I study Pharmaceutical Sciences in Portugal. in September, I’ll start the last year of my Msc. In may, I will do an internship in a community pharmacy in Canton Bern for 3 months. After the internship I will have to go back to Portugal, for a couple of months, the time necessary to defend my thesis and get the papers for my degree. I would love to have a career in the pharmaceutical industry in Switzerland after having completed my studies.
My small work experience: 2 months as production supervisor at a drug manufacturing plant and 1 month as regulatory affairs associate at a lobby company for the pharmaceutical industry. I also work for 2 academic projects: on one as project manager assistant (from 02/2023 to 03/2026) and the other as project methodology manager (01/2023 to 11/2023).
I speak: English C1, French C2, Portuguese B2, German A2 ( on progress), Spanish B1.
I have a EU citizenship.
My questions are the following:
-when should I start looking for jobs? When I am doing my internship in Switzerland ( so several months before my availability)? Or after getting the papers of my degree?
-what do you think is the best strategy to get an entry level job? Candidate to job offers only or get in contact with some recruitment agencies ? Can I contact big companies like Novartis, Roche,... directly to see if their HR department could navigate me to job offers that seem adequate with my profile ?
-being open to live in any part of Switzerland (apart from Geneva), what address should I put on my CV? I have a relative in Biel that could host me during the time necessary to find a job at a definite location.
-what should I expect as a bare minimum salary for jobs in the Pharma industry, considering my degree and almost no experience ? Please give locations for your estimates, I know it can vary a lot based on that.
-what jobs seems to be the most accessible for my profile? Something related to regulatory affairs, project management, production supervision, or others?
Thanks in advance for your inputs