Working at Novartis was my first job after my post doc. The department I joined emphasized project leadership For new PhD-level hires, a tremendous growth opportunity in the right context, but was not provided a seasoned mentor (or any mentor) to help develop and implement the incredibly complex process of pre-clinical drug discovery. I felt alone and overwhelmed by the task and expectations, and was assigned a team without my input and without consent or volunteering by the team members. The breadth of experience on the team was excellent (medicinal chemist, cell biologist, in vivo pharmacologist, translational medicine expert, and high-throughput screening expert), but because they were strictly assigned, oftentimes the scientists had little-to-no inherent interest in helping with my “exploratory project”. Thrown in the middle of the ocean without being taught how to swim... Not great! Importantly, this was a departmental initiative and not a global one. Just illustrates what I imagine is common in large corporations; that the employee experience is wholly dependent on the department, the individual unit you’re a part of, and your direct manager.
part of a large company, setting your own ideas into motion
