How to search for a Career Counselor / Specialist for Life Sciences? Does anyone know how I could go about finding a career counselor that can help an &quot;ex-academic&quot; in some way to find a job in &quot;real world&quot;? Essentially, I am looking for type of counseling service that is similar to K Kelsky's &quot;Professor Is In,&quot; but with expertise in and inside knowledge of biotech/life science. I know this forum cannot recommend individuals directly, but maybe you can tell me where/how to look. I would love to hear other people stories: if anyone used a career coach/help in &quot;Life Sciences&quot;, how did you find that person and how did you know that you are getting sensible guidance?
I am a former &quot;life scientist&quot; (molecular biologist). I am aware of &quot;Cheeky Scientist's Association&quot;, but I would never-ever approach an company that employs such a predatory marketing strategy.
I would like to provide an excerpt from someone else's blog post to explain my problem:

I was desperate to find jobs in industry and somehow got hold of the
CEO of a mid-sized pharmaceutical firm for an interview. I didn’t get
the job because he couldn’t see where to fit me in his organization.
Take for example, as he ran through the choices:

I can’t put you in sales or marketing because you’ve never sold a product
I can’t give you a manufacturing or production role since they require different expertise such as GMP, GLP, etc unrelated to yours
I can’t assign you a role in quality control/regulatory since you’re
not aware of the compliance and regulatory issues related to the
pharmaceutical industry
We like so many pharma companies are into
generics and there is no R&amp;D arm; so I’m not sure where to have you
within us”

None of this was done in a condescending way. It’s the reality. And
then I understood this: Really world values different set of skills
(life skills) over academic smartness.

Unfortunately, this was precisely my experience as well during a really intense job search a few years ago.
As far as pharma/biotech is concerned, they look for either people with 10 to 15 years of industry experience, knowledge of industry-specific regulations, credentials etc. Alternatively, they need B.Sc. or, at most, M.Sc. to work as technicians in control or on a production line.
I feel that I have exhausted my creativity and completely lost now. I had extremely damaging experience in &quot;academia&quot; (from a bad Ph.D to a horrible postdoc). I do not believe that I have any competitive edge, to be honest. I feel like I do need an external council, but with a professional who knows the field.
P.S. To make it  really clear: I have no chances for successful &quot;academic&quot; career and I do not want to waste time and effort chasing it. I desperately need a non-academic career. However, I cannot find anywhere the guidance/career coaching that I need.
P.P.S. I was a &quot;wet-lab&quot; scientist. People refuse to understand that there is a HUGE difference in employ-ability between bio-statisticians, bioinformaticians and people of this ilk and &quot;Wet-lab scientists&quot;.
It took me ~ 12 months to find a job of a project manager on &quot;soft money&quot; at a small University. I have applied like crazy all across Canada. Now things start to collapse due to politics and ever-absent/super-busy PI of the project. I simply do not have administrative power to hold people to account and make things work.
I am out of ideas now. Seriously. I am sick and tired of academic BS.
I have no imagination left. No ideas. Zero. I do not do drugs. I am out of any ideas. I need a career coach, a creative writer, a fairy-tale writer, I do not know whom to get some fresh ideas. I cannot live like this anymore.
You're focusing on finding a career counselor. Most career counselors I've known are general purpose, trying to help people with the basics of cover letter and resume construction, the typical flow of the hiring process, etc. Never heard of one specializing in the life sciences or, for that matter, any sciences, but I suppose that might have changed over the years.
A recruiter is not a career counselor. A recruiter is a matchmaker. There are lots of recruiters for the IT fields, but don't imagine for a moment they play the role of career counselors for computer science grads. If a recruiter is telling you to leave off the PhD aspect of your training, he or she is doing it for practical reasons. Crappy and  unfair and humbling? Yep.
Nearly everyone I know professionally, at the higher levels outside of academia, got his or her job because of his or her network and knew how to present him or herself appropriately at interviews. It's a thing you learn.
Cattle calls through web sites?  They're not always what they seem. But you're playing the numbers.
One thing you don't speak of is what other career avenues you've explored outside of the life sciences. Widen the playing field,  develop your network. We write our own life stories, but sometimes need ideas on how to start. Rather than a career counselor, step back to assess the situation. A cognitive therapist can help there.