I am a genetic counselor in the most technical sense of the term: I graduated from an accredited program, I passed the ABGC board exam and I received a license to practice in my state.

I had always imagined that my career as a genetic counselor would be linear. The plan was to move back home after graduation in June, having secured a clinical genetic counseling role in my favorite specialty at my favorite institution.

The reality was that upon graduation, I found myself in a period of unemployment. As anyone who has ever been unintentionally unemployed can tell you, it was brutal. I applied to the very few genetic counseling jobs that had been posted in my city, and I wondered whether those “You are no longer under consideration” emails were because there were other applicants with many more years of experience, or if my experiences were simply inadequate. With each new rejection email that flashed in my inbox, I reflected on my skills and wondered if the years I had spent working towards my goal of becoming a genetic counselor were insufficient. Apparently, I could be a certified genetic counselor in name but not in practice.

One of the aspects of the genetic counseling field that spoke to me as an undergraduate student looking to learn more about the profession was the job prediction data reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The 2018 NSGC Professional Status Survey referenced a 29% growth rate from 2016 to 2026 for the genetic counseling profession based on data from the BLS. The current job outlook for genetic counselors has fallen to a projected growth of 16% from 2022 to 2032¹. While this value remains higher than the average for all occupations reported by the BLS, it is evident that the days of an entire graduating class securing a job offer before graduation are no more.

I was in middle school during the 2008 recession, and I witnessed the devastating effects it had on our society. I learned from an early age that job stability was priceless. In 2022, while I was completing my summer rotation, a major genetic testing company announced a restructuring plan that gutted its workforce². Social media postings and news circulating amongst classmates confirmed even more layoffs across different laboratories in the following months. The applicant pool for genetic counseling positions was growing, and it was daunting to realize that recent graduates would be competing with an influx of highly experienced industry genetic counselors for these positions.

Throughout different periods of my life, I was able to focus primarily on my schoolwork and was not preoccupied with the implications that these economic shifts would have on my own employment. Being a student during these turbulent times provided a temporary safety net from an uncertain job market. The current economic climate offers none of the promises of job security that seemed to be echoed by the genetic counselors I shadowed and met with during informational interviews just a few years ago.

I constantly scour job postings for genetic counselors, and I recall seeing one that required a minimum of one year of experience working as a genetic counselor in the past five years. Did my hard-earned genetic counseling skills have an expiration date? When the market is tough, the only thing one can do is make themselves more marketable. Learn new skills, follow up with your network, and do not lose confidence.

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Since my path to genetic counseling was clearly not the linear journey I had envisioned, I decided to embrace this detour and explore other possibilities outside the field of genetic counseling. During my graduate training, I had a wonderful experience rotating with a research genetic counselor and enjoyed collaborating on study startup activities, from helping create provider information sheets to discussing universal consent and the ethics of reporting certain genes to participants. After several months of job hunting, I accepted a role on a clinical research team focused on characterizing the symptoms of long COVID in children. 

In terms of gaining new skills, I am learning how to coordinate a clinical research study and how to engage with research participants. I quickly realized that clinical research has its own lexicon, and my knowledge of genes and syndromes was supplemented with new terms and acronyms: Reportable New Information (RNI), Note to File (NTF), Delegation of Authority (DOA), and many more. However, there are also aspects of my current job that parallel the role of a genetic counselor: obtaining informed consent, thorough documentation, and presenting data to healthcare providers. I keep in touch with supervisors from my previous rotation sites and reached out to the genetic counselors at my current institution to express my interest in a genetic counseling position. I frequently remind myself that everyone’s path looks different. I know I am a genetic counselor, even if I don’t feel like one yet. 

I can’t control what jobs will open up in my city and when. But when a position does open, I know I’ll be ready. I was not the second-year student with a genetic counseling job lined up just before graduation. I will be almost a year out from that full-time student lifestyle, but I will have earned a collection of skills and work experience that make me uniquely qualified to take on a genetic counselor role.

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¹U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2023, September 6). Genetic counselors. In Occupational outlook handbook. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/genetic-counselors.htm

²Park, A. (2022, July 20). With new CEO, Invitae lays off more than 1,000 employees, slims international footprint. Fierce Biotech.

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medtech/invitae-lays-more-1000-employees-slims-internaional-footprint-cost-cutting-restructuring

 

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