Anute, if you curently work at a university, I would suggest the following: contact professors at the Department of medicine, health professions, Psychology/Neuroscience & Nursing to see if they have any research going on for which they need research assistants. You have better odds since you already work there.

About training, I would recommend you volunteer a lot. You need practical experience. Just helping out in a clincial study for 1 month goes a long way. Check if your university has a centre for clinical research - they would have training programs each month on different aspects of clinical research b/c the professionals need to stay up to speed too. The programs are free, though registration is generally required since seats are limited.

You only become a certified CRA after 2 yrs work experience. At this point, mentioning "CCRP or CCRA" on your resume will set you apart. Otherwise, you basically begin at an entry level position and work your way up.

Lastly, be proactive! Tell everyone you know that you are looking for work in this field. Search job banks, use google, set up career alerts, send out resumes even when not sollicited. Make sure you target your search and apply for positions for which you qualify.

hi gurdeep... have you taken online programm from kriger research? is that useful for jojbs? is that true. mine is also same story , im getting mails asking me to cal for my job but no responce. pl tel what s going on...

Gina, sorry to hear about your situation. Try looking for research coordiantor positions with hospitals, CROs, biotech/pharmaceutical companies and then work your way up to CRA. It is very difficult to get a CRA position without 2 yrs experience in a similar capacity. I also think the economy is affecting recruitment. Goodluck and don't give up!

I noticed that more than one discussion forum on the subject of espoirbridge, cereprotec, kriger, etc, has mysteriously disappeared. A discussion on indeed.com (http://www.indeed.com/forum/job/clinical-rese ... c137e1e737d4204)disappeared. Several pages of this discussion also disappeared.I'd like to invite people to continue the talk at http://rantawaythoseblues.blogspot.com/I created the space so that this discussion can continue, even if this particular thread is taken down. Please bookmark it!Hope to hear more from all of you.

I agree with “me”, where are other 11 pages of this forum, what's going on? Where are all the comments by J?
I am in the same boat with dozens (or hundreds?) of job seekers who was asked to call and got “mail box is full message”. Honestly I didn’t expect much after browsing through Cereprotec web-site...
Few little things also alerted me like the fact that the other side of the line sounded quiet and not busy as I would expect. As well as Sandra’s last name was spelled differently in her e-mail address and electronic signature (Stewart/Stewert). Not very professional, isn’t it?
I have read all the previous comments of this forum up to the end of the day on Monday, and I just wanted to express my respect to J. He or She seems to be a highly educated and knowledgeable person, with excellent logic and judgement, very polite and straight to the point (despite of all that personal offences that his opponents were using to shut him/her up, ex. “go and find girl friend”). I believe comments like this are highly inappropriate and not related to the subject of discussion in any way. Thank you J, it’s mostly because of your input that I have read through all the discussion, and thank you for providing with valuable links and information.
As for Mr. Krieger behaviour I am shocked that a head of large educational and research organisation, a writer, can be so rude and threatening. By the way somebody mentioned on this web-site or indeed.com, that 3 months of internship with Krieger CRO after graduation from Krieger institute can be qualified as 6 months of industry experience?  How this could be justified? Could anybody explain? Thank you.

I am not the type to take the time to post anything anywhere, but I find this important if not amusing.  I recently came across EB while looking for other opportunities within industry.  After sending my CV to what seemed like a legitimate recruitment agency, my email box has started to fill with the same spam as mentioned above including the contact from Clinqua even the same HR rep.  Something did not smell right, so I did some looking and my next email is going to be to a friend of mine in the San Diego Attorney General’s office.  Not that much can be done, but maybe a call to the "HR Manager" will make this operation worry a little.    

A few points of interest for the sake of helping others:
*For what it is worth, I am a hiring manager within industry, I am certified CCRA, and I have some years of experience.  The first email from EB implied that I needed experience, certification, and more education (I have an MS/MBA).  First Flag  

*I have outsourced to CROs for clinical studies; however, I have never heard of Clinqua until now.  After looking around on the internet, I cannot say for sure if the name Clinqua is a real CRO that somehow was drug into this, but it would seem that I would have heard of them before as my business address is XXXX La Jolla Village drive.  -Their office building should be down the street from mine.  Funny, I have never heard of a vendor that I should be going to lunch with.  Shame on their BD staff.  

*To answer a few questions I have seen, yes, you can get hired as a CRA without a certification (I have done it).  It is not as easy, but I would hire an experienced CRA with a good resume over a less experienced CRA with all the degrees and certifications out there (experience = job).  The employer should agree to pay for any certification or at least assist with paying for it.  Look to ACRA and SOCRA for resources.  Other sources are out there, but do get hooked into being a victim.  



Best of Luck