The Pharmacy Professional's Guide to Resumes, CVs, & Interviewing

With the diverse career opportunities that are available, many pharmacists find themselves pursuing new jobs more often than they anticipated when they first began their pharmacy careers. The second edition of The Pharmacy Professional's Guide to Resumes, CVs, and Interviewing can serve as an excellent resource to pharmacists navigating the job market whether for the first time or when changing career paths. The book is organized in chapters with titles that accurately describe the content covered, including assessing career goals, preparing resumes, curriculum vitae, portfolios, and letters, as well as interview tips. Throughout the chapters, the reader will find bulleted lists, text boxes, and tables to emphasize key points that they can easily refer to at a later date. The chapters explain concepts in detail, which seasoned practitioners might find unnecessary; however, students and new practitioners will find the explanations helpful. A student who is entering the job market for the first time might be more likely to review each chapter while a practicing pharmacist could review the chapter that corresponds to the information on which he/she desires additional insight. Since there does seem to be a struggle with professionalism among some students and young practitioners, the chapters, “Presenting a Professional Image” and “The Interview: Before, During, and After,” are excellent resources to help prepare for interviewing, including an extensive list of interview questions divided into categories for easy review. The etiquette tips are up-to-date and include information to address cell phones etiquette as well as email communication. Another useful feature of the book is the inclusion of 15 example resumes and 6 example curriculum vitae (CVs) that represent technicians, students, and practitioners from a variety of settings, as well as those with different years of experience. The example resumes and CVs have notations on them to help the reader recognize strong features as well as areas for improvement. The 20 example letters encompass responding to a position announcement, requesting an interview, and a thank you letter following an interview, as well as how to politely decline a position. A CD-ROM accompanies the book with information that corresponds to the key points in each chapter. Advantages to using the CD-ROM are: expanded information on areas which the reader would like to focus; accessibility to online resources via hyperlinks; and links to the example resumes, CVs, and letters are available in Microsoft Word to help illustrate formats. Because this book includes information on determining a career path as well as pursuing career goals, a student could utilize it when obtaining a residency, a fellowship, or a first job, and continue to refer to it when pursuing subsequent jobs. Although I think students might benefit most from the comprehensive nature of the topics covered in the book, I think practicing pharmacists could utilize it as a career resource as well. I believe that educators as well as practicing pharmacists would find the book useful when discussing tips for writing letters, formatting resumes and CVs, and appropriate etiquette during interviews with students, residents, and younger practitioners. A variety of books are available to help people present themselves in the best light as they pursue new jobs; however, resources currently available do not focus specifically on the field of pharmacy. This book fills that niche for students, residents, and pharmacists in a variety of practice settings, as well as pharmacy technicians. I intend to use the book when discussing formatting CVs, resumes, and job interviews with pharmacy students. Since the book is economical for the resources you receive, I would be comfortable recommending that students purchase this book as a reference to use when preparing for the next step in their careers.