One thing I would add. If you're looking to move into bioinformatics then you're going to need to do some programming. You've already said that you've been learning Perl, and others here have already suggested other skillsets which you could usefully add.
As an employer I can tell you that the problem you'll face is that a lot of other people are in the same position as you and we tend to see a lot of CVs which all look very similar - solid biology background, self taught programmer, no bioinformatics experience.
If you want to set yourself out from the crowd then give employers something more to look at. Specifically, write some code and make it publicly available, either as part of an existing larger project (BioPerl / CPAN etc) or just put some useful scripts you've written up on your own site. You'd be amazed at the number of people who claim they can program who can't write even the simplest script without copy/pasting from the internet. Showing some code you've written immediately gets me interested.
Along the same lines, make sure you're developing good habits in your chosen languages, and do this by following the communities of people who use them. In times gone by I'd have recommended the appropriate usenet groups (comp.lang.perl.misc etc), but these days places like perlmonks, stackoverflow (and of course seqanswers) are all good. Do this for your own benefit, but also if you build up a decent list of sensible questions asked, or a few simple answers provided then put this into your CV as well.
As an employer I can tell you that the problem you'll face is that a lot of other people are in the same position as you and we tend to see a lot of CVs which all look very similar - solid biology background, self taught programmer, no bioinformatics experience.
If you want to set yourself out from the crowd then give employers something more to look at. Specifically, write some code and make it publicly available, either as part of an existing larger project (BioPerl / CPAN etc) or just put some useful scripts you've written up on your own site. You'd be amazed at the number of people who claim they can program who can't write even the simplest script without copy/pasting from the internet. Showing some code you've written immediately gets me interested.
Along the same lines, make sure you're developing good habits in your chosen languages, and do this by following the communities of people who use them. In times gone by I'd have recommended the appropriate usenet groups (comp.lang.perl.misc etc), but these days places like perlmonks, stackoverflow (and of course seqanswers) are all good. Do this for your own benefit, but also if you build up a decent list of sensible questions asked, or a few simple answers provided then put this into your CV as well.
Comment