I’ve had 100% support from colleagues regarding my decision to leave active pharmacy practice in 2012. Just in the few years - heck, MONTHS - before that, it mutated into a field that we just didn’t recognize.
Most employers nowadays won’t even look at a resume’ that does not include a residency, something that was almost unheard-of a decade ago. About 1/3 of graduates from my alma mater do at least a PGY-1, and about half of those do a PGY-2, and I’ve also heard from more than one colleague that the main reason they’re doing residencies is so they can have a job that pays more than minimum wage.
My dad was in the same boat and left the field around the same time.
He was in his 50s, has a 5 year bachelors in pharmacy and no internship. I have no idea what he would’ve done if he had been laid off. There are an endless supply of pharmacists in their 20s with doctorates and internships willing to work for $35/hr now when pharmacists are supposed to make closer to $65/hr.
Pharmacist was never a ‘good’ job in the sense that the job sucked. Long hours, lots of stress, hard on your body, shitty customers, etc. But at least it was a high paying job with job security. Now it doesn’t even have that.
Generally, librarianship. Specifically, positions requiring the Master’s in library/information sciences. There are absolutely specialities where there’s a dearth of applicants (I’m thinking of the last time I had to hire for a science librarian, for example).
The last time I posted a generalist position, I had 100+ applicants for it. I know folks who’ve had more than that. I’m in a university library and I hear from colleagues at public libraries that there can be even more there.
(The other side is that for positions in less than ideal locations, it can be really hard to get applicants. But those are going to pay less and people may not want to live in Meeteetse, WY - though I hear it’s a fantastic place.)
I’m trying to understand your post and confused because “dearth of applicants” is the opposite of “oversaturated with applicants”. Did you mean there’s oversaturation of general librarians and a shortage of specialty librarians?
Yes - for generalists or even folks who want to be a subject librarian (generally folks in an academic library who focus on resources and services for a specific discipline) in literature, history, or often other fields in the humanities there are typically lots of applicants. Those folks often have multiple advanced degrees, such as a master’s or PhD in the discipline along with the MLIS.
But it’s much harder to hire folks with a science/health science background in libraries many places - though I suspect it’s easier for Emory than for my workplace, even though we’re in the same city. Emory has a medical school and a stronger reputation in some areas. We don’t require an advanced degree in the discipline for any of our subject librarian positions - but people do need to have some kind of interest in the subject areas they’d be working with.
Sorry for confusion with my original response - I was writing during the caffeination process!
There are more variables than simple “oversaturation.” And often, the market is dependent on the geographic area. Part of my work involves research of labor market information (LMI), specifically, comparing demand to development of educational programs.
I understand that nursing is not considered “white collar, and high-paying,” but as an example, it isn’t “oversaturated,” in the sense that there are “too many” people looking for nursing jobs compared to the need for nurses. There actually is a high need for nurses–again, depending on the geographic area. But there are different kinds of nurses, and what’s happening is that health care providers are increasingly preferring nurses that already have a lot of experience. On the other hand, in Southern California, at least, nursing assistant is the fastest growing job of all.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that the kind of job the OP is referring to is highly dependent on large companies having cash to throw around. These are the kinds of jobs that are not really based on the fundamental operational needs of the organization. They are jobs that can be created or eliminated depending on cash flow. So “oversaturation” is not so much that there more people looking for those jobs as that it is a function of how larger companies are handling their finances.
Typically, a pharmacist would be very highly paid. But becoming a pharmacist is becoming a doctor–it’s a lot of expensive education. And yet, a typical pharmacy is only going to have one pharmacist. (They really only need one.) Compare that to a clinic or hospital that has to have many doctors and nurses.
I believe a lot of people went to pharmacy school simply because they wanted the big bucks, but they didn’t take into consideration how the whole health care system is changing. I believe that quite a few people who go to pharmacy school end up as consultants with pharmaceutical companies, since there are more job there. But in general, it’s not a growing profession, and going to pharmacy school now is not really a good idea.
I had a whole big explanation but apparently there is now a limit. I’l defer you to the web site of companies like Mckinsey, Accenture, Deloitte, etc for what they actually do and the sort of jobs they hire for.
The reason companies tend to hire management consultants rather than do it themselves or hire someone local is because often it is for a transitional event - like a merger, some massive reorg, process change, system implementation, etc. Also, sometimes as an outsider, I have the benefit of not being constrained by the client’s existing management structure, politics and hierarchy. I can go knock on a VPs door as easily as a business analysts and work across different business units. Or we provide broad industry, technical or process expertise. Like bringing in “thought leaders” with 20 years of experience in insurance, ERP systems or supply chain management.
It can be stressful, aside from the travel and living out of a suitcase, for many reasons. There is a lot of pressure to bill hours and sell client engagements. It’s highly competitive - you are working with a thousand other ambitious MBAs. Clients and partners can be demanding. There is not a lot of tolerance for errors or mistakes (even stupid / insignificant ones). It can be very political in terms of who you work with and what projects you get staffed on. Often you don’t get a lot of guidance or feedback in your career. Other times, you might be getting constant feedback and guidance to get you to confirm to corporate norms. There is always a constant feeling that if you aren’t busy enough or accidentally rub the wrong client or partner the wrong way, you could be fired (particularly since many firms seem to constantly churn through consultants).
Actually, it depends on the pharmacy. A slow independent pharmacy in a small town, or a specialty pharmacy, may only need one pharmacist, but otherwise, yeah, you usually need more than one at the same time.
Hospitals, even critical access facilities, usually have multiple pharmacists, especially if they do invasive cardiology which requires 24/7 pharmacy coverage. Some smaller hospitals that do this have contracts with hospitals whose pharmacy isn’t open around the clock, and they do remote verification of orders during the overnight shift.
I’m ok with this. I don’t agree with all the fake job postings designed to help companies pretend there aren’t any qualified domestic applicants so they can hire H1B workers who are easier to control and make less money.
The biggest factors seem to be an increased supply of workers combined with decreased demand due to things like automation or passing their tasks and duties onto lower paid workers.
Pharmacy is having all of these. There is increased supply due to double the number of schools as well as some insourcing of foreign pharmacists. But demand isn’t going up because mail order pharmacies use a lot of automation and the ratio of pharmacists to technicians is going up in various places.
Supply and demand seems to be the main factor more than how much cash is on hand. Demand drops and supply increases and the job becomes more and more shitty.
Well, it seems to me those things are interrelated. In my experience, large organizations create the demand for these positions when they can afford to. As mentioned above, MBA isn’t a particular career field. What kind of positions were they in the first place that have been so easily replaced by automation, or which could have been done by someone with only a bachelors? And hasn’t the number of MBA graduates been going down recently in response to this? I don’t think this is because the schools wouldn’t have them. On the other hand, the education and licensing required to be a radiologic technologist, (an associates degree), mean that a hospital can’t so easily just lower the demand by hiring people without that training, especially with an increasingly aging population. Still community colleges limit their admissions for such programs.
It’s not so much that the entire job has been replaced by automation. The automation and software reduces much of the grunt work so more work can be done with fewer people. One of the reasons people get MBAs is to move into management. Fewer employees means fewer people to manage. What I see these days is that a lot of jobs with “management” titles like “manager”, “director”, even “VP” are really individual contributor roles.
I think it depends on what you mean by the “operational needs of the company”. Law firms need lawyers. Investment banks need traders and bankers. Management consultancies need MBAs. Tech companies need engineers, product managers, agile coaches and whatnot. Whether the rest of the world needs that stuff is a different story.
This may be my own bias working in New York City, but I feel like these are fields that have no shortage of applicants because every JD, MBA and Ivy League grad wants to work at a relatively small number of “prestige companies” that pay disproportionately well and open lots of professional doors.
Law is famously bifurcated: One group of lawyers, primarily ivy league grads, make huge money with Wall Street, large corporations, etc. The other lawyers from state schools and such are struggling to work, and when they do it can be for relatively low pay.
Psychology is heavily over-supplied, and as a result salaries are low. The same for Communications and Journalism majors, ‘studies’ majors, Sociology, and around here, education. We pay teachers exceedingly well, and the result is a huge glut of grads who can’t find full time work.
Really? I heard teaching had a lot of issues with people leaving the field due to high stress and low pay. A lot of teachers make closer to 40k a year.
Just in the few years - heck, MONTHS - before that, it mutated into a field that we just didn’t recognize.