BRC Alums

Pharmaceutical Diaspora

The Bayer Research Community Alumni website was mentioned in the April 16, 2007 issue of Chemical & Engineering News (a subscription is required to access the full article). Here's a quote:

A "Bayer alumni" website they established enables former West Haven employees to keep in touch and pass on potential job opportunities they encounter in their search. Lowe, for example, has posted jobs he heard about through his blog.

"Every day you get a couple of e-mails with job leads," Rudolph says. "We really stuck together and didn't see each other as competitors, even though in some ways we were." His former Bayer colleagues are "a good bunch of people," he adds. "That is something I will hopefully have in my new company."

The level of collegial support has been "tremendous," Kramss adds. "It really blunted some of the dismay over being away from one's colleagues and friends. Now we have a means of staying in touch with one another." And as more scientists from West Haven find work, it creates a new network for others to tap into. Word of mouth is the best way into a company, the chemists say.

If you are a BRC alum, but you are not already a member of one of the private websites or groups, please take a look at the Yahoo Group links or the LinkedIn Group link elsewhere on this page.

Tip: Avoiding Multiple LinkedIn Accounts

Now that we have quite a few BRC Alums using LinkedIn, it's worth pointing out a potential area of confusion when using LinkedIn. Unfortunately, it is very easy to create multiple, redundant LinkedIn accounts if one is not careful.

LinkedIn accounts are keyed to email addresses, so if you use more than one email address, and you receive an invitation at an address that is not part of your LinkedIn profile, you may be prompted to create a new LinkedIn account.

To avoid the resulting confusion, simply add your various email addresses to your LinkedIn account by editing your account settings.

If you have accidentally created multiple LinkedIn accounts, take these steps to resolve the issue:

1. Choose one LinkedIn account to be your permanent account.
2. Transfer all your information (profile, connections etc) to the permanent account. If you have "connections" on the account that you wish to close, be sure to invite them to connect to your permanent account before you request closure of your extra accounts.
3. To close your other account(s), please email LinkedIn Customer Service. Include the email addresses associated with each of the accounts and indicate which will be the primary email address for the account you keep. Be aware that when LinkedIn closes an account, all of the information in that account is deleted, including profile information, connections, and recommendations.

For more information, please review the LinkedIn FAQ.

Bayer Research Community Alumni at LinkedIn

Many BRC Alums have been using LinkedIn to help to manage their professional networks.

LinkedIn has several features specifically designed for groups like ours, so today we are launching the "Bayer Research Community Alums" LinkedIn group as a complement (not a replacement!) for our private Yahoo groups (see the sidebar on the right for links to the Yahoo groups).

All members of the BRC Alums and Beyond Berlex Yahoo groups are invited to join the LinkedIn group, as are individuals from the broader Bayer/Berlex alumni community.

The Yahoo Group will remain our forum for private group communications, while the LinkedIn group will aim to facilitate one-on-one networking among a broader community.

Through the BRC Alums Group on LinkedIn you can:

• Keep up to date with where other group members have landed;
• Keep your friends and colleagues up to date with what you are doing;
• Use the group network to find and reach the new business contacts you need;
• Accelerate your career through referrals from group members;
• Limit your network searches to other group members only, if you wish to do so.

Whether you use LinkedIn already or you're new to LinkedIn, if you are part of the Bayer/Berlex Research Alumni Community, please feel free to join the members-only BRC Alums LinkedIn Group!