Clinical Data Managers

Employers

Clinical data managers work for health care organizations and for research centers that may be private, public, or part of academic institutions. They are often employed in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries and in clinical research organizations. The job closest to that of clinical data managers that the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook provides information on is data scientists. Approximately 168,900 data scientists are employed in the United States. About 12 percent of data scientists work for management, scientific, and technical consulting services firms and scientific research and development services firms.

Starting Out

An internship is one way that clinical data managers get started in this career. Contact your school's career services office for help with locating internship opportunities at health care or research organizations. Internships and employment opportunities can also be found through professional associations. Search the following Web sites for internship openings and job listings:

• American Mathematical Society: http://www.ams.org/opportunities
• American Statistical Association: https://www.amstat.org/education/statistics-students/internships-and-fellowships
• Association for Computing Machinery: http://jobs.acm.org
• IEEE Computer Society: https://www.ieeeusa.org/careers

Other ways to search for jobs and internships include contacting companies directly, working with employment agencies, and attending career fairs and networking events. LinkedIn also offers opportunities to join professional groups and keep up with industry news and trends. Create a profile page on LinkedIn and conduct a search for clinical data manager groups that are open to participation.