Pros
They take on Graduates readily provided you show eagerness. It's a GMP environment so you can get good exposure to industry standards. Work is continually coming in from different clients so you don't have long periods of slow work. Good exposure to different instrumental techniques, testing procedures and machines. Training on Instruments is excellent and the focus on training is very high.
Cons
Salary is low, particularly low for the industry standard (but beggars can't be choosers) Large portions of testing are carried out, which means you do the same test over and over, every day for weeks and in some cases months on end. I calculated I spent about 3 months of my career washing up plates, basins and equipment other analysts have used in testing. Due to the nature of the contact work (or CRO work), division of labour is such that one analyst may spend the entire day testing, another sampling into HPLC vials, and another analyst spedning most of the day writing sequences. Simply put, you only do one part of the process which becomes monotonous and soul draining. The monotony of the work means you don't learn much about Pharmaceutical science in depth, and learning is put as a low priority. Results and data is the highest priority, preferably generated at the fastest rate possible to maximise profit. You can become pigoen holed - for example doing certain things such as writing up a scientific poster or doing a presentation is witheld until you show proficiency in doing the testing, despite the ability to present or write up a poster being unrelated to being good at testing. Due to the nature of CRO, work can become intense, the pressure to not make mistakes can become high.
