Clinical Research Job Hunt?

[Dust_Bucket]

May 2019 UBC grad here, been trying to look for a clinical research gig to pass time during this application cycle. No luck on the job hunt so far. I've been seriously looking for about a month now and applying broadly to anything that seems like clinical research so far, but haven't managed to land an interview for any position so far. I know it's still early in the job hunt, but I figured having co-op and directed studies under my belt would give me a boost, but the payoff hasn't been there so far. I've mainly been looking into positions that fall into the category of "Clinical Research Coordinator" or "Research Assistant" at St Paul's/VGH/BC Children's/PHSA. 

Anybody with some experience have any tips for the process? Would it be worth it to cold e-mail some PIs that are doing things I think are interesting?

Sorry if this isn't the best sub forum to put this in! I figured I'd find the most people from the lower mainland in here haha. 

 

[pyridoxal-phosphate]

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[theevilsloth]

I'm in the exact same position, just graduated and looking for a clinical research assistant job, but I'm in Ontario. I've been applying to the jobs at all of the big research hospitals, but no luck so far. Just an FYI, I was speaking to the recruiter of the last clinical research job I applied to, and she said she received over 250 applications, 100 of which were from international MDs. For a research assistant job paying <$20/hr. I'd imagine this problem is 100X worse in BC. 

[Occam]

I've actually gotten all my lab positions from just straight-up emailing the PI. I think it works better than sending in applications, and a lot of the time PIs don't actually put up advertisements or anything, so you might be the only one asking them for a job! One good way to find people is if they gave guest lectures or talks in your upper year classes. Or if you studied any of their work in your courses. Also, I think a lot of grants and funding has just gone out, so PIs might be looking for more people in their labs right now. If you can find out any labs that received a lot of money recently, you can check with them! Good luck!

[bukkakenator]

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