Soft skills are essential for success in any career, including the pharmaceutical industry. These skills are important in the pharmaceutical industry because they can impact job performance, communication with colleagues and clients, and overall career success.
Having strong soft skills can help individuals stand out in a competitive industry and build better relationships with colleagues, clients, and customers, leading to better job opportunities and career growth.
Recruiters today consider candidates’ potential to contribute to the corporate culture as well as how wide their list of credentials and accomplishments is, soft skills are more crucial than ever in the market.
Key soft skills
1. Strategic Thinking: Your ability to think strategically and solve problems creatively will help you succeed in any line of work. These competencies are all the more important in the pharmaceutical industry. This is where strategic thinking comes into play. It helps to make challenging decisions and offer solutions. To guarantee the success of complex initiatives, you have to be skilled at analysing complex situations, identifying patterns, and formulating creative solutions that align with long-term goals and objectives. It involves considering multiple perspectives, anticipating potential outcomes, and making informed decisions to achieve desired outcomes. These abilities assist you in developing a reputation as a trustworthy employee.
2. Project Planning Skills: Pharmaceutical companies are constantly working on a variety of projects. These initiatives support business expansion and drive the industry’s continued development. You must be adept at project planning if you want to blend in with the corporation.
In the pharmaceutical business, project planning skills include locating and allocating resources for the manufacture of drugs and devices. Planning also includes managing the budget and timeline for various projects. You must be able to recognise every issue and difficulty that users have and be certain of your approach to resolving these issues.
3. Attention to detail: In the pharmaceutical industry, it is essential to be detail-oriented and to be able to follow procedures accurately and consistently. This helps to ensure that products are manufactured to the highest standards and are safe for patients.
4. Judgment and Decision Making: Making decisions in the life science sector requires more than simply being flexible; it also requires the ability to confidently analyse and evaluate data. This is a particularly crucial skill for scientists who must analyse vast amounts of data quickly while yet doing comprehensive work so that significant decisions may be made.
You must be able to describe your decision-making process and the procedures you take to ensure that your choices are supported by thorough and accurate work.
5. Teamwork: Pharmaceutical companies rely on teams of professionals to develop, test, and market new drugs. Teamwork skills are essential for collaborating effectively with colleagues and sharing ideas and information.
6. Creative Problem-solving: The pharmaceutical industry is a fast-paced and ever-changing field, which requires individuals to be able to identify and solve complex problems quickly and efficiently. This requires a combination of analytical skills, creativity, and the ability to think outside the box. Digital Literacy
7. Adaptability: Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, which showed how quickly our work settings might be forced to change, adaptability has become more crucial. However, adaptation is more than simply having the capacity to fit into a new work situation. It also implies having the flexibility to adapt to new policies, products, technology, and more. Companies want you to be able to convey to them how you handle change and how you individually get ready for it.
8. Communication: To maintain effective levels of communication between each of the numerous groups of stakeholders, which is crucial in the highly collaborative life science sector. Whether you’re speaking to a co-worker, a government official, or a patient, you’ll need to be direct and brief and know how to convey various messages to various audiences.
Be aware of this from the moment you submit your job application because even though you should be prepared with instances of occasions you’ve effectively communicated for recruiters, how you act in your interviews and during the rest of the recruitment process will also show how well you communicate.
9. Interpersonal Skills: Communication with others is characterised by interpersonal skills, also referred to as “people skills.” Verbal and nonverbal communication, listening and leadership abilities, empathy, and the capacity to forge trust are a few examples of interpersonal skills.
You must be able to show recruiters that you are aware of these qualities and also be able to articulate how interpersonal skills help to achieve positive results in difficult circumstances. These skills are particularly crucial for patient-facing professions in the business.
Also read: How Pharmacy Proves to be a Rewarding Career?
Build essential soft skills at Shoolini – No.1 Private University in India
Shoolini University, recognised as the best private university in India, offers an excellent platform to develop essential soft skills. The School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Shoolini holds a remarkable ranking of 36th in India according to NIRF 2022, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Govt. of India.
At Shoolini, students are mentored by top-tier faculty members who have been trained at prestigious institutions worldwide, including the National Cancer Institute (USA), NIH (USA), IISc, and Oxford. The university boasts cutting-edge laboratories with advanced instruments like UPLC, HPTLC, GCMS, HPLC, fostering practical training and skill development.
Pharmacy graduates from Shoolini University embark on rewarding careers in developing life-saving drugs and medicines, with high public and private demand. Additionally, Shoolini has established partnerships with renowned global universities in the USA, Canada, Italy, United Kingdom, China, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia, offering internship opportunities and student exchanges to enhance the learning experience further.
Moreover, Shoolini University’s collaborations with multiple brands and companies provide students with internships and pre-placement opportunities, facilitating their transition into the professional world. By choosing Shoolini University, students can cultivate their soft skills while gaining a comprehensive pharmaceutical education from a leading institution.
Pharmacy Programs available at Shoolini University
Shoolini offers a wide range of courses for pharma. These include:
- B Pharmacy
- M Pharmacy in Pharmacology
- M Pharmacy – Pharmaceutical Chemistry
- M Pharmacy – Pharmaceutics
- MBA Pharma and Healthcare Management
- PhD Pharmaceutical Sciences
Top-Notch Placements
Shoolini University offers excellent placement opportunities for Pharma students. During the campus placement drives held regularly, top pharmaceutical companies visit the university to hire students at lucrative packages. Prominent recruiters include Cipla, Ranbaxy, Novartis, Mankind, etc.
Key Takeaways
- Illustrious faculty from renowned national and international institutions, such as Oxford, National Cancer Institute (USA), NIH (USA), IISc & Oxford.
- Students are encouraged and guided to file patents at the undergraduate level itself.
- Innovative teaching and practical pedagogy.
- Highly advanced laboratories are equipped with UPLC, HPTLC, GCMS, HPLC, etc. This offers practical training to students to excel as professionals in the pharmaceutical industry.
- The research-driven curriculum has been specially designed by top academics and industry experts. As a result, it engages students in application and problem-oriented projects.
- Inspired by Stanford’s mini-MBA, SPRINT program helps students reach their potential and gain knowledge, practical skills and confidence to thrive in the competitive corporate world.
- Graduates participate in various programmes, FDPs, workshops and conferences worldwide.
- Shoolini students receive scholarships and fellowships at UG and PG levels.
Soft skills are essential in any career because they enhance communication, collaboration, adaptability, problem-solving, and decision-making abilities, allowing employees to better interact with colleagues, customers, and clients, increasing job satisfaction and overall performance and adding value to the organisation.
These soft skills and educational backgrounds are important prerequisites when applying for jobs at pharmaceutical companies. Choosing Shoolini University as your academic partner is the right choice.
FAQs
1. What are the job opportunities in Pharma Sector?
There are numerous job opportunities in the pharma sector with the increasingly growing pharma industries in India as well as abroad. A pharma professional can opt for an R&D scientist in the pharma industry and CRO, a Quality control specialist in the pharma and food industries, a Pharmaceutical manufacturing chemist, Pharma regulatory affairs specialist, a Procurement Specialist, Pharmacovigilance and adverse drug reaction surveillance specialist, Health Economist (HOER), Medical adviser specialist, Scientific writing and medical writing, Portfolio manager, Pharma marketing or sales representatives, Clinical research associates, research fellow in Govt. research labs and academic institutions, Faculty in Pharmacy college and universities, Drug inspecting officer and drug control administration (CDSCO), a Community pharmacist in Govt. Hospitals and various state/central Govt organisations.
2. Will I get a good placement after completing B Pharmacy or do I have to do a Master's degree for that?
There are enough opportunities to get placement after B Pharmacy as India is one of the top countries in the growing Pharma industry. However, a Master's degree or M Pharmacy is always preferable for higher opportunities like R&D scientists and superior positions. Nevertheless, B Pharmacy graduates can quickly get good placement in various pharma companies, marketing, and government organisations.
3. What is the difference between Pharmacognosy, Pharmacology, Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry?
Pharmacognosy deals with the various approaches to drug discovery and development from natural products like plants, microbes and other natural resources. Traditional medicine and Herbal drug development also come under this arena.
Pharmaceutical Chemistry deals with the characterisation of natural and synthetic originated drug molecules, synthesis and derivatisation of new molecules, chemical analysis of drugs and pharmaceuticals, drug metabolism and bioanalysis.
Pharmacology evaluates the efficacy and safety of various drugs or druggable substances in various experimental models like cells and laboratory animals. Also, the study of molecular mechanisms and drug metabolism comes under this specialisation.
Pharmaceutics deals with the formulation and development of candidate drugs and overcoming the problems of conventional formulation with innovative novel drug delivery approaches.
