The Method This Pharma Market Needs

Welcome to your worthy career, a podcast for women in Pharma and Leadership Coach with me, Melissa Lawrence. I am a certified career and leadership coach with a master’s in organizational psychology who has worked in talent and learning development in biotech to large pharma, from non-clinical to commercial. I help women in pharma and biotech create a career worthy of them with Whether you want to get clear on what you want, get a new job, get promoted, or be effective as a leader at any level, this is the place for you. Every week, you will get practical career strategies and mindset shifts to help you overcome the problems you experience at work so you can reach your goals feeling better than ever. Your up level begins now.

Hello, hello, and welcome to this week’s episode of the podcast. If you’ve been listening to this podcast, you know that I give you the insider strategies that actually work in this industry. The things I learned sitting in leadership rooms when I worked in industry, leading teams and coaching women through the exact challenges that you’re facing right now. And we kicked off the first episode of this season strong. If you reach out to me to tell me how happy you are that this podcast is back or something you love about it, how excited you are for my book that’s coming out, it really did mean the world to me because I do all of this for you. My book, my podcast, what you see on social media, my whole business was really created to help you. So I love hearing how what I put into the world positively impacts you. Now, today we’re talking about why this job market requires a different approach if you’re looking for a new role or promotion, and why some women are advancing in this tight market while others stay stuck. Because it has nothing to do with talent or credentials.

I’m going to share a real client story that you might see yourself in and illustrate for you what the invisible rules are and what they can actually look like in talent conversations, in leadership rooms that you’re not in, and why I wrote my book, Your worthy career, to address the gap that exists in this industry for women like us. Now, if you’ve ever felt like you’re doing everything right, but you’re still not getting the results that you want in your job, looking for another role with another company like this episode is for you. So let’s get into it. Now, some of the challenges that I hear from women in this industry is that they’re applying to roles that they’re qualified for and being ghosted, asking for a promotion that they really earned only to be told no or there isn’t a budget or need right now, interviewing and not getting offers, being told you’re doing great, but not getting the projects that actually give you the visibility that you want, maybe you’re night scrolling LinkedIn, wondering whether dream jobs are real or fake, just like those fake development opportunities that you might get at work.

I’ve had clients tell me, Yeah, I get development opportunities. They’re fake. They don’t actually matter or move the needle. Maybe you just feel like everything It’s hard right now. The market is tough and it just is what it is. If you ever felt like this, maybe you feel like this right now. We need to have an honest conversation. The pharma and biotech job market has shifted. Budgets are tighter, teams are leaner, hiring managers are more cautious, science has really felt under attack in this administration, and that has an effect on pharma and biotech. It’s been really frustrating to see things play out. I wish that, honestly, between me and you, that more companies would speak to how they’re navigating this administration and be transparent about the deals that are being made, the sacrifices that are being made. But at the same time, this is a business. And so in times like this, we need to adapt to what is currently happening rather than hold on to what used to work or how it should be. And that’s hard. I get it. But here’s what I’ve been watching closely. Some women are spinning out in chaos while others are advancing anyway.

Some are applying to 50, 100 jobs. Some are getting offers with 10 or 20 applications. Some are convinced that the market creates It’s a no-go for their career. Like the troll under the bridge, if you remember, that doesn’t let you pass. Oh my gosh, I don’t remember. I feel like there was a rhyme that went with that, where you couldn’t pass the the the bridge because of the toll. I don’t know, that just came to mind. That troll story from when I was a kid, so random. Anyway, when you think of that, what do you do? You literally don’t see the opportunities that do exist when you’re thinking, There’s this troll that’s stopping me from crossing, stopping me from getting to my goal. You don’t see another way other than that bridge, which is the only way you know to get to the other side. But the women who are advancing, they’re finding a hidden path, a walkway, some other door to get to that other side. It’s the same market with a different outcome. This job market requires a different approach, a method that market proofs your career, because there will always be layoffs and reworks.

I’ve worked in this industry since The beginning of 2009, and there have been layoffs everywhere that I worked the entire time, and they are still happening. Are they more frequent now? Yes, but they’ve actually been frequent for years. So it’s time to be agile, to have a growth mindset and use a method that actually works for this industry and the pharma biotech market. Let’s get more tangible, okay? I want to share an example with you. So my client, Sarah, had been a high performer at the same pharma company for over 20 years. She got consistently strong performance reviews, regular feedback that she was at the top of her pay range, which if that is you, that is so frustrating reading, right? They say it somehow to recognize you. If you’re wanting more to be like, Hey, you’re at the top. Hey, we’re giving you so much. But at the same time, it makes you feel stuck knowing that there’s nowhere to go. So Sarah was also told that there wasn’t a promoted role available, that the org chart, the way that they had designed their department, it just didn’t exist. It was a bit of a wall, right?

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You can’t make more if you can’t get promoted. What do you do? She did what high performers do. She took on stretch projects to challenge herself and prove that she was ready for more, thinking that she could really show her leadership team a different side of her, what she could really do, and that could maybe open their wallets, their perspective, and maybe get her into another opportunity. So she delivered, she stayed committed, but she started to feel stuck. And she knew when nothing was working, that that additional work wasn’t actually paying off, that the only way to advance would be to leave. Except she didn’t want to leave. She had built her career at this company. She was loyal to this company. She knew the people, she understood the systems, and Leaving felt like starting over, like a grieving process. So when she built up the courage to see what was out there, to start looking at external opportunities, she felt worse. She was so niche in her role that she wasn’t sure how her experience would fit anywhere else. She couldn’t find a better job, and she wasn’t sure she really needed to leave despite feeling stuck because she had a good job on paper.

She was at the top of her pay range, right? Maybe she should just be patient. So she didn’t make a change. Until she had a conversation with her manager that just gave her the clarity she needed to know that she needed to do something else. He told her that he could see about giving her access to some new projects, but the organization wasn’t set up to have a promoted role, and the business didn’t see justification for adding one. It made it really clear in these conversation she had had before where she was giving similar feedback, but it wasn’t as crystal clear as this. It was like, Listen, I talked to the skip level. I talked to the senior leadership. There’s no justification. This isn’t going to happen. But we understand you want to grow. We understand you want to feel challenged, so we can find some additional opportunities for you. Sarah was grateful for the opportunity. She appreciated her role, but she also felt a need to explore what other options could exist for her because her company was willing to expand her scope, but not her title. And because she didn’t see options that fit externally either, that’s when she reached out to me.

So together we identified the role that aligned with her skills, her expertise, her lifestyle and vision for the future. We executed a personalized strategy that led her directly to an associate director position at a new company. The hiring manager later told her that working with a coach and getting clear on what she he wanted, actually demonstrated that she was serious about her development and her career, was resourceful and committed to her own growth. Instead of applying for jobs that she’d been settling for or staying in a role that didn’t give her the growth that she wanted, she got clear on what she actually wanted outside of the influence of what she thought was possible at her current job or at a new one. She silenced all of that external data and went internal to figure out what that role could be. That clarity is the foundation of everything else that leads to new job offers and promotions. In this market, a lack of clarity gets exposed quickly. Because when companies are cautious, they don’t promote or hire good enough. They move toward the person who feels necessary and who they can tell authentically wants to work with them too, who they know has a reputation of delivering and would be a good fit for the team.

There are many qualified candidates applying, but when you know what you want and you’re positioned effectively, you stand out. Now, let’s talk about if you’re internal to your company, some of the invisible rules or feedback that could also be stalling your career. When women in pharma and biotech reach out to me, they’re usually at the same crossroads. They’ve done everything right. They still feel stuck, just like the example I shared with Sarah. They’ve earned the degrees, they’ve completed the certifications, they’ve delivered the results, they said yes to every stretch assignment, and still, their promotions stall. It feels like a black hole, and really, any change Change feels risky. The ladders for growth move slowly. They do reward visibility and politics as much as results, and often leave high-performing women waiting years longer than necessary to grow their career. I’ve sat in leadership meetings where the conversation isn’t just about deliverables. It’s about the way people work, the relationships they have, how they present themselves. And here’s what makes this hard. This feedback is something that you’re likely never told unless you have a really close relationship with some of the leaders in that room that you’re not in, that they will give you that candid feedback.

So in a talent review, in a leadership meeting, someone might say, She’s given the opportunity to present to senior leaders, and it didn’t look like there was an effort made to prepare. So we gave her the opportunity, we gave her the chance, but she’s saying she wants to be promoted, but when she went into that meeting, it didn’t look like she cared that much. One leader could say this and share it with others to taint their perspective. I don’t say this to give you something else to stress about, but you just have to recognize that you have a career brand. Your opportunities internally or externally require more than a strong resume and good performance. It is more about how people think about you. Think about work culture. How do people experience you? How do they experience you in meetings? What do they think of when they think of you? That’s what I mean by your career brand. It’s not something that you have to create, it’s something you already have. Something else that could be said is, this person delivers really well, but a stakeholder department doesn’t know her and she keeps to herself, so we don’t know how she does in a supervisory position.

Or we want to support her growth. She does a great job, but what she wants to do isn’t something we need right And that last one, it’s not about what you want, it’s about how you positioned the request. I have worked with women who tried to make a business case on their own and get a role or promotion created for them and they got good feedback that it actually would be needed for them to do this other work. But the way that they did their business case, the stakeholders that they involved, maybe the decision makers they identified, the way they communicated it, fell flat. And so So it wasn’t necessarily that the role wasn’t something that was possible. It’s the way that it was positioned, the way that the request was approached. People have different biases and opinions to navigate. There isn’t one uniform rule, so I can’t tell you, Here’s exactly what to do. It takes strategy, industry expertise, and the skill to effectively identify what the real feedback is in order to progress. And this is difficult to do on your own because you only see what you see. You don’t. You have the expertise that I do, for example.

You can’t see what is so close to you clearly. You need an outside perspective when everything you’re doing isn’t getting the results that you want. A client asked me recently why It’s so easy for her to help others, but she can’t see the same options or help herself in similar scenarios. I pointed to the supply cabinet that was behind her that was filled with scientific equipment and had glass doors. You could see what was on each shelf. And I told her that if she was asked to organize that cabinet, she could look at it and easily see where things could be moved to be more clean and organized. But imagine if she was inside the cabinet sitting on one of the shelves. It would be a lot more difficult because you can’t see the entire cabinet. You can only see your limited view. You can only see what’s around you. Your brain can’t always solve your brain’s problems. The outside The perspective of someone who isn’t your family or a friend who is an expert and can see things more clearly will provide insights that you just can’t access. And that’s true of all of us.

So when I say there’s these invisible rules, part of what makes coaching so effective and helping you develop, for example, the promotion, the right business case, is we’re working together so closely to know exactly how those conversations are going, who are the stakeholders, who are the decision makers. I’m helping you identify them, identify their communication preferences, their leadership styles. We are getting so micro in how to approach these situations so that you can go out with an effective strategy that we can evaluate and then tweak. And so you are getting such personalized feedback with that outside perspective that we’re able to apply all of this to your unique career situation. So if you’re like, Okay, how do I get started with all of this? I want to mention that this is also why I wrote my book. So your worthy career, a science-backed method to build a meaningful career in pharma and biotech is a strategic framework for navigating this industry the way that it actually works. I’ve been developing and mastering my method for years, and I’ve discovered a way to truly develop professionals that gives them a career that feels worthy of them and that they feel worthy to have.

Because here’s what I know, there are always ceilings. And there’s a lot of talk about shattering the glass ceiling, right? And there are those external ceilings that are put on us. But some of these ceilings we put on ourselves with our doubt, our fear, our blind spots. And my method addresses both. You don’t just get strategy and step-by-step instructions. Anyone can follow an SOP, or most people can, right? But if you pour strategy on a weak foundation, it doesn’t hold. This book gives you the foundation to execute the strategy effectively. A lot of advice out there doesn’t speak to the nuance of pharma and biotech careers, the complexity, the innovation, the regular reorgs, the layoffs, the government influence. There are opportunities that are specific to this industry, and of course, there are also things to avoid that just don’t work. And a lot of books for women reinforce stereotypes that are grounded in the patriarchy. I hate to say it, but it’s true. Even books written by well-intending women, they might have some good advice there, but I found them very frustrating in their message. We need an industry-specific science-backed approach that speaks to the internal and external realities of women working in pharma and biotech.

This book and my work exist to fill that gap. I don’t just tell you to be confident. I show you how to think about your career differently, and I normalize your experience so that you can solve the right problems. Because once your thinking shifts, your positioning and actions shift and results will to follow. If you’ve been asking yourself, How did I get here? Why does this feel harder than it should? Is it supposed to feel like this? How can I feel in control of my career? How can I make a bigger difference? I wrote this for you. The book releases on Tuesday, February 24th, and I cannot wait for you to have it in your hands in just a few days. Here’s what’s happening on February 24th, and I want you to mark this in your calendar now. Right now, while you listen to this episode, ask Siri to do it if you’re driving, okay? The book is going to be 50% off on Amazon for one day only. If you’re going to grab it, grab it on February 24th because you will save 50%. Tell a friend, a colleague, share it with someone that you used to work with.

But also, here’s what makes release day different. When you purchase on February 24th, inside the book, there’s a QR code. You can scan it and you’ll get immediate access to the companion workbook completely free. The workbook pulls all of the exercises into one place. So you can actually apply what you’re reading instead of just nodding along and saying, Yes, and let me earmark that for another day. You’re going to get a workbook that you can use so that you can implement every chapter. So the page to access that workbook online is only going to be up long enough for you to receive your copy and scan the code. So this isn’t a forever bonus that’s sitting out there. It’s for the release week readers, the go getters who show up on day one. I’ll also be hosting a virtual book party and live Q&A, where you can ask questions about the book and implement what you read and what is happening in the industry right now and get some coaching and advice. This is a space to celebrate with you. So if you want details for that, join the waitlist at yourworthycareer.com/book-waitlist, so you don’t miss it.

I’ll have that link in the show notes. And if you’re local to Frederick, Maryland, I will be hosting an in-person meet and greet in March, where you can come say hi, get your book signed, and we can high five, hug, say hi in real life. So if you’ve ever thought, there has to be a smarter way to navigate this industry. And is there something more for me? This book is going to give you the answers that you need. February 24th, put it in your calendar. The market will change again. It always does. But when you understand how to navigate it strategically, you don’t have to feel at the mercy of it. I know if you’re listening to this, that you are ready for a different way to think about your career. And I can’t wait for you to get the book. I really can’t wait to hear what you do with what you learn from it. All right, until next time. I have something special for you.

The episode is over, but that doesn’t mean your development ends here. If you enjoyed the podcast episode today, head to my website, yourworthycareer.com, and check out additional free resources you can get access to right now. From joining my free VIP Insiders, the downloadable resources and trainings, you won’t want to miss it. Head there now.