BRUCE M. MILLAR, ACS DEPARTMENT OF CAREER SERVICES

During five years in Japan as a postdoctoral fellow in both academia and industry, Salvador G. Alvarez says he "lost touch" with the U.S. job market. When he decided to return in 2000, he didn't know where to start looking for a job, how to market himself, or even how much he could expect to earn.

	IN SEARCH OF Job seekers at last year's national meeting in San Diego participate in the National Employment Clearing House. PHOTO BY SVETLA BAYKOUCHEVA

But within three months of his return, Alvarez landed his "dream job" as a senior scientist at Versicor Inc., a biopharmaceutical company in Silicon Valley. Along with generous stock options and excellent benefits, he is earning a salary that exceeded his most optimistic estimates. As an added plus, his new job allows him to collaborate with Novartis Pharma AG--his employer in Japan--enabling him to continue working with similar classes of compounds.

Just lucky? Alvarez doesn't think so. He credits ACS's Department of Career Services (DCS) with helping him find his new job by providing him with current salary data and tips on writing excellent cover and thank-you letters, and by shrinking his "wordy" résumé from four pages to two.

First, he read through DCS's popular publications, "Tips on Résumé Preparation" and "The Interview Handbook." Then, he forwarded his résumé to DCS for a review. It came back with a sea of red ink.

"I was using too many words to get to the point. It was as if I was writing a curriculum vitae for academia," Alvarez recalls. "What I got back after it was overhauled by DCS staff members was very impressive."

Since its beginnings, the member-oriented DCS has provided career development assistance to tens of thousands of chemists and chemical engineers and has become one of the most valued of all ACS member benefits. In a 2001 survey of 10,000 ACS members between the ages of 20 through 39, "employment/salary information surveys" and "employment services" ranked second and third as programs that respondents said they used the most (C&EN, Dec. 24, 2001, page 39).

The high ranking for DCS services indicates that younger ACS members count on DCS for valuable assistance in molding their careers, says Nancy R. Gray, director of ACS's membership division, which includes DCS.

"It is the time of their lives when they are looking for reputable information that is relevant to their skills, and they want to make sure that they maintain marketability," Gray says. "They look to ACS to know what the chemical industry and academic endeavors are looking for in hiring and promoting."

One of DCS's longest standing member benefits is the National Employment Clearing House. NECH is the largest single drawing card at each of the society's two national meetings, operating as a vast interview site matching employers and job seekers. Last year, the clearinghouse held an impressive 8,590 job candidate interviews, a 25% increase over the total in 2000. DCS also conducts eight Regional Employment Clearing Houses (RECHs) each year.

Begun in 1937 in a hotel parlor in Rochester, N.Y., NECH has grown phenomenally during the past six decades. The first NECH drew 128 job candidates and 77 employers. At the 2001 Chicago national meeting, NECH occupied in excess of 139,000 sq ft--more than three acres. The clearinghouse attracted 169 employers who had 1,392 open positions to fill--more positions than the 1,112 job candidates on hand.

At this fall's national meeting in Boston, preregistration for NECH will be conducted entirely online. This innovative service will make it more convenient for employers to set up interviews and to e-mail job seekers prior to the meeting, curtailing lengthy lines for on-site registration.

The "electronic NECH" is one example of DCS's intention to offer members a balance of expanded convenience while still providing its hallmark personal attention that is tailored to the needs of chemical professionals, says Jean A. Parr, who directs DCS activities.

COME ON IN Need help updating your résumé or fine-tuning your job-search skills? The Career Resource Center is the place to be. PHOTO BY SVETLA BAYKOUCHEVA

DCS DIFFERS from commercial job-hunting services by offering personal, chemist-to-chemist attention and by drawing on its knowledge and understanding of the chemical workplace, she adds. "We couldn't accomplish what we do without the nearly 200 career consultants and local section coordinators who spread the word," Parr notes.

"Members look to the society for scientific information, education activities, and personal services and career advice," adds Dennis Chamot, chair of the Committee on Economic & Professional Affairs (CEPA), which oversees DCS operations and develops ideas for career-related member benefits. "The society membership is truly fortunate to have many of ACS's most valuable direct member services run on a day-to-day basis by the excellent and dedicated DCS staff."

For each national meeting, DCS organizes the Career Resource Center, or CRC, which functions as one-stop shopping for job candidates attending NECH. Before they interview, they can polish their résumés in one-on-one sessions with seasoned academic and industry professionals or obtain a videotaped critique of their interviewing skills. They also can gain practical job-hunting skills and broader knowledge of the chemical workplace by attending one of 38 workshops or by visiting the CRC's career development library.

"You don't have to be looking for a job to use CRC. We offer a wealth of programs that are designed for chemical professionals at all stages of their careers," Parr says. She notes that one of the workshops, "Nine Steps to Career Success," is aimed at employed chemists and chemical engineers who want to improve their job performance and grow professionally.

Samina Azad, now a postdoctoral fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, admits to not having a clue about job hunting when she started. She credits CRC's comprehensive programs with providing her with what she terms "the whole story" of how to find a job.

Before the interviews at each of three NECHs Azad attended, she divided her time between résumé reviews, mock interviews, and career workshops. She started coming when she was a graduate student, and each time she improved her skills at résumé writing and interviewing, she says. During those sessions, she "learned all the secrets" about how to be professional, how to respond to questions, and how to answer what the interviewer really wants to know.

Secrets?

"I will remember those tips from the mock interviews for the rest of my life," she says. "Things like posture: The way I was sitting down wasn't very professional. I would sometimes pause audibly before saying something. I would also say, 'Yeah'--you have to say, 'Yes.' Also, I would sometimes take too long to answer questions."

Azad, who obtained her master's in Bangladesh and holds a doctorate in physical chemistry, says she learned one important tip from a résumé-review session that led directly to a job offer. Her reviewer advised her to list her professor's name on her résumé. Later, when an employer attending NECH picked up her résumé, he happened to know her professor. "That was the magic thing. It really worked very well," she says.

According to Azad, NECH is an effective job-hunting place because job seekers have a clear idea of what jobs are posted and which employers have expressed an interest in them, and they can schedule several interviews, all within the range of two or three days. "It made me very confident about the whole job-hunting experience," she adds.

Azad credits the personal assistance of DCS staff and volunteers with her successful job search. But she says DCS's comprehensive catalog of publications--books, booklets, newsletters, and pamphlets--also played an important role. Two titles she singles out because they provide a helpful description of the job market are "Current Trends in Chemical Technology, Business, and Employment" and "Managing an Effective Job Search." Full-text versions of all DCS free publications are available on the DCS website (http://www.chemistry.org/careers).

	Azad

DISTRIBUTING and producing timely publications about chemists and the chemical workplace are among the most important year-round services that DCS provides. In 2001, DCS distributed more than 67,000 free publications. Among the most popular titles are "The Interview Handbook," "Tips on Résumé Preparation," and "Targeting the Job Market." Other titles that are frequently requested are "Employment Guide for Foreign-Born Chemists in the United States" and "Coping with Job Loss."

"Employment Guide for Foreign-Born Chemists" is a hot item at a job-support group operated by the ACS North New Jersey local section, comments Valerie J. Kuck, a longtime DCS volunteer who heads up the group. Participants, who include unemployed or potentially unemployed chemists and chemical engineers, meet once each month to discuss ways to improve their résumés.

"They gobble up that book, even those people who are not foreign-born," she says. "It really lays it on the line for them--things that they may not know about our culture that come up in interviewing."

Kuck says each three-and-one-half-hour meeting begins with reviews of group members' résumés. The group members talk about what the ingredients are of a good résumé and try to learn from each other's mistakes. At each meeting, she hands out copies of "Tips on Résumé Preparation," "The Interview Handbook," and "Targeting the Job Market." She says "Tips on Résumé Preparation" is invaluable because she can point to clear examples in the publication of how a résumé should be prepared. Also, the text helps participants prepare themselves to market themselves and gives them an idea of interview questions they might hear, she says.

"When people come back to the group and talk, they will say that when they rewrote their résumé, that is when they got all these responses from employers," Kuck says.

For a number of ACS members, the most important function of DCS is generating statistics on salaries and employment rates through annual surveys and special studies. ACS has been collecting these data in a variety of ways since 1941. Generations of chemists and chemical engineers around the globe have used the data to help them evaluate whether their current salary is competitive or how much they should ask for in seeking a new job. Other key information produced by the surveys includes where chemists are going to work, how the market is changing, and how those changes affect chemists.

"I think that DCS is the fount of real information relative to the careers of all chemists," Gray says. "The fact that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics comes to this department to seek and verify information on the careers of chemists is just one indication of that."

She adds that DCS is a repository not only for ACS members and government agencies but also for others. The data collected by DCS form the underlying statistics for articles in C&EN, Today's Chemist at Work, and Modern Drug Discovery. The department publishes its workforce analysis under the supervision of CEPA. Publications have included "ChemCensus 2000," "Lifetimes in Chemistry," "Women Chemists 2000," "Industrial Chemists 2000," "Academic Chemists 2000," and the forthcoming "Early Careers of Chemists."

HELP IS NEAR The ACS Department of Career Services will run a Career Resource Center at the following ACS regional meetings:
Middle Atlantic; Fairfax, Va.; May 28–30 Great Lakes; Minneapolis; June 2–4 Northwest; Spokane, Wash.; June 19–22 Central Region; Ypsilanti, Mich.; June 26–29 Rocky Mountain; Albuquerque, N.M.; Oct. 12–14 Midwest; Lawrence, Kan.; Oct. 23–25 Southwest; Austin, Texas; Nov. 3–6 Southeast; Charleston, S.C.; Nov. 13–17

LAST YEAR, DCS introduced a new member benefit, the ACS Salary Comparator. The comparator allows members to electronically evaluate their salaries in relation to other members in their own employment situation. It also allows members to examine any employment situation within the scope of the ACS salary surveys, including new graduates' starting salaries.

The Career Consultant Program is another DCS activity that provides year-round member assistance. Established in 1990, the program provides individualized career guidance delivered by a corps of more than 60 volunteer career consultants. They are ACS members, mostly mature career chemists, who are available by telephone and e-mail to assist members at all career stages who are seeking advice and direction. The service is free and completely confidential. Since its inception, the program has served more than 3,000 members (excluding services provided at national meetings).

George J. O'Neill, a retired research chemist from Eastman Chemical, has been a career consultant for two-and-a-half years. He says his primary interest in joining the program was having the chance to continue mentoring younger chemists and helping them select their career path.

He counts the case of a French postdoctoral student at a Japanese university as a success story. The student, who was in his late 20s, had an undergraduate degree from a U.S. university and a Ph.D. from the University of Paris.

The postdoc was primarily interested in working in the U.S., London, or Paris, but he was having difficulty narrowing his choices. He wanted to be in the northeastern U.S. or Paris. A major concern was that his wife was a fashion model and was shuttling back and forth across the Atlantic in her work. So he wanted to make sure his next career move would incorporate her ability to continue working.

After extensive consultations with O'Neill via e-mail, the postdoc accepted a job as a technical representative in Boston working with scientific instruments.

"When we started talking, he did not have a clear sense of what he wanted to do," O'Neill recalls. "I think it was one of the things we can do reasonably well--to help focus on a person's strengths and get an idea where they would like to be."

For Alvarez, now employed at Versicor in Silicon Valley, this spring's ACS national meeting in Orlando represents a reversal in roles. A couple of years ago, he used DCS's "The Interview Handbook" as a way to prepare himself for interviews as a job candidate. Now he is scheduled to interview job candidates for his new employer. Once again, he says he plans to look to "The Interview Handbook" for help. "This time I'm hoping it will help me to ask bona fide questions of the candidates."

For further information about DCS or any of its services, call (800) 227-5558, e-mail career@acs.org, or visit the DCS website (http://www.chemistry.org/careers).

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