Episode 91 – How to get a graduate job in the field of quality and regulatory affairs

April 28, 2020 Podcast

Welcome to the 91st episode of the Graduate Job Podcast where this week we get niche and dive into getting a graduate job in the field of quality and regulatory affairs. I’m joined today by regulatory affairs expert Karandeep Badwal, we explore just exactly what quality and regulatory affairs is and why it is such a booming area for graduates. In this episode, aside from me repeatedly stumbling over the phrase ‘regulatory affairs’, we discuss the key skills you need to thrive in this area of work, why work experience is so crucial to starting your career, and the things you need to be doing now to get noticed and get your first role. No matter if you are already set on getting into regulatory affairs, or if you have never heard of the area before, this is an episode you should listen to as we explore topics such as how to use LinkedIn effectively, how to send effective cold emails and how to get noticed through volunteering and work experience which are relevant no matter what industry you are applying to. The only link you need to remember today is www.graduatejobpodcast.com/regulatoryaffairs which has a full transcript you can download and also all links to everything we discuss. 

Before we start let me tell you about the brilliant course I’m working on cunningly titled “how to get a graduate job“. In this course is packed decades of experience into one step by step guide of everything you need to do to get a graduate job. There are videos, guides, handouts, help with CVs applications, video interviews, if you need to know if to get a graduate job it’s in my course. It’s going live at the end of August, but to be the first to hear about it and get it at a never to be repeated price with special bonuses, head to https://howtogetagraduatejob.com/ and leave me your email. Right, on with the show.

Don’t forget, also make sure you check out https://www.graduatejobpodcast.com/subscribe which links to how to subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, and by email. So, something for everyone there.

MORE SPECIFICALLY IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

  • Why quality and regulatory affairs is such a booming area for graduates 
  • Top tips for getting ahead whilst you are still at university 
  • How to stand out when you apply for a graduate job in quality and regulatory affairs
  • Why getting work experience is so crucial to starting your career 
  • The key skills you need to get ahead in quality and regulatory affairs
  • The number one thing you need to be doing NOW to get ahead

SELECTED LINKS:

Transcript – Episode 91: How to get a graduate job in the field of quality and regulatory affairs

Announcer: Welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast, your home for weekly information and inspiration to help you get the graduate job of your dreams.

James: Hello and welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast, with your host James Curran. The Graduate Job Podcast is your home for all things related to helping you on your journey to finding that amazing job. Each episode I bring together the best minds in the industry, speaking to leading authors, graduate recruiters and career coaches who bring decades of experience into a byte size show. Put simply, this is the show I wish I had when I graduated.

And a warm welcome to the 91st episode of the Graduate Job Podcast where this week we get niche and dive into getting a graduate job in the field of quality and regulatory affairs. I’m joined today by regulatory affairs expert Karandeep Badwal we explore just exactly what quality and regulatory affairs is and why it is such a booming area for graduates. In this episode, aside from me repeatedly stumbling over the phrase ‘regulatory affairs’, we discuss the key skills you need to thrive in this area of work, why work experience is so crucial to starting your career, and the things you need to be doing now to get noticed and get your first role. No matter if you are already set on getting into regulatory affairs, or if you have never heard of the area before, this is an episode you should listen to as we explore topics such as how to use linkedin effectively, how to send effective cold emails and how to get noticed through volunteering and work experience which are relevant no matter what industry you are applying to. The only link you need to remember today is www.graduatejobpodcast.com/regulatoryaffairs which has a full transcript you can download and also all links to everything we discuss. 

Before we start let me tell you about the brilliant course I’m working on cunningly titled “how to get a graduate job”. In this course is packed decades of experience into one step by step guide of everything you need to do to get a graduate job. There are videos, guides, handouts, help with CVs applications, video interviews, if you need to know if to get a graduate job it’s in my course. It’s going live at the end of August, but to be the first to hear about it and get it at a never to be repeated price with special bonuses, head to graduatejobpodcast.com/course and leave me your email. Right, on with the show.

James: A very warm welcome to my guest today, quality and regulatory affairs expert in the medical affairs industry, Karandeep Badwal. Karandeep, welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast.

Karandeep Badwal: Hi, James. Thank you for having me on.

James: Today, we’re going to explore how to get a graduate job in the field of regulatory affairs. Before we explore what exactly regulatory affairs is, do you want to introduce yourself properly and give listeners a little bit of an introduction to yourself and what it is that you do.

Karandeep: Basically, I work in quality and regulatory affairs within the medical devices industry. To put simple in layman terms, that’s to do with the registration and the overall safety of the device to make sure that, throughout the life cycle and also prior to the device going to the market, that all the data is there to show that it’s safe and it’s effective to do what it actually can do. Also, the follow-up with that, if anything goes wrong with the device, reporting, etcetera, just dealing with that sort of stuff, really.

James: I have to hold my hands up to the complete ignorance of what the sort of field of regulatory affairs was. I had to get on Wikipedia and find out a bit more about it. How big a field is it? Are there loads of jobs in this area?

Karandeep: It’s a strange one, really. If you looked into the medical devices industry, not the sort of first job that would come to mind, but it is one of those industries that, when you go in and join it, you just realize how huge it is. Every single medical device company out there has some sort of quality or regulatory department. Every sort of medical device out there goes wrong from time to time, and you need these individuals so much so that, now, there are professional organizations out there that are now even offering master’s degrees within regulatory affairs itself, which just goes to show how much of a growing industry it is.

As you know, as the future goes on, more and more regulations are coming in, more directives, government’s getting a lot more strict in terms of medical products due to their safety. This is a growing industry at the moment.

James: Wikipedia handily told me that the main areas for it, as you mentioned, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, veterinary, pesticides, agrichemicals, cosmetics, complementary medicines. It’s the whole overall area of regulatory affairs. I’m going to stumble over that as we go, as I keep repeating it in the episode. There’s a big number of industries there where these roles are.

Karandeep: I completely agree with that. My first role started in food supplements: vitamins, minerals, etcetera. That’s where my first role was in regulatory affairs before I switched into the medical devices industry. It’s not uncommon to find individuals from the pharmaceutical move to medical devices, medical devices vice-versa. Even a more niche industry that I’ve seen recently are dual devices, so they have a medical device aspect to it, and also pharmaceutical device part to it, i.e. it may administer a drug, and that’s quite a niche up-and-coming market at the moment.

James: Before we get into the topic of regulatory affairs in medical industry, a little bit more about your background. You mentioned there’s a master’s you can do in it now. What did you study at university, and how did you get into it yourself?

Karandeep: I’ll tell you where I started off. My background is actually within pharmaceuticals. I firstly started a bachelor’s in pharmaceutical and cosmetic science. Once I did that, I decided that I was quite interested in the quality and the regulatory part of it, and as a master’s I did a degree in pharmaceutical quality, by design, because that was the closest thing that I could find.

When I came out of university, I looked at the pharmaceutical world, and I wasn’t very impressed by it, quite frankly. Your product can take three to five years of clinical trials before it hits the market, then I came across medical devices, and I was quite impressed to see that you could build this device, get some clinical data, and the flexibility that was offered, and I was sort of drawn towards the medical devices. Unfortunately, with regulatory affairs, so many graduates out there will probably find it’s a very difficult industry to get into as soon as you leave university.

The first role, I took it on within the food supplements industry, building my experience from there, and successfully transitioned within it to medical devices. However, now, when I graduated five years ago, that option wasn’t necessary there. You can now do a master’s within regulatory affairs, so if you’re 100% decided that this is what you want to do, you go out and do that master’s degree. I would highly recommend that to make yourself stand out.

James: Is there lots of places to do the master’s or just one or two universities?

Karandeep: The only one I’ve been aware of there’s a professional organization called TOPRA, so The Organizations for Professionals in Regulatory Affairs. They often do accredited courses, and they introduce a master’s within regulatory affairs. This is a company who specializes within regulatory affairs, it’s full of professionals, spokespeople. Many people in the industry with their experience have come together and decided to create this master’s course based around that.

James: Brilliant. I was actually having a dig in their website earlier at TOPRA. You mentioned that it’s an industry that’s very difficult to get into straight from university. Why do you think this is the case?

Karandeep: To get into quality and regulatory, it’s very sensitive. You’re basically dealing with people’s lives. That’s the best way to put it. You need to make sure that you’ve done your risk assessments properly and your product is not going to hurt anybody. Not many people out there are going to give that kind of role to somebody who doesn’t have any experience or somebody’s who’s just come out of university. You need some sort of experience to show that you can do your job properly, you can do it very safely before they come into that. It’s just that aspect of danger. When it comes to quality and regulatory, they don’t want to give it to someone straight away. They’d much prefer to have someone who’s got a bit of experience within the field, and that’s the primary reason why.

James: What sort of skills do you think people need to go into this industry?

Karandeep: I say the key skill here is self-discipline. As it comes with quality and regulatory roles, it’s not really a case of somebody gives you a task, it’s a piece of paper, steps 1 to 5, and you do it. It’s very open, there’s a lot of grey area there, so you need a lot of self-discipline within yourself to get the actual job done, because as it is with a lot of quality and regulatory roles, they tend to be quite autonomous. You may have a manager, but they would just set you a task and you’re on your own to do it, so you need that self-discipline within yourself to manage your time properly and get the job done. I say that’s the key skill.

James: You mentioned you studied at university. Are there any particular degrees that are better than others for going into this field, or does it not really matter if you’re then going to go on and do the master’s degree anyway?

Karandeep: I say it’s not necessarily you have to have that master’s degree within regulatory to get the job. It would benefit you, but it depends. Decide what industry you want to go into. Personally, with me, I started studying the pharmaceuticals. I decided to go into medical devices. If I could go back in time, I probably would have did a degree in medical science or biomedical science, but as long as you have a good scientific degree, it’s not something to worry about too much, whatsoever, because when you do a degree, all you’re basically saying is that you had the discipline to study for three years and gain a base level of knowledge in the scientific industry. It’s not that necessary that you have to get a specific degree. It would benefit you, but anything in the scientific field would help get you into this industry.

James: In terms, then, of the jobs themselves, do many companies offer specific graduate jobs in this field, or is it more niche and you’re applying for specific roles?

Karandeep: It’s a rarity to actually find graduate positions or graduate schemes in quality and regulatory affairs. However, that’s not to say companies out there aren’t doing it. When I found out, when I went into the industry, you do occasionally come across companies who bring on graduates, but that’s often done through word of mouth or somebody that they’ve known, or they teamed up with a certain university. They’re not necessarily going out there and advertising those roles, and how I’ve always said to graduates is find a list of companies that you would like to work for in this specific industry with quality and regulatory, whether that be pharma, healthcare, medical devices, etcetera, and just contact them directly. Explain to them, “Hi, I’m a student. This is what I’ve studied. I would like to get into regulatory affairs.” State your reasons why and contact them.

Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the companies turns around and says, “Sure, we’ll bring you in for work experience, or actually we’re looking for a student in this company,” so that’s the best way to do it is you need to call and approach these companies. They’re not actively advertising these roles.

James: That makes sense, and work experience is something that’s just crucial to get, no matter what. With what we’re going into, it’s definitely in this quality and regulatory affairs field is if you’ve got that work experience in your CV, then it will stand you in good stead when you do get around to applying for jobs.

Karandeep: I completely agree with that.

James: Cold approaches can be more difficult. What would you recommend to listeners who are going to make a cold approach, then, to really stand out when they do send that initial letter?

Karandeep: The best way to make yourself stand out, and it’s a tool that I use a lot, and a lot of people on this show have already mentioned it, is LinkedIn. That is something that’s going to push you forward, because if I ever get an application in from somebody, I’m going to go online and see what their presence is. I’m not interested in Facebook or Instagram. I’m just looking at the professional experience. I will go onto LinkedIn and see who this individual is.

Now, if you’re a student, and I’ve spoken to many students about this, they say, “Oh, well I don’t have any work experience. What’s the point in making a LinkedIn page?” and that’s where they’re making the mistakes. What I say to these individuals is, “Go out there and make a LinkedIn page, put down what you’re studying, and you can just describe in your LinkedIn profile saying, “Hi, I’m a student studying this course within my first, second, or third year. My ambition is to get into regulatory affairs,” put that in your description, connect to as many individuals within the field or within the chosen company that you would like to work in, and contact them via LinkedIn because if you contact them via LinkedIn, they’re going to click onto your profile, and they’re going to read it, and they’re going to say, “Okay, this student here is going to be ready in maybe a year’s time. I consider bringing on a student.” You can send them a message back saying, “Yeah, we’re looking to take you on.” If you are just to email or send a letter, there’s no sort of backing and there’s no sort of extra wording or anything like that to say who you are as an individual. LinkedIn provides that for you.

James: Completely agree, and it is such a powerful tool. You think, before LinkedIn, it was just so much more difficult to get in touch with people, but now you can go on and you can get the one-month free trial of InMail and you can drop anyone a note and you can connect with anyone. It’s just so easy to do. Are there any particular LinkedIn groups that you’d recommend for regulatory affairs?

Karandeep: One thing I need to point out is 26th of May, 2020, the medical devices industry is going to go through a big change. We have this new thing called the MDR, the medical device regulation. Previously, we used to follow something called the medical device directive, and as of the 26th of May, 2020, there’s going to be a lot more stricter rules out there to get your medical devices on the market and also devices that are currently already on the market.

That is an extremely hot topic. LinkedIn is absolutely littered with groups based around MDR and medical devices. There’s so many out there. There’s big discussions going on, as is with this regulation. There’s a lot of grey area and some people aren’t necessarily sure whether their product will be compliant or not, because it’s not so black and white. It has a lot of suggestions in there which aren’t necessarily very clear. As a result of this, there’s been a big increase in demand for people working in that industry, quality and regulatory.

As a student, what I say to you is go out and join as many LinkedIn med qualifiers and MDR based groups that there are, study the MDR inside-out, and get yourself some inside knowledge. Companies out there need as much help as they can, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they decided to bring on students on internships, even just some admin point of views just to help them out so the managers or the consultants can solely focus on this new regulation that’s coming in. These companies need a hand-out there, and I do say this is probably the best time for students to start considering getting hired within this industry or getting yourself some sort of work experience.

James: Listeners, now is the time to seize the moment then and to get involved in that. As you mentioned, that’s May. How long will that be going on for, then, how long do you think it will take for the new regulations and things to settle in? Is that going to be sort of an on-going area of work?

Karandeep: It’s a hard deadline, so there was a two-year transition period for people to get their act together, and fortunately, what I’ve seen in my experience is a lot of companies have just sat and waited until the last minute and they’ve just started to begin that panic period right now, and the amount of contract roles that are out there for quality and regulatory is ridiculous. Companies are getting audited and beginning to realize that they’re not going to be compliant by the deadline and there’s a lot of panic going on in the industry at the moment. I can only see that increasing, and in my experience, I’ve seen a lot of companies out there who aren’t willing to invest within quality and regulatory affairs, and unfortunately, they’re going to find out the hard way when an audit comes through and they are found out to be non-compliant, they unfortunately will have to pull their products on the market.

James: Which will be an expensive thing to do. Yeah, you can see why they’ll be getting people involved to help. We mentioned, on LinkedIn, and I was looking at your LinkedIn profile, and you’ve been very active on LinkedIn. You must have a lot of people contacting you. Any advice for people who are making a cold connection on LinkedIn? Any advice on how they can make that effective?

Karandeep: It’s funny you actually mention that. I was talking with a colleague of mine about how many messages we get, and unfortunately, a lot of the messages that I get from students or even experienced individuals who want to get in the industry, it’s just simply a line saying, “Hi, can you please find me a job in this industry?” and then you just sort of sit there blank, “Okay, what am I to do about that?”

The best way to approach somebody in this industry is show them that you put the work in. If a student messaged me saying, “Hi, Karandeep. I’m a student. I’ve studied this degree. I want to get within regulatory affairs. These are the groups that I’ve joined, these are the people that I’ve approached. Can you please help me with this?” then I can see that that individual has put a lot of effort into something, and then I can offer them advice. If you simply say to me, “I’m looking for a job,” I can’t offer you much. You need to explain to me what your situation is, what specific advice that you’re looking for, and where you actually need help.

That’s the best way of approaching people is show them that you’ve put some work in there. Show them that you’ve done the best that you can, and if you’ve hit a brick wall and you need my advice, then by all means, I will invest the time with you. But, if you’re just going to send me a message saying, “Please find me a job,” I can’t help you, simply put.

James: Completely agree with that, and at least if they put a message, it’s one step up from the people who are just trying to connect to you. You don’t know who just go for the standard LinkedIn thing of, “Please add me to your network.” You’re not putting a message at all.

Karandeep: Yeah, that’s the best way of approaching it. Anybody who’s ever contacted me in the past, even if it’s taken me a couple of weeks to get back to them and has explained the situation, I’ve always come back to them with the best advice that I could. When it comes to individuals sending me, “Please find me a job,” I’ve always asked back to say, “Please describe your situation,” and etcetera, and after they won’t get back to you, so that’s their loss, unfortunately.

James: We touched upon networking there. Any other networking tips you’d give to listeners who want to get into the field?

Karandeep: What I say is when it comes to networking, a lot of people get very one-minded, so they start to say, “Okay, I want to go into regulatory affairs. I’m only going to connect with regulatory people.” That’s completely wrong. Every company is built from an organization. There’s people who work in research and development, there’s people who work in new product development, etcetera. You want to connect with as many individuals as possible. Just because that person doesn’t necessarily work in regulatory, they work with a colleague who is in that field, and once you expand your mind-set and you start connecting with more people in the industry and have a wider network, you’ll find more opportunities start coming your way rather than just connecting people in that one specific job that you want to do, basically.

James: You never know who people know when you start connecting with them, and being broad definitely does have its benefits. You never know who people might put you in touch with, and just where those connections will go from there.

Karandeep: Yeah, completely agreed, and another one is we got back to TOPRA. TOPRA often has many events, showcases, etcetera, but the biggest one is they have something called an annual symposium. It’s usually housed somewhere in Europe, not sure where. It changes every year, but that symposium is the best place to go, because in there, you’ve got experienced individuals with 30 years’ experience, 40 years, 50 years, etcetera, people who are part of TOPRA on the advisory board. If you go there as a graduate or somebody who wants to get into that industry, you are basically rubbing shoulders with the movers and shakers within that field.

If you go to that show, you’ve shown that you’ve put in effort, that you’re very keen to getting into that industry, and you speak to the hundreds of people that are out there. It’s inevitable at least one of them is going to throw something your way, whether that be an internship, a graduate scheme, etcetera. That is something that you can do to make yourself stand out because many graduates shy away from events like this and say, “Well, I’m not very experienced. I won’t have much input, therefore I won’t go.”

If you went, as a graduate, I could probably count on one hand how many graduates probably turn up to these events. You seriously will stand out, and I highly recommend you go there.

James: Sounds like brilliant advice, and even if there’s a cost involved, the cost will pay itself back many, many times over just with the connections you make, the offers you’ll get for internships, or work experience, or jobs. As you said, nobody else is going to do it, so when you look at things around, you think, “Okay, there’s cost and there’s effort involved,” it’s going to put other people off. That should be a really good thing, because then it means that you’re going to be in a crowd of one, so you’re going to really, really stand out.

Karandeep: It will be on of the best investments you will make, your return on investment will be crazy if you found yourself a role there.

James: Thinking, more widely then, about getting information in the area, are there any YouTube channels or podcasts that you’d point listeners towards?

Karandeep: Yes, so I’ve actually featured one. It’s called Easy Medical Device Podcast. It’s run by Monir El Azzouzi. He’s very keen on this industry, and he’s made a lot of videos with professionals in there. If you went through that whole YouTube series of how he releases it, you would have a very good understanding of what quality and regulatory affairs actually is, because before then, the only way that you will find out what this was about was experience or talking to professionals within the field. By the release of his podcast, he’s now made that information public, and individuals who previously didn’t have a lot of knowledge within quality and regulatory affairs can now go onto there and learn a lot about it, so I highly recommend that.

James: Excellent, and listeners, all the links, and a full transcript, and everything that we discussed today will be over in the show notes at GraduateJobPodcast.com/RegulatoryAffairs. Okay then, Karandeep, thinking then around work experience and volunteering. How important is volunteering and work experience in getting that final job offer?

Karandeep: Work experience is everything. I mean, experience is king. You can have all the degrees and qualifications in the world, which shows that you have theoretical knowledge, but work experience shows that you’ve actually gone out there and applied it. The way that I see it, if I saw somebody with a 10-year degree with one year experience, but somebody with no degree and nine years’ experience, I would take the person with nine years’ experience because they’ve demonstrated to me that they’ve been able to do the job properly, basically.

When it comes to work experience, go out there and get as much relevant work experience as you can within the industry you want to go to. If it’s quality and regulatory affairs, and you can’t necessarily get experience within that, that’s fine. Join a scientific or a medical company. Even if it’s just working on the sales team, you will come across quality and regulatory staff. You can interact with them, you can talk with them, and you can learn the skills within that field, so don’t necessarily think that it has to be within quality and regulatory. If it’s in a medical company, you can still interact with quality and regulatory professionals within there. Volunteering, that’s another brilliant thing that you can do.

Of course, when it comes to work, you’ve just left university. Money may be a problem for a lot of people, but don’t be afraid to go out and just volunteer for a couple of weeks. If you go to a company saying, “Hi, I want to come here. Teach me what you know, and I’ll work for you for free,” that two weeks’ experience or however many weeks’ experience you get will be invaluable because it will make you stand out amongst the crowd as an individual.

TOPRA as well, I know we keep going back to them. They also take on student volunteers. That’s something to maybe help you stand out, and also if you are going to visit their symposium and you’re a student volunteer there, you already know a few people, so a lot of people can put you in connection with the right individual rather than you just turning up as a stranger. Even if you can’t get work experience or paid work experience, I highly recommend that you see if you can go for the volunteering group within a relevant company.

James: That’s quality advice there. You must have seen lots of work experience people over the years where you’ve been working. Any advice for how they can stand out when they do get that work placement and they’re on site how they can make the most of it and impress?

Karandeep: Show that you’re keen to learn. What I’ve found with a lot of work experience individuals is the manager or I will say to them, “These are the tasks that you need to do,” and they go out and do them, and they do a brilliant job, but they’re not very keen on learning. If an individual comes up to me and says, “Hi, Karandeep. You’ve asked me to do this. Could you please explain what this standard is, regulation means?” I’ll be impressed with that individual, I’ll sit down with them, I’ll explain what it actually means. That’s what I’ve found is they’ll get on with their job, they’ll do a fantastic job, but they don’t understand how it works in the background.

Show that you’re keen to learn, show that you want to get into this field, and then I’ll always remember you as that individual who came up to me and asked me for my advice. It’s inevitable we’ll bump into each other a few years down the line, and if I know of a role going on somewhere, I’ll highly recommend that individual over somebody who just turned up, did two years’ work experience, and then just walked away, basically.

James: That’s great advice, and it’s an active and passive thing. You do get lots of students come along who are very passive. They’re not asking for additional work, they’re waiting for people to give them things, and when you do get people who are bit more active, being proactive, asking questions, they stand out so much more than other people. It’s definitely one of the ways to be.

Karandeep: I completely agree. It’s all to do with the mind-set. If you show that you have the right mind-set, it helps you stand out a lot more.

James: Time is, unfortunately, running away with us, Karandeep. For listeners who are still at university, how can they make the most of university to get them ready for a job in regulatory affairs.

Karandeep: What you need to firstly do is let your lecturers that you want a job in the regulatory affairs. If your lecturers don’t know, they can’t point you in the right direction. If you make it clear to your lecturers saying, “Hi, I enjoy this particular part of the course. I want to get a career within regulatory or quality,” and you let them know, with university lecturers, they are one of the most well-connected people because they’ve taught thousands of students over the years. They’ve met with industry professionals, they’ll deal with placements, etcetera. It’s almost guaranteed that at least one of them will know somebody in their industry and they can point you in the right direction.

That’s the best way: get a very good relationship with your lecturers, let them know this is a field that you want to go into, and they can start pointing you in the right direction. Of course, the earlier on you tell this, the better off you are.

James: That’s great advice. Any particular societies at university that would stand people in good stead?

Karandeep: Yeah, look for any sort of scientific or medical societies, etcetera. One thing I really recommend is not necessarily when you’re in university, but when you’ve left university, is university alumni schemes. With the university alumni scheme, you’re in contact with previous professionals. They could be people that are 20 years ahead of you, 15 years ahead of you. Again, like I said earlier, don’t discriminate. Just because they may work in IT, or engineering, or a different field, they’ve probably got a classmate, or colleague, or a friend within the right industry.

That’s a brilliant way to connect with more individuals, and that’s what it comes to in networking is keep a very open mind. Don’t just think that it has to be people within your network. Go out and connect with as many people as you can, because they might have a friend of a friend of a friend, etcetera, who works in that field and can point you in the right direction.

I would say 30% of the job leads that I’ve received in the past have been from people who are not within the medical devices industry, so I know how valuable that can be.

James: That’s a high percentage, so it just shows the power of networking there. The alumni search tool in LinkedIn is one of the best tools on there from my perspective, and when you connect people who’ve been to your university, especially who’s done the same course as you, even though you might not know them, they’ve got that link with you, and they’re very likely to want to help you if you’ve got that shared background in said course and the same place. People do like to, especially further down their career, help people who are just coming up, so do make use of the alumni search tool on LinkedIn. Karandeep, time is running away with us, so let’s maybe move on to our weekly staple questions. Kicking us off, what one book would you suggest that listeners read? I’ll leave it open here. It doesn’t have to be regulatory affairs related.

Karandeep: It’s a book that’s been mentioned before, and I’m pretty sure anybody who’s into the creative element has brought it up, and that is “What Color is Your Parachute?“. The reason I say that is because it’s a complete mind-set change. It moves away from the old model of, “Find a job online, send your CV, and hope for the best.” This tells you about the direct approach, how to improve your CV, and overall how to find a career within your field. As what I found is when you start taking that approach of either just sending out a blanket CV to as many recruiters as you can, but instead giving them a call, tailoring your CV, networking, sending letters to companies out there, by that way, you’re guaranteed to get a lot more offers, because unfortunately what I’ve found is a lot of the jobs that are out there are filled internally or without being advertised through word of mouth. If you’re only applying for advertised roles in the old method, you probably only plan for about 20% of roles within the market, and you’re severely limiting yourself.

James: Brilliant advice, and it is a cracking book. Again, that’ll be linked to in the show notes, so check that out at GraduateJobPodcast.com/RegulatoryAffairs. Karandeep, what one internet resource would you point listeners towards?

Karandeep: Like I mentioned earlier, TOPRA. If you want to see what professionals in the field are up to, what’s going on within world of regulatory affairs where you can find about workshops, seminars, and all the changes in the industry, that is your one-stop shop to go to.

James: Excellent. Again, that will be linked to in the show notes. Final question: what one tip should listeners implement today to help them on their job search?

Karandeep: I’m a strong believer in that, basically, you miss all the shots that you don’t take. The best way around this is seize all the opportunities that you can that are given to you, take on the extra work, take on the extra roles, as if you don’t do that, you will only regret it in the feature when you realized what you could have actually been and what you’ve potentially lost out on.

James: I love that. That is a great way for us to finish today’s show. Karandeep, thank you. What’s the best way that people can find out more about you and what you do?

Karandeep: Best way around it is LinkedIn. I’m very active on LinkedIn. I do videos on there. Sometimes, I’d share articles based around medical devices, so if you want to get a feel as to what’s going on in the medical devices world, or even, as an individual, you’ve listened to this podcast and you maybe have a question for me, feel free to connect on LinkedIn and drop me a message.

James: Brilliant. Thank you so much for appearing on the Graduate Job Podcast today.

Karandeep: Thank you for having me, James.

James: Many thanks to Karandeep for his time today. I hope that has opened your eyes to the field of quality and regulatory affairs. A growing business area and one that needs keen and skilled graduates, so check it out. As a reminder all the links to everything we discussed and a full transcript are in the show notes at www.graduatejobpodcast.com/regulatoryaffairs. That is everything from today. Join me next Tuesday when I answer a listener question on when is the best time to apply for a graduate job, at the start of your final year, or once you have graduated. It’s a goodie. I hope you enjoyed the episode today, but more importantly, I hope you use it, and apply it. See you next week.