Best of Blogs Series – Apply for the Job Already!
Over the course of the coming months, I’m pulling out some of my favorite blogs from 2020 – 2022. There are so many great pieces of advice that I want to make sure new readers and old, alike, can learn from…
Today’s is from 2021 and seems to be focused on women; however, read further to see that in my experience as coaching physicians, many regardless of gender are stuck in their ability to move their career transition forward!
Ever heard this statistic?
“Men apply for a job when they meet only 60% of the qualifications, but women apply only if they meet 100% of the qualifications”
As Tara Mohr writes in a 2014 Harvard Business Review article, this statistic is often used to suggest women don’t have as much confidence as men. Her work to understand this in more detail is very interesting and shows that it is not as simple as confidence.
Her findings suggest a lack of understanding of the hiring process:
“What held them back from applying was not a mistaken perception about themselves, but a mistaken perception about the hiring process.”
Mohr surveyed American professional men and women and found two major differences in the results in women vs. men when asked “Why didn’t you apply for that job?”:
I didn’t think they would hire me because I didn’t meet the qualifications and I didn’t want to put myself out there to fail: 22% of women vs. 13% of men said this was a reason
AND
I was following the guidelines about who should apply: 15% of women vs. 9% of men had this as a reason not to apply for a job.
Mohr summarizes her findings related to women and their willingness to apply for jobs:
Almost 80% of the drivers for not applying for a job have to do with “believing the job qualifications are real requirements, and seeing the hiring process as more by-the-book and true to the on-paper guidelines than it really is”
This is important information for women –
BUT, when it comes to physicians looking to make a transition to the pharmaceutical/biotech industry I see this behavior in men and women!
The take-away here is that you must stop seeing the job qualifications as hard-and-fast RULES… change the way you think about the job description –
See the qualifications as GUIDELINES instead.
The job description should be seen as aspirational. You are a highly qualified physician, capable of learning expansive quantities of information and bringing the core knowledge that is needed in biotech/pharma – YOUR MEDICAL TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE!
Ready to make a career transition to pharma/biotech… want to explore a way to use your medical training and knowledge in a fulfilling way without nights and weekends call or charting. Watch this webinar on Getting Past the Three Major Hurdles to a Career in the Pharma Industry HERE.