Pros
It is full time employment. It can be entry level employment for someone who just graduated college in Chemistry or Biology. You won't do much actual chemistry and biology and the skillset you gain won't be very applicable outside this niche area of PET drug manufacturing. But you will gain work experience in the pharmaceutical industry and in manufacturing operations.
Cons
I was told in my interview that starting pay is $17/hr for Tech I in PET but that it would raise as soon as I got AU certified. I asked how long it takes to get AU certified and was told 6 weeks. Do not believe this. The course takes 6 weeks but it takes several months before you can take the course + six weeks + several months to receive the certification. Then you won't actually get promoted when you get certified. They will make you wait until you are on the site license, which takes another several months to apply for and another several months to wait for approval from the state. Then your supervisor will tell you he will promote you, but will not actually do it. You will get strung along. You will wait for your promotion to get announced but it won't happen. When you question him about it, he will tell you that AU certification is only one factor in promotion and it is discretionary based on the manager's assessment of things like "leadership ability". But your manager only sees you for anywhere from 5 min to an hour per day because you are a third shift employee (10pm start - when you get AU certified you will work opening for some amount of time) and he is a first shift employee (7am start and he stays in his office outside the lab a majority of the time). You will open the site by yourself unsupervised for two hours, then act as a shift lead, generally with the newest employee for another 3 hours, you will perform production, perform sterility, do your paperwork, all without supervision - but when it comes to promotion, the goal posts repeatedly shift further back, and you don't meet the "requirements". In your performance review, your manager will blame you for "not taking the initiative" to become qualified in Amyvid processes, even though that is something that has to be scheduled because it is performed concurrently with your other tasks. This is a trend - your manager will shift blame as much as possible to the least common denominator, which is you. Then when you finally do get promoted between a year and a year and a half later (if you last that long without getting fed up), you will be making $19/hr as a Tech II. In the mean time you will put up with a work environment in which you essentially will be expected to be on-call, and your starting time can vary dramatically by 6 hours or more on only a few hours notice. This happened to me many times. Your manager will either not make a schedule or will make a schedule that is meaningless practically as soon as it is made on a regular basis. You may be expected to be in another state across the country on less than 24 hrs notice to cover for another site (if your site's staffing is adequate and depending on what you are qualified in). When you are sent somewhere, you will have to front the money for your hotel, for your rental car, and the rest of your expenses. Cardinal will reimburse you eventually, but for someone making $17/hr, it will be difficult to have that kind of money in your bank account to allocate to these expenses while you have other bills to pay. You will work some form of third shift whether it is 10pm or midnight or 2am 3am 4am - it will vary, and the more you are qualified in, the more it will vary. You will work weekends also. You will be miserable.