That is still true, but not the only truth anymore.

Lately, I think a lot of healthcare professionals in Canada are starting to think differently; the system itself is changing, and people are also changing with it.

Canada’s healthcare system is under pressure. We hear about it all the time now. Staffing shortages. Long wait times. Burnout. Nurses leaving. Hospitals struggling to retain workers. The Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions has cited research projecting that Canada could face a shortage of 117,600 nurses by 2030.

This means people are needed, but people are also tired.

At the same time, healthcare work is expanding outside the hospital. Clinical research, digital health, virtual care, healthcare data, regulatory affairs, patient recruitment, and health technology are becoming bigger parts of the healthcare system.

These are not completely separate from patient care. They are connected to it.

Clinical research, for example, is the work behind new treatments, new drugs, new medical devices, and better care pathways. It may not always look like traditional healthcare work, but it still affects patients. Sometimes at a very large scale.

This became very obvious during the pandemic. Suddenly, people who had never thought about clinical trials were hearing about vaccine research, trial phases, safety monitoring, approval processes, and public health data. Research was no longer hidden in the background. It became part of everyday conversation.

Canada is also paying attention to this space. Health Canada has been working on modernizing clinical trial regulations, with the goal of improving access to new therapies while maintaining patient safety. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada also notes that Canada captures around 4 percent of global clinical trials and ranked third globally for the total number of new clinical trials in 2023.

So clinical research is not just a side path. It is becoming a serious part of Canada’s healthcare future.

And this is where the career conversation becomes interesting.

A nurse may move into clinical trial coordination, an internationally trained doctor may enter research operations. A public health graduate may work in ethics or data.
Someone with bedside experience may move into patient recruitment or study management.

I think this matters because for a long time, we treated healthcare careers as if there was only one “real” version of contribution. Direct patient care was visible. Everything else was often seen as secondary.

But healthcare is much bigger than that. It’s the person collecting research data, the person coordinating trial matters, making sure a study follows ethics guidelines.
The person explaining a trial to a patient, or the person improving a digital health system.

All of these things shape healthcare, even if they do not happen at the bedside.

There is also a gendered side to this conversation. A 2023 article in The Conversation said women make up about 75 percent of Canada’s healthcare workforce. The same article also discussed how women in Canada perform significantly more unpaid care work than men when formal systems fall short.

So when healthcare becomes strained, many women carry pressure from both sides.

That is why career sustainability is not a small issue. It is not just about convenience or preference. For many women in healthcare, it is about whether they can continue doing meaningful work without completely burning out.

And maybe this is why clinical research and digital health are becoming more attractive.

The future of healthcare careers in Canada will still include hospitals. Of course it will. We will always need nurses, doctors, pharmacists, PSWs, technologists, and frontline teams. That work is essential.

But the future will also include people working in research offices, trial sites, virtual care platforms, health tech companies, ethics boards, regulatory teams, and data roles.

Maybe the future of healthcare careers is not smaller than before; maybe it is wider.

And maybe for many healthcare professionals in Canada, especially those trying to build a long-term life around meaningful work, that wider future is exactly what is needed.

There is a burning question doing rounds among aspiring healthcare professionals: Is clinical research getting too saturated? Am I too late?

Honestly, the anxiety isn’t completely unreasonable. With such rapid shifts within all industries, such questions are common. However, in this case, the worry stems from the fact that the field feels more visible than ever. More people are talking about it.

However, you all can rest assured that clinical research as an industry is not slowing down.

You can also refer to my video here for more explanation on this!

Across Canada and globally, investment in clinical trials, healthcare innovation, and research infrastructure continues to grow. Governments and private sectors are placing increasing emphasis on research as a foundation for future healthcare systems. According to Deloitte, clinical trials are becoming more digital and decentralized, which is expanding the scope of roles across the industry.

Over the next five to ten years, demand for roles across clinical trials, data management, regulatory affairs, and research coordination is expected to continue rising. The opportunity is still huge.

However, the anxiety-inducing part is that more people are entering the field.

Many healthcare professionals are opting out of bedside roles. Internationally educated professionals are looking for ways to stay within healthcare without repeating long licensing pathways. Graduates from science, public health, and even social sciences are discovering clinical research as a structured and sustainable career path.

This is where the shift is happening.

The industry is growing, but the number of applicants per role is growing faster. That is why it feels more competitive, especially at the entry level. Initially, the competition was more among fresh graduates but now experienced professionals making career transitions are also joining the force.

Technology is also quietly raising the bar. AI and digital tools are being used to improve trial efficiency, data accuracy, and patient management. This means future candidates will need both clinical understanding and basic digital awareness.

So, are you too late? Not really. But you do need to be more intentional.

Start early, even if the role is small. Build practical skills alongside your education. And prepare properly for interviews. This is coming first-hand from an industry professional.

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Clinical research is indeed more competitive than before. That only means that people who approach it strategically will still find their way in!

And yet, when the health-care system falters, the burden does not fall equally.

The same analysis highlights that women in Canada perform significantly more unpaid care work than men when formal systems fall short.

Every year on Women’s Day, we celebrate progress. But if we are honest, medicine and healthcare as we know it exist because women refused exclusion, invisibility, and limitation.

Here are ten women who reshaped healthcare forever.

1. Dr Özlem Türeci

   Co-founder of BioNTech, Dr Özlem Türeci helped lead the development of one of the first widely distributed mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. During a global crisis, her work helped save millions of lives.

2. Virginia Apgar

   The Apgar Score, developed by Dr Virginia Apgar in 1952, transformed neonatal care. In under a minute, physicians could assess a newborn’s health using a standardized system, reducing infant mortality.

3. Helen Brooke Taussig

   Dr Helen Brooke Taussig, also known as founder of pediatric cardiology, co-developed the surgical procedure that saved children born with “blue baby syndrome” in 1944.

4. Florence Nightingale

   This name is foundational to any history of modern healthcare. Remembered as “the Lady with the Lamp,” Florence Nightingale transformed nursing during the Crimean War. But her real revolution was data. She used statistical analysis to prove that sanitation reduced mortality, laying the foundation for evidence-based healthcare. Modern infection control protocols trace their roots back to her insistence that data should guide care.

   

5. Elizabeth Blackwell

   Elizabeth Blackwell is the first woman in the United States to earn a medical degree, in 1849. Medical schools had rejected her repeatedly. She graduated anyway and opened the door for women physicians worldwide.

   

6. Rebecca Lee Crumpler

   Dr Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first African American woman in the United States to earn a medical degree in 1864. Her career represents something we still discuss today: healthcare access as justice.

7. Marie Curie

   Marie Curie’s discovery of radioactivity changed medicine forever. Radiation therapy and diagnostic imaging stem from her work. She became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and remains the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different scientific fields.

   

8. Jane Cooke Wright

   A pioneer in cancer chemotherapy research, Dr Jane Cooke Wright helped develop techniques that made chemotherapy more effective. She was also one of the first Black women to lead major cancer research initiatives, long before diversity was a strategic priority.

   

   9. Gerty Cori

   Dr Gerty Cori became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her work on carbohydrate metabolism. Her research clarified how the human body converts glycogen into energy.

   

   10. Dr Maude Abbott

   Dr Maude Abbott transformed the study of congenital heart disease. Despite being denied admission to medical school in Canada because of her gender, she built an international reputation in pathology and cardiology. She was one of the first women to obtain a bachelor’s degree in arts from McGill University.

   

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Women have changed medicine forever by building systems that outlived them.

If you are working in healthcare today, especially in nursing or clinical research, you are part of that next chapter.

This Women’s Day, we celebrate the pioneers. But we also recognize the present.

Despite many unexpected turns and downfalls in the later parts of 2025, the clinical research industry in Canada is not looking so bleak for those going into it in 2026.

Let’s first take a look at the grant-funded positions, such as those in academia and hospital based research institutes:

Unlike our neighbors down south, Canada is not in a war with pharmaceuticals, vaccines, or scientific medical research in general. There have been no major slashes announced in public grant funding such as those from the CIHR. According to their website, this federal granting agency will be giving away roughly $800+ million in Spring 2026 for health research projects across Canada.

From what I have noticed, the majority of grant funded research goes into research operations and staffing, so research coordinators, associate, data analysits, biostatisicians, research nurses, etc all continue to have job opportunities as long as they are with research teams that are submitting novel and innovating grant proposals and winning them.

Now, let’s take a peek at our Pharma-Sponsored studies, much of which are conducted through the contract research organizations (CRO):

According to the Government of Canada website, “In 2025, AstraZeneca expanded the company’s research and development (R&D) facilities in Mississauga, ON, building on the company’s 2023 investment to expand its existing R&D Hub and to establish a new Alexion Development Hub focused on rare diseases. The company is leading over 210 clinical studies in Canada.”

Similar actions were taken by Roche in 2024, and the Canadian Government as well research organizations where the trials take place continue to streamline processes to reduce administrative burdens and timelines to make it easier, smoother, and faster get them Pharma trials started and completed with high quality data.

This tells me 2 things. For Pharma trials and senior roles in CROs, Toronto and the GTA continue to be a big hub for these kind of roles. I say this both based on news articles and my own personal experience of being in this industry for close to a decade.

This is followed by others such as Ottawa, London, Hamilton, Vancouver, Montreal, among others. The further you are from the hubs, the more difficult it might be to find the roles, especially since many roles require hybrid-remote and in-person requirements.

Over the past 4 years Canada has been trying to facilitate further growth of the clinical trials industry through initiatives such as the Clinical Trials Training Platforms and Pan-Canadian Clinical Trials Consortium (read more about them here). Change in government leadership does not seem to have impacted this and this industry, in my personal opinion, will continue to grow in 2026.

Having said that, what AI will eventually do to a segment of the tech jobs embedded within the clinical trials industry is something that will unfold over the next 10 years.

Stay up to date with job market news, career tips, and more by subscribing to my substack!

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You can also follow me on my primary channel on Youtube.

Just last week I posted on my instagram about how I had booked 17 career consults in just the month of September alone. The reason I think more than the usual number of people are flocking to take control of their careers as we enter the fall season is that the reality check is seeping in - 2025 will be over in under four months and all those new year’s resolutions we had made are a distant memory which we didn’t act on. The good news? The good news is that you STILL have time, and in fact, you are in the RIGHT time spot for a shake-up and applications to graduate schools, certifications, applying to jobs and internships and so much more! If you are thinking of going to undergraduate or graduate school, most deadlines are in December/January so booking an initial consult now to discuss strategy, select top schools with most relevant programs, figure out tuition and finances, and writing and excellent SOP with editing guidance - it can all fit in perfectly in the next four months. If you are thinking of applying for a summer job, Co-op, internship, or volunteering opportunity for summer 2026, those deadlines are also around the November to February timeline. If you don’t know what to apply to, how to get to where you want to go in your career, that’s okay too. It’s okay to feel lost and confused and unsure of the steps you need to take. If you even just have an idea of the kind of job you want, the nature of career you want to build, that may be sufficient. You can always speak to a career expert who specializes in healthcare and research to fill in the blanks, answer the questions, and create a clear, well-planned map with directions to lead you to your destination.

When it comes to transitioning into a different career path, I consider myself an expert because of the sheer number of dead-ends and hopelessness I had to face over the last 10+ years. If you didn’t know this about me, I did both my undergraduate and graduate degrees in Basic Science (Biomedical Science) meaning I worked in a wet laboratory environment handling human tissue and cells and running experiments in the lab to generate research data. When I finally realized I wanted to work in Clinical Research especially on patient facing roles such as running clinical trials, I had the most difficult time transitioning over. I applied to over 100 jobs, I even got a few interviews, but I would never be able to justify why I deserve the job when I didn’t meet so many of the listed experience requirements. Yet, I didn’t give up.

Here I am now, my 10th year in the industry and guiding hundreds of people in North America and Europe to enter the clinical research field from different primary careers. There is a strategy that I had to figure out the hard way. A strategy on what to write in your resume versus what to leave out. But most importantly, there is a strategy on how to handle interview questions - especially ones where they ask you to explain what ‘transferrable’ skills you have or how you plan to use your past skills and experience to meet the needs of the role.

Just earlier this week I released a video on exactly that - how to justify your seemingly unrelated work experience and demonstrate its transferability into your new role. If you want to check it out, simply visit my youtube channel and it’s right there for you for free. Watch, learn, and apply. You’re welcome.

So where is the challenge, you ask? If you look at the numbers again, it’s right there. The small proportion of entry level roles is where candidates transitioning into this industry and new grads will be spending the first 3-5 years of their careers and they are all competing for these 600-ish jobs nationwide. As more candidates are choosing to enter the field, more colleges and universities are curating programs to train a generation in the clinical trials methods and skills, the more competitive this first slab of the ladder is getting.

This means to get ahead of the game you still need to plan better, act faster, and play the game smarter. Upskilling and niche-skill building will become essential in the coming years, but there are so many more opportunities once you climb the first few steps. Below are some ways to keep yourself well informed and ahead of the competition:

🔮#1: Understand the Forces Driving Change

It is important to not only know that times are a changing, but also to know exactly how and why they are changing. Current changes in the job market and the clinical trials industry is being driven by technological advancements (AI, automation, remote work tools), economic shifts and globalization, environmental and social factors (e.g., sustainability, changes to DEI initiatives. and industry-specific disruptions.

📊 #2: Spotting Emerging Trends Early

The sooner you can learn of upcoming changes, the faster you can prepare to stay ahead of the curve. There’s many resources to stay informed - one of the best ones is what you are doing right now - reading monthly blog articles from an industry career expert. You can also attend networking events, speak to mentors in the industry, and attend webinars to see which direction industry leaders are thinking of taking projects. Keeping an eye on job boards weekly or monthly, even when you are not looking to actively apply, is a great way to follow the trend changes.

🧠 #3: Building Future-Ready Skills

• When thinking of improving your skills, remember all the different kind of skills you could be building. There are the hard skills such as data literacy, coding, learning FDA/HealthcCanada guidelines by heard, etc. Then there are the soft skills, such as adaptability, emotional intelligence, professional communication which come in very handy for leadership roles involving teams and stakeholders.

  You can also consider doing certifications, micro-credentials, and online courses and an excellent, world-renowned platform for that is Coursera.

🚀 #4: Reinventing Your Career Strategy

• Sometimes you can reach a roadblock, and no matter how much extra work or effort you put in, you may feel there is no opportunity to grow where you are. In those moments, it becomes essential to pivot into into different roles, specialties, or industries. For instance, after a point your career growth in academic clinical research may flatline with limited opportunity for further growth. It can be worth to work with a career consult and make a new strategy, such as shifting to private CRO environments or pharma, or moving from a CRC pathway to clinical data management, to break through that roadblock and keep moving forward and upwards. When in these situations, don’t forget to networking with intention, build personal brand and online presence within the clinical research niche, and follow the plan you trust.

🔁 #5: Staying Agile in a Changing Landscape

The trick is to stay consistently evolving. This might sound like an oxymoron, but embracing continuous learning, setting up annual career audits with experts in the field, and cultivating a growth mindset can make all the difference. You also should try to balancing stability with exploration. What this means is that it is worth remaining in a role for a few years (say, 2-5 years) to allow yourself to grow greater confidence and insight into the role, and demonstrating a capacity to commit to a team and an organization without ‘job hopping’ for the next best thing. This strategy will allow companies to feel more confident in investing their time and resources in training and hiring you. At the same time, if your environment becomes too complacent and there is not much area to grow intellectually or professionally for years at a time, a change is exactly what may be needed.

COMING SOON - SEPTEMBER 8, 2025

This September 8th, my video on youtube will answer the most burning question of our times - Is the Clinical Research Job Market in Canada Getting Saturated? Are opportunities really drying up? Is there a way to stay ahead of the curve or should we abandon ship while we still can and start retaining for a different field?

This video dives deep into the current state of the clinical research job market in Canada, exploring: 🔍 Trends in new job postings 📉 Signs of saturation vs. steady demand 📊 Role of Artificial Intelligence in job vacancies 💼 Tips to Stay ahead of the curve Whether you're a student, a seasoned professional, or just curious about the future of clinical trials in Canada. Subscribe to my channel to remain up to date with the latest advancements and trends in the Clinical Research job market in Canada and the United States.

If you enjoyed this article, don’t worry, there’s one every single month and I promise to keep you informed of all things relevant to our professional industry. Hit the subscribe button below and stay in touch.

Peace!

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We just launched a career map for those looking to get into the clinical research job market in the United States or Canada. Readers of my monthly newsletter can get it for FREE right on our website. Okay, now let’s jump in!

What is the clinical research industry like in 2025?

As we enter the second half of the decade, the clinical trials industry is evolving at a rapid pace—embracing AI, decentralization, remote monitoring, and regulatory shifts that are reshaping the way studies are conducted. If you’re looking to launch a career in this field in 2025, you’re stepping into one of the most dynamic and impactful areas of healthcare.

But breaking into clinical research isn’t always straightforward.

🚀 Why Clinical Research Is a Smart Career Move Now

• High demand, low supply: Sponsors, CROs, and sites are all hiring, but there’s a talent bottleneck—especially for entry-level roles like Clinical Research Coordinators (CRCs), Clinical Trial Assistants (CTAs), and Regulatory Associates.

• Remote-friendly & globalized: With decentralized trials on the rise, remote opportunities (especially for project support and monitoring roles) are increasingly common.

• Purpose-driven work: You’ll play a direct role in helping bring new drugs, devices, and therapies to market—and ultimately, to patients who need them most.

👣 Step 1: Understand the Landscape

Before you apply to your first job, it’s essential to understand the key players and phases:

• Sponsors: Usually pharmaceutical or biotech companies funding the research (in the case of Pharma-sponsored or Industry-sponsored studies), or Granting Agencies or Research Institutions who were awarded the grant.

• CROs (Contract Research Organizations): These manage the studies on behalf of sponsors (e.g., ICON, PPD, IQVIA, Alimentiv, etc).

• Sites: Hospitals, clinics, or private practices where the research takes place.

• Regulatory agencies: FDA (U.S.), Health Canada (Canada), EMA (Europe), MHRA (UK), etc., oversee compliance and approvals.

Most trials go through four phases (I–IV), and the roles vary widely depending on the phase, therapy area, and location. There are also non-trial clinical research studies which are not regulated and fall under Phase IV or non-trial observational studies, quality improvement studies, etc.

📚 Step 2: Build Foundational Knowledge

ou don’t need a medical degree—but you do need a working knowledge of:

• GCP (Good Clinical Practice)

• ICH E6 guidelines

• Clinical trial phases and processes

• Informed consent & patient safety

• Basics of regulatory submissions (IND, NDA, NDS, etc.)

📘 Tip: Take a free or low-cost online course. Recommendations:

• Coursera’s “Introduction to Clinical Trials”

• My FREE Crash course on clinical research available on youtube

• ACRP’s GCP training (Association of Clinical Research Professionals)

• NIH’s free Protecting Human Research Participants course (US Specific)

• Health Canada Division 5 Training (Canada Specific)

• TCPS2 (Canada Specific)

• Transport of Dangerous Goods Certifications (Canada)

For those living in Ontario, Canada, I have a more detailed list that I covered in this video below:

🎓 Step 3: Consider Certification (But Don’t Overdo It)

Certifications can help you stand out—especially if you don’t have experience. However, they’re not always required for entry-level roles.

👉 Entry to Mid-level helpful certifications:

• SOCRA’s CCRP (Certified Clinical Research Professional)

• ACRP’s CCRC (Certified Clinical Research Coordinator)

• Clinical Research Certificate Programs with a college or university (watch the video above)

If you're on a budget, focus more on networking and real-world experience.

💼 Step 4: Target Your First Role

The most common entry points include:

• Clinical Research Coordinator (CRC): Often site-based; you work directly with patients and investigators.

• Clinical Trial Assistant (CTA): Common in CROs; more administrative and document-driven.

• Regulatory Affairs Assistant: Ideal for those interested in compliance and documentation.

• Data Coordinator / Clinical Data Associate: Good fit if you’re coming from IT or data science.

🔍 Where to search:

• LinkedIn (use filters like “entry-level,” “remote,” or “no experience”)

• Indeed, MedReps, BioSpace, and CRO-specific career pages (IQVIA, Labcorp, Parexel)

🤝 Step 5: Network Like It’s Your Job

This is where most newcomers hit a wall—but you don’t have to.

📢 Actionable steps:

• Follow clinical research influencers on instagram, tiktok, youtube, and make it a part of your everyday life to casually start learning about their work, their day to day projects and the industry as a whole

• Join clinical research LinkedIn groups and start engaging.

• Attend virtual webinars by ACRP or DIA Global or SOCRA

• Volunteer or intern at a research site or local academic center

• Get expert advice from a seasoned career consultant who works in the industry

💡 You don’t need a referral from a VP. One thoughtful DM to a current CRC or CTA can lead to your first interview.

💬 A Quick Word on AI & Remote Trials

2025 is seeing rapid adoption of AI in patient recruitment, protocol optimization, and site monitoring. But this doesn’t mean your job is going away.

It does mean:

• You should be comfortable with digital tools (ePROs, eCRFs, CTMS, EDC platforms like Medidata, RedCAP, EMR Sytems such as EPIC, etc).

• Knowing a bit of data terminology (e.g., SDV, source data, query resolution) goes a long way.

✅ Final Takeaways

• Be strategic, not passive. This is a high-demand industry—but you have to show initiative.

• Don’t get discouraged by “2 years required.” Many job listings are flexible for strong candidates who network well.

• Stay updated. Follow FDA (US) or Health Canada (Canada) guidances, AI developments in pharma, and changes in clinical trial regulations (e.g., EU CTR, U.S. Real-Time Oncology Review programs).

• Remember your why. Behind every study is a patient hoping for a better future.

👋 Want More?

Subscribe to this Substack for monthly breakdowns of:

• Industry trends & remote job alerts

• Resume tips for CRCs, CTAs & CRAs

• Interviews with real professionals who pivoted into research

Your clinical research career starts now. Let’s build it—one protocol at a time

This is what you can do to fix these simple issues and land your first job in clinical research EASILY!

Resume & Cover Letter

The trick is the have a MASTER resume where you plug in everything that you have ever accomplished professionally and in academics. Then, take pieces from here to populate your industry-specific resume or curriculum vitae (CV). For clinical research roles in pharma or CRO, you can use your succinct resume but for entry level roles in academic clinical research such as in hospitals, clinics, universities or non profits, you can use a longer CV format - but make it only as long as needed to cover the most important experiences briefly. Do not make it stretch pages and pages on end just because you can. An excellent format for this kind of resume can be downloaded from here. Sometimes it be challenging to decide which of your past experiences in a different country or a different industry are actually relevant here and now. Also, how to ‘word’ the descriptions of the roles to a North American job market-specific language can be difficult too. For such situations, I recommend booking a single session with an expert who works in this industry in Canada or the US and having them modify your resume with you to best reflect your past experiences that will be lucrative to recruiters. You can book a session to modify your CV and cover letter right here.

Become Familiar with the job

I meet too many people who tell me they want to work in clinical research, without actually having a clear about what that job entails of why they want to specialize in it. Nothing is more unimpressive to a hiring manager than realizing the person being interviewed has a lot of enthusiasm with very little macroscopic understanding of the industry or the type of role. Yet, many clinical research professionals come into these roles from different academic background, be it medicine, nursing, psychology, dentistry, physio, or others. So, how can you overcome this? It is pretty simple. Do your research. Speak to people about it. Message people on linkedin - but instead of begging for a job or a referral, just ask if you can take some time to speak to them to learn more about their role and the industry to see if it might be a good fit for you long term. Another excellent free resource is watching FREE online videos such as ‘A Day in the life’ of a clinical researcher or a crash course on clinical research or on clinical trials management. These are fun and easy to watch, cost no money, and give you an excellent foundation to begin understand what exactly happens in clinical trials and clinical research so you can have an educated conversation with the hiring managers.

Cheap, Easy, and Quick Certificates

There are long-term and heavy qualifications people invest in such as graduate school degrees (Master’s or PhDs) or graduate certificates in clinical research. While these can make a huge difference in your ability to transition quickly into the industry, sometimes they are not sufficient just in and of themselves. Or, they are not affordable and you want to try to enter the industry with the expertise you already have. In such cases, the fastest way to transform your resume is to complete some basic self-paces certificates which are considered the bread and butter in the academic clinical research space. These include the ICH-GCP, TDG, Health Canada Division 5, TCPS2, CPR & Emergency First Aid, etc. Confused about what these stand for, how much they cost, or where to get them? That’s where the next point comes in handy.

A Solid Strategy from a Career Expert

Some people are super lucky where they follow in the footsteps of their parents’ or sibglings’ professions and have first-hand support on what do and how do it. But that is pretty rare in this day and age. That’s where it gets tricky to get the right advice to develop a solid job search and application strategy. Candidates who are new to a job market, a country, or a profession find it extremely beneficial to speak to an expert who has and continues to work actively in that industry in that same job market. They can guide you with where to get the certifications from for cheap while still ensuring they are accepted across all institutions. Similarly, they can guide you on which organizations are more likely to hire entry level candidates with little industry-specific experience, and how exactly to go about applying. Some job boards copy-paste original jobs without providing the correct way to even apply - so hundreds of resumes and cover letters never even reach the recruiting managers. It’s important to know how to identify the jobs, what is the correct time to apply to them, how to package the application, and which job boards to use in what way. If you are interested in booking a session with a career expert specializing in research and healthcare, you can check out the services here.

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Now in 2025, I have no regrets with the choices I made about entering this field and how I continue to invest my growing my skills in this industry. Clinical research and trials have always been there, since pharmaceutical product testing became regulated. And that aspect of testing will remain in place for decades to come as we keep discovering new treatments, therapies, processes, diagnostic tools, and more.

Era of Artificial Intelligence

With the massive update of AI in 2025, things have been evolving more rapidly than we could have predicted 10 or 20 years ago. However, AI will be working as an adjunct to clinical trials human resources for the foreseeable future. I’m a realist, so I will never say that AI will never ever replace people’s roles in clinical research. But at this moment, what we are seeing is AI supported tools helping in the preparation of statistical reporting, grants, research publications… Most of which will hit academic research positions in terms of job security, than roles which require human involvement in patient care, patient recruitment for trials, management of multi-site studies requiring human oversight.

We are also beginning to see the introduction of AI-supported tools in diagnostics and treatments, but much of this needs to undergo trial and testing. Which brings me to the exciting part of clinical trials over the next decade. If you want to keep your skills sought-after for years to come, it is time to keep up with the rapid evolution of AI supported tools, and understanding how to evaluate them from a clinical trial perspective. Learn about the benefits and risks of utilizing AI within the healthcare field. Learn, explore, validate the tools to assess AI supported tools and they can help and where they can fail in delivering our project goals.

Job Opportunities in Canada

In Canada I expected to see growth in two major areas of healthcare- and biomedical- research. Firstly, Canada has invested over $2 Billion into vaccine manufacturing infrastructure since the global pandemic. So, we can expect that jobs in the biomanufacturing, vaccine and therapeutics development sector will be growing for years to come. If you are considering going to school and have an interest in this area of research, manufacturing, or business, this is not a bad time at all to be learning how to specialize in this field.

Secondly, Canada has been investing significantly in its clinical trials infrastructure, and has created the clinical trials fund (CTF). As part of this fund, the government is creating training opportunities for the workforce who wants to be trained in clinical trials processes. This includes opportunities being offered through the CanTRAIN platform which has multiple streams offering resources, training, and funding for Master’s and PhD student as well as scientists and clinical research professionals. Last month I was invited to one of CanTRAIN’s training sessions for their graduate trainees to participate as a subject matter expert on Clinical Trial - Fielding Participant Questions. I had the opportunity to speak to a cohort of brilliant, enthusiastic and aspiring clinical research coordinators and it was evident that the next generation is being prepared to take on important roles in Canada’s booming clinical research industry.

To end this month’s newsletter I will leave you with a fun image I created using chatGPT. Until next time!

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