Becoming a Pharmacy Technician

Hi fellow bloggers and readers! To go along with the website I am creating, this semester, I am going to be talking about something I know a lot about, becoming a pharmacy technician at CVS. *I also did a podcast on this very same subject for my website! Click here to check it out!* First off, to apply for a job at CVS, like most any other jobs, you must apply online under the careers portion of their website. This process can take anywhere from usually 30 minutes to an hour. The application process takes a little time only because you are applying for a pharmacy tech position and it requires you to complete a few extra steps in order for your application to be reviewed for employment. After a manager views your application and loves it, you will then be called in for an interview with the pharmacy manager and sometimes the general store manager. This is like any other usual job interview, with mostly the same type of questions. After reviewing your interview and test scores from the online portion of the application, you will hopefully be hired. After officially being hired, you should now go to the Alabama Board of Pharmacy website, which is albop.com, or if you are applying in a different state whatever their board of pharmacy website is, and follow the links to apply for a tech license. This process usually takes only a few minutes. Now, one thing to keep in mind is that getting a technician license to work in a pharmacy requires a fee of $60 that must be renewed every odd year. After applying and paying for your license, you must go through company provided training on what to do and learning how to be a tech. This process comes in two waves of training, the first wave, which is called phase one, is where you will do register training and learn how to work production, a.k.a filling prescriptions. The second wave, which won’t come until you’ve been working in the pharmacy for a few months, is called phase two. In phase two training, the tech will learn how to do inventory, and how to take and put in prescriptions. Along with each of these training classes, the tech will go to an on the job training day at other stores to be evaluated on their performance of what they learned. After a period of time, for some people it’s a year, for others it’s only a few months, you can choose to take the National Certification test to be able to be a pharmacy technician in any state, not just the state you got your initial license in. Getting nationally certified can also lead to pay raises and promotions within your home pharmacy. Keep in mind while being a pharmacy technician “seems like fun”, it is not a game. You must take your job very seriously; after all, people’s health and livelihood depend on you and getting their prescriptions correct. If you do not like a lot of responsibility at work, maybe you should consider a different field of work. However, if you love working with people and helping make lives better, or even if you want to get a head start, because you want to be apharmacist, then consider applying and becoming a pharmacy technician today!