Peter Rost, M.D., is a former Pfizer Marketing Vice President providing services as a medical device and drug expert witness and pharmaceutical marketing expert. Judge Sanders: "The court agrees with defendants' view that Dr. Rost is a very adept and seasoned expert witness." He is also the author of Emergency Surgery, The Whistleblower and Killer Drug. You can reach him on rostpeter (insert symbol) hotmail.com. Follow on https://twitter.com/peterrost
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Pharmagossip tells every "to be Pfired" employee to read my book asap.
Don't apologise! I took the walk and haven't looked back. I guess some of our former colleagues may not be so lucky. Seems we got out before the rush...
I could have used some of your tips to pull a few chains on the way out though.
Interesting thing about the Big P not giving references. That hits long servers/high flyers particularly hard, I think.
I was told in all seriousness by a sweetie in HR (yes, she was a sweetie - and she quit soon after me because she wanted no part in some of the things she was being asked to do - quite what she never let on) that the real reason behind the "no references" policy was because the company wanted to discourage the spread of any expertise gained at their expense to competitors.
It kind of makes sense in a warped way.
Depending on the discipline you are in, a good way to get around the "no reference" fix is doing agency work for a while. You can gather references from both the agency and your "hosts".
It worked for me, with one of my "hosts" liking me enough to keep me on permanently. The large hole in my resume from my wasted years at Pfizer didn't matter with an employer who already had got to know me.
During interviews, I also noticed the reaction of the interviewers when I responded to the inevitable question "why did you leave Pfizer?". I always replied with the truth: "because they really aren't very nice people any more". That always, always got a smile and usually a response along the lines of "yes, we know". I've been offered the jobs, too, despite Pfizer's lack of co-operation there.
It appears that such is Pfizer's reputation in the industry now, not having a reference from them need not be a barrier to future gainful employment.
Pfizer are throwing out a lot of talent in the name of "cost savings". That really will come back to haunt them.
Most of that talent will undoubtedly find employment elsewhere. For better companies.
I've got a friend who was forced out of Pfizer (without severance, as you might guess) a while back for not cooperating with some illegal conduct by co-workers and higher ups (including in the HR office-- made me laugh when I read your comments about that).
Like with everyone else there were no references and the manager at Pfizer even took extra efforts to sabotage this friend's ability to collect any measley unemployment payments by lying to the state agency about the grounds for termination-- all out of spite.
This friend was hired by Pfizer right out of college and had no other work history other than the crappy part-time jobs held while working his way through college. (not a lot of employers are impressed by one's work as a gas station attendant or late night custodian while working your way through school several years earlier if you can't say what you've done for all the years since graduation). Despite a stellar collegiate academic performance that landed the job at Pfizer in the first place, it just doesn't seem to be enough now without verifications of solid work history performance in the years since.
This friend is back to manual labor now as the only job that didn't care what an employee had been doing for those intervening years; but age catches up to a person and makes that labor far less sustainable.
Any more detailed guidance you can share from your experience???
I'm open to any input on this from you too, doc.
Any idea adds to the pool of options that my friend can look into for options as the blue collar thing can really only sustain itself for so long.
FWIW, it is my experience that it is SOP not to allow references by big business. It all revolves around avoiding litigation (Employees have sued for defamation when they received a bad reference and companies have sued when they received good references for a bad employee). So a company nowadays will typically only release that an employee is/is not able to be considered for rehire and that's it. So this is not really spiteful or uncommon by Phizer...
The "no reference" policy has been in place pretty much throughout the industry for years. This is nothing new...... The companies will give dates of service and that is it...
6 comments:
You wrote it a year too late for me, mate...
Sorry about that!
Don't apologise! I took the walk and haven't looked back. I guess some of our former colleagues may not be so lucky. Seems we got out before the rush...
I could have used some of your tips to pull a few chains on the way out though.
Interesting thing about the Big P not giving references. That hits long servers/high flyers particularly hard, I think.
I was told in all seriousness by a sweetie in HR (yes, she was a sweetie - and she quit soon after me because she wanted no part in some of the things she was being asked to do - quite what she never let on) that the real reason behind the "no references" policy was because the company wanted to discourage the spread of any expertise gained at their expense to competitors.
It kind of makes sense in a warped way.
Depending on the discipline you are in, a good way to get around the "no reference" fix is doing agency work for a while. You can gather references from both the agency and your "hosts".
It worked for me, with one of my "hosts" liking me enough to keep me on permanently. The large hole in my resume from my wasted years at Pfizer didn't matter with an employer who already had got to know me.
During interviews, I also noticed the reaction of the interviewers when I responded to the inevitable question "why did you leave Pfizer?". I always replied with the truth: "because they really aren't very nice people any more". That always, always got a smile and usually a response along the lines of "yes, we know". I've been offered the jobs, too, despite Pfizer's lack of co-operation there.
It appears that such is Pfizer's reputation in the industry now, not having a reference from them need not be a barrier to future gainful employment.
Pfizer are throwing out a lot of talent in the name of "cost savings". That really will come back to haunt them.
Most of that talent will undoubtedly find employment elsewhere. For better companies.
To Pharma Giles:
What kind of agency work did you do?
I've got a friend who was forced out of Pfizer (without severance, as you might guess) a while back for not cooperating with some illegal conduct by co-workers and higher ups (including in the HR office-- made me laugh when I read your comments about that).
Like with everyone else there were no references and the manager at Pfizer even took extra efforts to sabotage this friend's ability to collect any measley unemployment payments by lying to the state agency about the grounds for termination-- all out of spite.
This friend was hired by Pfizer right out of college and had no other work history other than the crappy part-time jobs held while working his way through college. (not a lot of employers are impressed by one's work as a gas station attendant or late night custodian while working your way through school several years earlier if you can't say what you've done for all the years since graduation). Despite a stellar collegiate academic performance that landed the job at Pfizer in the first place, it just doesn't seem to be enough now without verifications of solid work history performance in the years since.
This friend is back to manual labor now as the only job that didn't care what an employee had been doing for those intervening years; but age catches up to a person and makes that labor far less sustainable.
Any more detailed guidance you can share from your experience???
I'm open to any input on this from you too, doc.
Any idea adds to the pool of options that my friend can look into for options as the blue collar thing can really only sustain itself for so long.
Thanks in advance!
FWIW, it is my experience that it is SOP not to allow references by big business. It all revolves around avoiding litigation (Employees have sued for defamation when they received a bad reference and companies have sued when they received good references for a bad employee). So a company nowadays will typically only release that an employee is/is not able to be considered for rehire and that's it. So this is not really spiteful or uncommon by Phizer...
The "no reference" policy has been in place pretty much throughout the industry for years. This is nothing new...... The companies will give dates of service and that is it...
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