getting a job as a Statistician or a Biostatistician

I have a Master's degree in Statistics and have 1 year of experience in Medical Devices as a Quality Control Technician/Analyst and 2 years of experience as a Statistical Consultant for an educational project at a State University.

I would like to get into the Statistician profession or Biostatistician profession, but not sure how.

Hello, I am an accountant who has conisdered this field due to the large number of pharmaceutical companies in the Philadelphia area. My advice is to join a SAS user group and start networking.

SAS, Matlab and SPSS are the software packages which are used this type of research. (Some people like R, but it is best for smaller datasets.)

I recommend reading "The Little SAS Book."

And don't become discourgaged about the programming of SAS or Matlab. Go through your book once or twice and try the excercises. As an entry level statiscian, the expectation is not that you will be an amazing programmer, but you will need to be able to interpret results and decide which tests are appropriate.

I have learned SAS in school, only problem is that I didn't have experience in a job where I used SAS (just used SAS JMP).

I have used SPSS.

I recently joined a SAS user group, but mostly hiring people with experience (senior level), hopefully later there will be entry level positions open.

jacqueline in Pleasanton, California said: I have learned SAS in school, only problem is that I didn't have experience in a job where I used SAS (just used SAS JMP).

I have used SPSS.

I recently joined a SAS user group, but mostly hiring people with experience (senior level), hopefully later there will be entry level positions open.

Hmmm. I am going to offer a bit of speculative advice here so be warned.

I am currently learning SAS 9.0 at the moment. The student version is available for $60 if you provide a working .edu email address.

You could, make a web portfolio showing your resume, work samples, and your own research, stats or data mining done from recently published datasets.

I am interested in getting a MS in Biostats, and working in Houston, TX. Are there many jobs in the TX med ctr for MS in Biostats folks? What is the general salary for someone with just a MS (and a PhD in social science)? Thanks! :)