At 54 with a PhD, is there a reason he wasn't looking for management or leadership positions instead?
I know very little about pharma, but my guess would be that domain knowledge and industry connections would be super valuable.
I know very little about pharma, but my guess would be that domain knowledge and industry connections would be super valuable.
That's learned helplessness. You are looking at it from a fatalist point of view. You said yourself that this person actually decided to learn python and try to find a job in software engineering so he was actually more resourceful that you give him credit for.