I was wondering if anyone here works for the many pharmaceutical companies in Japan. I’m finishing up my PhD here in Japan and I’m planning on sticking around.
I’m graduating in March and so I plan to start applying to companies soon. I was wondering what the starting pay usually is, any companies to avoid, any tips/tricks when maneuvering the pharmaceutical industry here and all around general advice.
It’ll be the first time looking for one of these big boy jobs and so I’m honestly a little nervous and anxious about it all. Especially here in Japan, so any and all advice would be greatly appreciated!
6 comments
What is your PhD in?
Aren’t you kind of late for looking for jobs via the regular route? Why didn’t you do the shukatsu?
Luckily, there are more companies these days that have a september start date as well.
Otherwise, I suppose you can apply for foreign companies that don’t do shukatsu
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Also depends on what position you are looking for. If you want to stick to R&D your only
options are big japanese firms : Takeda, Meiji.. Shiseido since any corporation prefer to do R&D in their home country, not the foreign ones. If you can pitch sales or consultants: Astra Zeneca, Pfizer.. in Japan. Pay in these foreign firms are 2 times the Japan companies because all they do is sales.
For how much you expecting: use vorkers.com, type in company name
Working for one of the Japanese Big Three here. As a newly graduated PhD, you can expect around 7-8mil per year in R&D for a company of this caliber.
As others have said, you missed the Shukatsu train by quite a lot so you will most likely have a year of gap between graduating and starting. My company has started the recruitment program for PhD FY2025 atm, there is no new graduate recruitment in October for most of the big ones. You may arrange with your supervisor to do a year of postdoc in your current lab to fill the gap.
The university you’re graduating from will also play a big part in finding a job if you’re targeting one of the big boys. 90% of our new graduates come from UTokyo or UKyoto.
I think you could get around 9M including benefits. You should check Takeda, at least before they were really keen on employing foreigners, to make it a more global company.