PREFERENCE CHECK
Job Descriptions
CareerCheck provides descriptions of jobs that are typically chosen by our PhD graduates in life sciences. Please mind this overview not exhaustive and is never meant to be exhaustive as
- the job market is evolving over time. E.g. there were few data scientists in the 1980s
- job content differs between sectors, organizations or possibly even between departments
- workplaces that can benefit from PhD transferable skills are abundant!
These job descriptions are merely meant to provide you information to get your exploration started.
Read up about typical career paths of our Alumni. We organized them in job fields. Find variants of job functions, learn about the job content, typical tasks, important skills, career advice from our Alumni and more.
Career decisions should not be based on job descriptions or the outcome of your preference-to-task alignment only. To learn whether a job indeed suits you, always reach out to professionals who already work in the field for an informational interview. This is the key step in career orientation (checkpoint 4): it allows you a personalized evaluation of a job option and allows you to uncover options that may suit you even better!
Career Events are good opportunities to meet these professionals and alumni from your institute are mostly easiest to access. Find and contact them on DKFZ Connect and expand your Professional Community.
For the 2021 overview of the landscape of life science companies in Europe, check KPMG's market resource.
Job descriptions on CareerCheck are purely based on past DKFZ life scientists' careers, concluded from past and current Alumni surveys.
This job field includes academic careers at universities, universities of applied sciences and advanced technical colleges. More research positions are located at non-university research institutes like the DKFZ. Alumni who work as Professors, Group Leaders, PIs, Lab Managers and Postdocs in other institutes have shared their insights with us.
Clinical Research includes a broad variety of career options closely related to clinical trials. There are many entry positions for CRAs (Clinical Research Associates), Clinical Monitors and Trial Monitors in pharma industry, CROs (Clinical Research Organizations) and government agencies.
We combine two very different occupations in this job field, their common feature being their supportive role for research in academic and non-academic environments. Find more specific information in this section on the jobs of Bioinformaticians and Application Engineers.
There are a number of jobs related to the approval and production of pharmaceuticals. On the following pages, we focus on two roles: Quality Control Managers ensure compliance in the manufacturing process in the pharmaceutical industry, while Regulatory Affairs Managers work both in industry and regulatory bodies.
Under the headlines of Founder and Consultant, we give insights into start-up and consultancy careers, both of which are concerned with the business aspects of science. We added a more "unfamiliar" and specialized area that might have escaped your notice, the job of a Patent Attorney.
These are industry jobs at the far end of the drug development process: Jobs like Market Access Manager, Product Manager and Lifecycle Manager are grouped together under Marketing Manager, while customer facing roles like Pharma Sales Reps, Key Account Managers, Medical Advisors and Medical Scientific Liaisons under Sales Manager.
Research positions in industry are the most obvious choice for scientists who want to dedicate themselves to translational, applied research or leave academia for other reasons. Typical job functions are Research Scientist, Postdoc and Lab Manager. All positions can involve leading a team.
Learn more about jobs that support research; from academic positions like Grants Officer, Scientific Coordinator, Research Officer or Project Officer to Project Management positions in industry that typically deal with the cross-functional coordination of development projects.
The field of science communication covers all positions related to the publishing of scientific information, like Scientific Writer and Editor, but also teaching positions (both teaching students about science and training scientists in science communication). There is also info on the job profile of a Lecturer.
Find here examples of job functions of former researchers, PhD graduates who successfully transitioned to jobs that are off the beaten path. Jobs that are seemingly very distant from the initial research career.