Brian- you are interested in Pharma? I recall that Genentech always makes the list of best places to work:
http://www.gene.com/gene/about/diversity/awards.html

The Pharma industry always seems to go through periods of instability where people get laid off in large numbers and spending is drastically cut. I think Abbott is a good company but there is always a lot of negative chatter about Pfizer on the Biotech Rumor Mill http://www.biofind.com/rumor-mill

If you want to be in the midwest and do human clinical research, maybe check out Eli Lilly. Also- not sure if you are into agriculture but Monsanto is a good choice. They have something like 7000 PhD's, I think I was told. They have so many buildings that even the employees need to look at a map to find them.

Roche is in Indianapolis and I think it would be a very good company also.

California has Amgen. I have heard they are fantastic to their employees. On site daycare, dry cleaners, cafeteria with hot food, and a gym. They make it easy to work late hours.

I think with Pharma, you should apply everywhere and see where you get interviews. The big companies are not necessarily that bad because usually you'll be in a small group focused on your thing so you won't feel like a lost sheep. I think you want to go to a company that is established and has a wide enough portfolio so that if the project were cancelled, you would be able to move to another group easily. When the economy is bad, the small companies will struggle more than the big and it is more likely you could be downsized out of a job.

Does your boss have contacts in the Pharma labs? I would highly recommend using them to get in the door. If he knows people at Genentech, go for it. The pay will be higher to balance the cost of living and anyway, California is fucking awesome. Why not live there a few years and then go to the midwest? San Francisco is one of the best cities I've ever partied in (Vegas of course, is the other) and since you don't have kids yet, you might as well try it out.

I'd move there in a heartbeat. In fact, if you get the job at Genentech, I might hit you up to get me in the door.

I can write about big vs. little biotech but from the perspective of life science companies (research tool suppliers).

Maybe I can find someone to write an article on pharma for LabSpaces. Let me see what I can do.

I just want to get paid a lot of money to tell people what to do :P

So Jade Ed had asked me to talk about my time at Pfizer. Unfortunately it wasn't a very long experience. I graduated last May, and two weeks later started my job as a contractor at Pfizer. In October the merger with Wyeth went through, and, since I worked in St. Louis, I, along with pretty much everyone else, was let go at the end of the year. That being said, I loved it!

I found that the easiest way to break into industry was to start out with a contract from a staffing firm. It gives the company a chance to evaluate you without paying for benefits. I was fortunate enough to have benefits through my husband's work, so I didn't mind not having them as a contractor. Being in industry was a huge change from being in academia. I had an expense account, and as long as my purchase was under a certain threshold value, I was free to order whatever I needed without having to go through managers. It made life a lot easier to know that if a company had a product that might make my life easier, I could just get it. Another thing that was interesting was the level of collaboration. We were able to work with people from different departments and parlay their expertise into very strong experiments and develop new methodologies rather quickly.

One thing I was surprised about was the lack of PhD level scientists. Many of the colleagues had bachelor's degrees and 20+ years experience, or had earned a Master's degree while working at Pfizer. I really expected there to be lots of PhDs, but mostly the younger scientists had them.