Why have we built this site?
Our goal is to serve students and others who are considering biotech careers by providing information about entry-level careers and advancement in the biotech industry.
We began this site because we noticed that many science career sites take the opposite approach. They focus on the small percent of industrial science jobs that require a Ph.D. Not only is this practice misleading, it may be harmful. We suspect that the practice of limiting job descriptions to those requiring advanced degrees makes science careers seem out of reach and may keep many students from considering science careers.
We're here to correct the impression that science jobs require a Ph.D. Like many other industries, a large fraction of the jobs in biotech are held by people with Associates and Bachelors degrees. A frequent combination is a Bachelors degree from a four-year college with a community college degree or certificate in Biotechnology.
Biotech-Careers Mission: To increase interest in biological science, technology engineering, and math (STEM) by raising the awareness of career opportunities and pathways for all individuals with an emphasis on entry-level positions.
Biotech-Careers Vision: To become the go to resource for helping educators and employers increase students’ interest in pursuing careers in science by communicating the value and diverse opportunities that exist in the biotechnology industry.
How Biotech-Careers fulfills its mission and vision: Biotech-Careers.org content includes blogs (articles) about the industry, industry-related job descriptions, day-in-the-life interviews with technicians working in the industry, industry-related videos, internship and job postings, embedded job boards, and the largest freely available directory of biotech employers (companies and organizations). The directory includes employer’s names, their locations, brief descriptions of their work, and links (if they exist) to career and (or) internship pages. Employers are tagged with terms from a rich vocabulary of keywords that define the kinds of science and work (core/business activities) taking place in this exciting industry.
Who are we?
We are Biotech Careers. Biotech Careers was originally developed by Digital World Biology as part of the company's participation in the Bio-Link grant project. Bio-Link was funded by the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education program as a national center of excellence in biotechnology education. Bio-Link funding ended in Aug of 2018 and Digital World Biology has, since then, continued the development and support of the site.
What can you do at this site?
How can you do this? Read on.
Learn Biotech Terms
The home page has a section called "Learn the Lingo".
1. Click within the Learn the Lingo section to go to the quiz page.
2. The quiz page has flash cards that will help you learn some of the most common biotech abbreviations.
Be sure to study these before your first interview!
Learn About Careers
Select the careers link to see an overview of careers in biotechnology. View list of entry level job then select a job to investigate.
Each job page has a description of the job, salary information, education requirements and links to colleges that offer related certificates and pre-set job searches.
Find out about interesting job areas
There are many interesting job areas in biotech and many jobs can fit into a job area. In Biotech-Careers.org there are two ways to learn about job areas. The first is to click the Job Area link at the top of each page. From the list that is returned, choose one of the job areas to see a description and find related jobs, blogs, alumni profiles, and videos related to that area. The second way to learn about a job area is to click a Job Area link in the right hand side menu. In this menu the size and color of a Job Area indicates the number of jobs that are associated with it.
Job Area pages link to related job areas, and, if content has been tagged with the job area it will be shown on the page too.
Hear from the people who work in biotech companies
We have videos that present different careers and alumni profiles from former students describing what it's like to work in different areas of biotech.
Select the links to Profiles or Videos to view these types of content.
That's not all!
We're really interested in what will make the site work best for you. Please send us your feedback! And share the site with your friends and instructors.