Pharmacy Technician University

Summary: Becoming a Pharmacy Technician isn’t that hard.  Many states allow you to train on the job rather than attend a school.  Don’t worry if you don’t have prior medical work experience – one of my best technicians was that way.  Your training and examination can be finished in as little as three to six months.

Question: How hard is it to become a pharmacy technician?  I’m 42 years old and have worked as an administrative assistant for pretty much all my working life.  I’m looking for a change.  I like the idea of a pharmacy technician because I don’t want to try to get into pharmacy school and the market seems to be good for technicians.  But I wanted to find out from someone who is in the field first.

Let’s take your question in chunks.

First of all, regarding the difficulty of becoming a pharmacy technician.  Over the last 10 years I’ve trained at least 6 pharmacy technicians.  One of them was from the ground up – not knowing anything about the medical field at all and within two years was one of the best technicians I ever had.  I hated to see her go.  So, I have to commend you because it doesn’t sound like you are letting your lack of previous medical experience scare you off from going for it and I hope that little example shows you that if you are willing to put in the time and effort you can certainly make it happen.

Which leads to the crux of your question: how hard is it?  Well, the technician I referred to above did eventually excel, but her first three months or so were pretty tough going because she had never seen the inside of a pharmacy let along be exposed to hundreds of brand and generic names, pharmacy systems or a dozen other little nuances that only happen in pharmacy.  So, I’d say it can get pretty intimidating right out of the bat if you have absolutely no experience.

I should preface this: each state has different requirements for their technicians.  My state allows us to take in candidates, train them and then, allow them to take the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board (PTCB) exam.  Once (and if) they pass they then received the initials CPhT (Certified Pharmacy Technician).  I think you’ll find most states follow this general process.  In short, you can’t become a true Pharmacy Technician until you pass this exam.  And you won’t get true Pharmacy Technician pay until you do.

Now, there are all sorts of schools – online and off – that purport to help you speed the process along.  Point blank: I don’t think any of them are really that helpful.  At least from the prices I’ve seen them charging.  You don’t need to pay hundreds of dollars (sometimes thousands) to go take classes then pass the test then go look for a job.  My advice is to reverse that and look for a job where you can get paid to train and learn.

Again, some states may not allow you to do it this way.  I can only speak for my experience and preference: and that is I’d rather have someone come to me cold off the street because while the first month or two might be rough – I’d be able to train them ‘my way’ with what I think are the important things to know about.

Which leads to my second major point and one of my favorite sayings regarding Pharmacy Technicians: ” a great pharmacy technician will make a bad job or day bearable.  A bad pharmacy technician will make a great job unbearable.”

In many ways I view my technicians as an extension of myself.  If I have to do a bunch of hand-holding 24/7 then it defeats the whole purpose of having a tech.  But, if I have a tech who is thinking a step ahead, who can pick up basic concepts quickly and is a fairly quick on the computer system then that’s something I can work with.  In short, you have to be willing to work hard and have some common sense.  Do you have those things?  If so, you can do decently as a Pharmacy Technician.

Salaries are all over the lot so you’ll simply have to look around in your area.  I would say that you’ll do better than you did as an administrative assistant – but you’ll never get rich doing it.  Top tier techs in my area can make $20 an hour or more.  But, this is very rare.  Fifteen bucks an hour is very doable.  Again, this will vary with geography.

When it’s all said and done I’ve been able to take techs from knowing zero on day one to passing their exam by day 90.  This may be faster than average but for sure you should be able to get your license by six months out.  And, you can do it without a big investment in time and money.  Hope that helps.

If you want to know how to become a pharmacy technician there are a couple of different schools of thought. One says you should go to pharmacy technician school, study the books and then get certified (either before or after working in a pharmacy). The other idea focuses on working on the job for your training and then, when you reach a certain point, go take the technician certification exam.

I’ll give you the ins and outs. What my technicians do and why. And other points you need to consider before you make the leap.

First things first.

What are your long term goals?

At the risk of sounding like a self-development guru it really helps to know what you want out of being a pharmacy technician. Is it a short-term gig for you or can you see yourself doing it ten years down the road? The answer to that question will likely dictate your answer on how you should become a pharmacy technician.

Frankly, none of my technicians ever went to any sort of special pharmacy technician school or pharmacy technician certification program. Not that some sort of program like that wouldn’t be helpful. But I’ve never found that any of my pharmacy technicians needed it.

As an aside, my particular state doesn’t require it.

What they do require is that you be a certified pharmacy technician. How you get to that point doesn’t matter. As long as you can show competency on the technician exam you’re good to go.

Since time is of the essence, we’ve found the quickest way to get a pharmacy technician certified is with on-the-job training. But that is my state and my experience.

Do I know others who went through a pharmacy technician school? Yes, but to be honest they are the minority. Again, this is likely due to my states laws and requirements.

In short, here are my recommendations:

• First of all, find out your particular state laws regarding pharmacy technicians. If they require that you attend pharmacy technician school this conversation is over. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.
• Next, what is your time frame and money situation? Attending school or a special certification program isn’t cheap and it will likely take a year or more of your time. If you have that kind of time and money you may want to consider it. There are those advocates who say that those types of programs make for a better pharmacy technician. I think that’s an arguable point.
• Another option is to look into an online pharmacy technician course. You can take the classes online while still working at another job.

Pharmacy Technician Training: ROI

In the investing world there is something called ROI (return on investment). You’ve probably heard of it. Because I get a lot of pharmacy students and potential pharmacy technicians my way I get asked a lot about education and pharmacy technician schools. This has always been a good (I think) piece of advice that I don’t hear a lot of other teachers talk about.

Base your choice of whether or not to attend a certification program or school based on your return on investment.

What do you have to put into it and what will you likely get out of it? That’s as simply as I can put it.

Let’s use a very basic example just to illustrate. Say you want to get a degree and you have the option of attending a pricey private school with a great reputation or a moderately priced public school with a good reputation. My advice would be to sit down and talk to former students. Find out what their graduation rates are. What are their placement rates in their desired jobs. And then, when you have all the information you need sit down and run some numbers.

If the average pharmacy technicians wage in your area is $12.50 an hour you know that you’re going to take home (net) around $10/hr (just to make the math easy). So, if you have to pay $5,000 to attend a pharmacy technician school for a year that means you’ll have to work an extra 500 hours to pay for that school. At face value, that may not seem like such a great thing to do.

But, do the technicians in your area who have attended this program get easier and better placement in pharmacy technician jobs that come up? You can find out by asking the school…they should have these numbers.

If attending that school gives you an automatic extra $1 an hour raise then you’ve already paid for almost half of your school by doing the same amount of work that another technician who didn’t attend the school would do. Is it starting to sound like a better idea?

This is what I mean by sitting down and running numbers for your particular situation.

I can’t give a blanket answer that would work for everyone. Your situation is unique. Where do you live? Do you have to commute to attend pharmacy technician school? Can you work full time while attending classes? Could you opt instead to study on your own out of some quality pharmacy technician books? Could you attend an online pharmacy technician program that is cheaper and allows you to work from home and save money on gas? Or, maybe your state doesn’t require any sort of formal training to be certified. Maybe you can get on the job training and then take the pharmacy technician certification exam.

I will say this, overall I have found the best option in my area is to get trained while doing on the job work and then take the certification program. If you think about this, you are being paid to learn. That is the best of both worlds.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t attend a pharmacy technician school or any sort of online education program. Like I showed above, your particular situation may warrant that – especially if you are going to make more money out of the gate and recoup or even surpass you initial investment.

How to become a pharmacy technician is a individual and private decision that can only be made by you and based on your particular goals and personal situation right at this moment in time.