hey guys Serg here and today we're going to be talking about being a CRA with a
family
hey guys Serg here today we have a viewer-submitted question and the person
asked being a CRA with a family is it possible to be a CRA with a family and
the answer to this question is it is possible but it's very very difficult
now before I expand on that a little bit I just want to say that we do have a
resume review program going on right now you can submit your resume to elite
clinical group at gmail.com we've had a number of submissions come through
already and if you're interested in getting into the clinical research
industry this is a great thing for you we will review your resume beef it up
put a lot of the information and it needs to be on there that not a lot of
people know about to enhance your resume and overall make it more appealing to
recruiters and hiring managers for the position that you're looking for so
email us there at elite clinical group at gmail.com if you're interested but is
it possible to be a clinical research associate with a family yes it is
possible but it is very very hard it is very hard to be a clinical research
associate and maintain a reasonable life social life at all outside of the job
it's very hard if you know you're married and no kids it's hard if you
just aren't a normal relationship it's hard so when they say 75 to 80% travel
they mean that that's not a joke that literally means 75% of your working time
you work five days a week to 80% of that time is going to be travel so what is
that three and a half to four days out of the week they're not lying I recently
had a friend who said that she was she was gone for 12 days consecutively that
includes weekends so this job is no joke it is very hard to maintain a family
being gone 75 to 80 percent of the time very very hard if if a lot of you are
now are married to a business owner or some sort or maybe a
doctor or some sort it's very hard for those people to maintain families and
maintain a normal working social life outside of a relationship as well I mean
outside of the job as well this job is similar to that you're traveling you
know you're like a musician or an artist or a basketball player it's hard for
these people to maintain relationships because they're on the road so much
clinical researchers associates are just like that they're literally gone so much
of the time and when they're gone they're working a lot of the time as
well you know they have to work in the in the hotel they're working on planes
they're tired when they get back all they want to do on the weekends is sleep
because they have to gear up for to get to get back on the road once the once it
goes once they go back to work on Monday it's very hard not to say it's it's
impossible it can be done there are obviously clinical research associates
out there with families but it's not easy and that's that's part of the
reason why a lot of people they get into it they do it for a number of years and
then they get out of it when they're tired of being on the road all that time
if specially if you're a female and you do want to have that family you know a
great time to get out of it go into project management which is also very
difficult that's another topic for another day or you know become an
in-house CRA or a clinical trial lead there are positions out there where
you're not doing as much travel but if you want to you know make some good
money be able to travel across the country sometimes the world and I'm
talking about United States here sometimes the world internationally
clinical research associate is a great job for you and you know it's great you
get to meet a lot of people from across the country and across the world you get
to have a very fruitful career you get a lot of perks being on the road that much
but one of them but one of the I guess the cons of being on the road that much
is your social life will tend to suffer especially if you have a family you're
raising kids on the side not to say it's impossible but it is very very hard
so maybe we'll do a video on some tips on how to do that in the future how to
maintain the work/life balance there but it's very very hard
they say 75 to 80 percent travel and it's definitely that it's it's very
rarely unless you're under allocated on studies where you're gonna be doing any
less than that occasionally it can be more than that if you want it to be but
sometimes there are positions where they will say something like 35 or 50 percent
travel and those are good for people with families who want to be home a
little bit more some I've seen CRA positions with even less than that very
very rarely most of the time they do say 75 to 80 percent travel but keep in mind
when they when they're talking about that travel requirement for a clinical
research associate position that's for real
they're not they're not joking when they say 75 to 80 percent travel so just keep
in mind that that comes with the territory that's part of the job and
that's that I mean if you really want to have a family clinical research
associate the best career for you at that time you could do it for a little
bit then get out that's great a lot of people do that
but if you're intent on having a family right now and you want to be a clinical
research associate right now I would strongly suggest you rethink that and
maybe either wait on the family part right now put that off for a couple
years or become an in-house CRA or go down the project management route or you
know any of the other number of positions that don't travel as much in
clinical research because starting a family and being on the road 75 to 80
percent and then the time you're back the 20% year back you're gonna be very
very tired and it's gonna be very hard to do all the family duties and
everything that you need to do there so strongly consider that thank you for
this viewer that submitted this question please submit more questions you can
comment down below or you can email us at elite clinical group at gmail.com if
you would prefer for your question to be made it into a video on the channel so
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thank you guys take care