Get a Pharmacy Tech Job

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Why consider a pharmacy tech job? Here are two reasons: Health care is one of the fastest growing industries in the United States, and one of the most accessible jobs in the field is that of pharmacy technician. Many pharmacies do on-the-job training, and although being certified can help you get better positions, it is not always a requirement. Recent job openings at major hospitals, listed on Monster.com, required only a high school diploma, although some do say "certification preferred."

You get to work in a very clean environment, doing administrative and clinical tasks such as filling prescriptions and dealing with the public both in person and on the phone.

How Much Can You Make?

Hourly pay is between $12 to $18, and there are usually benefits such as health insurance and vacation time as well. To make substantially more, you may use a technician job as mean. Pharmacy technicians make an average of $28,940 annually according to recent Labor Department statistics, with 10% topping $40,000. Pharmacists average $106,630.

Ways to Make More | Related Opportunities | Tips

Certainly you can use your job as a way to determine if you want to be a pharmacist. There are also some certified pharmacy technicians who make good money working as expert witnesses in court cases.

Try to find a job before you get certified, so you can have additional months of experience on your resume when you apply for better jobs.

There are some potentially interesting places to do this work, like in national parks, foreign countries or on cruise ships. See the resources below for a website that lists these types of jobs.

Qualifications / Requirements

A high school diploma is about all you need, but as mentioned, you will have more opportunities once you are certified, and certification is likely to become a legal requirement in most states eventually.

First Steps

It may sound silly, but it can't hurt to watch the pharmacy tech workers doing their jobs at any local pharmacy, just to imagine yourself in their shoes and so determine if it seems like something you would want to do. The various drugstore chains and retail pharmacies in grocery stores will sometimes have significantly different pay scales even in the same city, so check a few of them out before applying. If you start with no education or certification in the field, aim to get certified at some point. This will open up better jobs. There are companies that provide certification by way of exam and colleges that offer programs as well. Remington College, for example, has campuses in more than a dozen cities and offers an 8-month course.

Resources

Pharmacy Technician Workbook and Certification Review, by Press Prespective - Morton Publishing Company 4th Edition 2010 - Training manual and practice tests for getting certified.

The Pharmacy Technician's Pocket Drug Reference, by Joyce A. Generali - American Pharmacists Association 5th Edition 2008.

http://www.rxrecruiters.com/non-traditional-pharmacy-jobs.htm - Has listings of positions on cruise ships, national parks and foreign countries.


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