Job:Bioinformatics freelancers needed

Question

[Bioinfexperts]

Bioinformatics freelancers are invited to join our team of professionals.

This is an opportunity for bioinformaticians having expertise in any of the various bioinformatics areas to work from their private place as freelancers on projects with universities, research centers, medical hospitals and companies.

• Payments depend on the projects assigned to freelancers.
• Flexible working hours

More information regarding the job will be provided upon contact with us on [e-mail].

Our employees will contact you back to discuss further details.

Bioinformatics Experts team

bioinfexperts.com

[Khader Shameer]

We dont encourage "phi/fishing" posts in Biostars. Where is this organization based on? Do you have a physical address? Can you add more details in your bio?

[Sukhi Singh]

Did a bit of digging,

1) ip is registered to a single user, previously registered Genoexperts.com under his name which is now released back to public domain pool as domain is cancelled.

2) User is based in Germany (Dusseldorf), I do not want to reveal identity but looks like user has no background in Bioinformatics.

3) All social accounts and webpage were launched in first week of April, with first post of facebook having 1K likes though post is not shared and page has a reach of around 100 users, suggesting likes were bought. Anyways, I might be going too far, looks someone wants to start a new business or a total scam of selling the data out. The service launch time-line is set to half a year maybe to see what kind of response is generated.

Our temporary site will not hold all the necessary information, that is why we posted a contact form for interested people. Few lines of text should not overload your page and is I think a necessary information.

[Bioinfexperts]

The one user who has no background in Bioinformatics holds a PhD in Bioinformatics from Germany. We have both domains, bioinfexperts.com and genoexperts.com which we will use later for other purposes, is that a problem? The official launch is after half a year from now because the online freelance engine is still being built and some parts are being tested, is that also a problem? So why is the job post done now and not after half a year? because during this half year we will choose which bioinformaticians can join our team according to their expertise and field of study, such that the site will already be populated with an enough number of Bioinformaticians when the launching time comes.

Yes one of the posts was boosted on Facebook and the addressed audience were those from the Biotechnology sector, we don't see something wrong in this ? We are a group of bioinformaticians and not marketing experts.

Hope all your concerns were addressed.

[Devon Ryan]

The one user who has no background in Bioinformatics holds a PhD in Bioinformatics from Germany.

Was zum Teufel bedeutet das dann?!?

As others have said, there's an increasingly common phishing scheme wherein fake sites are generated to harvest CVs. Everyone is a bit worried about that. Given the number of us in/from Germany, the odds are good that at least one of us should be able to say, "Ah Dr. X is involved. I know him/her, so this venture is probably legitimate." Barring that...

[Khader Shameer]

If you are new to the startup/freelancer business, please engage someone with experience to handle these areas or look at other freelancing websites.

Unless you provide the basic identification including an impresum page, I will be forced to close your post. BioStars is not for randos, especially when it comes to job we have heard enough stories of how fishing companies gather CV, offer mediocre training for a hefty fee etc.

We welcome you to BioStarQuestion, but please reveal the who's who behind your venture.

[Bioinfexperts]

Dear Mr. Shameer,

You may check our verified business address on the google business directory and google plus accounts: https://goo.gl/ftmtDt

Or check our social media accounts for more information.

Bioinformatics Experts is based in Germany. Our online freelancing portal is under construction with an expected launching date in November/2016.

Our temporary site will not hold all the necessary information, that is why we posted a contact form for interested people.

[Jean-Karim Heriche]

If it's a German company, I expect to see an "Impressum" on the web site. This is required by law and must at least provide full name and address of the company, names of the directors, telephone number and email address of the company, where the company is registered and under which number, its VAT identification number. Without an Impressum, we can't verify that it is a legitimate business.

[Bioinfexperts]

100% correct. .All of this information will be clearly displayed on the site after the official launch in November.

[Michael]

Just a hint: Your web-site is visible now, you are based in Germany, you need an Impressum now.

The Telemediengesetz (German meaning "Telemedia Act") requires that German websites must disclose information about the publisher, including their name and address, telephone number or e-mail address, trade registry number, VAT number, and other information depending on the type of company.[7] German websites are defined as being published by individuals or organisations that are based in Germany, so an Impressum is required regardless of whether a site is in the .de domain. This law has created privacy concerns for individuals who maintain blogs or personal homepages.[8][9][10] The law has also caused lawyers to scrutinise websites for this information and send cease-and-desist letters to their maintainers in case it is missing.[11] Due to this law Facebook has added a section in the public page settings for adding an Impressum.[12] From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressum)

[Khader Shameer]

There is nothing on your G+ page. Only four followers and 0 posts. You are welcome to design your web/social page in whatever format you want. However, we won't be able to encourage job posts without credible information. Please post the details including an Impresum page.

And the scamers are out there:https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-recognise-scamspam-job-updates-linkedin-jodie-acty

[nirali.bdi]

Yes I am interested to do a work as a freelancer. I have 3years of experience in the field of bioinformatics. I will send you my CV to the given address. Thanks in advance

[nirali.bdi]

I am very excited for this type of work. Thanks...

[John]

Hello Bioinfexperts!

We believe that this post does not fit the main topic of this site.

Put on hold to give the OP time to address some of the issues mentioned.

For this reason we have closed your question. This allows us to keep the site focused on the topics that the community can help with.

If you disagree please tell us why in a reply below, we'll be happy to talk about it.

Cheers!

Answer 1

[Benn]

I hope this will not be the future trend for bioinformaticians... To end up in freelancer jobs, and don't get any permanent positions at institutes...

[John]

It really depends on your definition of bioinformatician, but certainly the "space" for freelancers is growing. I think the greater the separation between bioinformatics and wet-lab biology, the more you will see wetlab scientists outsourcing their bioinformatics, much like they outsource their sequencing or microscopy. In years gone by, you would have the in-house sequencing/microscopy "expert" whose expertise you relied on - but as the tech got better, and jargon reached a critical mass, there was no longer any value to their job beyond the result they produce. Outsourcing becomes another form of abstraction.

So really it's up to how bioinformaticians want to play it. If you fail to explain why your expertise is necessary, probably by using a lot of domain-specific jargon, and the only thing the biologist understands is the result you produced - you're going to find yourself competing with Mr X from company Y who don't have an Impressum yet but fuck it - they'll give you all the deferentially expressed genes you want. Bags of deferentially expressed genes.

2x more deferentially expressed genes than you'll find anywhere else!

Act now and receive 10% more low-confidence differences absolutely FREE!

etc etc. This absolutely must not happen, because a bioinformaticians job is not production, its analysis - but it's up to bioinformaticians to really hammer that home. And it won't be easy, because there are forces acting against it. Put bluntly, if you outsource your bioinformatics to someone outside your lab, you wash your hands of responsibility for what is produced. This is particularly useful if you tell them what you expect to see before they do the analysis, and make it clear you won't be needing their services in the future if this project is a no-go. Of all the trends in Bioinformatics, that's the one I am most interested in doing something about.

[Sukhi Singh]

hahaha, We found out the whole genome is differentially expressed, we are the best at the lowest price

[Benn]

Haha, I get your point Jhon!

[LLTommy]

I don't think it will be a trend. I feel like bioinformatics is one of the hardest things to just outsource to an external bioinformatician. I don't see this working, what do you guys think?

[GenoMax]

I know software developers/security experts that actually prefer being contractors (term used prevalently in US) as it affords them the luxury of a) getting paid handsomely b) always getting challenging jobs (instead of doing a normal/regular task) c) opportunity for traveling the world. One obviously needs to be very good at what one knows/does for this to work over long term.
Perhaps one day good bioinformaticians will receive a similar consideration. But it does not sound like that opportunity will come from the company under discussion in near future.

[Benn]

Software developers are paid usually well (either as permanent position or as contractor), in general much better than bioinformaticians. I don't know if contracting will make this better for us (bioinformaticians).

My own experience as a bioinformatician in academia is that bioionformaticians actually have to do two jobs for the price of one to pursue a career in academia. I have to support all my wet-lab colleagues with their analyses, and have to generate my own research. See comment in Nature from last year (http://www.nature.com/news/core-services-reward-bioinformaticians-1.17251.

I have the idea that outsourcing your bioinformatics support is just another way to get rid of bioinformaticians that pursue a career in academia, but I might be wrong.

Answer 2

[Michael]

Your business is all about trust, you need to establish a trust relationship with your users. You are talking to computer savvy scientists, scientists are critical thinking people, computer savvy people often have concerns about data security and privacy. You are asking for sensitive information for free from these users, without providing any information about yourself or the company. You are now seeing the repercussions from posting prematurely, on a site where job offers can get commented on, and you cannot blame anyone but yourself for this. Your countdown is way too long in the future, this is not like the release of a new iPhone, why not give us all the relevant information right now? While there were quite some posts asking for freelance positions in bioinformatics, I don't think people will want to wait like half a year to hear back from you.

Otherwise I appreciate your effort in creating a platform for free-lancers in Germany, and I don't want to be judgemental on the style of job people like.

Hope this helps

Answer 3

[wdiwdi]

Warning: They are NOT a registered company.

I just checked the German corporate registration portal - no entry for bioinfexperts, bioinformatics experts, genoexperts or any other name mentioned here or on their Web sites. Still, with this kind of CV fishing, and their claims to an "employee team" they are clearly engaging in commercial activity, which is blatantly illegal and even more severe than the missing imprint on their Web sites. The German tax authorities are really unforgiving if they catch you in commercial activities without proper tax documentation, especially if you do have employees and stiff the tax man on the "Sozialabgaben".

But I think as the proprietor of a German company operating in a related field and thus being a commercial competitor with a valid complaint, I could simply start proceedings with a nice, proper "Abmahnung" for the missing imprint. That would be a slam-dunk, and already hurts financially.

So, bioinfexperts, last chance to come clean - who are you? What is your legal status? Where is your corporate registration? Which is the tax office handling and potentially auditing your company in case you need some more pushing?

[Bioinfexperts]

wdiwdi, before wasting your time, you should have read carefully what we wrote in our answer above

" The company is still under construction and will be based and lunched officially in the future in Germany. Accordingly we are very much aware of the German company laws. "

[wdiwdi]

You cannot have company employees without a proper, notarized company registration. Either you lied in your posting above, or you are already in serious legal trouble.

[Bioinfexperts]

you can have employees while the company is still under construction in one case, if you and your "unofficial" employees are colleagues, have worked and studied together, are sharing the same vision, are not looking for revenue for the meantime and working for free on building our engine :) clear detective ?

[John]

I think this is getting out of hand.

By now, Bioinfexperts has reached all the people they intended too, since this thread has been very popular - and I think the people who have been interested in their service get the message loud and clear that they are operating under good faith, but not as a proper company. I think the final word in this story is that they're not even operating as a registered company, something you can buy off the net for $100 after filling out two forms - something that people should keep in mind when handing them their CV.

However, we as a community - particularly myself - could have been a little less confrontational to what may just be an honest mistake. I think we can all take away a lot from this -- but I don't think there is much left to add -- and so I think its time to close this thread.

[Bioinfexperts]

I request the moderators to delete the post and not to close it, since all of the comments above may affect our reputation during the time of launch in November. We confess we need experience when dealing with such issues, we come completely from a scientific background, but would never be a lie or a scam to people. As you have said, we have already gained the trust of the people who contacted us. thanks to all for your time.

[John]

Biostars moderators have a commitment to all the users of Biostars, not just Bioinfexperts.

Had I know that you were not a legitimate company right at the beginning, this thread would have been closed as spam before anyone said anything silly, simply because you mis-represented yourself, and in fact continue to do so:

Since some users have sent you their personal and professional details already, but may have not checked back since to find out you are not a legitimate company, I cannot simply just delete this thread. I do feel for you - god knows I wish I could have Ctrl+Z'd quite a few decisions i've made in the past. But really, if I did delete the thread, I would be doing it for the reputation of a non-existant company, who's reputation was brought into question in the first place because they are not a real company. That doesn't really make any sense.

[Bioinfexperts]

oh poor John... if you can read ..... you should have known better what the numbers in the website means:

[biocyberman]

I suggest not to make it hard for yourself and everyone. Just note down what you are missing and come back with Announcement 2.0 when you are ready.

Answer 4

[biocyberman]

I think everyone should calm down. Bioinfexperts.com may be a startup/novice of many things. They maybe phishing or they may just be not experienced in communication and knowledgeable in business protocols/conventions.

Regarding the CV phishing suspicion, while some/many may consider their CVs as private and precious, I for one consider it public information, just like a linkedin profile.

@Bioinfexperts : I know it is uneasy thing to be criticized and mistaken for something else, but if you truly want to do what you are aiming, just be happy to address what people are complaining/asking about. Bad words, bad temper (may be that is just what you think) do not need to be retaliated.

Answer 5

[archana.bioinfo87]

I am interested on this work. I am sending you my CV. Thanks for this type of opportunity.

[Khader Shameer]

If you get any response from them, please share with the BioStars community. I can smell some scamery in the way they are trying to gather CVs with out revealing the details in an About Us page.

[ivivek_ngs]

Infact , the site does not hold any impressum and there is not much in any of their social handles. Atleast one of the person behind the company should reveal the true identity else it will be judged as a scam. People need jobs and in this field there are lot of people both with little/no/excellent skillset but the complete disclosure is important so that in future the CVs sent might be receiving mails of joining training from these new companies. Its all about contacts that gets summed up from the scams. No one wants to blame you but if you want this to be authenticated and one people to acknowledge you have to come up with disclosure.

I also feel that it is a test run from the people who started the company thinking if things does not work out they will not be traced back if the disclosers are not made.

Answer 6

[Bioinfexperts]

for Mr. Khader Shameer , Sukhdeep Singh, Michael Dondrup,

I really did not know what are you planning with all of this, I will summaries everything , so you may understand it 1- the company is still under construction and will be based and lunched in the future Germany. Accordingly we are aware of the German company laws

2- the company will be run by Dr. Layal Yasin, A bioinformatician , who got her PhD degree from Göttingen University in Germany. "I think you can make a bit of digging about her before submitting any Stupid comments Mr. Sukhdeep Singh !!!"

3- if you even try to check the bioinfexperts.com website and see the copyright footer , you will notice that the mother Company is easywayip.com, which is located in UAE - Dubai

4- there are several modern and more civilized ways for asking/ requesting someone for information. not the way of used by some moderators

5- If you dont agree and dont want that we published in your website you can deleted it

6- finally, I think, the owner of this Site should hire professional Moderators

Thanks

[John]

1 - If you were aware of German company laws, you wouldn't be breaking them

2 - If you had said Dr. Layal Yasin was in the company, no one would have needed to 'dig' to find out.

3 - "Mother" companies are totally irrelevant. Facebook in Europe abides by Irish law, not American.

4 - Civilized behavior is to be more transparent about what your company offers and who's responsible for it.

5 - Honestly, you should be the one to delete it - try again in 6 months when everyone has forgotten what happened here, and you have an actual business to point to.

6 - We all know who runs this site (by their full name), and more importantly, he isn't asking for my CV

7 - Civil as * * * * .

[Devon Ryan]

If biostars makes enough to buy Istvan a coffee a month I'd be amazed :P

[Bioinfexperts]

i recommand you to read again what ive written and at least think during writing.

[Istvan Albert]

I would suggest to the owner of bioinfexperts to learn to deal with these type of questions.

If you have good answers for the question use those and steer clear from the urge of duking it out in public. No good will ever come from trying to push back. People have concerns, address those and move on.

For example this site is also registered via Whois Guard http://www.whoisguard.com/ an identity protection service that cuts down on spam and mitigates some risks of identity theft. I have never checked this but indeed that does make it look like the site is registered in Panama. That amuses me actually, especially in light of current news.

[Sukhi Singh]

I would just say Thanks to you, you stimulated a fun discussion for everyone plus I think you also learned couple of things, that you could try to add to your portal when you try next time or somewhere else. No one has any personal problem with you and your company just a bit transparency is appreciated. Good Luck!

[ivivek_ngs]

John very nicely countered your reply. First of all if you had gone and read properly the About and Faq of Biostars and some of its tutorial you would not have got annoyed or asked for credentials. First take a look at the credentials of the community admin and get a hang of how it operates.

Then read the handbook of Biostars to know what it is actually and how everyone here takes off their precious time to help each other. We do not promote any consulting business here. This is a blog community. If you do not know how they function please see others like stackoverflow to understand this.

No one is trying to stop you from putting up a post but getting annoyed in such forums just shows how inexperience the person in question is.

I believe once you have a proper website with all its information up and running and then give a post people will be more interested.

As of now I dont see how you might be helpful to get free lancers jobs as there a some other companies as well and then you also need a clear notion of the company directives.

No one is making profit from here. We learn and we contribute and make others aware of new changes in the field and share our learning.

[WouterDeCoster]

Someone's getting annoyed I think.

[Bioinfexperts]

Mutual trust is built between us and every one sending us an email. We are receiving emails from interested people till the moment. We are replying with a detailed explanation about how things work at Bioinformatics Experts, afterwards we ask them to confirm their desire to have their application considered for review by our team. When we get an approval, we move forward with the next steps where we either accept the application or refuse it..

our job post has nothing illegal nor unaccepable, read it again. We are accepting applications for a company that will officially launch soon.

We are free to post the information we want on our temporary site and everyone is free to either like this or not. All the needed information is being sent via emails, no one can force us to change our policy.

Sorry to say this, but the comments are getting seriously ridiculous on this page, so either stop this hassle or delete the post from the roots, please. I do appreciate some of the serious comments in this page, like those of Michael Dondrup, but other comments are rude, unprofessional and lacking the sense of logic.

I should highlight the fact that the comments in this page come from few persons who dislike the idea of freelancing the bioinformatics services. On the other hand, I should reflect the voice of the many people who are eagerly interested to be part of this idea and who are sending us emails trying to know how does it exactly work at our portal. So maybe this whole hassle came to our advantage at the end.

With much respect BIE team

[Michael]

Unfortunately, as you experienced, you cannot control or predict at all times, how posts are perceived or which comments you get. If people suspect scam, they might get a bit tough on you. I think this is partly due to moderators trying to protect the site, biostars has an extremely high google impact for the field of bioinformatics, and this is free for everyone using this site. With high powers comes high responsibility and I think that is what drives moderators. Furthermore you are getting all the expertise for free. This is how QA works it is all volunteer work, there is no professional admin here. Negative comments or harsh, rude or whatever perceived comments thus can appear, but that is the price of free speech. It is better to appreciate and deal with it and take it as more or less constructive criticism.

[hns]

Well said @Michael . On a lighter note : " With high powers comes high responsibility" and I think that is what drives moderators. Anyone else remember spider-man?

[Jean-Karim Heriche]

In defense of the site admins, I must say that I also thought this was a scam. Asking people to contact an anonymous email on behalf of a company that doesn't exist is exactly like some scam emails I get from time to time.

[Shyam]

If you want us to trust you and your company, why couldnt you give the information on persons involved in this. If they are PhDs, lead us to their linked in profiles or publications etc. If you cant provide this info on your website, atleast you can post in on the social media. If you guys want us to value your privacy, I value mine. I may be desperate to get a job/earn I still want to protect my privacy. Will you be doing the same if you are contacting labs and PI to sell your services. Just a empty website and anonymous analysts. You are about to sell your services to people so show some respect. It is your responsibility to answer the questions raised by the members and moderators. Please try to be polite. No body is saying you are a cheat. They just raised some concerns about the legitimacy of your firm. This forum is to help students and scientists who need help in their analysis and research. The moderators are not paid like you and they re4ally try not to steer the members in to phishing traps. So, if you really want some help here be clear and open. You dont need to gve your bank account and passport numbers. Just give enough to show you are legit. And the people who are about run this firm are actually scientists. Please lock your sarcasm in a locker and try to answer the concerns

Thank you