by Tony Guerra, Pharm.D.

We have a hiring freeze. Call us in a couple of months. We have a position, but it’s in a small town. Do you need benefits? How much experience do you have? Did you do a residency?

These aren’t supposed to be answers to our interview questions as pharmacists. We’re supposed to be able to fog a mirror and get a job. We should get to negotiate for a higher salary with a nice sign on bonus where and when we want. What happened to the good old days? You know, last year.

Supply and Demand

As the United States population has grown older and heavier, the demand for prescription medications has skyrocketed. Working to fill the need, chain pharmacies have gobbled up independents and kept their doors open later (many overnight), requiring greater levels of staff. As HMO’s, hospitals, clinics, universities, mail-order services, and the military all need pharmacists, they have been willing to pay handsomely for them.

At the same time, women have entered pharmacy in far greater numbers than ever before, many opting for part time positions or taking extended leaves to raise children. Complicating things further, when bachelor’s programs were phased out in favor of Pharm.D. programs, a year’s worth of graduates were lost.

All of this created an historic shortage of labor. State pharmacy schools could not keep up with demand, so the private schools started adding pharmacy programs at a rate of almost two per year (up from one every three years). In 1990, there were 74 pharmacy schools operating in the United States. Today, there are 103 with an additional nine in pre-candidate status. As salaries begin to stagnate or worse—drop, this may end up as a game of musical chairs, forcing a number of pharmacy programs to close their doors as quickly as they opened.

Tony Guerra, Pharm.D.

What does any of this have to do with finding a job you’re passionate about? To put it simply, you must work smarter to get it. If a PGY1 could have landed you a faculty spot before, then now you may need a PGY2 to get that same position. You may need to know a couple of people at the college or at the place you want to work. You may need to take a job that you don’t like as much so that you can build the skills and relationships to get exactly what you want.

But I want it now!

I understand. The truth is you can have it now, if you are willing to go outside the box.

I ask residents, “What are you going to do after your graduation or residency?” Nine times out of 10, the answer is, “I don’t know.”  Like being an Olympic athlete who has worked their entire life to win a gold medal, you will stand at the graduation platform thinking about the moment rather than what might satisfy you in the future. But there are actionable steps to arrive where you want to be.

Step One – Decide what you love to do on the most basic level.

Do you want to teach? Lead? Write? Advise? Manage? Whom do you love to help? Kids? Adults? Students? When you close your eyes, where do you see yourself smiling at work? By answering these questions, you can start moving in the right direction.

A pharmacist herself, my wife loves being the trusted advisor. Whether with family or patients, she loves to sit down and help people because she is a talented listener. With this in mind, she focused on becoming a diabetes expert through a program at Drake and in her practice. After showing a local free clinic how she could help them, they offered to create a 16-hour position due to the great work she had accomplished with diabetic patients. Because her passion was in line with her work, an opportunity was made.

Step Two – Volunteer.

Too many people ask for something then expect to get it, as if getting the career of your dreams is a one step process. The real order of service is to give, then ask, then receive. Since I wanted to teach and didn’t care if I got paid, I volunteered in a middle school math program. Later, I got paid to tutor, proctor, and teach test prep at Kaplan. It wasn’t a pharmacist’s salary, but their training program was great. After that, I volunteered to teach in pharmacy courses at the University of Iowa.

Each succeeding experience has made me more confident and more able. When the opportunity finally arose to teach a full-time course at a local community college, I was accepted right away. Yet, all of this began in a public school classroom with the willingness to give.

Step Three – Build your own practice.

The job you make for yourself is the job you’ll love. The day I left retail and started my own business, I was scared. But once I bought my own health insurance, I realized it wasn’t that bad and the freedom is amazing.

While I certainly had responsibilities to my customers, I could schedule them around other things in my life. I could coach in the afternoons, take trips with my family, and spend evenings at home. I was there for people when they needed me while building deep relationships one-on-one instead of trying to do the same through a plate glass drive-through window.

Building your own practice is life changing. It’s like going to a restaurant and ordering from the à la carte menu and getting exactly what you want.

Step Four – Start Now.

If you haven’t already, soon you will see the real impact of this economy. There are likely to be two kinds of responses. The first: you can cling to a job that you may not like out of fear of the unknown. The second: you can go forward, today, and start building a practice that you love. Involve the friends you missed while you were on that lonely pharmacy island.

Entrepreneurship is back in a big way. It can be your ticket to the work you love. Take the smallest step right now by writing down what you want. My own mission is to “build a service business so I can train in the mornings, teach during the day, coach in the afternoon, and be with my family and friends nights and weekends.” Write yours out, and it will become a reality.