Basically, a bridge that didn't have to be burned was burned. Not terminally, but it is the impression I have of that guy now.

I have another offer out to a person, so we will see if I am moving this forward or not. Hope so.

On another note, I was interviewing a guy for a product manager position in our company and during the interview he answered his cell phone, put his hand up and asked me to wait a second, talked for five minutes (organizing his vacation) and then hung up.

I was blown away. I thought that this was a joke and that you only read about this on joke sites, but it really happened today. He won't be getting the offer, but we all did enjoy comparing the horror stories about how the interviews went at the end of the day. He did something bad in every interview. He could not have, if he had tried, been more rude during the course of the day. I really hope he was trying to do it, as if it was accidental or unintentional then they guy is just mind blowingly bad.

More about hireing and interviewing for Science business

I have, as I mentioned previously, been looking to hire another business development person.

We posted the ad to our website, monster, and everyother job board I have ever heard of (and some I haven't). We got dog-doo for a response. I am looking for an 'entry-level' Bus Dev person. My version of entry level has some form of graduate degree or has been working in a relevant field (the lab, and application scientist, sales rep or something) for several years. Basically - can' t be just out of college. Ph.D. a real bonus. MBA OK, but better have worked in a lab for awhile.

I got responses from people with A LOT of experience. All of them unemployed. None of them hireable as their salary expectations were way out of line with what I can pay (high 5 figures + bonus). I talked to a few of them just to understand what the story was, and was really universally disappointed with them. I would have tried to make it work for a great person, as we have a lot of work to do and can fit people in a lot of places, but in general (n=5) these people were unemployed for good reason. They had worked at some large company for greater than 10 years and really didn't understand the rest of the world. They had 1 world view and weren't adapting. They couldn't break that mold in their heads, and that was a problem.

This discouraged me a great deal...

So I got a recruiter on my side. He got me 4 decent candidates pretty quickly - we filed them through phone screens (me only) and visits to the office to interview with everyone and their brother, and I have an offer out to one of them.

Didn't end up going with a Ph.D. - the offer went to a guy with a masters, most of an MBA (graduate in the fall from and executive MBA program) and a bunch of years as an application scientist.

Of the 4 - only 1 had a Ph.D. and she was, once I met her, unable to really put together a business story. She had the technology half under control perfectly, but fell down on how to think about making money at things. This was the feedback from all of us who interviewed her, and is a very common failing of Ph. D. 's. You just don't think through this side of things when you are a post-doc (what she was). I brought her in to see if she had the ability to think about it (and thus could be taught) and it failed. I was sad, as she really wants out of the lab but I don't think has the ability to think in a non-science way. This job requires both, which I am finding to be an odd mix.

The other 2 were sales reps, and it really came through that a sales rep just wasn't what I needed. They had masters degree's as well, but had drifted too far from the technology side.

I really hope this guy accepts (offer on Friday - answer on Monday please....) as I don't want to go back to looking for people.

*fingers crossed*

...I said this last year as well...

but rain in southern california is beat.

It rains really hard here. not for very long, but very hard. People drive like lunatics (they only have to deal with it for like a week a year....) and everything turns green.

That said - the temp in Boston is well below our temp so any whining I would do now would be, well, whining.

..The whole "naked conversations" and marketing discussion

There is a lot of talk, and has been a lot of talk, about the latest fads in marketing. How the old style is gone and been replaced with some flavor of "conversations".

I think this is much nonsense. Anytime anyone tells me the "old ways" are dead I am very suspicious, as in general there were reasons for the way things are done. They, in general, aren't totally stupid. That said, you shouldn't just trust that things are the way they are for a good reason. You should go find out what the reason is and decide whether or not it is still valid.

So - all these folks are running around and saying that the old way of marketing, where you put out a controlled message, is dead. The new way is "to have conversations" with your customer. I am all in favor of listening to the customer, but I have to say that conversations in public are dangerous. In general - the people who pipe up in our business are the cranks who have nothing better to do with their time. Our customers, in general, are working and not participating in 'conversations'. They just want stuff that works really well, every time, easily, cheaply(or at least a perceived good value). I don't think they are that weird for this request, as in general this sums up what most people want. I think, and we have asked quite a bit, that less than 5% of our customers look too hard on the web for what other people thought about a new product. If you look at certain message boards, you can pretty much find all 20 of the people who play this game. The rest - they all swear that advertising doesn't affect them and that they make up their own mind. The fact that sales for a product spike right after we run ad's is, I am sure, totally coincindental. The fact that we spend a lot of time worrying about message, and that we then see those messages parroted back in independent surveys is, also I guess, coincidental.

I like th Apple method of doing things. Don't blog. Don't talk. Give people kick butt products that they may not have totally known they needed. Don't design by conversation. Don't design by focus group. Don't design by committee. Hire good people with good visions, and let them go. Google does this as well...just go forth and build kick butt best of breed stuff. If you hired good people, then you will win. If you hired bad people, then they probably wouldn't have listened to a focus group anyway.

When you get the product out there, set the stage for how people look at it and go on from there.

Extending the Apple discussion a bit further - tech pundits don't buy in to the marketing. They, thus, assume that joe consumer doesn't either. This is where they are wrong. If you wanted to sell to the tech pundits, you are right - you should consult them extensivly and kiss their butts. You will sell 12 of your product - but it will get great reviews. You may (but probably not) sell a whole lot of them to joe and jane consumer. You see that Apple has pitched at it's target market and NOT at the tech punditry. They lose points with pundits, but make a lot of money. You decide which is better. (I will say that I do not count rabid fan boys / zealots as "pundits", as my OS Rules is not a pundit comment but does represent someone covering for someother defect they may have) (This holds true for Linux/Windows/Mac/OS2/Amiga/Be/.... zealots as well.)

What I have avoided saying so far, but have been driving toward, is the fact that different market segments behave differently and demand different marketing styles. This isn't a new thing. One segment of it (the conversations part) is just going through a bunch of new names as the blogosphere collectivly vents about discovering something.

In computer parlance BEFORE - this was called a beta test. Now "beta" gets slapped on everything and the term has lost meaning. Other industries call it "product testing" and large consumer companies have entire fake stores set up where they can watch real live consumers who don't know they are being watched. Our industry still has true "beta" tests that are closed. the pharmaceutical world has clinical trials (think it through...it is just a product test...).

It is stunningly important, and I have seen this through a whole lot of product launches, that you don't actually listen to the customer. By this I mean - Don't give them what they ask for give them what they really need. Example : Customer says "I want clear tubes" NOT SOLUTION : Give customer clear tubes REAL SOLUTION : Figure out WHY customer wants clear tubes and solve that problem....possibly with clear tubes but possibly some other way. Understand what they are saying, don't blindly follow what they actually say.

So - the links at the beginning (Scoble, Searles, others...) want everyone to do it THEIR way. This is wrong. There are products/services for which this is the right model. There are others for which it is not. Knowing which tool you need to use in which situation is the key. There are lots of tools to market. Use the right one at the right time, and have the right product -> get rich. Blindly follow some dudes book that says THIS is the one to use -> probably not get rich.

Summary :

• Use the right tool for the job. Anyone who says there is only 1 right way is, by definition, wrong more times than they are right.
  
• The take home message from the "conversations" push should be "listen to your customer".
  
• BUT the more important message is listen to what they mean NOT what they say.

...and now I get to hire someone

So - if you are looking for a business development job in the biotech industry, have a Ph.D. in the life sciences, and 1-3 years business (of some sort) experience - leave a comment here as I am just starting to look for someone to work with me. I will contact you.

Another wave of hiring...

We are going through another wave of hireing, which is nice becuase I am also looking to get a promotion right now. Having several bazillion resumes on my desk to look at gives me a great idea of what the market looks like to compare myself against. Leaving aside the high school drop outs I refer to here, there are a lot of educated people out there.

Do the degrees matter?
Is a MD/PHD better than a Ph.D.?
Does adding JD or MBA to the end help?

I would love to know that answer, but I dont' think I am any further along towards true enlightenment. I am seeing a lot of variation. We am involved in searches for 1 director level person, and 2 product manager roles, so seeing 2 different levels.

On the director level, we are getting MOSTLY Ph.D. -or- MBA. A few Ph.D./MBA combo packs. Only one MD/PHD.

What are we doing with this information....
not much. I was just noticing. At these levels (the product managers are senior level, not entry) work experience is what matters. The MD/PHD is gone already, as they don't have any and are looking for a first job. Degrees don't help with senior level jobs, experience does -> so bye bye. The Ph.D./MBA dies a similar death. Spent a long time in school and is now trying to catch up. Not there yet, have to take a more junior level position.

That leaves us with the "pure" Ph.D.'s and MBA's. Here we have a mixed bag of experience from little to lot. Too much experience (on the PM roles) means they will be unhappy sooner and want a promotion, so you have to watch out for that. Too little experience means you have to teach them more. Seems so clinically easy to write about, yet so hard to do.

The take home message here is that more school doesn't seem to be helping. Once you have a certain number of degree's (i.e. 1 real one) I and the others involved don't seem to be giving you any credit for the extra work. I would be interested in seeing if you get more money for the extra degrees (do they pay off, in the classic NPV sense). I would guess, but don't have solid data, that they do not pay for themselves. I don't see us offering more money to people with more degrees. I don't, in fact, see us even giving the people "intellegence" credit for the degrees. This probably answers my question from a few posts ago, as to whether or not going to get an MBA would help me. I am solidly in the NO camp on that front now. Anything that distracts from "learning" is to be avoided, and I think more school is a block to learning.


This is not to say classes are bad. I, in fact, think classes on defined subjects are a really good idea. Obviously, as I just went to one, I would say that... but I think the classes are key to helping with the "language" issue I discuss here, and that is learning. A degree program where you take tests and go to lots of classes, some of which you probably don't care about, is probably not the thing to do after a certain point in your career. This assumes you have a graduate degree of some flavor already. For those without, there is probably always room to pick up that degree, as it may be blocking you from the highest levels of company structure.

on a side note:
I rank myself as a poor judge of whether or not someone will be any good when I interview them. The last couple of hires I have been involved with, I think I have called correctly in that they are working out. My head is greatly inflated from this. I am sure I have a couple of good misses coming my way....

My uncle says that he gave up after a few years, and just judges based on the first 2 or 3 minutes. Says he is doing just as well as when he tried harder, but that it is much less annoying just to get it out of the way. I have heard of studies which say that you do that subconsciously anyway, so he may just be being honest about the whole matter. He is a judge, so that should scare you a bit, but no he doesn't use that in cases, he is talking about hiring for his legal practice and for the court.

Where do we get Resumes?

I was asked by a person looking for a job (not on-line) where we get the resumes that we use to fill jobs? Is Monster.com or Biospace.com worth it?

This is rather timely, given the question being asked on slashdot.org right now... with linked commentary here about whether or not Monster et al are worth anything.

I will say upfront that I have, essentially, got both my jobs through Monster. Both times I have been contacted by the recruiter that got my resume in front of them hiring folks becuase the recruiter found my resume on Monster. I was a little stupid and didn't know about Biospace, but that is my bad.

So.... we don't really get too much from Monster. We sick Headhunters on our jobs. I don't think I have interviewed anyone recently who didn't come through a head hunter. Is this costing us too much money? maybe. could be cheaper to hire more HR people and do it that way. I don't know. I just know how we get the people.

I do know that HR uses Monster, so we do get the resumes in house, and that you can apply for the jobs directly, so we do get those as well. The problem is that we get about 100 gazillion resumes for every posting. None of the resumes are even remotely qualified for the job. No high school education...applying for a position that requires a Ph.D....this might be a problem.... So - we have recruiters winnow the field for us. There are a solid group of recruiters we use, all of whom are quite capable, and that keeps us from having to deal with the 100 gazillion unqualified people.

Are we missing people? Probably. But the chance of missing them has to be covered by the fact that we would spend several weeks wading throught that sea in order to find good candidates, and that would probably cost us something as well in terms of time/money. The trade off isn't pretty, but that is where you are.

My recommendation for people looking for jobs - get a good recruiter on your side. In fact, get several good recruiters on your side... they will have much better luck in getting your resume in front of us than any other way.

Posting your resume on Monster and biospace and the other sites are all excellent ways for recruiters to find you.

SO- in summary - I think monster et al are good for being found by recruiters, but not so usefull for directly getting the job.

DO NOT PAY them. Anyone who asks you to pay is ripping you off. The company, if they hire you, pays the recruiter. If they ask for money from the job seeker, they are slimy and you should run away from them.

Cross-Field Languages

So I speak Biology, Computer, IT, Marketing, and a bit of Finance.

These are all different languages with different conventions and different background assumed stuff. Words have different assumed meanings.

Example: Library
Biologist - has to have a modifier on it (cDNA, genomic or other) but it is a collection of those things that you can screen
Programmer - collection of calls you can make that is already written so you don't have to do some bits.
Marketing - the place where the marketing reports are (electronic these days...)


If you don't know what the word means, you can lead people astray. When I went to finance class recently, the most important thing I came back with was that I learned a bit more about how to talk to finance people. When I deal with the finance people at work, I am starting to learn what there words mean, and what the "obvious" problems with some solutions are. When they explain the problems to me, I understand what they are saying and can picture it.

The funny part about speaking different languages is when you have to serve as a translator. Several of the marketing people can't speak "finance" and we will be in a meeting and they will all be saying the same thing but neither side will realize it. This is where knowing both simplifies things. I can just point that out and we move on. 30 minutes of the meeting saved!

So - I think that is the major benifit of conintuing education. Don't stop going to work, but you have to keep picking up new "languages" as the more people you are able to talk to (and undersand/be understood) then the more useful you are and the more intersting the assignements/jobs you will be given/able to take/grab or for that matter even be able to see. Many will not even be able to see the problem, thus you have an advantage.

To MBA or not to MBA

Another friend is going back to get their MBA. This particular person didn't actually complete their Ph.D. so they are in a little differant boat than I am, but it still gets me thinking. Should I do that?

The finance class I took recently was awesome. Really interesting stuff, but could I take a whole lot of that?

The guy who went back is preaching that the best reason to be there is the connections that you make. He is meeting great people and building a great network. Is that what I need to do? I am building a network as well, but I could see that his network will be with people that I wouldn't normally meet. There is a lot of value in the "discontinuous" network, where you meet up with people that you wouldn't run in to. People in other industries think differently and have differnt worries. Some of it applies to you, some doesn't, but hearing the other stuff is always useful.

So this gets back to the debate I have. Should I do it? I would get one of them Executive MBA's, as there is no way I am going to school for a couple of years. I have done enough "pause" on the career advancement treadmill that I don't want to get off again. Experience at work trumps school work for a lot / most things. You have to get the theory in the classroom, but the practice only comes at work. The Theory is key, as without it you don't have a clue of what is going on at the big picture level, but the day to day experience is huge as well.

I continue to lean heavily toward "NO", but it is a pretty weak lean. Money is always an issue as paying for things can be hard. Time doesn't grow on tree's, and my daughter will only be this age once. Miss it and it's gone. Those are non-trivial things to overcome, never mind the whole concept of having to take a test again. Don't think I could do that.

Sacred Cows, and beleiving what you are told

I have "known" for quite awhile (since I got here) that we couldn't license off a particular bit of technology becuase we had given an exclusive license to someone else and they were sitting on it and there was nothing we could do about it. The problem was that I was never able to find that licnese and really had no proof of this. I was afraid to ask, becuase everyone "knew" about this license. Finally, I have brought slowly but surely the entire legal files through my office and have found that no such license exists and that everyone "knew" about it from someone else. No one actually had ever seen or known about such a beast. Strange stuff......

The outcome of this is that I now have full legal buy in to go license this technology off and we should make good money on it. It only took 8 months for me to complete this search (not full time, always in the background...).

My point of this is that when there is something that everyone "knows" you should push, quietly mind you, but push nonetheless to actually see the obstacle. If you are blatant and upfront about it, you will get a bad rap, as a lot of the "known" things are real. Sorting out which are real and which are urban legend takes awhile, but as in this case can have big rewards.

I have to grow our license revenue by a decent percentage this year, and this has just given me another tool to do that with.