Warren Bush always tells young scientists that their future career paths will bear little resemblance to the route that his own took. Bush, a volunteer career consultant for the American Chemical Society (ACS), worked for 40 years at just one large company — young chemists of today will probably work for several smaller firms during their working lives, he says. Bush's employer, Shell, focused on inorganic chemistry, but organic chemists are now much more in demand, Bush says. And he notes that Shell emphasized manufacturing — whereas, today, one of the biggest growth areas for chemists is likely to be in services.

But the changing jobs market-place doesn't mean that prospects are bleak, Bush told a group of job-seeking chemists at a careers workshop during the annual meeting of the ACS in Chicago last month. Quite the contrary. Unemployment among US chemists is only about 1.5%, and average salaries have risen steadily over the past 10 years at a rate well above inflation. “The job market is as good as it gets,” Bush said.

But to take advantage of this positive climate, chemists will need to shop for jobs differently. Rather than hope to land a lifetime position at a large company, they may need to target many smaller firms, ideally landing several offers so that they can choose the one that most suits them at the time.

Bush noted that weighing these odds can be difficult. A company boasting a future 20% boost in recruitment may actually offer only one or two jobs to chemists because only a fraction of its workforce is actively engaged in science. And that fraction is increasingly divided among different disciplines and specialities.

This new market-place may mean more diverse opportunities. But it may also require more flexibility.