Forum:Starting a career in Bioinformatics

Question

[rupashree.choudhury]

Hello

I am an individual with post graduation in Bioinformatics. I had undertaken master degree in Bioinformatics in 2006 from one of the UK University.But I had a career gap of 8 yrs for family and children soon after that. I updated my Bioinformatics skill in NGS data analysis ,RNA-seq , ChIP-seq in the year 2014 and 2015. My question is what could be the prospect of getting a job in Bioinformatics in my case?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in Advance

Shelly

[Devon Ryan]

Depends a bit on what you want to do. In general I would think your odds are good. If you want an industry job you might have to put in a couple years in academia before applying to ameliorate fears of being outdated.

[rupashree.choudhury]

Thanks for your suggestion.

[GenoMax]

You may have other constraints still in place in terms of location/time etc which would take precedence. You can always apply for jobs that you think you would be a good fit for but keep a realistic outlook.

Since you have been away from science for a while things have moved on. Bioinformatics skills is not only ability to run some tools but interpretation of results is also equally important.

If you are not able to find a job right way your best bet may be to volunteer in a well known lab locally to get your foot in the door. If you have the right skills (and demonstrate them) that could be a sure path to a regular position. There is some risk involved since you may be taken advantage of (especially if you are willing to work for free) so be careful when choosing a position.

[rupashree.choudhury]

Thanks Genomax2. I appreciate the volunteering suggestion and making me aware the risk. Thanks once again.

Answer 1

[Mike]

You can check following fellowship programmes for Career Re-entry /Returners.

Research Career Re-entry Fellowships https://wellcome.ac.uk/funding/research-career-re-entry-fellowships

Returners to Research Fellowships http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/funding/filter/returners-to-research/

[ivivek_ngs]

I think the Career return/ re-entry fellowships program can be a nice way to start for you. Since you say that you have already updated your skills in some NGS technologies, do you have any track record that can establish your claim? Like a paper or conference, or reviews, or poster presentations or some kind of blogging activity that can show about how much idea you have with regards to the skill sets you have mentioned. Since you were fairly out of the field for some time, it would be necessary to do that. As genomax2 highlighted it is not just running the tools but interpretation of the results that is far more important. As the data driven science will be proceeding in that manner based on the analysis and interpretation of the analysis made by the Bioinformatics researcher. Suggestion will be to apply for a lab which can support your application and get trained for a few months getting idea of both the field of Biology and the Bioinformatics research even if they pay mere or moderate (if you do not want unpaid internships) , take some online courses from Coursera, and keep applying for fellowships like ones highlighted by Mike. I am sure these will help you in achieving the much needed pointers to get a job be it academics or industry. You just have to be a bit patient and determined to return to the field and have strong analytical interest with curious bent of mind. Good Luck!

[rupashree.choudhury]

Many Thanks for the detail explanation, encouragement and open-mindedness. I have experience of working on projects analysing NGS data recently. Your suggestions sound quiet helpful and practical to me. I am new to this forum I did find LLTommy's reply bit rude. But I have chosen to be open-minded.

[ivivek_ngs]

All the best. There is always a hope of light after darkness. Give it a try and see where it goes. Since you have already demonstrated skills in NGS analysis then I do not think it will be a problem. Just a crisp motivation letter with references from your previous prof. or employer where you did NGS work with a well written pre-apps to any lab should be good for the start. Then once you get through you are always able to apply for the return/re-entry fellowships to boost your profile. Happy to welcome you to the forum. Good luck!

Answer 2

[LLTommy]

Sorry, but how should we know? Just send some applications to some places and find out! If you want to do it, just try, you have nothing to lose, do you?

[Ram]

Man you really gotta be a little less rude, you know?

[ivivek_ngs]

I guess the person's intension was not to sound rude or arrogant. Not everyone can write a comprehensive way as intended. That is what am guessing here but still one should learn over a period of time how to write/ reply in open forums. At least Biostars helped me a long way if I look back to my queries posted 2 years ago, I often wonder how could I write such atrocious stuff but then again with time the learning evolves. I am sure LLTommy did not meant to be arrogant but still one can tone down a bit. There are more than one ways to encourage people.

[Ram]

This is not the first time, vchris. And it's not the first time I've requested LLTommy to use a kinder tone either. If you look at LLTommy's comment history, you'd see the >80% usage frequency of discouraging-to-curt-to-rude words. And OP is not really asking a stupid question.

[ivivek_ngs]

Ah well, then definitely LLTommy should learn how to respond in blogs in line with the queries posted. This question is definitely worth a read and experts in the field who are here in the forum can definitely guide the OP. We advocate open science and more people to join the brigade so definitely more people should be encouraged and engaged. I was not aware about the comment history. Having said that then the answer can be edited by LLTommy just to tone down and be a bit more encouraging. As saying goes by "Pen is mightier than sword" , one should try to help each other for having the forum give its best to cater to every requester.

[LLTommy]

Ah Ram again, ok, here we go:

What is rude about encourage somebody to apply for a job? Nothing! But ok - tell me: how should we judge the prospects of getting a job of somebody we know nothing about? How you do that, let me know. Because I don't know but I for sure know that if you try to actually get a job, it might just work out.

Second: So my comment history is more than 80% rude. Go and prove it, because you can not. Don't act as if you follow every one of my posts because obviously you don't. I don't appreciate your false claims. And of course you will complain now again that this is rude, but this is how it is.

[Ram]

This was not rude, you were trying to make a point - just so we're clear. I sampled the first 3 pages of your comments for my statement.

When OP asked what her prospects were, she was trying to get an idea of the current market and how it treats people that have a gap in their career. I had nothing definitive to offer, so I moved on without a comment. You chose to take the question literally and grill her on basically your perspective.

How should we judge prospects of somebody we know nothing about?

That assumes you are supposed to. Like I said, when I do not have a relevant response or I cannot phrase it politely, I don't contribute. Second, read other people's responses. That's how you go about it.

Remember, anybody can yell, ridicule or condescend, but we are looking to learn mentoring here. Tough love is good as long as the good intent behind the toughness is evident.

[ivivek_ngs]

+1 for the pouring of literal values.. we learn with day how to reach out yo others. Communication is the key to be accepted or rejected. Ram you made my day. I learn so much each and everyday and my sense of vocab and communication grows. Philosophy in science is something I am learning these days. Thanks to all. I hope OP gets the answers and if needed more people are there to help.

[LLTommy]

Thx for the reply Ram, due to a missing personal message functionality, I have to reply here: I still think it is unfair to call 80 percent of my post rude. I might have been rude one time and you told me about it, and that's it. And again, I do encourate you to check it because I think that is the truth. Also, I don't think I did grill anybody up there, all I said is she should try to get a job in that field if she really wants to do it.

2 @rupashree.choudhury: I am sorry if you felt that my reply is rude, it was not intended to be. It was short, so obviously I have to explain. I do believe, still, that best and maybe quickest way for you to test your value is to apply for some jobs! Maybe you get invited for a interview, maybe you write 20 applications and never get even an anwser - that gives you an idea about your 'market value' and if it is necessary to get additional training or not.

Also, I doubt that you want to know your world wide prospects (or are you willing to move no matter where for the job?), given the fact that you have a family, I bet you want a job close to where you live. Since we don't know where that is, nobody can judge the chances for a bioinformatican there. So I think you just have to make a list of companies or universites in your area and see if they have something to offer for you. Like I said, apply for some jobs, you have nothing to lose! Also, I do believe an HR person that actually sees the whole of your cv can better judge your prospects than we here that we know almost nothing about you - and again, it is also about the area where you look for a job! In the middle of nowhere it's going to be hard in any case to find a job in bioinformatics!

One more thing I have to add: A great way to get a feel for what you are missing is to contact the HR department, even if you did not get the job or a job interview. To just ask them why you were not invited/did not get the job - sometimes they might be so kind to chat with you 10 minutes about it and that gives you great insight. (Was it just not a well written application? Are you missing a certain skill? Are your aspirations too high? ...). And this gives you the HR view of things in your specific case, which is really useful - because if your application doesn't make it through HR, the bioinformatics team might never even see it!

[Ram]

No worries man, this stuff happens all the time. For the record, I did check your post history just before I wrote that comment. We're all here to learn, let's just have a good time doing that. Cheers!

[rupashree.choudhury]

Many Thanks for the detail reply with lots of realistic approach .

[rupashree.choudhury]

Thanks Ram for noticing and mentioning it.