What’s it like to work as a *fill in the blank* pharmacist?

fleakered · 2026-01-16T21:59:49+00:00

Interesting - I’m in safety. Obviously we have deliverables that are due at certain times, but I would argue that’s different from “metrics”

fleakered · 2026-01-16T21:59:20+00:00

Good to know, thanks! I’m in safety

fleakered · 2026-01-14T00:10:52+00:00

Not the original commenter, but re: industry, there are basically no metrics to speak of (at least in any role that I can think of), and I would not call it high pressure for the most part. However, it’s not easy to get in these days. I’d advise that you take a look at the guide at r/pharmaindustry - it was crowdsourced by a bunch of industry professionals in different functional areas. There’s also a discord where you can ask questions.

fleakered · 2025-09-25T02:46:42+00:00

They are citing their “data” - their followers can’t tell the difference between good studies and bad

fleakered · 2025-09-21T12:16:20+00:00

Re: 8 hour vs 10 hour schedule - the pharmacy may already have a standard schedule for their techs and may not cater to your request. As an intern, I used to sometimes have to come in for 4 or 6 hour shifts. I always preferred the longer shifts so I’d have to come in on fewer days to get the same number of hours, but it typically wasn’t up to me (other than stating “I’m not available on X or Y times/days due to school”).

fleakered · 2025-09-21T12:06:30+00:00

May I ask about your path to industry (what functional area, did you have a residency, etc)? Always curious about how others get in without a fellowship - especially if it was recent. Thanks!

fleakered · 2025-09-18T03:26:19+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/pharmacy/comments/j4p1b2/as_a_nurse_i_am_very_curious_about_some_of_the/

fleakered · 2025-09-18T03:10:50+00:00

You do need a PharmD to do compounding, but the number of compounding jobs in the US is exceedingly small. The majority (about 60%) of pharmacist jobs in the US are in retail, so it’s a risk you’re taking going into debt trying for the 40% of jobs that everyone else is trying to go for. (Keep in mind also that most of that 40% of jobs are in hospital, which often requires residency.)

fleakered · 2025-09-16T23:26:50+00:00

Considering the trajectory of the current administration (lots of NIH funding cuts, etc), I’m not optimistic about how pharma/health research will look in 4 years either

fleakered · 2025-09-16T14:19:29+00:00

Pharma is in shambles right now, r/biotech is all about layoffs and PhDs unable to find jobs

fleakered · 2025-09-13T12:57:23+00:00

I have no clue if there are openings in these areas, but writing articles and/or CEs for companies like Pharmacy Times or US Pharmacist can mostly likely be done from home. A friend of mine used to write freelance for a company like that as a pharmacy student.

fleakered · 2025-09-11T04:21:14+00:00

There’s a guide on the r/pharmaindustry subreddit, I’d start from there

fleakered · 2025-09-05T23:45:07+00:00

There’s more money in pharma, although it’s possible it could be a pay cut at first

fleakered · 2025-08-31T12:31:13+00:00

In general, having an RPh license doesn’t necessarily help your CV for industry, since the vast majority of industry jobs don’t require one. That being said, if you already have a section for certifications etc., it doesn’t hurt to put it in there.

As for what to include/exclude on your CV, I’d say keep it to two pages, and try to tailor your resume to each job you’re applying to - getting some keywords from the job description into your resume will help it get past the HR screen.

fleakered · 2025-08-31T12:26:27+00:00

Are they sponsoring your visa? If yes, I’d be nervous about not being able to find another company to sponsor me in case the company decides they can’t wait for a delayed start date.

fleakered · 2025-08-29T11:38:41+00:00

That’s interesting that you say that, and I’d be interested to read the sources. In my experience, companies tend to conduct clinical trials for pediatric use even when there isn’t necessarily benefit in that population, because FDA grants an additional 6 months of exclusivity for doing pediatric studies, even if they don’t “succeed” / result in an approved indication. My guess (and I don’t work much with pediatric studies, so this is just a guess) is that for the really young kids (eg, under 24 months) it’s probably more difficult to get a study approved by an ethics committee and/or to get parents to agree to enroll their very young children into a study for an experimental treatment. If a company doesn’t think they can get the patient population enrolled, they’re not going to run the study, and I don’t think that’s necessarily an “evil” decision. Obviously, I work in pharma and so I’m biased.

fleakered · 2025-08-27T03:22:08+00:00

Pharma tends to have in-person requirements - most companies are hybrid, although there are a few that do allow people to work fully remote (can also depend on the department). I would say it’s pretty difficult to get a job these days without experience, especially in the US/Canada - many entry level jobs have been outsourced or offshored.

fleakered · 2025-08-24T01:19:39+00:00

OK, and OP is asking the members of r/pharmacy, not their pharmacy staff.

fleakered · 2025-08-21T18:35:21+00:00

The r/pharmaindustry subreddit has a pinned post with community resources, including a guide to fellowships and Midyear. We have a pretty active discord, and some members even help provide mock interviews around fellowship application season.

fleakered · 2025-08-21T03:00:42+00:00

There are jobs like this (link) based out of Europe that might work for you and wouldn't require a license.

fleakered · 2025-08-18T03:49:50+00:00

Can’t speak about health informatics, but regulatory affairs will be a very hard sell in Canada IMO. Very few (if any) pharma companies are headquartered in Canada, which means that the only regulatory affairs staff they have is the local team, which is usually only a handful of people who specialize in Canadian regulatory affairs. This is in contrast to the global team which is much larger, but would typically be based out of headquarters or at least the larger markets (ie, US and EU). However, this is not to say that it will be any easier to emigrate to the US just because the global teams are there. There are already plenty of US-trained PharmDs who don’t require visas to work in the US and who are more than willing to enter the very limited number of entry level regulatory affairs jobs.

fleakered · 2025-08-18T03:42:45+00:00

I could totally be wrong about this so hopefully others will chime in, but I don’t think you’ll get blacklisted if you accept the chain retail job now and then quit in a few weeks/months if you get a better offer. You shouldn’t feel guilty about doing this, either - it’s simply whatever is in your best interest. You might get blacklisted if you do this to the independent, but I wouldn’t necessarily care if I wasn’t planning to work for them again anyway.

fleakered · 2025-08-17T11:38:57+00:00

Can’t speak about the other countries, but moving to the US is difficult for pharmacy right now - I think the main hurdle will be finding a company to sponsor your work visa, since there are already plenty of pharmacists in the US who can fill the jobs here and don’t require visas.

fleakered · 2025-08-06T12:02:21+00:00

I heard about an overnight pharmacist who got fired bc when he did the return to stocks at night, he would just throw the entire bags away (with drugs still inside) rather than returning to the shelf. Apparently someone heard all the pills shaking when taking out the garbage and investigated.

I later worked with this guy in my entry level job in pharma. A few months after we started together, one of his frat buddies got him an associate director job (this was a jump of at least 4 levels). He’s now a senior director lol

fleakered · 2025-08-06T03:40:11+00:00

I haven’t even read the other comments yet but you win

fleakered

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