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James Gould - Making The Most of The Postdoc (2023)

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Making the Most of the

Postdoc
Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows spend upwards of 15 years hon-
ing their research skills. However, in all this training, compulsory career and
professional development courses are far and few between. In the absence of
a formal training curriculum, this co-curricular postdoc guidebook can be
used as a manual for aspiring scientists to find career success.
Postdocs face many hurdles in their pursuit of research excellence and
independence. None more frustrating than making the most of this chal-
lenging yet rewarding opportunity. Ultimately, the point of postdoc train-
ing is not maintaining a lengthy postdoc tenure but landing a satisfying job.
Regardless of what they do in their career, postdocs need to gain and master
many skills both directly related to their scientific training and beyond. This
book posits that if trainees are motivated and given some practical guidance,
they can build a professional reputation while achieving a successful postdoc
experience.
Based on the personal experiences of the author, this book logically out-
lines the flow of the postdoc experience from beginning to end by providing
actionable advice on how to get the most out of postdoctoral training while
laying out strategies for choosing the right research environment to thrive
along with planning, and executing, a successful postdoc tenure. Written for
current and future postdocs, as well as their mentors, this book covers what
they need to know, and do, to strategically advance in their early research
career.

Key Features:

• Practical and actionable advice from an author that has experienced


PhD and postdoc training and is now directing a postdoc office at a
world-renowned research institution
• Methodical approach most readers can readily adapt for their own
purposes
• Specifically written for current and future STEM postdocs while
being agnostic of the research field
Dr. James Gould, PhD is Director of the HMS/HSDM Office for Postdoctoral
Fellows at Harvard Medical School (HMS) where he has implemented
research, career, and professional development programs and policies for
HMS-affiliated trainees since 2011. Prior to HMS, Dr. Gould completed two
postdoc fellowships at the National Cancer Institute of the NIH where he
became involved in training affairs and studied cancer metabolism. Dr.
Gould received his BS in Biotechnology/Molecular Biology from Clarion
University of Pennsylvania and his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology from the University of Louisville.
Making the Most of the
Postdoc
Strategically Advancing
Your Early Career

James Gould
Designed cover image: © Shutterstock, ID 786339889, Vector Contributor Artistdesign29

First edition published 2023


by CRC Press
6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742

and by CRC Press


4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

© 2024 James Gould

Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and pub-
lisher cannot assume responsibility for the validity of all materials or the consequences of their use.
The authors and publishers have attempted to trace the copyright holders of all material reproduced
in this publication and apologize to copyright holders if permission to publish in this form has not
been obtained. If any copyright material has not been acknowledged please write and let us know so
we may rectify in any future reprint.

Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Law, no part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced,
transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers.

For permission to photocopy or use material electronically from this work, access www​.copyright​
.com or contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923,
978-750-8400. For works that are not available on CCC please contact mpkbookspermissions​@tandf​
.co​​.uk

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are
used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

ISBN: 978-1-032-24678-9 (hbk)


ISBN: 978-1-032-25886-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-28545-8 (ebk)

DOI: 10.1201/9781003285458

Typeset in Palatino
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
Contents

Foreword................................................................................................................ vii
Acknowledgments..................................................................................................ix

Part 1 The Beginning

Introduction: My Path – from Clueless to Clarity: Finding


Strength through Struggle............................................................................3

1 How to Use This Book …............................................................................. 11


Are You Puzzled?............................................................................................ 11
How to Use This Book If You Are a Postdoc.............................................. 12
How to Use This Book If You Are a Faculty Mentor................................. 13
How to Use This Book If You Are a Postdoc Affairs or Career
Office Leader................................................................................................... 14
How to Use This Book to Improve the Research Enterprise.................... 15

2 The Most Important Professional Decision You Will Make …


So Far................................................................................................................ 17
To Postdoc or Not to Postdoc........................................................................ 17
Postdoc Job Search.......................................................................................... 19
Creating a Productive Environment............................................................ 23

3 The Postdoc Protocol.....................................................................................25


Postdoc Process............................................................................................... 25
Envisioning the Endpoint.............................................................................. 25
Self-Assessment and Reflection.................................................................... 27
Developing Plans and Accomplishing Goals............................................. 29
Maintaining Progress..................................................................................... 32
Getting a Job.................................................................................................... 33

Part 2 The Middle

4 Situational Awareness.................................................................................. 37
Postdoc Pain/Pivot Points............................................................................. 37
Stopping the Negativity Spiral..................................................................... 41
Imposter Syndrome: Managing Your Inner Dialogue..............................43
Resilience and Mental Wellness...................................................................44

 v
vi Contents

5 Navigating through Your Postdoc.............................................................. 47


Establishing Ground Rules and Expectations............................................ 47
Mentorship and Individual Development Plans (IDPs)............................ 49
Mentoring Up and Self-Advocacy................................................................ 51
Professional Development............................................................................. 52

6 Path to Independence....................................................................................55
Understanding Your Priorities...................................................................... 55
Framing Your Training.................................................................................. 55
Your Training Efforts..................................................................................... 56
Building Your Reputation.............................................................................. 57
Build Transferable Skills................................................................................ 59
Preparing for the Next Step........................................................................... 60
Structuring Your Preparation....................................................................... 61

Part 3 The End

7 Career Transition Readiness.......................................................................65


Knowing When You Are Ready to Leave....................................................65
Navigating an Unknown Process.................................................................65
Activating Your Network.............................................................................. 67
Common Ground............................................................................................ 67
Contact Points.................................................................................................. 68
Integrating Networking, Research, and Life.............................................. 70
Having “The Talk” with Your Mentor......................................................... 71
Launching Your Job Search........................................................................... 72

8 Some Advice on Application Materials....................................................75


Applications and Job Postings...................................................................... 75
Cover Letters...................................................................................................77
Crafting the Résumé and CV........................................................................ 79
Statements of Research and Teaching.......................................................... 88

9 Interview Preparation...................................................................................91
Becoming a Storyteller................................................................................... 91
Common Struggles and Successful Strategies for Interview Prep.......... 95
Interview Performance.................................................................................. 96
Do Your Homework........................................................................................ 97
The Face-to-Face Interview............................................................................ 98
Gratitude and Follow-Up............................................................................... 99

10 Negotiating Your Exit................................................................................. 101


Considering and Negotiating the Offer.................................................... 101
Continuing “The Talk” with Your Mentor................................................ 103

Index...................................................................................................................... 107
Foreword

Getting a PhD is a special journey. One that should unite us all together as
PhDs. Unfortunately, the nature of our work tends to fragment us at times.
We can sometimes be critical of ourselves and other PhDs. Understand that it
was never meant to be this way. We were meant to be critical of our research,
but not our PhD peers, mentors, or trainees. We were meant to be advocates
of other PhDs.
Dr. James Gould is an amazing example of somebody who has dedicated
his life to being an advocate for other PhDs, specifically those in postdoc-
toral appointments. Dr. Gould, who I will call my great friend Jim from here
on out, is not just an advocate for the PhDs he mentors as Director of the
Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Dental Medicine Office for
Postdoctoral Fellows, a very prestigious role he earned through hard work,
intelligence, kindness, determination, and an incredible ability to teach and
guide others; he is also an advocate for his PhD peers.
When I was first starting out in industry after getting my PhD, I was living
in Boston and decided to start my company, Cheeky Scientist. I was eager to
speak to PhDs at local universities and help PhDs learn how to transition out
of academia and into industry careers. This was the company’s mission. The
problem? No one was interested. Until Jim. Jim gave me a chance to speak in
my very first seminar under the Cheeky Scientist banner. After a mountain
of rejections, he said yes and I couldn’t believe it. This was ten years ago in
2013 and the idea that PhDs should be trained to do something other than
become professors was not widely accepted. There is still a lot of work to be
done in terms of its acceptance today, but a decade ago, whenever I spoke to a
room of 50 or so PhDs and asked who among them was going to stay in aca-
demia, 40 would raise their hands. Today, that ratio is flipped, with 40 raising
their hands to indicate they are pursuing careers outside of academia.
Jim was one of the few people to see this coming. He was also the first
person to see potential in me as a fellow mentor of PhDs instead of a threat.
When Jim invited me to speak, or should I say, when he allowed me to come
speak at Harvard to the postdocs he was mentoring, he did so without
judgment, reservations, caveats, or complaints. Instead, he invited me with
friendliness, open arms, and a collegial spirit. He complimented me on the
message I was trying to get across and gently guided me on making my
presentation less abrasive and more considerate and inclusive to academics,
many of whom were skeptical of anyone suggesting they look for work out-
side of the academy.
Jim continued to offer his advice to me over the years, always gently, intel-
ligently, and without ego, helping me understand the challenges postdocs
faced and how to gain wider acceptance of my ideas by smoothing out the

vii
viii Foreword

rough edges of messages. Without Jim, the message, voice, and even the
brand of Cheeky Scientist wouldn’t be where it is today. After speaking at
hundreds of universities, all around the world, there are only a few people I
have worked with who get as much done for PhDs as Jim, and there is no one
who genuinely cares about postdocs as much as him. Jim has deep knowl-
edge of the terrain in terms of what a postdoc goes through psychologically,
the pressures they must deal with, how many self-sabotage their careers for
years, and, most importantly, the world of possibilities open to postdocs,
career-wise and otherwise, once they expand their vision of their training,
their skills, and their worth.
Boston is the beating heart of PhDs worldwide, with more PhDs in Boston
and Cambridge than any other metropolitan area in the US, and possibly the
world. Jim is at the center of that beating heart. If you are doing a postdoc, or
are going to do a postdoc, this book is critical to you making the most of your
time in your position and then leveraging your training to get hired into a
meaningful career. Jim will show you in Chapter 4 what your professional
pain points are or will be as a postdoc and what professional pivot points
will alleviate those pain points. In Chapter 9 he will show you how to use the
P-A-R Stories and the P-A-R Matrix to interview for your next role success-
fully. From thriving as a postdoc to arriving in the next step in your career,
Making the Most of the Postdoc will show you the way.
I want to encourage you to read Jim’s words with a discovery mindset.
Open yourself up to possibilities. Start this book as an exploration. After
all, you likely got into your PhD in the first place to discover and to explore.
Savor the adventure that you’re about to go on. And then commit to putting
Jim‘s words into action for yourself and your career. Enjoy!
Dr. Isaiah Hankel
Founder and CEO of Cheeky Scientist
Author of The Power of a PhD, Intelligent Achievement, and Black Hole Focus
Acknowledgments

Thank you to everyone who helped me in thinking about, organizing, draft-


ing, editing, and submitting this book. It was a true community effort full
of support and enthusiasm. I am eternally grateful to my wife, Heidi, and
daughter, Lucy, for their steadfast belief in my vision and the encouragement
of the work it took to pursue this goal. I love you both with all my heart. I am
also very thankful to my friends and colleagues – Derek Haseltine, Michaela
Tally, Rafael Luna, and Jelena Patrnogić – for their critical insights and feed-
back that made this book that much better and more accurate. The experi-
ences and advice shared in this book would not be possible without some
guidance and role models along the way. I would like to thank everyone that
provided such assistance. I am blessed that the list is too long to include in
full here, but I hope that you know who you are. And finally, I am appre-
ciative of the unconditional love and support from all my parents, sisters,
brothers, and extended family. Thank you, I hope I have made you all proud.

ix
Part 1

The Beginning
Introduction
My Path – from Clueless to Clarity:
Finding Strength through Struggle

I have been asked over and over why did I choose this path. I cannot say
exactly when I chose it, perhaps it chose me. For as long as I can remember, it
has always been something that I have done, even when I was younger, just
helping others. I am not saying I was always helpful, just that I was always
willing to help while also being sought out for it. It may be because I have
always needed support though did not know how to consistently seek it,
thus making a lot of mistakes with few initial successes. If there is a theme
to my life and work, it is that there is much to learn through error and I can
help make others aware to avoid the same mistakes I made. (Thereby allow-
ing them to make new and more interesting slipups.)
I was uncertain about almost everything growing up. Going to school and
playing baseball (and just about any other backyard sport) were some of the
few things I could count on, mostly because I was on a team or with my friends.
Regardless, this uncertainty manifested itself as mistakes large and small
and none as monumental as my decision-making process to attend college. I
applied very late in my senior year of high school and had already graduated
by the time I was accepted to Clarion University of Pennsylvania where one of
my best friends had long been accepted. Upon notification, I only had six weeks
before the fall semester started and I had no plan, no classes, and worst of all, no
financial aid. Ever chasing after my oldest sister, I was only the second child in
my blended family to attempt college. Thankfully universities have experience
with naïve families such as mine. Regardless, I essentially just showed up to
campus on a Saturday, haphazardly took placement exams, blindly scheduled
courses, and rashly started classes two days later.
In the fall of my second year, it dawned on me that I needed to decide
on a major. Eschewing any resources or advice, I selected my major out of
the university course catalogue based on three loosely related reasons: 1) I
had already taken several science and math courses; 2) I had really enjoyed
Basic Biology, a class designed specifically for non-science majors; and
3) “Molecular Biology/Biotechnology” sounded way cooler than regular
“Biology” or the unfamiliar “Ecology.” Mind you, I did not have the slightest
idea what Molecular Biology was though I did know (because of the course
catalogue) that it was essentially the same course of study with just a few
advanced-level exceptions. So off I went to the chair of the biology depart-
ment to get the paperwork signed that allowed me to officially declare my
major.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003285458-2 3
4 Making the Most of the Postdoc

Two years later after an eventually fruitful summer undergraduate research


experience at Ohio University, I applied to the University of Louisville
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology graduate program in the fall of 2000. (I
was very busy that fall being the first in my family to graduate college while
also getting married.) Attending graduate school was a passive decision as I
viewed it as the next step by default. Again, not only was I a first-generation
college graduate, I was the first ever in my family to consider pursuing a
PhD. I had few role models and zero road maps. I did not know what else
was out there for someone with a bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology/
Biotechnology, especially in Western Pennsylvania. Many of my classmates
were either attending medical school or pursuing doctoral degrees. One of
the few active and strategic decisions I had made up to that point was choos-
ing Louisville, where I thought I could best succeed as a graduate student.
This choice was based on the fact that I had grown up in town and still had
family in the area as well as the school having a small college feel despite it
being the second largest university in the state.
Again, I am unable to point to a specific time that I decided to help improve
the situations of my friends and colleagues. Throughout my formal academic
training – as an undergraduate, as a graduate student, and as a postdoc – I
was helping my peers figure out their issues, large and small. Whether it was
an issue or conflict with their faculty mentor, an existential crisis, or a CV
review, I was there. My friends asked me about everything. “How do I apply
to a fellowship?” “What is my approach in dealing with my advisor?” “How
do I reach out to a potential employer?” I do not think it was my experience or
wisdom that drove them to seek out my counsel back then; maybe it was my
ability to appear calm with a down-to-earth demeanor. However, beneath
the surface, I was really in no better shape than they were as I very much
needed the same questions answered for myself. I have always been a people
person, and it was through helping others that I found some solutions for my
own problems. Like I said, I have made so many mistakes and continue to do
so. Hopefully though, I have learned from some of them. Compared to my
classes and research (the things I was supposed to be doing), it was very ful-
filling knowing at the end of the day I helped a colleague or a group of peers.
In the spring semester of my second year of graduate school, I was strug-
gling mightily as I failed my qualifying exam. My proposal was so poorly
composed I did not even get the opportunity to defend it. I was placed on a
remedial track where I had to take an additional course in the fall (Molecular
Biology), rewrite my proposal, and have regular check-ins with the gradu-
ate program director. Having been humiliated and delaying my progress by
another semester, I finally passed the qualifier and reached PhD candidacy.
I chose my PhD lab because I wanted to do proteomics research with-
out really knowing what that meant. However, my dissertation project did
not involve proteomics as I had come to understand the field. My project
entailed dosing kidney cells with high glucose and characterizing the subse-
quent kinase and metabolic signaling cascade that was activated. However,
Introduction 5

I continued to struggle as I dove deeper into my research project. I would


maybe do one successful experiment a week, maybe one a month, that
produced any data worth sharing. It was not enough to keep me going, to
keep me motivated, and I knew I had to finish my research somehow. I was
waiting for help instead of asking for it. I expected my advisor to rescue me
though I never solicited his advice. It got so bad that we had a serious con-
versation about whether or not a master’s degree was even still possible. This
is the part of obtaining a PhD they do not tell you about. You are creating
new knowledge and no one, not even your advisor, knows for sure if your
research project will work. I only learned this cruel lesson after the fact. I
was honestly working hard, but my experiments were hardly working. To
make matters worse, I was comparing my progress to another grad student
who seemed light years ahead of me. I was lost in the wilderness and had no
clue. Then after struggling some more, wandering in the dark, and doubting
myself, I made a huge breakthrough in my project. Basically, the alternative
signaling pathway that I had been pursuing instead of listening to my advi-
sor was essentially proven. Everything and nothing changed after that.
In addition to figuring out my research, I paid more and more attention
to my desire and interest to help develop careers. Honestly though, it was
mostly in my own self-interest since I also needed to develop my own career.
I realized that if I had an issue, then my classmates probably had that same
or similar issue. I began exploring more how to do that, talking with faculty
and anyone else that would listen. Thankfully, there were a few very sympa-
thetic faculty that told me there was more out there than just being faculty
and doing academic research. I became involved in organizing a student-led
group for the biochemistry department and was elected as its chair within
a year. I was included in recruiting incoming students and was appointed
to the Graduate Executive Committee. I was just trying to develop myself
and in doing so, began to help develop others. I organically formed a team
around myself where I was interacting with very smart people who were
helping me figure out my research issues and I was, in turn, learning how to
help them with their career or professional development. This was a symbi-
otic reciprocal arrangement that taught me how to delegate responsibilities
and manage my peers. It was really fulfilling to do. I found that there was
a tendency that my assistance was helpful rather than harmful. If I ever did
give bad advice, and I am sure I did, they were either courteous enough to
not let me know or smart enough to ask someone else the next time.
After making steady headway in my project and without any input, I made
the decision that I was ready to write up and defend my dissertation. To the
point that I even launched my postdoc search after presenting a poster at a
national conference in the spring of 2006. I did not ask permission, nor did I
seek advice. I applied widely and since I had in-laws that lived in Frederick,
MD, I focused on NIH labs, especially those on the NCI-Frederick/Ft. Detrick
campus. Using the NCI central postdoc portal, I had a few PIs interested in
me. Surprisingly, I landed an interview with a genomics lab, a completely
6 Making the Most of the Postdoc

new area of research for me and got an offer to be Cancer Research Training
Fellow. I was not alone on the job search, my wife, fully expecting me to have
finished my PhD, also landed a job in Frederick as a teacher. However, I did
all of this before ever giving my dissertation committee an update on my
research progress. Much to my dismay and in hindsight not a surprise, my
dissertation committee, in full agreement with my PhD advisor, determined
that I was not even close to being ready. Having made a huge miscalculation,
I, embarrassed and very much humbled (again), had to ask for a deferment of
the postdoc job offer for at least a year. My wife not only had to do the same
but also had to ask for her old job back.
With renewed commitment and a focus that I had not thought possible, I
generated more data in the subsequent nine months than I had in the previ-
ous five years combined. In the end, less than a year’s work constituted the
bulk of my dissertation. By March 2007, I had permission to write up my
dissertation and make my PhD defense. Three months later I successfully
defended. Because of the previous year’s false start, I made another series of
huge mistakes. I moved my family to Frederick and began my new postdoc
fellowship (in a new research area, remember) only a week after my disser-
tation defense. I started my new position before my degree was conferred;
thus, I was not yet eligible to receive the full postdoc stipend. Worse yet, I
left my PhD lab before I had converted my dissertation into a manuscript for
submission. It took me another 12 months of back and forth with my gradu-
ate advisor before I realized that I would never submit, much less publish, a
first-author paper based on my PhD work. The loss of this opportunity fur-
thered my desperation to find a career away from the bench. However, I was
surprised that others in my former lab had continued to expand the central
observation of my research in new ways, ironically by doing a proteomic
analysis of high glucose–induced signaling in kidney cells. Eight years after
I graduated, I was included as a second author of a paper based on my origi-
nal PhD work.
When reflecting on my postdoc experience, among the many challenges, I
remember a few moments of success and satisfaction. The most impactful is
the eventual realization of my career trajectory. The most lasting is the circle
of friends and colleagues with which I surrounded myself and am still in
contact. And the most satisfying, perhaps, was winning the Ft. Detrick Fun
League Softball Championship. Let me explain. Since I joined my postdoc
lab in the summer, it was natural that the lab PI shared that he was on a
softball team that played on base. I expressed my interest in joining as I had
been playing sports my entire life and wanted a competitive outlet as well
as an excuse to network with and impress my boss outside the lab. It did not
go how I had hoped. He left the team in 2008, after only one season playing
with him. Mind you, he had probably been on that team for a decade. I doubt
I was the reason he no longer played, but we never talked about softball after
that. Even though it felt like a missed opportunity, it was also still a chance
to expand my network beyond the lab. In my third and final season, my team
Introduction 7

tore through the league with only a single loss and in so doing, we won the
regular season and tournament championships. This was the pinnacle of
my postdoc tenure: a Fun League softball team triumph that had nothing to
do with research, publishing, or finding a job. While I was playing softball,
there was also a lot happening in my postdoc training.
As I have stated, helping others, outreach, and service were very satisfy-
ing. I moved from a graduate student helping graduate students to a post-
doc helping fellow postdocs. It was infinitely more rewarding than doing
research. I began to strategically seek out more opportunities that followed
my interests, sometimes at the cost of my research projects. As a postdoc, I
was drawn to and eventually played a major role in the Fellows and Young
Investigators (FYI) Steering Committee, the equivalent of a postdoc associa-
tion at the NCI. This was a seminal and formative experience for me. During
my tenure, I was elected as chair and also led the scientific sub-committee.
Additionally, I ran the campus-wide postdoc seminar series and new post-
doc orientation. I worked on the postdoc training satisfaction survey and,
because of my growing reputation, was invited to represent trainees on sev-
eral committees across Ft. Detrick and the NCI. I sought out teaching and
outreach opportunities that led me to lecturing high school and college stu-
dents on poster presentations and cancer metabolism. Even when I realized
that what I was doing informally and for fun might be a viable career path,
I still did not fully understand the idea of managing or directing graduate
or postdoc affairs. From this point, I became very focused and strategic in
what I chose to pursue. I began to elevate how I communicated and framed
my experience to respected leaders in the field. It was an important shift in
thinking for me because now I had a career target to aim my efforts toward.
Because of this new clarity, I was able to transform my experiences into an
internship with the NCI Office of Training and Education. Regrettably, many
of us do not have this frameshift about our next job and how to get there
until it is almost too late. It was around this time that I began to see the fruits
of my many non-research labors. I was blown away to find that my fellow
postdocs were now actively seeking me out to expand their own professional
networks.
Unfortunately, the lack of progress in my research projects caught up to
me. At the end of my second year of postdoc, I found out from a department
administrator, not my PI, that my contract was not going to be renewed. As
a result of this miscommunication (with the administrator, not the termina-
tion), I was finally informed as to who my primary mentor actually was. It
was not in fact the guy I tried playing softball with, it was his very expe-
rienced staff scientist. It was not like I did not know the staff scientist, we
worked closely together, but I always wondered why he was telling me what
to do in my projects and inviting me to attend meetings with him. Not until
two years into my postdoc did I realize this person was my assigned men-
tor. Regardless, thanks to the generous termination policy at the NCI/NIH,
I had 12 months to find a new position. I wasted no time and was still quite
8 Making the Most of the Postdoc

uncertain about my next steps. So, with the help of a lab mate’s introduction, I
made a solid connection that led to an interview for a second postdoc. At the
interview, I used slides from my PhD defense seminar, not my postdoctoral
work. There were two really good reasons for this. First, the lab I was inter-
viewing with was hardcore cancer metabolism, and my dissertation could
be re-framed as being metabolism related. And second, I had not generated a
shred of usable data from my current postdoc. Even though it was obvious to
both of us that we were an excellent fit for each other, I was initially turned
down. As you can imagine, the combination of being fired, turned down for
another job, and not knowing if I could pay my bills led to extreme anxiety
and panic. Humbled (yet again) and very desperate, I reached out and asked
to be reconsidered by the metabolism group. I was eventually hired into that
lab and found out later that two of my future lab mates had vouched for me.
Interestingly, one of them was the third baseman on my softball team. I was
able to return the favor to the second as I helped them to transition to job in
industry 10 years later. As stated, this postdoc was a much better fit for me
both scientifically and personally. I was fully committed to the science and
also negotiated that I be allowed to continue my internship and related train-
ing affairs work outside the lab. For the next 18 months, I flourished. I felt I
had positively impacted the lab and also had the honor of being specifically
named in my research division’s successful program review for my contribu-
tions to the greater NCI-Frederick community.
Despite my efforts, to this point, I had zero research papers to my name. I
had already come to terms with the reality that a future doing research was
not possible. The next step in my journey to creating a new career trajec-
tory was actually convincing myself (and then my wife) that it was worth all
the hardship and anguish of getting my PhD, doing multiple postdocs, and
moving my family across the country twice. To help make this transition, I
took advantage of the resources around me at the NCI as well as the NIH. I
sought out role models and training workshops. I even made friends with the
director and staff of the NIH Office of Intramural Training and Education.
Perhaps most helpful was meeting with a career coach and taking the MBTI
and DiSC self-assessments. This effort along with some much-needed self-
reflection provided the necessary tools to recalibrate what it meant to be a
PhD and a postdoc. I had to reprioritize the skills I possessed and the skills I
needed. I would be leveraging all of my experiences as a scientist and apply-
ing them to a completely different set of problems. I would no longer be
doing research but transitioning into a research-adjacent position where I
would be helping people deal with issues that hindered their research and
their professional progress. I realized that it will never be me saying, “I am
going to cure cancer,” though maybe I can help someone else realize their
full potential, by raising their awareness of or even removing some barriers
that might be harmful to their research. I would now be saying “I coached
that person and they made their situation better allowing them to take major
strides toward a cancer cure.” This was a significant and necessary change in
Introduction 9

perspective that allowed me to believe this was the right path. I understood
that this could be enjoyable while also being important. Now all that I had to
do was convince someone to pay me to do this.
However, it was difficult finding a job, especially one I was excited about.
Though I had several interviews for similar positions, it took many more
months of gaining additional experience and training outside of my lab
responsibilities to qualify for my current position. I even went so far as to
pitch the graduate dean at Louisville on the value of having a postdoc office
and a professional development training structure in place in the hopes of
them hiring me. It almost worked. I would not have my current position if I
did not participate in the FYI Steering Committee. Not only did it give me a
glimpse into an administrative career, it helped me tap into a vast network
of people in the field. I was able to hone my leadership skills – learning how
to manage meetings and delegate assignments across a large group of vol-
unteers. In particular, it was my internship in the training office and the
subsequent administrative understanding that made me a top choice for the
position. I would not have even known about the position if it were not for a
few people who knew of my career interests sending me the job ad.
After four years of postdoc that included two years of job searching, I
started my position as the director of the office for postdoctoral fellows at
Harvard Medical School in June 2011. They were a little hesitant about hiring
me straight out of my postdoc though I was also able to connect with and
support the postdocs at HMS on a deeper level than they had previously
experienced. I did miss the scientific chatter of the lab as well as my lab
mates; however, I never missed the day-to-day frustration of failed experi-
ments. I definitely felt that my “Eureka!” moments happened a lot more often
after I transitioned away from the bench.
As Director of the HMS/HSDM Office for Postdoctoral Fellows, it still took
several more years of professional development to gain trust, build rela-
tionships, and find my footing. I now manage a vibrant office of two that
serves thousands of postdocs. I am responsible for developing and execut-
ing programming that adds value to the postdoc training experience. There
is no typical workday as week-to-week I am alternately presenting or host-
ing programs for postdocs while juggling the administration of the office.
One of the first tasks I had was enhancing the office’s visibility, use, and
reputation not only within HMS and Harvard community but also locally
and then nationally. My office currently produces over one hundred events,
seminars, and workshops per year that cover postdoc and research skills, as
well as career, professional, and individual development. Since my arrival at
HMS, I developed and instituted a flexible curriculum predicated on creat-
ing awareness, building skills, and establishing experience to help address
major postdoc pain points of research expertise, publication record, funding
stability, and career readiness.
Having been a postdoc and now running a postdoc office, I have witnessed
trainees struggle with identifying a career path, building an identity and
10 Making the Most of the Postdoc

vision, and receiving satisfactory mentorship. Relatedly, some of the biggest


challenges I face in my role are finding interesting ways to engage post-
docs on these topics while encouraging them to develop themselves and get
into the right frame of mind. I advise and coach trainees on personal and
professional matters including career exploration, networking, job search-
ing, application strategies, and interviewing. I counsel postdocs that their
research skills are highly valuable and should be used in every endeavor of
their scientific and career progression regardless of its relation to research.
Much to my satisfaction, I have been invited to speak and write about these
topics across the country and the media. The most demanding aspect of my
current role is advocating for and interpreting reasonable and fair postdoc
policies and guidelines at HMS. I am actively involved in developing and
implementing procedures for orientation, onboarding and exit, benefits,
compensation, term limits, and individual development plans (IDPs) for my
fellows.
While I have applied and interviewed for several positions since, being
hired at HMS has been my only successful professional job search. This is
not the end of my career story, and I do not know what is next on my hori-
zon. Although there is uncertainty, it is no longer joined by the terror that
used to be its partner. Upon reflection, when I faced uncertainty in the past,
I built teams around myself while learning to overcome the fear of asking
for help. I then began to frame my mistakes as growth opportunities instead
of failures. Ultimately, through hard-won experience and often-disregarded
advice, I was able to revise my approach to career and professional develop-
ment to leverage the skills I earned as a scientist. I am no longer driven by
panic or anxiety. I am in control of my trajectory and will now move forward
by following my curiosity and joy.
1
How to Use This book …

Are You Puzzled?


You probably have at least one issue, if not many, that you are puzzled about.
That is why you are reading this book. I can anticipate most of your struggles
as they run the full gamut of making the most of your postdoc. I am cer-
tain you are asking: Is there a postdoc protocol I can follow in framing my
non-linear path? How do I gain and practice situational awareness? How do
I navigate my way through a postdoc? What is my path to independence?
What is career transition readiness? Can I get some advice on my application
materials? How do I prepare for interviews and job negotiations? How do I
develop an exit strategy?
I may not be able to answer every question you bring with you as you
read, but what we are covering in this book cuts to the heart of these major
questions. When leveraging your PhD or research training experience, you
need to be very mindful and active. Research progress, career advancement,
and professional development are not passive processes. It involves some
self-assessment, convincing yourself of your value, and persuading others
that you are worth investing in and eventually hiring. This book lays out
strategies to address the struggles listed above, but I warn you that it is not
comprehensive. Moving from beginning to end, you will learn to start with
the finish point in mind. You will become aware of pivot points, resilience,
and expectations. You will understand that plans lead to priorities and those
lead to the next steps of launching your career. Finally, you will learn how to
create the application materials and tell the stories that will lead you to your
postdoc exit point.
While most of the experiences and examples that are shared come from a
primarily US, academic, and biomedical life sciences perspective, I believe
this book can be applicable to all science-related trainees including interna-
tional and industry postdocs. There is a certain universality in postdoctoral
training that crosses all demographics and backgrounds, and I hope that this
book rings true to your own experience.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003285458-3 11
12 Making the Most of the Postdoc

How to Use This Book If You Are a Postdoc


Dear Current or Future Postdoc Fellow,
You are faced with many obstacles in your path to independence, none
more frustrating than getting the most out of your training. I wrote this book
to provide a protocol of sorts for implementing strategies in choosing the
right research environment to thrive as a postdoc as well as planning, and
executing, a successful postdoc tenure. Written for current or future post-
docs, the content will cover what I believe you need to know, and do, to effi-
ciently advance in your early research career.
However, very little goes according to plan. Regardless, you can use this
book as a guide that I never had. In my transition to and eventual train-
ing as a postdoc, there were so many unknowns that almost nothing went
according to plan for me. To be honest, while I may have enjoyed the jour-
ney, I did very little to plan my trip. Everything I did was new to me. I
have claimed to have made every mistake there is to make in my academic
training.
My advice is to read this book in any order or sequence you choose. I have
separated the sections into Beginning, Middle, and End. Not so much as to
ensure you digest it chronologically but to break down the sometimes indis-
tinct phases of postdoc training. I have no idea where (or when) you are in
your timeline, but I do know there are certain things you need to know at
each step. Use this book as a measuring stick to help you establish bench-
marks and milestones along your journey.
I am so thankful that not only are you taking the time to read this book
but, more importantly, you are seeking advice and resources to help you
in your career and professional development. You now have the difficult
task of taking in information, parsing its relevance, and either keeping or
discarding what you have learned. This is a fundamental part of the scien-
tific method, and the more data you collect, the better your “experimental
design” will be. Of course, the hypothesis that this grand experiment will
test is whether or not you and your career are properly prepared. The next
step is to take action and begin using and implementing the new knowledge
to develop yourself.
My hope is that in doing so, you set yourself on a path toward indepen-
dence and eventually to your authentic self. This book is also meant to dispel
myths, shine a light in the darkness, and act as a reality check for you. If you
are holding this book in your hands right now, I imagine you have a mil-
lion questions and even more doubts. While I do my best to address them,
you can apply the concepts you learn to build a framework that starts and
sustains important conversations. As you continue reading, you will gain
the necessary confidence to meet your career and professional development
challenges head-on.
How to Use This Book … 13

How to Use This Book If You Are a Faculty Mentor


Dear Faculty Mentor,
For you, the appointment of a postdoctoral fellow initiates a temporary
and defined period of advanced mentored training. Your postdoc fellow is
expected to engage in independent research while also developing skills and
experiences that support their specific career goals and professional devel-
opment. Your role as their faculty mentor is critically important for your
postdoc’s training experience. Your mentoring relationship is an alliance
built on bi-directional respect, open-mindedness, frequent communication,
and a willingness to adapt as needed. To that end, this book outlines guid-
ing principles for your early and ongoing training discussions. You and your
postdoc are encouraged to return to these pages as progress is made. This
can be especially helpful when preparing for larger planning discussions or
important training transition points.
While primarily written for postdocs from the perspective of a former fel-
low and current postdoc affairs professional, there is much you can gather
from and add to this book. It is very important to remember your postdoc
fellow chose to learn from you and your research program. You should not
overlook or take for granted the trust they are placing in you. Also, do not
discount the value of your own academic experience (from grad school to
postdoc to faculty) when coaching and counseling your trainees. Though
the times and how we view research training have changed since you were
in their shoes, your knowledge, advice, insight, and guidance are as relevant
as ever.
If I may be so bold, I would like to offer you some advice and share with
you the wisdom I have gleaned from postdocs. You need to offer them a
path to independence with a thoughtful plan and explicit expectations.
You need to give them room to grow across many domains including
permission to make mistakes, to pursue their interests, to develop them-
selves, to be human, to be vulnerable, to be brave, and to take risks. You
must be proactive in your mentoring while providing resources and mul-
tiple perspectives inside and outside of your lab. Please have open, trans-
parent, and ongoing conversations that cover more than just the next set
of experiments. Show them you care about them beyond what they can
contribute scientifically. You can read this book and, agree or not, you can
share your own wisdom from the lessons you have learned throughout
your career.
14 Making the Most of the Postdoc

How to Use This Book If You Are a Postdoc


Affairs or Career Office Leader
Dear Training and Career Offices,
A trainee’s drive to successfully develop themselves should be guiding
your programming to be flexible and adaptable across the depth and width
of your curriculum. Raising awareness in career-related topics is a univer-
sal and inclusive approach for all trainees, which affords the opportunity
to openly explore diverse career options. Training that builds specific pro-
fessional skills provides trainees with low-risk, high-reward opportunities.
Although experiential programming is the height of strategic career and
professional development, it is also the most time-intensive and selective.
Regardless, your implementation strategy must emphasize discernment by
aligning coaching and programming needs with postdoc concerns and prac-
tical application of their scientific training. When postdocs and PhDs pursue
career and professional development, they are usually seeking meaning in
their training by enriching their learning and service experience, improving
their relationships, and enhancing their job preparedness. With increased
awareness, skills, and experience, trainees are able to go out into the profes-
sional world fully prepared to make evidence-based decisions about their
desired career trajectory.
Your offices should be providing resources for transition and decision
point support as these are the most anxiety-inducing moments of their
training outside of research progress and publications. They are also the
topics to which they pay the least attention. You should then create the
bulk of your discussions or workshops around these topics. You can help
them to acknowledge that life and lab are messy. As soon as they accept
and embrace that fact, they can move on to the important work of self-
development. You also need to help them see that change is inevitable
and begin to view it as an opportunity for growth and not something to
be feared.
I recommend approaching this in a stepwise manner to incorporate its
principles into your training curriculum. The contents of this book can
bolster your office’s strengths while also identifying areas of innovation.
You can then deliver the appropriate training opportunities when needed.
It is important that in your role you develop and reinforce both a clear
training path to independence and attractive educational exit points.
In addition to this book, there should be infrastructure in place to help
postdocs accomplish this, which can be enhanced by establishing stan-
dard mentoring practices and expanded use of institutional and external
resources.
How to Use This Book … 15

How to Use This Book to Improve the Research Enterprise


The success of a postdoc fellowship, and the scientific enterprise as a whole,
depends on active trainee, faculty, and institutional investment in the
development of each fellow. The ideal outcome for this is a better research
product, retention of committed trainees, decreased time to completion,
and improved workforce readiness. Along with an increased visibility of
the research produced by your trainees and alumni, the ultimate payoff is
growth and improved quality of your recruitment pool. Taken together, this
means that your trainees will eventually be more competitive at the institu-
tional, local, regional, and national levels for funding and job opportunities.
I wish that one day we can overcome the “do more with less” mentality that
pervades graduate and postdoctoral training and actually “do more with
more.” To that end, I hope that this book will be used to continue the evolu-
tion of postdoc training toward its next phase.
2
The Most Important Professional
Decision You Will Make … So Far

In early 2008, I was asked by some former graduate school colleagues to


share my experiences leading up to landing my first postdoc position. You
would not be surprised to know that I readily and happily gave my opinion
on the process. What is surprising, however, is how well it has held up. In the
years since, I only had to update a few things that I learned along the way. In
fact, due to the glacial pace of training evolution, I find that I am still giving
this same guidance even today in my current role.
In July of 2006, I accepted a postdoc position at the National Cancer Institute
in Frederick, MD. A year later, I was finally able to begin my postdoc after
those grueling months of running just “one more” experiment for my disser-
tation. I quickly found that my responsibilities as a new postdoc were very
similar to graduate school: read, do not break anything, and ask “someone
else” if you cannot find what you need. Yet, I also realized that I had greater
ownership of my projects and was encouraged and expected to explore my
own hypotheses. I am still amazed at how long it took to adapt to my new
lab environment. The elation of writing and defending my dissertation had
definitely worn off.
To help those of you looking for your own postdoc, I will cover many of the
things that I did, or should have done, in landing a promising postdoc after
grad school as well as sharing my experience and reflections from advising
postdocs for over a decade. I will add two more pearls of wisdom and these
may be more important than anything else I might say – enjoy yourself and
be visible.

To Postdoc or Not to Postdoc


Postdoc Position
Many PhDs (and MDs) choose to extend their academic research training
while gaining new technical and professional skills by pursuing a postdoc-
toral research experience. Furthermore, you may feel compelled to select
this path because pursuing a postdoc has become the de facto requisite next
step to most careers in research and biomedical science. Regardless of your

DOI: 10.1201/9781003285458-4 17
18 Making the Most of the Postdoc

motive(s), there are many practical advantages to the postdoc experience: a


path to independence, a chance to publish, a reputation to build, and a career
to cultivate. Admittedly, there is risk and reward in every career decision,
but there are particular costs to doing a postdoc that could have real and
potentially lasting personal, financial, and professional ramifications. Long
gone are the days when you could graduate with a PhD and be hired directly
into a faculty position. There are rare but increasing opportunities outside of
the faculty realm like industry, the private sector, and higher ed, to make the
leap from graduate school into the workforce.

Postdoc Skills Outlook


In recent years, several trends have emerged that could significantly impact the
future of postdoc training such as trainee unionization, living wage consider-
ations for salary, expansion of professional staff scientists in academia, and
specialized career-focused postdoc fellowships. Regardless, postdoc training
remains a virtually required step for many PhD positions in the sciences as
part of the current research workforce model. With this in mind, you should
be considering the skills necessary for successful career placement and lon-
gevity from the very start. For example, asking yourself in-depth and search-
ing questions before embarking on a postdoc search (or job search in general)
allows you to strategically pursue a more focused opportunity. You need to
understand which skills and attributes will set you apart on your desired
career track. You should consider the benefit of cross-training in certain skills
that will give you the “most bang for your buck” in a variety of career paths.
After reflecting on these, you and your faculty mentor should figure out how
to strategically build those vital skill sets within and outside the lab.
Ideally, this skills identification process should have begun in graduate
school. However, I can attest from my experience working with postdocs
that this is not often the case. Individuals with lengthy postdoctoral expe-
rience repeatedly ask me these very questions. Thankfully, the National
Postdoctoral Association has outlined the six core competencies of postdoc
training. These recommendations provide clarity as to what constitutes a
successfully trained fellow. These competencies can be categorized into
Research Skills and Transferable Skills. Through combined and directed efforts
between you and your faculty mentor, training in research skills covering in-
depth knowledge in a discipline, principles of laboratory experimentation,
and responsible conduct of research is by and far successful. Transferable
skills, on the other hand, are usually poorly addressed in the lab and tend to
be left up to you to learn and manage. Everything being equal, effective com-
munication, professionalism, leadership, and management are the types of
transferable skills that will set you apart from your peers and, let us say, your
competitors. Early assessment and implementation of these core competen-
cies give you an advantage not only in navigating your training but also in
choosing the right environment in which to pursue your research.
The Most Important Professional Decision You Will Make … So Far 19

Postdoc Job Search


The Postdoc Search
With few exceptions, the entirety of the postdoc hiring process is the sole
responsibility of the hiring faculty and their staff, including but not limited
to advertising, recruitment, applicant tracking, interviewing, and onboard-
ing. As you can imagine, this usually leads to a passive, email-based process
that relies on labs with open postdoc positions depending on qualified can-
didates reaching out on their own. On top of this porous practice, many labs
do not even advertise. To complicate matters more, the postdoc job search
is unique in its cycle and unlike graduate school recruitment or academic
faculty hiring. While PhDs have distinct graduation and degree conferment
dates (typically May, August, and December) you can be hired on as a post-
doc anytime throughout the academic year.
It may be necessary to stay on for a few months after your dissertation
defense to wrap up your project and hopefully publish your work. However,
it is not ideal that you do your postdoc in the same lab, or even institution,
that you received your PhD. There is a sense across many disciplines that
if you do not move on to a new training environment, then you may end
up lacking a path to true scientific independence. In addition, many institu-
tions have a culture of not hiring their own trainees while creating an “up
and out” training pipeline. If you are an international trainee, you may face
pressures, expectations, and/or lack of opportunities in your home country
that virtually require you to pursue postdoc training abroad (in this case, the
US). The same may be also true for those that received a PhD in the US and
do not have postdoc opportunities at home. Because of these practices, it is
never too early to explore positions that interest you. Do not be afraid to con-
tact anyone and do not be offended if they never respond. While you should
definitely engage your PhD advisor in your postdoc search, do not depend
on them to find you a job.
During this process, you should be establishing a timeline based on when
you can realistically be finished with your training. Ideally, this would be
at least 6–18 months. You can then work backward from there to build out a
plan wherein you, among other things, keep up with current literature both
within and outside your research area, create automated job searches, and
attend meetings and conferences. In addition, you can find potential post-
doc opportunities by perusing NIH RePORTER to find currently or newly
funded labs in your field. When faculty do advertise postdoc openings, they
tend to post them on their own lab website, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or some-
times on postdoc-focused job sites. Recently, there has been a growing use
of specific postdoc recruiting events where faculty work with their institu-
tional postdoc offices to capitalize on centralizing the process. When pos-
sible, you should submit an application for these larger open recruitment
20 Making the Most of the Postdoc

events. Chapter 9 provides extensive instructions on crafting your applica-


tion materials.

The Postdoc Mentor


Since you are reading this book, you have likely already chosen the postdoc
path. Having done so, you are now responsible for THE most important deci-
sion you will make as an early career scientist: with whom you will train.
You must recognize that the postdoc position, more than any other position
before or after, will be solely dependent on your PI, or as I prefer to call them,
your faculty mentor, with little or no departmental or institutional oversight.
The relationship with your faculty mentor is one of the most important fac-
tors that will make the difference not only in the rate of your training prog-
ress but also in the viability of your eventual job search. You should also
consider whether you will best fit or succeed in a larger or smaller lab as well
as the relative career stage of the PI. These could play a significant factor in
how much access and interaction you may have with them along with where
and how often you publish.
Your postdoc faculty mentor, as well as your graduate advisor, exerts
a vast amount of influence on your career. Whether you are in graduate
school or pursuing a postdoc, you need to be cultivating a well-rounded
relationship with your faculty mentor. For one, they are going to be a nec-
essary and expected reference for you for several years and positions to
come. The success of your postdoc training, and your career beyond it, is as
much about vetting a faculty mentor as it is about aligning research inter-
ests. International scholars must pay special attention to this point. Your
relationship with your faculty mentor as well as your research progress are
closely tied to your Visa status and any conflict or tension can be exacer-
bated by this.

The Postdoc Interview


If you are armed with any semblance of a career trajectory along with knowl-
edge of its requisite skills, not only would you be ahead of the competition,
but you could also be very strategic in probing how well you may fit with the
faculty mentor and their lab. Chapter 9 offers a full overview of interview
preparation from initial contact to offer. When contemplating a postdoc posi-
tion, you should consider compatibility in mentoring styles, training expec-
tations, and research interests. You should then inquire about the security of
the funded position, access to facilities, and the lab’s recent track record of
publishing. Do not miss an opportunity to meet with current or former lab
personnel to further assess the lab culture as well as the career outcomes of
lab alumni.
Upon securing a postdoc interview, you need to begin doing your home-
work on your potential landing spot. Of course, not only should you be
The Most Important Professional Decision You Will Make … So Far 21

reading their recent publications, but you need to also know their major con-
tributions to science. It also helps for you to have an understanding of the
history of the field. When preparing for your interview presentation, you
will need to craft a compelling story that covers a cohesive thread of dis-
covery. Make sure you practice your presentation in front of several differ-
ent audiences. Incorporate their feedback then practice your talk again (and
again).
As you are having your interview conversation, be honest in your responses
by taking credit where it is due, share what skills you bring to the lab, and
admit what you still need to learn. Remember, however, you are also inter-
viewing them, therefore ask a lot of questions. Scientists love to speak about
their own work so let them talk. When interviewing, you must also be aware
of potential “red flags” that may warn against joining as well as “green flags”
that may affirm toward a good fit. For instance, a red flag may be that you
do not meet with everyone in a lab or you talk to others only in the presence
of the PI. Conversely, a green flag may be that you have an off-campus lunch
with all the members of the lab and the PI stays behind to give the group a
safe space to share.
Some questions to ask that will give you a better sense of mentoring style and lab
culture:

• How long is this project funded? Will I need to generate additional


funding?
• What are your expectations for me in this postdoc?
• What have your recent or successful trainees gone on to do?
• What is your mentoring or management style? How will I be
evaluated?
• How are projects allocated?
• How are manuscripts written? Where are they usually submitted?
• How will you foster my independence?
• What piece or parts of my project could I take with me?

For internationals, your immigration status affects almost every aspect of


your existence in the States and the first question above is important to ask
since you are likely not eligible for many independent federal postdoc fellow-
ships or grants. For all potential postdocs, the last two questions hint toward
your postdoc endpoint. This is where the real talk of your training starts.
You will be able to gauge whether your potential faculty mentor actually has
a plan for their trainees and you in particular. This is especially important
when choosing whether or not to pursue your own faculty search. I am not
saying, however, that taking a less planned out “wait-and-see” approach is
bad, far from it. I just caution you that this approach leaves a lot of decisions
open ended and out of your control.
22 Making the Most of the Postdoc

The PhD-Postdoc Transition


Once you accept an offer for your postdoc fellowship training, you still need
to deal with and determine many more things. First of all, congrats, you now
have two bosses! You will need to negotiate a start date (and maybe salary)
with your new postdoc mentor while negotiating your exit with your current
PhD advisor. Among other things, you will need to discuss how best to wrap
up and hand off your graduate project(s) as well as attending to the details
of your graduation requirements. Perhaps most importantly, this PhD exit
conversation should include the next steps for ensuring that any outstand-
ing manuscripts are finalized and submitted with agreed-upon authorship.
It is vital that you make every effort to at least submit your PhD papers, pos-
sibly even seeing to their acceptance, before leaving your graduate lab. Many
trainees choose to stay on for a few months after their defense before starting
their postdoc fellowship for this very reason.

The Postdoc Location


There are two methods to targeting your postdoc search that I recommend.
You can focus on the who (i.e., faculty mentor) or you can concentrate on the
where (i.e., institution and/or location). Not far behind the decision of who
you will work with is the important question of where that will take place.
It is not just the actual institution that will support your research but also
the physical environment in which you will live that is an important consid-
eration. Just as in real estate, aspects of your postdoc success and wellbeing
can be charted to your location, location, location. As you are interviewing,
you should be scouting out reliable sources of information (i.e., guidebooks,
websites, postdoc offices and associations, and future peers and colleagues)
about the surrounding area. It is necessary to know where you may be mov-
ing and what it realistically costs to live there. You should include cost of
living in your job offer calculations.

During my career, I moved 3 times in 11 years for work and found that
the cost of living increased for each new city. I went from living with
my parents for free outside Pittsburgh, PA to paying $450 per month for
a 2-bed, 1.5-bath apartment in Louisville, KY to paying a $1500 mort-
gage plus escrow for a 3-bed, 2.5-bath townhouse in Frederick, MD to
now paying $2000 for a 2-bed, 1-bath apartment outside Boston, MA.
While my salary also increased at each step, the relative cost of living
in the new city virtually nullified those gains, at least initially.
The Most Important Professional Decision You Will Make … So Far 23

In light of the cost of living, some of you might have to decide between a
renowned lab in a high-cost-of-living area where you are scraping by and
a less well-known lab in a low-cost-of-living area where you live in relative
abundance. Furthermore, since it can be quite expensive to move, be sure to
ask about relocation reimbursements or allowances (or even a lease guaran-
tee), as it is not always a standard practice for the labs to offer. For instance,
if you accepted a postdoc (or any job) in the Boston metropolitan area and
leased a place to live, you could expect to shell out nearly $10,000 to make
that move. In addition to the mind-numbing logistics of moving, some of the
other things you need to be thinking about are the locations of good schools
and the most efficient commuting routes. Ideally, you can find a place to live
as close to the lab as possible because late nights and weekend projects are
easier to handle. However, this might not be feasible due to a number of rea-
sons, some of which are outlined above.
This is not to mention the very real culture shock that many international
(and some domestic) postdocs feel as you move to or across the US. As you
may well find out, the US is huge, and it varies culturally across its many
regions, states, and cities. Since you are pursuing a postdoc in academia,
you will likely be in a relatively welcoming research institution that con-
tains and has experience with other internationals such as yourself. But
these academic enclaves of international awareness can be surrounded by
local residents unfamiliar with the global reach of the research enterprise.
Nevertheless, you must also navigate the new logistics of living in the US.
You will need to find housing (as outlined above), sometimes from abroad,
deal with the exchange rate, and possibly learn how to pay your taxes. You
will likewise be introduced to a new and potentially very confusing sys-
tem of healthcare management and insurance. And you will deal with all of
these issues as non-native speakers (and writers) of English. There are many
resources available within your new institution that can help you manage
your onboarding including your department administrators, postdoc office
or association, human resources, and the international office to name a few.

Creating a Productive Environment


When it comes to postdoc training, no one plans to have conflicts or dif-
ferences in opinions with their mentors or lab mates. However, it is crucial
to your success (and theirs) that you intentionally create a productive post-
doc training environment predicated on mutual respect and professional-
ism. It is reasonable to expect that your faculty mentor will always treat you
24 Making the Most of the Postdoc

professionally and respect your individuality, which includes recognizing


that your goals and professional values may differ from their own. Faculty
mentors should value and consider your opinions while delivering feed-
back in a respectful and constructive manner. At the same time, you are also
expected to be open to feedback and respectful of your mentor’s time and
opinions while making sincere efforts to learn and move research projects
forward. Furthermore, both you and your faculty mentor are responsible for
the continuation of your training in the rigorous ethical conduct of science.
Once the faculty mentor and training environment choice is made, you
must discuss and choose a promising research direction. This project will
set the tone for the next several years while providing myriad develop-
ment opportunities. In considering a timely and feasible primary project,
you need to steadily move the project forward while building productive
collaborations. Also, breaking down your research into smaller, and hope-
fully publishable, pieces alongside a solid secondary or tertiary project will
allow you to regularly demonstrate productivity. Additionally, having work-
ing secondary or tertiary projects gives you a chance to explore more sci-
ence, a place to fall back on when your primary project is completed or stalls,
and a natural independent research direction to take with you upon your
departure.
It is easy for you to fall into the trap of thinking that publications are the
only way to show and validate your research output. I would argue that com-
municating productivity takes many forms such as lab meetings, mentoring,
grant writing, talks, posters, journal clubs, preprints, patents, networking,
and much more. Since each of the above is an opportunity to share and dem-
onstrate your postdoc progress, you should place emphasis on making sure
there is a support infrastructure surrounding you that offers this type of
training, such as a postdoc office or an association. The major priorities of
your postdoc training should be to gain independence, build a professional
identity, and create a vision for the future. Whereas the ultimate goal is to
secure a job that you are happy with. These are all key indicators of your suc-
cess and though you are responsible for the bulk of it, you are not alone. You
have many investors and stakeholders in your success including your fac-
ulty mentor, your institution, any agency that provided funding, your future
employer(s), and of course, you.
3
The Postdoc Protocol

Postdoc Process
I remember my teachers and parents asking me as a kid, “What do you want
to do when you grow up?” I sometimes still ponder that question today.
While it is an important one to consider and, as PhDs and postdocs, you
need to better understand where you are headed. Having been a higher
education professional, two-time postdoc, and a grad student, I know first-
hand that the process of scholarship, research, career advancement, and
professional development are neither quick nor passive. Instead, you should
actively approach your career development using a methodical process of
self-knowledge and reflection by envisioning an endpoint, assessing your
situation, developing plans, accomplishing goals, telling stories, maintaining
progress, and creating your exit.
In developing your own postdoc protocol, you start your training with the
end in mind. Thus, you are much better equipped to set expectations and
strategically position yourselves to take advantage of growth opportunities.
You can then identify pivot points while avoiding pitfalls through height-
ened self- and situational awareness. This process also encourages you to
plan for research and training challenges with the guidance of your mentor.
When you are encouraged to develop and share your career story, it compels
others to be your advocate. Ultimately, you can efficiently proceed toward
your desired endpoint by combining research, professional development,
and career advancement efforts.

Envisioning the Endpoint


Defining Success
Before the postdoc process begins, you must define what makes a successful
postdoc. When asked to explain this, my go-to response is a successful trainee
is one who has obtained a job. That may be overly simplistic, but the definition
of success depends upon whom you ask. For instance, I pose this very ques-
tion to postdocs at every individual development plan workshop I run. They

DOI: 10.1201/9781003285458-5 25
26 Making the Most of the Postdoc

respond with a lengthy and wide-ranging list that goes from networking to
publications but interestingly, “gaining independence” is deemed the most
important success factor. When asking a group of faculty mentors, however,
they all agreed without hesitation that a successful postdoc depended almost
entirely on publications. While I am not surprised by either group’s opinions,
I remain astonished at the huge disconnect in outcomes.
Perhaps the most straightforward description of a successful postdoc
can be found by merging their respective definitions: Successful means
accomplishing an aim or purpose while Postdoctoral Fellow, according to the
National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation (NIH and
NSF, respectively), is described as an individual who has received a doc-
toral degree and is engaged in a temporary and defined period of mentored
advanced training to enhance the professional skills and research inde-
pendence needed to pursue his or her chosen career path. Consequently, a
Successful Postdoc can be defined as an independent research professional
who has pursued his or her chosen career path. With few caveats, most
researchers would agree that this definition is a great starting point.

Create a Postdoc Trajectory


While it is vital to define the parameters of success, it is much more difficult
to achieve it. The sooner you take the time to explore your career trajectory
the better informed you will be during your training. There is a feeling that
your training has oscillated in one direction to another following esoteric or
unrelated topics to the next idea and forever moving forward in a non-linear
fashion (Figure 3.1A). But that is the reality in creating a trajectory. That is
real life. However, the impression you have to give when you are telling your
career story, interviewing, or networking is that you have always been on
a singular trajectory; a straight line where you started at one point, gained
experiences that are relevant to a certain career, and you are going to con-
tinue on that path to get where you want to be (Figure 3.1B). Accordingly, the
reality is that your experiences are all over the place; thus, the impression
you want to give when talking about yourselves is that you are very focused
and have always been on a certain trajectory.

FIGURE 3.1
(A) The “reality” of your career trajectory up to this point. (B) The “impression” of your career
trajectory that you want to convey to others. Image provided by the author.
The Postdoc Protocol 27

FIGURE 3.2
The data cloud and multiple trajectories that your experience can generate. Image provided
by the author.

Changing Trajectory via Data Points


The take-home message for this book, if you get nothing else out of this, is
that your experience and interests (in research) will take you down many
paths. I encourage you to always be collecting that data, and there is no such
thing as wasted effort when gaining experience. You have moved from this
place to that, researched this topic and that, and followed this interest to
where you are now. So, if you were to plot a graph of your training expe-
riences over time, you would have a non-linear, overlapping, and possibly
looping line that signifies your career up to this point. What you have actu-
ally created, however, is not so much a connected line but a data cloud that
represents distinct experiences and skills gained. ​
When you talk to people, prepare application materials for specific job
opportunities, or interview, you can tell your story using these many varied
data points. Having so many data points allows you to frame (or reframe)
those experiences and tell those stories in a compelling way that, say, “I have
always been interested in this topic and I am on this trajectory, however, I do
have all of these other relevant experiences.” You can also pivot across these
data points to create non-traditional and sometimes unexpected trajectories
(Figure 3.2). You have generated a lot of data points in your PhD experience
and will continue to do so in your postdoc training. It is up to you to assem-
ble those data points into a straightforward compelling career or P-A-R story
(further explained in Chapter 9).

Self-Assessment and Reflection


When leveraging your PhD, you need to be very active. Research progress,
career advancement, and professional development are not passive pro-
cesses. It involves some self-assessment, convincing yourself of your value,
and persuading others that you are worth investing in and eventually hiring.
28 Making the Most of the Postdoc

Assessing Your Situation


To know where you are going, you must also know where you have been and
where you are now. You can do this by assessing your situation, your trajec-
tory, your training, and yourself. This ensures that you are checking in with
yourself and others. To ensure that you transition to a job (or career) that is
a good fit, you want to be assessing yourself at regular intervals throughout
your training. It is also helpful to do a self-assessment when you are faced
with a big or very important decision to make. The three components of
self-awareness and self-assessment that help to ensure career satisfaction are
skills, interests, and values (Figure 3.3). Moving forward, you want to under-
stand how these pillars intersect, synergize, and even diverge.
By knowing what you are good at, you can identify your skills. As outlined
in Chapter 2, you should at the very least be building and honing the NPA
Core Competencies within your postdoc toolkit. To review, these are research
and problem-solving, scientific knowledge, responsible conduct of research,
communication skills, management and leadership skills, professionalism,
career advancement, and transferable soft skills. By finding what you enjoy
doing, you can follow your interests and recognize themes throughout your
work. This also reflects and informs your activities and affinities while keep-
ing you engaged and satisfied. Following your interests provides focus for
your ideas and bridges your diverse pursuits. Essentially, these are the things
that get you out of bed in the morning, excited to seize the day.
By understanding what matters most, you can develop and solidify your
core values. Once shaped, your values allow you to distill opportunities (or
challenges) down to a few essential fundamental qualities. You can more
easily prioritize what you require to be successful (and happy), what you
are willing to put up with, what you can (and cannot) survive without, and
what are ultimately your deal-breakers. When reflecting, you will be able to
better assess how your values connect (or disconnect) with what you choose
to participate in or pursue.
When you assess yourself in this way, you begin to analyze and put your
activities, ideas, and motivations into perspective. This reflective process

FIGURE 3.3
The convergence of your skills, interests, and values can lead to long-term career fit and ulti-
mately satisfaction. Image provided by the author.
The Postdoc Protocol 29

becomes an affirmation of your strengths and competencies. But, perhaps


more importantly, you become a bit more aware of the gaps and areas of
improvement in your training. It also prevents tunnel vision as you do not
want to have blind spots, or be blindsided, around areas with which you
should have specific expertise. You can avoid the embarrassment of not being
able to fully answer questions about your science or yourself. In essence,
when you do any kind of self-assessment, you are actually embarking on a
journey to discover a very satisfying fit for your next job or career by taking
into account the whole of your experience and not just a single dimension of
it.
There may be times when you need to navigate a situation where an
opportunity you want to pursue (or are currently performing) engages only
one or two of the three self-awareness pillars and you are not particularly
excited about doing the actual work. Furthermore, you might find it diffi-
cult to account for a missing pillar when seeking a good fit. This is where I
remind you that your first job out of postdoc will probably not be your last
and that you will likely have to progress along your career trajectory in a
stepwise manner assuming you are moving each step closer to that satisfy-
ing fit of skills, interests, and values. Realistically, you need to have a job so
you can be paid. The easiest first step is to leverage your most recent and
active skills, because what you are good at can relatively easily lead to the
next job. Once you have a job in the field or sector you are pursuing, you can
use those skills to follow your interests. Then you can allow your skills and
interests to dictate where you move to next, all the while aligning your career
advancement to meet your values.

Developing Plans and Accomplishing Goals


Contemplating the Steps
Once you have done some self-assessment to understand what you need, you
can now create a plan to move forward while addressing any relevant gaps
in your training. By establishing achievable goals, tracking your progress,
and celebrating your successes, you will not only successfully complete your
aims but also have confidence in setting the next goal as you repeat the pro-
cess. To me, there are several steps that help you get to the point of actually
making plans and setting and attaining goals. You must focus on clarifying
the steps needed to accomplish what you set out to do. You begin with the
idea of doing something, the literal thinking of it. Next, you speak it into
existence and make it real by committing it to paper. Sharing these plans and
communicating your ideas to others will add accountability. By being your
own advocate and using your network to help refine your endeavors you
30 Making the Most of the Postdoc

might uncover even more objectives to pursue and goals to set. Involving
others will speed up the process by engaging them to consider your goals,
uncover any challenges, and share solutions with you. You can execute your
plan by taking advantage of the feedback you receive from your network.
Then it is up to you to actually do the thing you planned to do. Remember,
it takes practice to do this well along with time to convince yourself that you
are doing something worthwhile.

Planning and Goalsetting


There is a broad spectrum of pithy opinions when it comes to planning and
goalsetting, ranging from their complete futility to their practicality to their
absolute essentiality. The oft-quoted Yiddish proverb gloomily reminds us
that as “man plans, God laughs.” According to Robert Burns in his poem
To a Mouse, even “the best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry.”
The French poet and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry warns, “a goal with-
out a plan is just a wish.” Whereas American author Zig Ziglar shares his
optimism in “a goal properly set is halfway reached.” One of the founding
fathers of the US, Benjamin Franklin, demonstrates the necessity of planning
by declaring, “by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” And finally,
my ever-patient wife Heidi, with the incisive wisdom only a loving spouse
can provide, told me as I shared my hope of completing this book, “If you do
not have a goal, you will not accomplish it.”
Still, I see a plan as a series of related goals, and the act of planning is
just an advanced exercise in goalsetting. Many of you, and I include myself,
may claim that you are not good at planning or goalsetting, but I contend
that you are constantly making plans and setting goals nonetheless. I have
realized, however, that it is not whether we are good or bad at it, but how
SMART we are about the process. In using the SMART process, you are
taking methodical steps to develop a Specific, Measurable, Achievable,
Relevant, and Time-bound goal. The first action is to name it. A specific
goal is focused and unambiguous. You should think about this in terms
of a “minimum viable goal” and work from there. Next, you quantify it.
A measurable goal inherently provides built-in benchmarks and milestones
marking your progress until it is completed. You then need to be able to
actually do it. An achievable goal is attainable given that realistic actions
can be taken when considering difficulty, resources, and timeframe. You
need to be sure you can apply it. A relevant goal is significant to you and
others. You have to give the goal a meaning beyond merely accomplish-
ing it. And finally, you have to actually finish it. A time-bound goal has an
explicit deadline. You must create a distinct end point otherwise you might
remain toiling for an inappropriate amount of time at the expense of more
important priorities.
The Postdoc Protocol 31

SMART AF Goals
In my work, I found that while the standard stages of the SMART goal
process are invaluable, I needed to further bolster them by introducing
Accountable and Fortitudinous steps. Thus, making your goals SMART AF.
When embarking on a goal, you need to check it. An accountable goal will
help you stay on task. The most efficient way to do this is to make a concrete,
specific plan, in essence, just following the SMART goal protocol intuitively
includes accountability. You can further hold yourself to account by identi-
fying the stakeholders that are interested in the outcome of your goal and
share responsibility with them. Celebrating successes and milestones helps
you sustain your enthusiasm for completing the goal while ensuring that
you are strategically reviewing each step as well as revising the overall goal
as you go. You will encounter many challenges along the way to finishing
your goal, and you will therefore need to reinforce it. A fortitudinous goal has
elements of courage and resilience embedded into it so that you can accom-
plish your goal while facing adversity. To maintain your steadfast commit-
ment to completion, you need to fully understand the benefits of achieving
your goal. By anticipating any potential obstacles and finding relative solu-
tions, you are able to identify alternative means and methods for achieve-
ment. It is natural to think of success as the only option but acknowledging
hardships and learning from your failures is essential for forging new key
skills as well as revising goals for the better. However, you should know who
your allies are and the people you can ask for help when you do get stuck.
Just remember, take one step at a time and trust the process that you care-
fully planned out.

SMART AF Goals
Specific – focused and unambiguous
Measurable – milestones marking your progress
Achievable – realistic actions can be taken
Relevant – significant to you and others
Time-bound – an explicit deadline
Accountable – helps to stay on task
Fortitudinous – face adversity with courage

You will have many occasions to implement SMART AF goals. For example,
a set of career advancement goals may include expanding your professional
network, updating your CV/résumé, identifying new mentors and advisors,
or seeking informational interviewing prospects. Additional cases for imple-
menting SMART goals could be around the completion of some piece of your
project. You could create a plan to finally finish that stubborn statistical anal-
ysis for your CRISPR experiments where you would present the results at a
department meeting or include them in a conference proposal. You could
32 Making the Most of the Postdoc

make progress on your goal to draft, revise, and finally submit the paper
that has been sitting on your to-do list. You could also develop a goalsetting
process around expanding your presentation skills. You might first get foun-
dational knowledge of presentation best practices by reading a book, talking
to an expert, or taking a course. Then you would look for ways to practice
and hone that new skill such as giving a short talk on your research or an
unrelated topic. Finally, you might ask others to assess your level of mastery
and critique your presentation skills.

Maintaining Progress
To sustain the progress you have made, you need to practice patience and
maintain motivation. Give yourself the grace that you would give others on
an unknown path to learning and building a reputation. And remember, it
takes time and effort to do this. Subsequently, there are a couple of different
ways to go about getting and staying motivated. As in your research, the
earlier you seek, clarify, and verify any information, advice, or guidance you
gain along your progress the better. Of course, you need to have a plan while
determining the next thing that needs to be done. Try your best to keep
things as simple as possible. Regardless of your approach, you have to real-
ize it is going to take time for you to get good at anything. It is going to take
time to finish your projects and revise your application materials. It is going
to take time to learn how to interview well. It is going to take time to actu-
ally convince yourself that you are capable of transitioning. It is going to take
time to appreciate your worth. And it is going to take time to find a job with
a good fit. You do not have to go it alone while you gather your thoughts and
collect your materials. You have people and resources, maybe even a career
and professional development office like mine, at your own institution. If
not, you can use resources as an alum from places you have matriculated. A
thing I realized early was that if I have questions or issues with something in
particular, there are countless others with those same or similar needs. Why
not share your worries, reach out to others, and access resources as well?
You can literally gather a community around you to help in your research
as well as your job search. Maintaining progress and staying motivated in
your transition is difficult at best and nigh impossible without the input and
feedback of others. For example, I cannot tell you how many résumés, CVs,
cover letters, research plans, and more that I have critiqued. I did not just
help them in that moment and then send them away never to hear from them
again. No. I insisted on having a conversation about the document or process
that inevitably brought out more details, thus adding more context to the
material. So, I return to advising you to be patient and give yourself room to
The Postdoc Protocol 33

grow. Just allowing yourself the necessary time to do this and to do it well
should minimize stress while keeping you motivated to continue.

Getting a Job
Multiple Career Paths
Most trainees I counsel seem resigned to only two career tracks: academia (i.e.,
teaching and research) or industry (everything else). While an academic career
provides a known landscape, compatible training, and an intellectually
rich environment, it is also highly competitive, growth-limited, and grants-
driven. If this path does not pan out, the default alternative is industry with
its potential for growth in a fast-paced and highly collaborative environ-
ment. However, industry is also an unfamiliar landscape that is still highly
competitive, somewhat unpredictable, and business-driven. Obviously, the
post-PhD scientific workforce is much more nuanced than described above,
therefore, I argue that the trick to finding your endpoint is for you to rec-
ognize that there are more than two career trajectories. By considering all
of your options, you can take control of your training and begin to make
smarter, more focused decisions regarding research directions and profes-
sional development.
At this point, you should be considering all of your career options, some
of which you may not yet have realized as possible. For example, I shared
earlier in the book that my current role simply did not exist until 2007. At
that time, I was exploring my own career options and transitioning from a
PhD candidate to postdoc fellow. While it sounds trite to say that you can do
just about anything you want as a PhD, it does not change the fact that it is
true. Having said that, sometimes, eliminating options can be as helpful as
adding career options to explore. I am unable to enumerate all of those career
possibilities, but I do share some major areas of potential career pursuits in
a few paragraphs.
First, I want to dispel the myth that you are only qualified to do academic
research and/or teaching. If that is indeed what you want to do, you are well-
positioned already. Having worked with graduate students and postdocs, as
well as from my own experience, I fully understand both the attraction and
repulsion of chasing a career in academia, especially as research or teaching
faculty. Regardless of where you end up in your career, academia is the place
you started. It is where you pursued higher education, received a PhD, and
where the vast majority of postdoc training takes place. Having taken the
only path available to you so far, most of you have merely witnessed teach-
ing, science, and research being done in academic settings and thus only
really know a very narrow characterization for career outcomes. There is no
34 Making the Most of the Postdoc

doubt that the academic research enterprise provides an intellectually rich


environment with a familiar landscape and likeminded training. However,
we also know that this same environment can be highly competitive to the
point of toxicity and, in most cases, is the historical product of a white, male-
dominated enterprise. This is not to mention the recent trend of limited fac-
ulty openings and shrinking funding opportunities in that last two decades.
While strides are being made in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, it
comes as no surprise that many PhDs and postdocs choose to pursue careers
outside the academy.
Beyond the “traditional” academic route, you have many options across
higher ed, the public and private sectors, as well as industry. I have seen
many postdocs go on to pursue higher ed leadership, biotech, pharma, entre-
preneurship, product development, marketing, business development, con-
sulting, venture capital, policy, outreach, and non-profit. The list goes on and
on because the opportunities that your PhD and postdoc research training
set you up for are more than just academic research or even industry. To con-
tinue, I have helped postdocs pursue careers in science writing, journalism,
editorial, publishing, regulatory science, intellectual property (IP), patent
law, tech transfer, K-12+ teaching, curriculum development, and government
and clinical research. You can even follow my career path into student, post-
doc, or faculty affairs as well as my future path (fingers crossed) in executive-
level administration.

PhDs and Postdocs have many career options to consider.

Academia: Academic/Clinical Research; Undergraduate/


Higher Ed Teaching; Executive/Academic Administration;
Student/Postdoc/Faculty Affairs; K-12+ Teaching; Curriculum
Development
Industry: Biotech/Pharma Research; Product Development/
Marketing; Entrepreneurship/Business Development;
Consulting; Venture Capital
Government: Government Research; Science Policy; Science
Outreach & Education; Non-Profit
Communication: Science Writing; Journalism; Editorial;
Publishing
Law: Regulatory Science; Intellectual Property; Patent Law;
Technology Development/Transfer

As I said, not all careers are represented above, there are dozens if not hun-
dreds of other types of jobs you can do as a PhD. While it is not the scope
of this book, I will offer a short list of resources at the end that many of my
advisees have utilized with success to explore diverse career pathways.
Part 2

The Middle
4
Situational Awareness

Postdoc Pain/Pivot Points


Postdoc training is fraught with pain points, stressors, and pitfalls. This is
not meant to be gloom and doom, but to ensure that you have your eyes wide
open to the realities of the academic research enterprise. Most of the conflicts
you will face as a postdoc will not come from doing your research but will be
a result of difficult relationships and misunderstood feelings (yours and oth-
ers). You need to make sure you are identifying these situations where you
may feel like you are out of control or in conflict. The idea is that when you
identify professional pain points, such as an inactive network, an unknown
career target, or uncertain marketable skills, you try to pivot out of these
situations instead of spiraling even further. What you need to do is recog-
nize that you are in a difficult situation and begin to shift from that mindset
and into a more positive space.

Professional Pain Points – Inactive network. Unknown career target.


Unpolished career story. Unsure of marketable skills.
Professional Pivot Points – Active network. Clarified career target(s).
Shared career story. Honed marketable skills.

As for personal pain points, I see a lot of postdocs coming into my office
with analysis paralysis, where they are faced with too many choices or
they are faced with a choice that paralyzes them because there are so many
implications to making that choice. There may be unrealistic expectations
either placed on you or unrealistic expectations that you have for yourself
in your research, job search, or networking. You need to check with yourself
and examine whether this is truly what you want. You must be careful on
your postdoc journey because you could just get tired, exhausted, or worse,
burned out. This is a real problem that may lead you to consider transition-
ing out of academia, away from the bench, or out of science altogether. In
fact, I have actually had postdocs in difficult but seemingly manageable situ-
ations come to me in full crisis mode because they were so weary and so
narrowly focused that they could not see a satisfying solution. And this was
mostly due to the fact that it had been months or even years since they had
any significant time off. Again, gathering your wits, you might just realize

DOI: 10.1201/9781003285458-7 37
38 Making the Most of the Postdoc

all you really need in that situation is a break or time off to gain perspective
and recharge.

Personal Pain Points – Analysis paralysis. Unrealistic expectations.


Exhausted, jaded, or burnt out.
Personal Pivot Points – Evidence-based decision-making. Set realistic
expectations. Built resilience.

Other pain points you want to realize are in your project. You might be near
your appointment or project end date or your overly complex project keeps
expanding in scope. You might also feel that you have incomplete accom-
plishments. Unfortunately, it is common to experience uneven or neglectful
mentor engagement. If you have a perception that you are not getting what
you need out of your mentor-mentee relationship, you need to begin to work
on that and realize that you should begin to “manage up” to get what you
want from your faculty mentor. Again, these are just pain points where you
need to acknowledge that this might be a potentially negative situation, rec-
ognize it, and take action to pivot into a more positive space.

Project Pain Points – Scope and project creep. Incomplete achievements


and accomplishments. Little or no mentor engagement.
Project Pivot Points – Established parameters, deadlines, deliverables.
Completed achievements. Increased and multiple mentor engagement

The Tough Postdoc Environment


Dr. Ebony McGee, in her book Black, Brown, and Bruised: How Racialized STEM
Education Stifles Innovation, succinctly describes what it can feel like in STEM
training, “I know I have to work twice as hard and hope that makes me
good enough … ” Likewise, Dr. McGee’s quote resonates with me as I view it
through the lens of postdoc research training since the postdoc environment
can make you feel like an inadequate imposter; like you are a phony; like
you have to constantly prove your worth; like you have to out work everyone
around you just to stay even. While her book focuses on the educational chal-
lenges of historically underrepresented groups (URGs) in STEM, especially
those of color, similar attributes can be observed in how you, as a postdoc,
are treated within the academic hierarchy. Thus, for some, instead of expe-
riencing a pleasant stress-free postdoctoral fellowship, you encounter pro-
longed internal and external academic research pressure where you expend
higher levels of effort and energy at the potential cost of your physical, men-
tal, and financial health. Furthermore, any person pursuing a postdoc that is
part of a URG or from another country is likely disproportionately impacted.
This may sound hyperbolic, but it is a very real danger. Postdocs, due to your
varying levels of support within the lab, department, and institution, are
at risk of being unsupported, overworked, or outright exploited. The recent
COVID-19 pandemic continues to exacerbate and highlight these disparities.
Situational Awareness 39

On top of this, you are also in danger of experiencing harassment, bul-


lying, and discrimination, with your faculty mentors being the most likely
perpetrators. As a postdoc, you will often be unsure of the resources avail-
able to address the above concerns because of your sometimes ambiguous
status, eligibility, or access. Even when appropriate resources are offered,
many of you will remain reluctant to seek help due to any number of rea-
sons, but most deal with skewed power dynamics and fear of potential ret-
ribution. This is why it is vitally important for you to fully vet your current
or future mentors so as to promote safe and inclusive training environments
where you feel like you belong and are supported to be your authentic self.
It is especially poignant for international postdocs since you are uniquely
beholden to the lab and institution due to your Visa sponsorship situation.
Again, I write this not to scare you but to make you aware of, and prepare
you for, situations you might find yourself in currently or in the future. The
second half of this chapter outlines some strategies you can use to address
and allay those fears, while Chapter 5 provides in-depth approaches to man-
aging your mentor-mentee relationships. Regardless, there should be consid-
erable resources within your institution to assist you in dealing with difficult
environments and people including but not limited to the Ombuds, human
resources, international office, department leadership, the postdoc office or
association, or the research and professional integrity office.

Potential Resources for Conflict, Harassment,


and Discrimination Resolution
Postdoc Office or Association – Usually the first stop of information-gather-
ing, these groups work to enhance the experience of postdoctoral fellows
while promoting a sense of connectedness throughout the postdoctoral
research community. They also aim to support the health and wellbeing,
research advancement, and professional development of postdocs.
Ombuds Office – As an impartial conflict resolution office, the Ombuds
strives for the fair and equitable treatment of people in the midst of a cri-
sis. The Ombuds is usually independent of any existing administrative
or academic structures and is confidential, neutral and, as such, does not
advocate for any one individual or point of view.
International Office – Usually a centralized administrative office that
offers services to foreign students and scholars across the institution. It
provides information on a wide range of topics, including visas, work
permits, travel, financial questions, social and cultural differences, and
personal concerns.
Human Resources and Employee Development and Wellness Office – These
offices usually provide information, resources, referrals, educational
programs, and support for employees in balancing professional lives
with personal concerns.
Employee Assistance Program (EAP) – Usually a contracted wellness pro-
vider that can connect faculty, staff, and postdocs with a rich network of
resources that can help employees manage the competing demands of
work and life.
40 Making the Most of the Postdoc

Title IX, Gender Equity, and Diversity Offices – Many institutions have
designated offices or personnel that handle policies and procedures
designed to provide prompt and equitable support for or investigation
into concerns regarding harassment, bullying, and misconduct.
Research and Professional Integrity Office – These offices promote best
practices and standards of professional conduct and support grievance
processes in accordance with institutional professional integrity policies.
The office is also usually responsible for investigating concerns related
to research integrity as well as fostering a safe and healthy research
environment.

Postdoc Needs and Worries


You will also have to reconcile with the needs and worries that arise as
you progress through your training from PhD to postdoc and beyond to
your early career. You will ask yourself over and over how can I make my
research and science better? What will get me published? How do I stay
funded? What will get me a job or a promotion? As a PhD student you
probably worried about becoming overeducated, being exploited, wasting
time, and losing money while you sought much-needed attentive mentor-
ing and a path to publication. In your research training, you needed to
learn methods, experimental design, and data interpretation. In your pro-
fessional training, you needed to practice your communication and writ-
ing skills. You also needed options in your potential exit points and career
exploration.
As a postdoc, you will continue to fear and seek out much of what you
did as a grad student, both on broader and deeper levels. At this point in
your training, you are probably feeling anxious about exploitation, lack of
independence, overtraining and underemployment, low salary, caring for
your family, and ambiguity around your career readiness. You will still
need effective mentorship and progress toward publications but now you
really require a clear path to independence. Beyond just building research
awareness, you are now moving into scientific mastery of methods, statisti-
cal analysis, and experimental reproducibility. Your postdoc training now
includes professional development and a notion of your job search as you
begin to explore career outcomes and exit points. You are now seeking neces-
sary leadership, mentoring, and management experience as you continue to
grow your network, find funding, and advocate for your own research and
career vision.
Within the first several years beyond your postdoc, you will have to con-
tinue to do everything mentioned so far in your early careers. In addition,
you need to cultivate your own career advancement, growth, and promo-
tion all the while creating harmony within your life and work. You are also
going to be much more anxious about attaining sustained funding, being
paid what you are worth, and continuing to grow and provide for your loved
ones.
Situational Awareness 41

Stopping the Negativity Spiral


Fear and anxiety tend to rear their ugly heads especially when facing hard
decisions, conflicts, hardships, or transitions. Those situations may cause
deep distress and/or pervasive negative self-imagery for some of you. When
this happens, you must recognize what is happening and stop the negativ-
ity spiral as quickly as possible so you can pivot to a place of objectivity or
even optimism. You can start by processing your stress and taking steps
to move beyond the cause of your anguish. Try not to re-live or re-litigate
the negative situation, but look at these circumstances as growth opportuni-
ties, if possible. The lessons you learn through difficult times sharpen your
resolve and broaden your perspective. You begin to think strategically about
the next steps, from cost-benefit analyses to SMART AF goalsetting. After
assessment and reflection, you can now re-contextualize your situation by
telling neutral-to-positive stories about moving forward, instead of escaping
from something.
There is a relatively loose sequence you can follow when facing a difficult
or complicated situation. Definitely do not panic, realize you are not alone,
and use your resources. You will discover that good, thoughtful, and well-
reasoned decisions do not come from a place of fear. Recognizing that you do
not know everything, you should engage in your research training (i.e., the
scientific method) where one of the first things you do is gather information
and data. You should reconnect with your network and seek advice from
trusted colleagues and former mentors. By activating your existing network,
you can let them know what is happening and what you plan to do next.
You will have to consider the timeline in which you are operating and work
backward from the endpoint.
Your postdoc experience, as well as that of your PhD, can be isolating at
times, but you must not try to do everything by yourself. Most institutions
have layers of support, and I encourage you to leverage all the resources
at hand. After information-gathering, you will need to process and verify
what you have learned by reaching out again for help, this time by talk-
ing to career coaches and other advisors who may be able to give unbiased
perspectives on your specific situation. This is also an opportunity for self-
reflection and self-improvement where, as outlined in Chapter 3, you can
inventory your credentials, skills, experience, and interests. There may be
space in your timeline to address real or perceived gaps in your training and
education. If doing so, I advise you to pursue multipurpose, cross-training
opportunities that offer versatile skills development.
At this point, the next steps of the sequence, and the advice that follows,
diverge depending on the urgency of your situation as well as its fixability.
It is possible that your initial negative response ends up being a low-stakes
overreaction that, once acknowledged, can be quickly resolved. A clash could
also bring to light a pervasive problem and actually leads to a satisfactory
42 Making the Most of the Postdoc

overhaul of the situation, salvaging of a relationship, and continuing growth.


An alternative reaction may cause you to fast-track your career or job transi-
tion that, depending on the state of the relationship with your faculty mentor,
can either be encouraged or not supported at all. Unfortunately, one of the
more dire consequences of poor conditions or a falling out may even result
in your speedy departure (or outright removal) from the situation, leaving
you to quickly find a different lab, faculty mentor, postdoc fellowship, or job.

Fear of “Throwing Away” Your PhD


As outlined above, you are going to be under enormous pressure, both forma-
tive and destructive. If you choose to leave academic research for the reasons
listed above and/or for another path altogether, you may be conflicted about
or have others question your decision. I shared earlier in the book that I had a
similar experience. I spent years fighting my fears and following my interests
toward my career path alongside performing my research. All that time I was
suppressing my own doubts while convincing my wife and family that I had
not wasted ten years of my life and theirs in pursuing PhD and postdoc train-
ing. It took me a while to accept the fact that once you receive your PhD, you
will always have a PhD, and no one is out there trying to take it away.
The sooner you realize that there is no longer an expected or default PhD
career trajectory, the sooner you can reconcile the warring pessimism of
throwing away your scientific career with the optimism of pursuing a sat-
isfactory one. As I said, they are not going to revoke your PhD nor can any-
one take away your extensive scientific training and research experience.
For example, I am no longer doing research but I am still using the skills I
honed as a graduate student and a postdoc to solve problems. I earned a PhD
because I solved a very specific problem no one else knew about (or maybe
even cared about). Further, I have been able to play an active role in academia
by advocating for postdoctoral fellows, working to improve their training
environment, and advising them into diverse independent career pathways.
But I digress. The PhD and postdoc process taught me how to address chal-
lenges in a systematic way and I am still doing what I was trained to do, but
now I am just doing it in a (very) different setting. I have not wasted anything,
and neither have you. You are always going to have the core values of the
scientific method and the years you spent in graduate and postdoc training.

Normalizing Struggle and Failure


Having come to a decision, you may feel that you made a grave mistake. You
may even worry that once you move away from the warm cocoon of aca-
demic training it is only going to get more difficult and that you might ulti-
mately fail. To that I say, you will be okay since you have also been trained
by research to deal with failure. In fact, as a scientist, your whole existence is
to prove the null hypothesis, to actually fail and demonstrate that anything
you do to perturb a system will have zero effect. In that sense, you have been
Situational Awareness 43

“failing” in a laboratory for many years. Many of your experiments have not
worked, for any number of reasons, and you still found a way to move your
project forward toward success. You are familiar with failure at this point.
You have been in a dark box of struggle, ambiguity, and failure and you are
constantly learning to get out of that dark box or more significantly, move
that dark box into the light. The trick is to remain curious as you change your
perspective to understand that the subject of your experimentation is now
yourself and your career (rather than mice, cells, or nucleic acids).
To continue to normalize failure, you must grasp that everyone around you
is struggling in some way or another. Most of the time you only see or hear
about the successes of your peers because very few people actually disclose
their challenges and hardships. For example, you may be familiar with the
concept of a “CV of Failures” popularized by Dr. Johannes Haushofer where
he quite humorously and honestly shared all of the rejections he received
from PhD programs, grants, papers, and job applications. He succinctly
demonstrated that most every success is preceded by several failed attempts.
Thus, admitting your limitations, accepting your failures, and sharing your
struggles can be important steps in advancing toward success. In addition,
having a growth mindset where all experiences, good and bad in life or lab,
are learning opportunities that build self-awareness, minimize blind spots,
expand boundaries, and foster resilience.

Imposter Syndrome: Managing Your Inner Dialogue


As mentioned earlier, the scientific research enterprise can make you ques-
tion your competence and your value. It can make you feel like you do not
belong, like you are going to be found out as an imposter. Worse, academic
research fosters intense competition often at the cost of comradery. Due to
this, you must resist the natural urge to compare yourself, your productiv-
ity, your progress, or your predicament to that of your peers and senior col-
leagues. This is a recipe for disappointment with no scenario that ends well
for you. Not only can you never fully know their circumstances; you are very
likely making false assumptions about their thoughts, feelings, and relative
successes. Doing so exaggerates their contributions while also downplaying
your own. This may lead you to further distort your reality and heighten
your imposter syndrome.
You can turn this on its head with some effort. Just like you can be your
own harshest critic, you can be your own greatest advocate. First, you must
engage your inner critic by tracking your self-dialogue, challenging your
negative assertions, and inviting that same critic to be part of the learning
process. It is then essential to begin changing the story you tell yourself. You
can start by writing out the current narrative that is running through your
head. Make sure you list the words and phrases that evoke a reaction. Take
44 Making the Most of the Postdoc

a moment to check the veracity of these words as they describe you and
your actions. Then imagine what a supportive story would tell about you by
replacing the untrue and negative words. Now compose a new and accurate
story to tell yourself. However, I would go a step further than just a correct
story, I suggest that you craft an inspiring story to tell yourself. One where
you are not a victim or villain, but the hero. This story will eventually form
the larger narrative of your career that you share aloud with others.
When re-drafting your inner dialogue, take advantage of the fact that hind-
sight is 20/20 as you can now reflect on the past and place its true effect on
your present circumstance and future options in context. Your internal (and
eventual external) discourse should include several elements of creative hero-
origin storytelling. It should be emotive, optimistic, future-focused, confident,
and, of course, inspiring. Your self-story should be full of concrete details as
you remind yourself of your unique interests, goals, and motivations. While
this may sound cliché, being the hero of your own stories is nothing but a
distillation of your own authentic resilience through failures, hardships, chal-
lenges, and barriers. However, be sure not to inflate your story, show a lack
of humility, or stray into toxic positivity. Regardless, the story you tell your-
self should specifically demonstrate a growth mindset where you continue to
learn lessons from your adventures. Below, I share examples of self-dialogue
that show how you can exchange your narrative of negative self-imagery by
composing an accurate and inspiring story to even optimistic storytelling for
the future. When others hear your new story of perseverance, passion, and
progress, they will be compelled to be your advocate.

Negative self-imagery: I am a poor postdoc without retirement benefits,


misunderstood by the world, fighting uphill against obstacles, with a PI
who hates me. I am all alone and have few career options, struggling for
leftovers.
Accurate/inspiring story: I am a thoughtful and hardworking postdoc
with an intellectually challenging project that has potential for great
impact. While this period in my training is difficult, I have the tools,
motivation, and resources to see it through.
Optimistic future-focused self-advocacy: I will be a successful project
management professional with incredible benefits, independence, and
overcoming challenges with a supervisor who supports me. I will be
at the center of a giant network with opportunities for growth and
advancement.

Resilience and Mental Wellness


In truth, difficult situations are as much a furnace for growth as they are
for burnout. The postdoc environment can be a fiery crucible of hardship,
ambiguity, and conflict, but it can also forge self-awareness, resilience, and
Situational Awareness 45

new perspectives. There is strength to be found in your community since


postdocs are a diverse, high-achieving, and globally mobile group. That
global reach drives the scientific enterprise and its innovation while creat-
ing opportunities for progress as well as friction. The key to surviving and
eventually thriving as a postdoc is boosting your resilience and normalizing
failure. You are expected to find ways to take care of yourself by maintaining
your physical fitness and mental health as you continue to establish reason-
able work/life integration. You have to pursue activities, make connections,
and nurture relationships outside of your postdoc environment. According
to the American Psychological Association, in building resilience as well as
bolstering mental health and wellness you begin to establish a positive yet
realistic perspective of life and lab. Instead of viewing crises as insurmount-
able, you can now see their true form as problems awaiting to be solved. As
you accept that the concept of change and conflict are not always malevolent
forces, you allow yourself to take decisive actions while looking for further
opportunities for self-discovery. This becomes a positive feedback loop, a
virtuous cycle of self-care, where you nurture a positive inner dialogue, keep
things in perspective, and maintain a hopeful outlook. Additionally, once
you have gained some semblance of wellbeing, you may then be able to look
out for and support others, possibly even intervening on their behalf when
they are facing hardship.
As I have shared many times, I was able to overcome mistakes and chal-
lenges by developing survival skills and resilience. I have learned to proceed
with empathy and kindness while assuming the best intentions of others. I
just kept showing up and continued to do the work. I also recognized my
limitations and built a team of peers, colleagues, and collaborators around
me. In doing so, I cultivated mentors and allies as I also improved myself and
relationships. I maintained, and even increased contact, in some cases, with
friends and family. Yet as I followed my strengths and interests, I was able to
learn from my mistakes and seek out silver linings.
For example, during the COVID shutdown and subsequent protracted
return to normalcy, we all faced personal and professional hardships. In this
time, I was able to appreciate some silver linings without gaslighting myself
with toxic positivity. Between March 10 and 11, 2020, my office literally went
remote overnight. After grasping the gravity of the situation and under-
standing that we were not going to return anytime soon, I realized that I now
had an extra three hours a day since I no longer had to commute. Regardless,
my family’s dynamic and routine had been massively disrupted, and there
was little to no personal time or space since we were all home together seven
days a week. Nevertheless, I was now able to more equitably help out around
the house and I began cooking for the first time. We also leaned into our
family’s shared interests and developed richer and more respectful relation-
ships. At work, it was a time of financial insecurity for the school, and my
office’s operating budget was slashed. However, this forced us to work more
closely with other offices, and we were able to shift to collaborative and co-
sponsored programming across institutions. Because of COVID, there was a
46 Making the Most of the Postdoc

new kind of fear, uncertainty, and existential dread. A silver lining I found
in this instance was that irrespective of how bad it may be, it was at least a
shared experience everyone had and I was not alone. Similarly, COVID laid
bare many social, medical, and historical inequalities and the disparity in
postdoc support came to light. While I had been aware of and working on
these for years, my office, myself, and postdocs now had a seat at the table
and a voice in the room when decisions were being made.
The message I hope you take away from all of this is that no matter what
you may be facing, keep an open mind, be open to possibilities, and stay
in the moment. If you are able to learn from your misadventures, you can
make impactful contributions while exceeding all expectations. And always
remember that you are not alone, that you can count on friends, colleagues,
and mentors to be there in good times and bad.
5
Navigating through Your Postdoc

Establishing Ground Rules and Expectations


Every lab will have its own norms and work expectations for you as a
trainee. At a minimum, you must dedicate the time and effort required to
make continued progress on your research while actively contributing to
the lab through mutual sharing, mentoring, preparation, and sincere effort.
It is expected that you will gain the knowledge and experience necessary to
advance your career through publications, independent investigation, and
development of your network. If your faculty mentor believes that there are
obstacles preventing you from fulfilling this commitment, they should dis-
cuss it with you and/or refer you to appropriate resources for advice and
further guidance. While it may be necessary to be in the lab at any given
time, day or night, you should never be expected to work seven days a week
for extended periods and must be allowed time for vacations, holidays, and
other breaks from lab work. Since research hours are usually not recorded,
you should work with your faculty mentor to manage your time, experimen-
tal schedule, professional development, and research progress. If at all pos-
sible, required activities such as lab meetings should be held during regular
business hours to accommodate any family and other important outside
obligations you and others may have.

Your Expectations
As you may recall from Chapter 2, there are many things you must consider
when selecting a mentor and research environment. In addition to align-
ing research interests and scientific compatibility, you must also establish
ground rules and expectations for your subsequent training and comple-
tion thereof. You should ask what their definition(s) of success is and where
their successful (and unsuccessful) former trainees have continued their
respective careers. You should not only clarify your faculty mentor’s long-
term expectations for you in your training but also in the near- and mid-
terms, always with an emphasis on providing a path to independence. You
should strive for complementary mentoring and management styles while
inquiring about how projects are allocated as well as the financial stabil-
ity of the position. You should know whether you need to write grants to

DOI: 10.1201/9781003285458-8 47
48 Making the Most of the Postdoc

secure funding as well as if you have the requisite access to proper facili-
ties and instrumentation to fully pursue your project. The lab should have
a widespread recent track record of publishing, and it should be apparent
what the manuscript writing and submission process is. Importantly, you
should expect to join a well-adjusted and supportive training environment
with good-to-high morale. That environment should be grounded in mutual
respect and driven by psychological safety and intellectual curiosity. You
deserve no less than genuine mentor engagement, freedom to fail, and an
opportunity to grow.

Their Expectations
Your mentors also have many expectations for you. Not all mentors are cre-
ated equal though, and some may not explicitly communicate their expecta-
tions hoping that you either learn on the job, from watching others, or by
osmosis. Simply put, your mentors expect you to do your research and take
ownership of your project(s). They want you to be resourceful, organized,
and generous with your time, materials, and advice. You should seek to be
a good lab citizen by mentoring lab mates, exhibiting a collaborative spirit,
and getting along with others. You are expected to strive for excellence
while always giving your best effort. Your mentor wants you to be open
to feedback and critical suggestions. These expectations, whether shared
or implied, can be boiled down to the three overarching principles: be
responsible, be respectful, and be industrious. Finally, your mentor does not
expect to have to act as your caretaker so, as mentioned in Chapter 4, you
are responsible for taking care of yourself, pursuing interests away from
research, and nurturing relationships, as well as maintaining your physical
and mental health.

Meeting Expectations
You and your faculty mentor(s) must have regularly scheduled meetings
that not only cover project and experimental progress but also interpersonal,
career, and professional development as well. This is how you clarify research
responsibilities and understand how success therein is defined. This is also
where perceived skill or experience gaps should be addressed and support
offered to learn necessary skills while accomplishing your work.
In addition, an individualized development plan (IDP, discussed in the
Mentorship and Individual Development Plans section) will guide you in
your research, career exploration, and professional development along
with identifying other relevant mentors whom you might be seeking out.
You should be encouraged to discuss and explore desired career trajectories
while also pursuing relevant training experiences throughout your postdoc
tenure.
Navigating through Your Postdoc 49

Mentorship and Individual Development Plans (IDPs)


Your postdoctoral training goals and expectations should be aligned with
those of your faculty mentors. From the very start of the postdoc appoint-
ment, I strongly encourage training plan discussions between you and your
faculty mentor(s). It is worth mentioning, however, that most PIs have not
received instruction on how to manage or mentor effectively. Depending on
where they are in their career, your faculty mentor may still be adapting
their approach and learning as they go. Additionally, they face tremendous
pressure working to keep the lab funded and productive. Please remem-
ber that they are human and have flaws as well. Because of this, there are
templates, guidance, and training available for managing mentoring rela-
tionships within career and training offices as well as NIH, NSF, and other
national scientific societies.
Since you are expected to engage in independent research while also
developing skills and experiences that support your specific career goals
and professional development, you should not do this alone without guid-
ance. Having guidelines in place, whether formal or informal, will help
define expectations for your mentor-mentee relationship, laboratory norms,
research and career support, and professionalism. In combination with the
IDP tool, these mentoring instruments can be designed to link your research
goals with your career development and progress toward independence.
Mentoring guidelines and IDPs are meant to foster an ongoing and recur-
ring discussion that involves evaluation, goal setting, and feedback, with
substantial input from both you and your faculty mentor. While the NIH and
NSF require the use of IDPs for graduate students and postdoctoral research-
ers supported by specific training awards, I very fiercely recommend its
implementation for all trainees, regardless of funding source. Furthermore,
the uniform implementation of these bi-directional mentoring tools should
be common practice, one that you may have to initiate.
Regardless, the core responsibility of your mentor is to oversee and guide
your scientific and career progress. When taking you on as a postdoc, your
advisor accepts responsibility for this unique role with respect to your sci-
entific development. Mentors and trainees are expected to meet regularly, at
a frequency that is appropriate for the ever-evolving stages of training. This
is a joint effort between you and your faculty mentors, as you both share
responsibility for creating an atmosphere that supports the many dimen-
sions of one another’s success.
The most useful IDP templates provide an open framework that can facili-
tate regular big-picture strategy sessions between you and your faculty
mentor that addresses research and professional progress (Figure 5.1). This
document should be filled out by both parties beforehand and discussed
during the meeting, with the two of you eventually coming to a consensus
50 Making the Most of the Postdoc

FIGURE 5.1
An IDP template. This example is formatted for maximal flexibility and can be edited to suit
your specific needs. Image provided by the author.

on past accomplishments, future goals, and next steps. For instance, I can
imagine a scenario where you have identified an opportunity that will allow
you to gain and hone an important technique or skill and you feel that the
two of you are not yet in agreement regarding it. A useful approach for you
to take is aligning common interests by suggesting that by doing “this thing”
or going to “that workshop” on presentations or grant writing, is going to
make you a better and more productive researcher, for example. Adding that
whatever you are learning is not going to take away from your project, time-
line, or effort. In fact, it will actually enhance these things and potentially
add further value for the entire lab. Then you share the actual steps you plan
to take to accomplish such a thing.
A typical IDP outlines major topics of discussion, benchmarks for advance-
ment, and identifies real or potential barriers to success along your training
path. The IDP should also allow for an element of feedback where your fac-
ulty mentor can evaluate your performance and progress while at the same
time letting you share issues related to research, training, or mentoring. You
can make the IDP even more practical by incorporating a calendar that out-
lines and organizes your research and career development goals across the
upcoming year. Briefly, the IDP meeting plays out in several steps. First, you
and your faculty mentor should complete the IDP form separately and ahead
of time. It is especially helpful if you provide this form with an updated CV
for your mentor in advance of scheduling the conversation. The two of you
Navigating through Your Postdoc 51

should then meet and discuss your respective filled-in IDPs, making sure to
review accomplishments, goals, barriers, and feedback. As the conversation
comes to a close, you should have an agreed-upon framework toward mak-
ing progress and meeting stated goals and objectives for the future. Finally,
using the SMART AF tools discussed in Chapter 3, you can now implement
your action plan, review your progress, revise as needed, and repeat the pro-
cess next year.

Mentoring Up and Self-Advocacy


One of the most effective tips for successful mentoring relationships, and sci-
ence in general, is to quit taking it personally (Q-TIP). Constructive criticism
and failure are part of the research enterprise; use them to inform your next
steps. Even though it may feel like it, your value is not determined by your
research output. While aspects of research are very individual and you have
both a personal and professional stake in the outcome(s), you need to realize
that you can receive feedback on your work without taking it as a personal
attack. That said, after a difficult, contentious, or confusing interaction, get
a reality check. Your perception of a situation may not match reality, check
in with a colleague before a further misunderstanding occurs. Equally, your
understanding may be accurate but you may still need outside confirmation.
It is helpful to get another perspective when things become uncertain or
intense.
As stated above and before, you have to set goals and expectations together
and re-evaluate often. It is important to set achievable goals and long-term
expectations, just make sure to revisit them going forward. Effective com-
munication is essential for dynamic mentoring relationships. This is predi-
cated on a transparent exchange of ideas and expectations. With a full
understanding of expectations, flexible SMART AF goals can be set, revised
if needed, and achieved. To ensure this happens, it is your responsibility to
always be prepared for a meeting and have all necessary meeting materials,
sent ahead of time if possible. Preparing for a regularly scheduled meeting
takes thought and you can be strategic by creating an agenda and following
up with a summary of things discussed. Additionally, having organic, low-
stakes, informal conversations are important opportunities for you and your
mentor to check in with each other. However, not everyone is at their best in
these situations. If your faculty mentor wants an impromptu meeting, ask
for a few minutes to collect your thoughts and materials before sitting down
with them, in private if necessary.
You are encouraged to ask for guidance but make sure you also have sev-
eral ideas on hand. Expectations are such that you will not know everything
about a project but when seeking input, but you must also contribute. As you
52 Making the Most of the Postdoc

grow in your expertise and independence, when asking for help or feedback,
it is important that you explore potential solutions beforehand. Seek out per-
spectives from secondary mentors in addition to your primary faculty men-
tor. Cultivating multiple mentors is a common practice that allows broader
discussion and support. These can range from informal non-hierarchical
connections that give advice on everyday academic struggles to more formal
faculty mentor-mentee relationships that offer substantial intellectual contri-
butions to your project or career. By doing this, you also expand the potential
pool of references for when you launch your job search.
Stay patient, mindful, and connected throughout your research experience
as it can feel exasperating, tedious, and isolating at times. When this happens,
it is important to remind yourself that struggles lead to learning. Building
and maintaining a community, including your lab mates, your department,
affinity groups, as well as your loved ones, will provide support. As in most
supportive relationships, there is a give and take, an ebb and flow. Realize
that mentoring is a two-way street. The mentoring relationship is an alli-
ance built on bi-directional respect, open-mindedness, communication, and
adaptation. You cannot be passive; you are expected to play an active role in
managing the relationship. Be honest about your preferred style while also
realizing they have their own way of doing things. The object is to align your
mutual goals and be flexible as they evolve.
Remember that you are an adult and this is your career. You are ultimately
responsible for your actions along with how your research and career prog-
ress. While you may be supported by your mentor and the institution, you are
the ultimate stakeholder in your success. Therefore, you should advocate for
yourself at every opportunity. When seeking advice and guidance, it is up to
you whether to heed it or follow your own counsel. Use the resources avail-
able to you. Please be assured that you are not alone nor are you expected
to know everything. Your institution has created an entire infrastructure to
support you and your work. Human resources, the Ombuds, the postdoc
office, department administration, and career services may be just a few of
the resources you have to help you in your tenure as a postdoc.

Professional Development
Postdoc Skills and Competencies
You also want to evaluate the whole of your training. The National Postdoc
Association created a list of postdoc core competencies that I shared in
Chapter 2 and reiterate here. If you are in PhD or postdoc training, this is
really what you should be striving to learn. They are basically broken out into
your research skills and transferable skills. Research skills are knowledge of
Navigating through Your Postdoc 53

discipline, lab and experimental skills, and responsible conduct of research


(RCR). Then, transferable skills are communication, professionalism, leader-
ship, and management. If you are not working on those six major categories,
at any one time in your training, you need to make sure that happens.
When you are considering what you need to be successful, you have to
understand the skills that you and your potential future employers most
desire. Many of you are very well versed on only one end of the skills con-
tinuum that contains hard and operational research skills such as methods,
technology, quantitative, computational, experimental design, and data
interpretation. However, what you need to really pay attention to is the other
end of the spectrum and make sure that you are working all across this con-
tinuum of skills. Be sure you pay attention to your soft skills such as man-
agement, leadership, communication, and teamwork because those are the
attributes that will set you apart from others that you may be competing
against for jobs and advancement. Almost every other postdoc you encoun-
ter on the job market and in the next steps of your career will have basically
mastered the operational and hard skill sets but may not have honed their
soft skills. If you are doing well in those areas, you are already several steps
ahead of your competition.
When you are looking for additional training inside and outside the lab,
you want to make sure you are pursuing relevant opportunities that will
give you the most bang for your buck across multiple potential career paths.
What you do not want to do is become so narrowly focused on one thing
that your training is no longer transferable. Chapter 6 provides an in-depth
approach to recognizing and building transferable skills. I encourage you
to think strategically about how you can diversify your skillsets inside and
outside the lab, both within the confines of your research and beyond it.
Consider what kind of specific activities you can pursue to develop these
skills, whether you are mentoring students, building collaborations, giving
presentations, leading a journal club, or attending a workshop offered by the
postdoc office. When addressing these considerations, you must balance the
time it takes to develop yourself with the time it takes to do research.

Build New Skills


Alongside honing existing skills, you should be looking for opportunities to
fill gaps and add new skills. If you are interested in bolstering your teach-
ing credentials, reach out to local colleges and universities to ask if you can
observe a lesson or teach a class. I know for a certainty that faculty and
department chairs at undergraduate institutions would welcome the chance
to have you in their classrooms. You may even consider connecting with
teachers and educators at K-12 schools, science centers, and even local librar-
ies. If you are expanding your research portfolio, take a lab management
course or learn a new cutting-edge technique that is potentially valuable
now and in the future. You can attend a grant writing workshop, finish that
54 Making the Most of the Postdoc

data analysis for your paper, or learn how to do it using a different method.
If you want to strengthen your public speaking, join Toastmasters® or culti-
vate other opportunities outside of your institution by reaching out to your
various alma maters and offering to speak to current students. You can see
where pursuing these new skill sets can be multifunctional across the skills
spectrum. For example, if you are in fact teaching, you are also communicat-
ing and presenting, and possibly mentoring.
If you are lacking leadership experience, you can join the postdoc or
graduate student association. These groups can be found at the department,
school, institution, regional, or national levels, including professional or sci-
entific societies, affinity groups, and the National Postdoctoral Association.
As a current and former member of several of these groups, I know they
are constantly recruiting for leadership and support roles. If you are inter-
ested in science policy, there is plenty of opportunity there, especially in
today’s complicated scientifically averse political climate. Trained PhDs get-
ting into policy or engaging in the local, national, or global dialogue is vitally
important.
As a result of your extensive PhD and postdoc training, you definitely have
writing and (maybe limited) editing experience, but you can always get bet-
ter by diversifying your skill sets. Also, I can attest that while I no longer do
research, I am still writing all the time. You can bolster your writing creden-
tials by volunteering to be a guest blogger, becoming a social media content
creator, or designing your own website that shares accurate and trustwor-
thy information. You can gain editing experience while raising your profes-
sional profile as a reviewer for journals and professional conferences. It may
be as easy as offering to help your mentor with a review they were invited to
do. There are also freelance writing or consulting opportunities available to
you as well. Regardless of what you do to enhance your skills and strengthen
your credentials, be sure to do it well, with integrity, professionalism, and
authenticity.
6
Path to Independence

Understanding Your Priorities


On your path to independence, all anyone really wants to know about you
is whether your research is first rate and whether you can also be a brilliant
scientist on a team with other brilliant human beings doing science. No mat-
ter what you ultimately do in your career, you have to gain and master many
skills not directly related to your scientific training. However, if you are
focused and efficient, there are ways to build your professional credentials
with relevant experiences. Once I decided to one day run a postdoc office, I
realized I needed more experience in four areas: leadership, teaching and
service, program management, and writing. I was determined to systemati-
cally gain these experiences and take time to reflect on past achievements.
Based on my personal experiences, I developed a practical approach to iden-
tifying and leveraging experiential opportunities to bolster credentials.
Identifying the most important career priority is a difficult proposition.
But in my mind, I think you will be ahead of the game if you spend your
energies becoming a respected, recognizable, and influential expert in your
field. You can accomplish this by cultivating and maintaining a vibrant net-
work of current and former schoolmates, lab mates, and future employers. To
improve your chances of career success in academia or elsewhere, you should
be prioritizing research progress where you are publishing and presenting
your work. You should also stay visible by keeping in touch with others and
building your network. You should go to conferences and meetings, large
and small. You should also be open to new ideas as well as unconventional
or non-research-related opportunities. Ultimately, your career priorities as
a postdoc involve framing your training, building your reputation, creating
your vision, and preparing for the next step.

Framing Your Training


It is so interesting how scientists spend years learning a systematic process
of observation, research, hypothesizing, experimentation, analysis, and
sharing. However, when facing a problem unrelated to research, scientists

DOI: 10.1201/9781003285458-9 55
56 Making the Most of the Postdoc

FIGURE 6.1
Framing the different phases of your training helps to gain perspective on the transferability
of your experience. Image provided by the author.

abandon the scientific method and undertake a haphazard approach that


they are unfamiliar with. Scientists need to apply the same rigorous scien-
tific process to their career advancement and professional development as
they do to their own research progress. This is not how you would approach
your science, so why would you use an unfounded approach in other parts
of your life?
It is very important to understand and put your training in the proper
perspective (Figure 6.1). Getting a PhD creates opportunity and potential. It
hones critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The postdoc, if and when
you do it, helps refine your research and professional skills while developing
you as an independent investigator. This is really important to remember,
that you are on a path toward independence. It is not just in the science or
research sense, but you are truly an independent-minded questioner of your
surroundings. Ultimately, your training offers a systematic process that pre-
pares you to select the correct problem, critically examine that problem, thor-
oughly analyze it, and eloquently communicate its solution. If you look at
your training holistically, it is basically the mastery of the scientific method.
You have spent years and years perfecting this methodical approach to your
research. What I want you to do now is realize that you need to use this tool
on any problem that you encounter. This is especially true when handling
your career and professional development. The attributes and skills that
result from extensive PhD and postdoc training in the scientific method are
desirable qualities for anyone in any field who is looking to advance to the
next phase in their career.

Your Training Efforts


You should have at least four fundamental goals for your PhD and post-
doc training. The first is to gain independence through research progress,
funding if possible, and collaborations. You can further your independence
Path to Independence 57

through leading or supervising others in the form of mentees, peers, and


technicians. The second goal of your training is to build a professional iden-
tity through networking and fostering relationships alongside having a rep-
utation as an expert in the field or a particular set of techniques. The third
goal should be for you to identify a vision for the future that involves both
your research and your career. This encompasses your immediate next steps
during your postdoc as well as your long-term career plan. Finally, the last
of your big-picture postdoc goals is to get a job. But not just any job, it should
be one that you find challenging yet is also a satisfying mix of your skills,
interests, and values.
After making the necessary efforts to gain additional experience and grow
your skills, it is vital to think about how you will frame it in the correct con-
text for current and future use. In doing so, you firmly demonstrate your
interests and your willingness to seek out whatever essential training is
desired to succeed and advance. This also shows that you have the skills and
ability to manage multiple priorities and projects at a time while improving
your self-awareness and diminishing your blind spots. In addition to the
actual experience you received, you have actively developed interpersonal
communication, leadership, and strategic thinking skills along the way.
Importantly, I believe the rigorous scientific training you receive during
your PhD and postdoc experience helps you discern your career develop-
ment while building intellectual depth. Everything being equal, effective
communication, professionalism, leadership, and continuous learning are
the skills that will set you apart from your current peers and your future
competition. Early awareness and assessment of your acquired skills give
you an advantage not only in navigating your training but also in choosing
the right environment to pursue your career. Thus, in the scientific enter-
prise, you should aim to be trained as a complete person who is capable of
effective decision-making, leadership, and independence. I repeat, these are
quite desirable characteristics for anyone seeking to advance in any field.

Building Your Reputation


You will generate more opportunities to enhance your reputation and grow
your experience by being positive and strategically saying yes. Offering to
help out and doing more than just concentrating on your own limited sphere
of experimental results establishes you as a resource for others. As you prog-
ress, you will find that you have more opportunities coming your way than
you can manage, so use your people skills and delegate or share some of
them with your colleagues. Once you determine what options are interest-
ing and suitable for you, you will be less likely to miss any unconventional
yet relevant opportunities. You can also maximize your efforts by seeking
58 Making the Most of the Postdoc

experiential activities within your own research environment. For instance,


integrating aspects of your research training that allow for honing your
communication, leadership, and collegiality does not take away from your
research progress. In fact, you are expected to do these things by participat-
ing in regular interactions across the lab, department, or collaborations. You
should strive to remain visible in the department by talking with your col-
leagues, mentors, and faculty members about more than your science.
I will repeat throughout this book that you need to connect with people,
speak with others, and continue to broaden your network. However, you
should not be compartmentalizing your professional network from your
personal network. You should include your family as well as the people you
know from school drop-off, place of worship, or the library. For example, I
leveraged a random interaction that my mother-in-law had while at her hair-
dressers to befriend the Director of the Office of Intramural Training and
Education at the NIH. Your network should also comprise people you pass
in the hallway every day, the lab next door, and surrounding labs and offices
too. You should make it a point to know the administrators in your depart-
ment. This was one thing that was very helpful for me because I quickly
realized that they are the gatekeepers to and calendar managers of impor-
tant faculty and senior officials. Anytime I needed something, be it a quick
meeting or a favor, I knew whom to go to. I did not go to the faculty or to the
chair of the department directly. No, I went to their administrator and that is
how I got things done. And so can you.
Consistently being active and visible within your research community
helps establish and reinforce your reputation while allowing others to get
to know you and to possibly advocate on your behalf. In this day and age,
your community includes the social media realm as there are many active
micro-communities found on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn (and more)
that facilitate online networking. You have to be serious and genuine about
this to make sure you are not being perceived as a show-off or flippant. The
simplest way to show that you have some experience is to reframe your hard-
earned past and present accomplishments in the context of future endeavors.
Further visibility can come from joining a well-recognized group, associa-
tion, club, or activity. The goal is to contribute immediately, learn teamwork,
and potentially rise to leadership. A more difficult but equally rewarding
path is creating your own opportunities or starting something new. However,
by addressing a universal need or filling a relevant niche, you demonstrate
strategic decision-making, initiative, an understanding of stakeholders, and
independence.
You can increase the impact of your labors and further expand your net-
work by being generous and sharing credit. Including your peers and col-
leagues in your growth and development process helps create and foster a
community. You may also receive better engagement and guidance if you
share the relevance of your efforts with your mentor on a regular basis.
Remember to harness the expertise and connectedness of administrative
Path to Independence 59

support staff to facilitate access to people and resources. Additionally, you


should also not be shy about reaching out to leaders in your field and devel-
oping professional relationships with them.

Build Transferable Skills


It is also very important to recognize that you already have A LOT of trans-
ferable skills. Sometimes you just have to literally translate what you have
done to give context to the work that the next stage of your career is requir-
ing of you. I am positive that if you thought long enough, you could recall
that you had planned and organized events, including things for the lab,
postdoc association, or greater community. Maybe you had led an event for a
conference or at your church or local library. These experiences demonstrate
a spectrum of skills and you do get credit for all of them.
I like to point out the fact that no one has done all of their research by
themselves in a vacuum. It takes a wide range of transferable skills to do
research. There are many times when you need to perform some requisite
task, and it is something that you might have little to no experience with.
These occasions should serve to remind you that your teamwork and col-
laboration skills are essential to your research enterprise. If you have ever
worked with others and accomplished a goal, you have relationship-build-
ing, networking, collaboration, and teamwork skills. Regardless of whether
you are a leader or just a contributor, in working with others, you will play
a vital role on the team and possibly even influence the process. In fact, you
may even get to provide mentorship and supervision for several of the peo-
ple on the project.
One of the most straightforward ways to demonstrate your project man-
agement skills is to leverage what you did to manage the publication pro-
cess. Many of you reading this book may have published or will publish a
paper, especially as a first and/or corresponding author. This process, with-
out you knowing it at the moment, is essentially the definition of project
management. You probably oversaw the entire research project, from the
design stage to the planning and execution of the overall project all the way
down to performing the individual experiments. Throughout the process
you managed and communicated deadlines for the research (i.e., author-
ship) team, even supervising personnel and managing collaborators. You
coordinated the full course of writing, editing, revision, and submission.
Maybe you even communicated directly with the editor of the journal as
you negotiated authorship order while wrangling co-authors to respond to
proposed revisions. You led the whole process from ideation to drafting
to acceptance to publication and finally to dissemination. That is project
management!
60 Making the Most of the Postdoc

You may even have familiarity with aspects of laboratory budgeting, inven-
tory, and workflow. You probably have a very good understanding of time,
resource, and personnel management through your supervisory, mentoring,
and project management experience. Many of you have been teaching and
training high school, undergraduate, or graduate students in the laboratory
and classroom. From this, recognize that you have leadership, service, and
community-minded skills and experience even though you may not have
been given an official title or role. All of these are very valuable and quite
transferable though it may take some reflection to frame them appropriately
for current and future pursuits.
There are many additional transferable skills inherent in PhD and postdoc
training. You may not realize it, but you have very well-developed relational
and decision-making skills. In your training you have taken a universal,
open-minded, and unbiased approach to problem-solving, all through the
use of the scientific method. You have an impressive level of comfort with
ambiguity since you are not used to knowing the answers ahead of time. You
have had to create new knowledge and maybe even invent new methods and
approaches to address your research question. You are proficient in flexible
thinking as there is a built-in expectation of failure (before success) in sci-
ence since you are always trying to disprove the null hypothesis. You have
an uncanny ability to pay attention to the smallest details while maintain-
ing a big-picture perspective since you are usually involved from ideation to
analysis to communicating the impact of the work. Finally, you have experi-
ence in dealing with difficult people, which is unfortunately very common
in academia.

Preparing for The Next Step


Because of your specific set of skills and your scientific education, you are
always assessing your landscape, training, and self. You will have to con-
tinue convincing yourself and others through open-mindedness, storytelling
(about yourself and your career), reflective questioning, and contact points.
When others have the chance to meet you and hear your story, they can be
motivated to be your advocate. Regardless, the three phases of training –
career advancement, professional development, and research progress – are
not passive. You have to be strategic and active to achieve them. When dis-
cussing career opportunities, I have to acknowledge the saturation of career
information including non-academic pathways that exist today that were not
available during my training. This can be overwhelming. It is key to keep
momentum given the intense research demands placed upon you. You do
not have to do everything at once, but just be doing something all the time.
However, no one thing should be done at the cost of another.
Path to Independence 61

Structuring Your Preparation


Ideally, it is paramount that you are allowing yourself enough time to make
preparations for your career transition. Unfortunately, the reality is that I
have met postdocs whose appointment or employment was terminated liter-
ally the next day. Can you imagine it being your last day as a postdoc, and it
being the first time you have reached out to anyone for help? Regardless of
your situation, if you come to me with a year or day left on your fellowship,
my approach would be similar with a primary aim to help you gain some
perspective. Which will still take time. You should reach out for help as soon
as you recognize that there is a transition, a change in your status, or a trajec-
tory correction on the horizon. Whether your issue is temporary or perma-
nent, start seeking advice from mentors, peers, and trusted colleagues. Your
faculty mentor can be a great resource, assuming you have been cultivating
a professional and mutually respectful relationship with them. I do realize
that they may also be the precipitating reason for your decision to start your
preparations, for good or bad. Chapter 7 goes into much more detail regard-
ing career transition readiness.
When you give yourself enough time and your timeline is on the scale of
months or years, you can take the time to survey the landscape of the next
phase of your career. In addition to furthering your research, you should be
learning the language and expectations of the next sector (academe, industry,
consulting, etc.) you are interested in moving into. You can do this by seek-
ing training in such areas as the business of science as well as the adminis-
tration of research. No matter what your goal is, my advice is to address any
gaps you have (or perceive that you have) that may hinder a quick transi-
tion. Appropriate training may be difficult to find, but it is not like you need
another degree. You just need to do enough to put yourself on the right path
where you begin to recognize your transferable skills and how to translate
them into a new career context. As you continue to prepare for your next
steps, you can take your training as a scientist and leverage your skills not
just for the next job but also for the transition itself.
It can be very difficult to balance your efforts. There is a whole industry
around time management and multi-tasking. This is where I struggle the
most, prioritizing my effort and time. I will not tell you that you need to
spend 20% of your day or week on professional development, 15% on career
advancement, 55% on your research, and 10% on stimulating pursuits. I have
found that the breakdown of your effort (and priorities) changes regularly
due to scheduling, availability, and interests, to name a few. The advice I
give, and followed as a postdoc, is to integrate as much of what you are doing
within your usual research routine. Because of this, you may also have to
redefine the scope of your endeavors to include such efforts. Ultimately, none
of your professional efforts should be compartmentalized; they should cross
over and flow into each other. Specifically, your research existence should
62 Making the Most of the Postdoc

intersect with your career advancement, professional development, and


stimulating pursuits. The reciprocal is also true as these activities all con-
nect back to and inform your research. You have been trained as a scientist,
as a researcher, to solve problems using the scientific method. The idea here
is to basically integrate one problem-solving activity into another so that you
are efficiently managing yourself, your time, and your effort.
Part 3

The End
7
Career Transition Readiness

Knowing When You Are Ready to Leave


When considering a job or career transition, there are many things you need
to do to prepare yourself. You must develop new skills, hone established
skills, and leverage as many career development opportunities as you can.
You should try to enhance your professional image and visibility through
strategic networking and informational interviewing. When networking
during a transition, you have to be careful in how you frame your reason for
changing jobs as well as describing the skills that will help you when you
land. One of the most common things I share when you are in transition is
make sure that you are moving toward something rather than running away
from something. This is especially true when you are recontextualizing your
experiences for a new audience. It is not that you are leaving academia but
that you are taking the next logical step in your career and moving toward
something that you are interested in pursuing. This next step sets you on a
path where your skills, interests, and core values converge. Another thing
I talk about all the time is make sure that you are networking. You should
always be trying to continue building up and staying active with your
network.

Navigating an Unknown Process


In the next few paragraphs, I will share how many of you are, or will be,
inefficient in your job search or transition. (I hope this book helps to maxi-
mize your efficiency.) I mentioned in Chapter 6 how you tend to abandon
the scientific method at the first sign of non-research-related turmoil. In
doing so, you make career decisions without data, evidence, information,
or direction. Even worse, you make decisions based on bad advice, errone-
ous assumptions, fear, frustration, and desperation. You also tend to do the
process backward by sending out applications before you have reviewed or
polished them. Many of you put off the impending transition as long as pos-
sible and end up starting the process almost too late. As shared in Chapter 3,
you really should start your postdoc training with the end (i.e., career

DOI: 10.1201/9781003285458-11 65
66 Making the Most of the Postdoc

trajectories) in mind. Regardless, you should try to give yourself anywhere


from 6 to 18 months to fully engage in your job search or career transition.
To pile on, you are also inclined to make several unforced mistakes that
can hinder your job search. Most importantly, you do not talk with your
faculty mentors about any of the processes, unless it is about an academic
career, and even then, their involvement can be minimal. You are also not
reaching out enough to make connections and ask questions. You have a
habit of being too focused on the wrong things such as negotiating offers
before you have submitted any applications. You are also worried about pub-
lication impact factors rather than identifying and honing your transferable
skills. Some of you are so concerned with beating an applicant tracking soft-
ware (ATS) that you have not met any new colleagues in the field you are
hoping to transition into. There are a few other oversights that you make
that impact your job search that you might not even know you are doing. You
have little to no online presence, whether it is a page on your lab’s website, a
LinkedIn profile, a Twitter account, or a science-focused social networking
site such as ResearchGate. You also do not prioritize career and professional
development workshops or opportunities until it is too late.
Some of the biggest frustrations I have observed with regard to your career
transitions are all of the mysterious unknowns. You eventually come to real-
ize that this is the first time you have ever done a real job search. You may
find that there is also a general lack of institutional or mentor support for
career exploration, advancement, or transition for postdoctoral trainees. You
are not confident in sharing your stories or framing yourselves, your skills,
or your experiences. You are unfamiliar with the job search or application
process nor are you sure how each component of the process is relevant. You
need to learn best practices for career exploration and not myths or singular
experiences. There is a lot more for you to address than you first realize.
The challenge that postdocs face when successfully transitioning is proper
understanding. You can overcome this by educating yourselves on the process
and expectations thereof. You do not want to be unprepared. As you proceed
through your research training, try to always be working toward something
while maintaining flexibility to pivot or revise your trajectory. From a trainee’s
perspective, you know academia, you mostly know the ins and outs as well
as the expectations of that environment. Once you decide to transition to a
position beyond your postdoc, there are many things that you do not yet fully
grasp. This is not so much a mistake, since it does not really keep you from
transitioning, but it is a barrier that you are generally unprepared to face. You
are not really sure what you need to be specifically preparing for, but remem-
ber your training (and transferable skills) because you are used to ambiguity
in your research. Why not embrace the uncertainty in your job search as well?
To struggle through that, you should always be working toward a goal while
remaining nimble and flexible. You may recall in Chapter 6 where I outlined
that your scientific training has prepared you to make transitions. It has pre-
pared you to do what is necessary to make the transition out of your postdoc
training and into any independent position you choose. Just remind yourself
Career Transition Readiness 67

of what you have been trained to do – discover something new, work through
ambiguity, master it, and then use it to your advantage.
Regardless of how you arrive at knowing when you are ready to transi-
tion, you should never be reacting out of fear. It is important to contextualize
your transition as moving toward, pivoting, or growing into a more suitable
situation. As outlined in Chapter 4, many of the initial reasons you might
be considering a transition from your postdoc may come from a space of
anxiety, negativity, doubt, or even fear. You may have even come to a certain
realization that the academic routine or faculty career is no longer for you.
The reason could be as simple as a changing or broadening of your skills and
interests. Nevertheless, you must recognize that for what it is and try to pivot
into something that is a good fit for you.

Activating Your Network


I will continue to repeat this again and again, activate your network, and
continue to cultivate that network. What I mean by activating in this sense
is that you need to notify your network when you are going on the market
or that you are currently on the market. This is one of the quickest ways to
find positions and hear about new opportunities, just reach out, and recon-
nect with people that you know. Tell them you are on the market but do not
necessarily ask them to do your search for you, only if they hear or know
of anything. While this may be a soft or passive request, it will plant a seed
for future reference and your network will likely send listings your way. In
addition to activating your network, it is important to cross-train, ensuring
what you are doing is multipurpose and who you are meeting are multi-
faceted, thereby making the most out of your efforts. As you will read later
in this chapter, if you are going to do something research related or career
related anyway and it is in your calendar, make sure you are taking advan-
tage to do several other things while you are there.

Common Ground
When talking about developing your network, I like to dive into three mul-
tifunctional areas: establishing common ground, identifying contact points,
and integrating your networking activities. Establishing common ground is
very important, and it helps bridge the differences you have with a person
or group of people that you are speaking with. A former colleague shared
a simple way to do this. They suggested creating a short script that you can
use while briefly introducing yourself. The script basically has you saying:
68 Making the Most of the Postdoc

The RESEARCH / SCIENTIFIC / PHILOSOPHIC interests or challenges I


share with you are X, Y, and Z. Of these things, I have learned that THIS
happens because of SOMETHING I HAVE DONE. Through my research
or experience, I noticed that A VERY INTERESTING THINGS OCCURS
because of THIS EVEN MORE INTERESTING THING. More specifically,
I would like to know THIS.

You can just fill in the blanks (or in this case, the emphasized phrases) mad
lib style. Thus, creating a relatively easy and memorable way to introduce
yourself while quickly establishing a foundation of mutual understanding. It
also allows them to process and connect the information you are sharing with
their experience. You might even get a few follow-up questions for clarifica-
tion or further details. Then, turning your attention to the listener, you ask
them, “So, what brings you here [to this gathering]?” Before you know it, you
have started a conversation and begun to network at a deeper level. For inter-
nationals, you may have to have these conversations as non-native speakers
of English. While there are some potential communication difficulties, I am
constantly amazed at how gracefully you, as international postdocs, face this
language barrier. Instead of worrying about your accent or making a gram-
matical mistake, you should concentrate on how your listener is absorbing the
details of your story. Any spoken errors are either ignored or quickly forgiven
by the listener for the sake of establishing a meaningful connection.

Contact Points
When you are talking with people and after you have established some com-
mon ground, you will find that as you continue, you immediately begin to
identify contact points or potential points of commonality. You are at the
center of a vast system of contacts and common points and these network-
ing conversations usually revolve around your (or their) education, PhD
training, postdoc experience, or a combination of thereof (Figure 7.1). When
first meeting someone, we tend to want to know where the other person is
from, either geographically or scholastically, where they went to school, or
got their training, followed closely by who they worked with and/or studied
under. Academically speaking, you are an alum of your postdoc, graduate,
and undergraduate institutions. Some conversations may go as far back as
high school. Because of this multi-layered alumni status, you can leverage
thousands of potential points of commonality across faculty, students, staff,
trainees, and beyond. And we are only just taking into account your aca-
demic research experience thus far.
The deeper, broader, and further you go, the more people and places you
have to connect with. When connecting with people, you want to remember
Career Transition Readiness 69

FIGURE 7.1
You are at the center of a vast multifaceted network. Image provided by the author.

that, in addition to your academic experience, you have professional, per-


sonal, and virtual relationships. I must acknowledge that the COVID pan-
demic has changed or even disrupted how we meet people and network.
While it has been an overall difficult situation, it has afforded us a com-
mon experience from which we can derive shared topics of discussion. In
addition, COVID has expanded the ever-growing community of people you
have interacted with but have never met in person. It is also important to
recognize that your casual as well as your close personal relationships are
potential fodder for networking and contact points. If we follow this to its
logical end, theoretically, anyone you meet could be quite helpful to add to
your network. Remember to always be on your best behavior so you can take
advantage of meaningful chance meetings or conversations. I would also
note, these layers of contact points are also fantastic prospects to mine when
interviewing, whether informational or on the job market.
After meeting someone, establishing common ground, and identifying
contact points, do not forget to follow-up with them to further solidify and
foster your budding connection. It is not about getting value or information
from somebody else; it is actually about providing something worthwhile to
others. That value ends up returning to you many-fold if you strategically
invest the time and effort early and often.
70 Making the Most of the Postdoc

Integrating Networking, Research, and Life


The most efficient way to network, whether you are introverted or intimi-
dated is not to compartmentalize but integrate your networking. It is not
something to be separated from your everyday routine. When networking,
or doing anything regarding your career and professional development for
that matter, you want to make sure that everything you do serves multiple
purposes. By doing this, you begin to unify diverse aspects of your training
and share your interests. For example, if you go to department seminars and
functions (many of you are required to do so anyway), introduce yourself
to other attendees and do not always sit with the same people or even your
lab mates. Many departmental seminar series invite famous and up-and-
coming scientific leaders to give talks. Be sure to ask the speaker questions
and follow-up afterward. This is a great way for you to network within the
department as well as outside of it because it is rare that trainees do this.
When possible, you should make the most of any further opportunities to
meet the speaker in person, whether it is a luncheon, social event, or one-on-
one meeting. When attending career or professional development workshops
or panels, in addition to potentially learning something new, make sure you
are taking full advantage by asking questions and meeting the speaker(s) as
well as the organizers.

EXAMPLE OF FOLLOWING UP WITH A SPEAKER VIA EMAIL


Hi Dr. XYZ,
I really loved meeting you and Rayanne today and greatly enjoyed
attending your presentation. I look forward to implementing your
cover letter and resume tips in my own job search.
I was wondering if your offer to assist in further developing my
materials was a genuine one. I am very interested in persuing research-
oriented industry jobs and experiences. I greatly admire how you seek
to help PhDs transition from academia to industry, a transition I now
understand more fully thanks to your talk today.
I look forward to hearing back from you regarding the opportunity
to improve my application and thank you again for your time today.
All the best,
Lucy

Even if you are unable to attend a specific seminar or workshop, you can still
reach out to the speaker, whether it is days, weeks, or months after the fact.
Believe it or not, you can still reach out to a speaker and say, “Dr. So-and-so,
you were at my institution and gave a seminar 6 months ago. I am sorry to have
Career Transition Readiness 71

missed your workshop on XYZ topic at ABC University but I wanted to follow-
up and ask you a few questions.” I also recommend going to job fairs, even when
you are not actively on the job market, to introduce yourself, exchange contact
information, and possibly set a time to meet later. You can incorporate network-
ing into your calendar and schedule specific times to check in with your profes-
sional network. You can also bring a trusted colleague to ease the pressure of
official networking events. Just do not overdo it – you are allowed to meet people
one person at a time. Regardless, these are all fairly low-risk, high-reward set-
tings and you have a chance to make a really good impression as well.
It is important to continue to reach out to and connect with other people.
However, you must understand that you may need to do more than just net-
work to expand your contact list. You also need to do informational interviews,
which are more targeted professional and in-depth conversations with people
who are in positions to which you may aspire. Because of these discussions, you
are much more prepared to speak the language while furthering your under-
standing of the new career path or sector you may be entering. Subsequently,
you will gain more contacts and referrals to more people you can meet, poten-
tially leading to increased interest in or elimination of future options.
In addition, you have a peripheral set of contacts that exist outside of
your mentors, colleagues, alumni groups, and friends which can be called
a “stealth network.” Your stealth network includes people at your places of
worship, parents at your child’s daycare, or even your barbershop or hairstyl-
ist. They may be the people you sit next to at the coffee shop, work out with at
the gym, or compete against in your basketball, golf, softball, or kickball rec
league. While being very careful on public transportation (which I use every
day), you may strike up a conversation with someone you see on a regular
basis or has a similar commute schedule. My point is when you are open
and transparent in your conversations, then you are staying visible while
interacting with authenticity and sharing your interests with other people.

Having “The Talk” with Your Mentor


You need to actively manage your local support systems, especially your fac-
ulty mentor. However, many of you may not feel fully supported by your
faculty mentor or your lab environment. You may be afraid to discuss any
career path with your faculty mentor for fear that you might be asked to
leave prematurely, will be supported less, or that your contract will not be
renewed. If you do not have a supportive mentor who helps to connect you
to their network, then you can feel quite trapped. This is particularly true
if your career trajectory takes an unexpected turn and you have to make
a change to another lab or from academia altogether. Nevertheless, the
best source of information and support for your career transition remains
your faculty mentor. You should continue to have meaningful, ongoing
72 Making the Most of the Postdoc

conversations about your research and your career. What you can do right
now is to fully engage with your mentor, not do this alone, and keep those
lines of communication open. Chapter 5 covers several avenues for you and
your mentor to foster a productive relationship including implementing an
IDP, setting expectations, and respecting boundaries.
As you progress on your path to independence, it is vital that you allow
them to come along with you on your journey. They can help you distinguish
whether or not you are actually ready for the next stage of your career by
sharing their knowledge of what it takes to successfully transition. If you
bring them into the discussion, your mentor can assist in discerning the type
of role you want in the field or sector into which you are considering a transi-
tion. They can provide valuable insight into where you may be best suited to
work, and what it is like being an assistant professor, or they can introduce
you to a colleague of theirs who is a senior scientist in biotech. They can also
help you define a realistic job search timeline that leads to a seamless exit
from the lab. Your mentor’s advice and insight will be critical when deciding
to start your search. If you go too early and your projects or fellowship are
not yet complete, you risk not being able to commit to an offered position.
Similarly, if you launch a search too late, you might be without an offer in
time for your expected exit. Even if you timed it right, you may not receive
interviews or offers and will need to go on the market more than once. Each
of these scenarios takes time, effort, and a network of support.
You may also be interested to know that once you are committed, your
job search, regardless of sector, will become a second full-time job that you
will have to manage. It will be infinitely more achievable with the support
of your mentor and lab mates. The job search timeline varies depending
on your endpoint, but generally from application submission to job offer,
the academic job cycle can take up to a year while a non-academic search
could last as long as six months. In that time, not only will you be continuing
experiments and submitting manuscripts, but you will also be expected to
manage multiple applications, gather your references, and navigate multiple
rounds of phone, virtual, and onsite interviews. The success of this process
relies, in part, on negotiating time away from the lab and your projects with
at least the knowledge, hopefully full backing, and ideally actual assistance,
from your faculty mentor. Stay open-minded to what your mentor can do for
you as they can be your greatest ally if you give them the chance. The worst
thing you could do during your postdoc is to become isolated. You do not
want to be alone and on the verge of burn out when making these decisions.

Launching Your Job Search


You need to be clear about when you are launching your job search. Once
you submit an application you are signaling to the universe that not only
Career Transition Readiness 73

are you initiating your job search but you are prepared to leave your current
role. When that hiring manager reads your application, they expect you to
understand their mission, speak their language, and know their approach to
science. As part of your postdoc tenure, you will have to decide what path
to pursue. What makes this extraordinarily tough is that whatever path you
choose likely requires a similar skillset, at least initially. It takes a team of
mentors and trusted peers to talk this through. To me, it comes down to the
pace of life, work/life considerations, type of research, and whether or not
you enjoy grant writing and competing for funding. Choosing a career path
and when to pursue it are very personal decisions where you have to line
up the pros and cons and understand where the intersection of your skills,
interests, and values lies. All while acknowledging that there are countless
different options across the scientific enterprise and beyond.
The ideal job search process is a multistep sequence. If you have the fore-
sight, you give yourself a timeline of at least a year when you know you will
be on the job market. The longer the better, but at least a year. The job search
is much more self-reflective and interpersonal than anybody gives it credit
for. The first thing to do is some fairly in-depth self-reflection as laid out in
Chapter 3. Begin to think about what you like to do, what you are good at,
and what your values are. Then follow-up with your network contacts who
share similar attributes. Identify what resources you have institutionally, in
the lab, at your alma mater. You must recognize that you have many resources
just within your grasp, all you need to do is find and use them. When you
have people helping you, ask them what the current job trends are, what they
have seen recently, and where postdocs with similar training have found
success. After gathering this important information, you can begin to refine
your vision for the job best suited for you.

Potential Job Search Sequence

1) Establish a timeline
2) Activate your network
   3) Self-assessment and reflection
   4) Identify skills-interests-values
    5) Leverage institutional resources
     6) Informational interview
      7) Hone application materials
       8) Submit applications
        9) Interview prep and performance
         10) Negotiate and accept job

As you visualize your ideal job, you should share that vision with people
who have jobs that are very close to what you are describing. Through
74 Making the Most of the Postdoc

informational interviewing, get their insights and begin crafting your appli-
cation materials. At the same time, you should be passively collecting inter-
esting job ads and opportunities. Then, you go to a career counselor, or a
coach, and get feedback on your materials to make them stronger, more rel-
evant, and representative of a viable candidate in your desired career path.
Give yourself time to digest what is out there and analyze job advertisements
to learn how to read between the lines. Chapter 8 summarizes how to go
about putting together a practical application through a series of revisions,
peer review, expert critique, and then beginning to apply. You must be very
strategic, focused, and targeted. Please be realistic, however, because your
first job out of postdoc may not be the absolute ideal one yet but will hope-
fully put you on the right path. This is but the beginning of the rest of your
career.
If you are leaving your postdoc under bad circumstances, I remind you of
my earlier advice, to make sure that you are coming from a mindset and a
perspective of future-focus and optimism. You have to take care that you are
strategically planning out your next moves. You should be pivoting into the
next logical step rather than looking back from a place of fear or frustration.
It is okay to feel that way, but you cannot have your decisions dictated by
distress. You must tap your resources to help you move past your struggles
by reaching out for help, activating your network, and cross-training, thus
creating positive and forward momentum.
8
Some Advice on Application Materials

Applications and Job Postings


The Struggles and Strategies of Application Material Prep
In making the transition from postdoc to job applicant or candidate, most of
you tend to be too narrow in the way you think about and draw attention to
your skills and experience. Additionally, you may be inclined to prematurely
select yourselves out of opportunities for baseless reasons. Let employers
tell you no, besides you can always choose to remove yourself from consid-
eration if you receive interviews or offers. When drafting your application
materials, you are also apt to write them for yourself and not for the hiring
committee to understand while also submitting your application with no
input or feedback. It is nearly impossible to craft a compelling application
that no one else has read or critiqued.
As postdocs, you may find such career transition topics and materials to
be overwhelming and confusing. Thus, you are often mystified and even
paralyzed as to how to proceed. Using peer review and critique to hone
application documents, as well as focusing on self-awareness and authen-
ticity, any training you undertake to better your applications should cover
common struggles and effective strategies for preparing you for successful
job searches and career transitions. Through my own work in this area, I
have found that you often identify struggles, as evidenced above, that are
commonly shared across multiple career transition topics, as well as some
potentially effective strategies to deal with such challenges.
For instance, when it comes to drafting materials and preparing for career
transitions, you will be surprised to learn that most of you have the same
concerns, regardless of background, experience, or topic. In general, you are
likely to not understand the true purpose of some or all of the components
within the application package. You also have questions about each appli-
cation document’s length, structure, order of sections, formatting, and bal-
ance of interpersonal and technical content. The best strategies to address
such commonly held struggles can actually be universally applied across
all materials. When you are crafting your applications, you should have oth-
ers review your documents, find and model recent successful examples, and
mirror the language of the job posting, if possible. Ask to see the materials
your colleagues used in their job search. Having examples is helpful, but it is

DOI: 10.1201/9781003285458-12 75
76 Making the Most of the Postdoc

critical to understand what made them effective. Additional advice is for you
to always be yourselves, honest, authentic, and direct. You believe that you
can do the job, now tell them all about it, with concrete examples.

Stretch Positions and Multiple Applications


It is quite alright to apply to stretch positions that may seem just beyond your
reach or skillsets. Besides, if you wait until you are 100% qualified for a job
then two things are likely true: (1) you are now overqualified, and (2) you
missed out on many, many opportunities. In addition to being interested,
you just have to make sure that you are at least meeting the minimal qualifi-
cations and that you have a few of the required technical or soft skills for the
job. Networking will definitely help you understand what those stretch jobs
entail. You should also highlight the desirable skills that you already have.
Another common issue you may encounter is that a company or institu-
tion that you find interesting has multiple open positions listed that you feel
qualified to fill. You may worry about coming off as desperate, but if you do
not know anyone inside the company or institution, how else are you sup-
posed to get on anyone’s radar outside of applying? What you want to do is
make sure that you tailor your application materials to those specific jobs but
not so over-tailored that it looks like you are a totally different candidate for
each one. You can also disclose in your respective cover letters that you have
applied to a few other opportunities within the company or institution and
hope that you can be considered as appropriate. The employer may also be
able to cross-reference applications, applicants, and different positions. To be
sure, if they have ten openings, I would not suggest applying to all of them,
perhaps limiting your interest to a select few.

Job Postings
Almost everything you need to know about a job is in the posting.
Understanding the purpose, style, and general format of your application
are the first steps in creating an effective package. While drafting your docu-
ments, do not miss a chance to incorporate the information laid out in the job
posting. You should repeat the keywords provided, mirror their language,
and recognize all aspects of the posting. Most job postings follow a general
structure. To start with, it usually gives some level of background about the
position as well as information about the employer and its mission, vision,
and perks of working there. Of course, it shares minimum research and
technical qualifications, education, and years of experience. The posting also
contains preferred technical, interpersonal, and professional skills and expe-
rience in a specific environment or field. Typically, there are also application
submission instructions or a link to an online portal. Please be sure to read
and follow all guidelines. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask for
clarification by reaching out to the contact person, if provided.
Some Advice on Application Materials 77

Cover Letters
Crafting the Cover Letter
A cover letter is a great opportunity for you to capture the attention of the hir-
ing manager or search committee by providing the proper representative con-
text to your experience while controlling the narrative of your candidacy. While
many positions allow you to apply directly from your LinkedIn profile without
a cover letter, it is a good idea to have one at the ready and an excellent exercise
to help you promote yourself. By understanding the job posting and aligning
the cover letter to its content, you can quickly and concisely convey interest
and job fit, all in just one page. In crafting and tailoring a cover letter, you must
address specific qualifications employers are looking for when they advertise
open positions. The cover letter essentially summarizes the CV/résumé with
concrete details. But not everything can be included; therefore, you must use
representative experiences. This document should be able to stand alone while
still complementing other materials. You should draft a clean, clear, concise,
and flexible cover letter written in active voice with traditional style conven-
tions that are easy to follow. Considering your reader and your purpose, this
document has to be specific to the position with obvious connections.
Generally, the first paragraph of your cover letter states why you are writ-
ing (applying to a specific position), the position title and requisition num-
ber, and refers to how you learned about the employer or the job whether it
was through a previous conversation, meeting, correspondence, or just the
job posting. You should convey a sense of enthusiasm about the position,
department, company, or sector; use the opportunity to demonstrate you
know something about them. They want to know what excites you enough
about the position to apply. Keep it short, upbeat, and engaging while avoid-
ing clichés and platitudes.
The following paragraph is where you describe the “big picture”. For exam-
ple: “As a postdoctoral research fellow at Respected Medical School, I have
been investigating the effects of X on Y under the supervision of Respected
Professor.” Start with your postdoc experience and, if relevant, work your
way backward to your graduate training describing your research, under-
scoring its significance, and adding publications. Include other significant
experiences, education, and research as appropriate while highlighting
the breadth of your expertise. Elaborate on your distinctive qualifications,
strengths, achievements, skills, and experiences. The amount of information
and what is relevant to include will be determined by the job posting. You
need to understand what they are looking for and incorporate details from
your training that will directly address their hiring needs. If it is not relevant
to the position, you do not need to include it in your cover letter.
You further address your “fit” in the subsequent paragraphs using con-
crete examples of your soft skills and related technical expertise. You could
78 Making the Most of the Postdoc

also weave this information into the experiences outlined above to tell a
more fleshed-out story. Demonstrate that your skills, interests, and values
are suited to the position (e.g., pace of discovery, use of innovative technolo-
gies, collaborative research setting, etc.). Show that you know what a job or
career in that field entails, stating why you are interested in working for this
employer and your interest in this specific type of work. The remainder of
this paragraph is used to make a direct connection between you and the
requirements of the job, using several key requirements for the job to demon-
strate how your experiences and training fit with what they are seeking. This
could include specific leadership experience, research expertise, collabora-
tive approaches, techniques, or technologies. The better the match, the better
your chances of getting invited for an interview. It should be obvious to the
reader that this is the next logical step in your career.
Wrap up the final paragraph by continuing to convey a sense of enthusi-
asm about the position. Offer that you look forward to discussing the posi-
tion and tell them again how to contact you. End with a sincere concluding
remark and thank them for their time in reviewing your materials.
As you can imagine, the Academic Cover Letter, while very similar in
overall structure and content, is expected to be framed in a manner that
demonstrates how well-prepared you are to independently run a lab in an
academic setting. The cover letter for your academic job package should be
about one page and contain roughly six paragraphs. The opening paragraph
should include your name, what position you currently have, the location
and PI of your lab, and what position you are applying for. It also contains
a brief mention of specific motivations. You need to write one to two past
research paragraphs that are short and punchy, conceptual, and mostly focus
on postdoc research, with a little graduate work, if relevant. Because you are
including research findings, you would need to add citations using a short
reference format. In your future-plans paragraph, focus on the novelty and
impact of pursuing the proposed research. While there is no need to specifi-
cally refer to your Research Statement here, you will essentially be giving a
high-level summary of it. If you will be expected to teach, or are applying to
a more teaching-focused faculty position, you will need to add a short para-
graph outlining your teaching approach and experience. Again, there is no
need to refer to your Teaching Statement but only share an overview. In the
exit paragraph, in addition to the ideas listed above for a general cover letter,
include the names and contact information of your references as well as the
documents enclosed in your application.

Cover Letter Struggles and Strategies


In crafting your cover letter, I know that you will worry about and be
unsure of many things. Some common struggles that postdocs like you have
shared with me range from choosing the right experience to emphasize or
Some Advice on Application Materials 79

highlight; to effectively showing interest in a job without being desper-


ate; to providing an appropriate level of detail short of repeating your
CV/résumé. You also struggle with the notion that you somehow have to
prove yourself or sell your skills instead of keeping to the facts and telling
the story of your experience. In addition, I have observed a great many
postdocs making unforced errors in their cover letters. The most common
being a lack of concrete research context, impact, or examples; instead, you
are inclined to use generalized platitudinous phrases like having “exten-
sive experience in,” “profound knowledge in,” or “a passion for” a specific
discipline. It is likewise bothersome when you reference your CV, mention
a publication, or name-drop rather than provide the interesting details of
your actual accomplishments in the document in front of the reader. I have
also witnessed egregious mistakes such as naming the wrong institution,
misspelling or making up words, and unnecessarily calling attention to a
red flag.
Of course, there are myriad strategies to address much of the above, most
being no-nonsense approaches that you can use for all of your application
materials (as mentioned at the beginning of the chapter). Though, for cover
letters specifically, you can read them out loud to yourself to catch any gram-
matical or logical errors while asking others to read and review the docu-
ment. As outlined, it is critical that you read, understand, and deconstruct
the job ad making sure to include relevant, representative, and unambiguous
experiences. Finally, you should tell an authentic story that addresses fit as
well as conveys a focused career trajectory.

Crafting the Résumé and CV


Understanding Your CV and Résumé
A CV or résumé provides the first impression of a candidate to a potential
employer. The content of the document should quickly grab the reader’s inter-
est, and the format must deliver information clearly and concisely. To make it
even more challenging, you need to summarize the highlights of your career
in just a few pages. It may also be necessary to have a few different versions
depending upon your pursuits. To be sure, a CV is not résumé and vice versa,
even though some may use the terms interchangeably. By definition, a CV is
curriculum vitae literally meaning the course of one’s life work. A CV is a
bit more comprehensive as it can include most, if not all, of your academic
credentials. On the other hand, a résumé is relatively short, skills-based, and
very tailored to the job to which you are applying. Regardless of which one
you use for your application, you must realize that this document will only
get you an interview or a meeting, not a job offer.
80 Making the Most of the Postdoc

CV, Résumé, or Something in Between


A CV, to me, can be described in three parts: a Pedigree that includes your
degrees, where you studied, and who you studied with; some Padding that
fleshes out your academic service; and Publications that list your contributions
to the scientific literature. In the CV, you provide a chronological account of
your academic credentials while giving context to your research experience,
and this is used primarily for academic positions. Some may consider this to
be the end-all-be-all of your academic existence, so, depending on your rela-
tively early career stage (PhD student or postdoc), a concise version of your
CV might be three to five pages. If it was any longer than that, readers may
begin to think you are adding extraneous or irrelevant information. While I
highly recommend having a “master document” containing all of your expe-
riences and achievements, you must be able to create a concise and focused
document to use for applications. The CV basically says, “Look how brilliant
I am. How could you not interview someone as smart as me?”
The résumé, instead, includes your pedigree, as above, but also frames your
accomplishments and service as proficiencies and productivity. Outside of aca-
demia, the tendency to think of soft skills as “padding” and thus less impor-
tant is unfounded as those same experiences are considered very important
and become valued proficiencies. Additionally, as opposed to academia
where the sum total of your training is distilled down to your publications, in
other sectors, your scientific productivity is measured more broadly. Similar
to the CV, a résumé is a chronological account of your academic credentials
but is very skills-oriented by including research, technical, and soft skills.
Unlike the CV, a résumé is a snapshot of your experiences that fit and are
relevant to the job for which you are applying. It is a concise one- to two-page
document that gives context to your research accomplishments, ultimately
telling the hiring manager that you can do the job. Overall, your résumé
should say, “Look how my skills and experience match your job. How could
you not interview someone as well-suited as me?”
However, as constantly mentioned throughout this book, postdocs are
special in many, many ways. Due to your advanced education, extensive
research training, and fluid early career, I have come to advocate for the use
of a transitional CV/résumé hybrid document that combines the academic
credentials of the CV with the skills-focused experiences of the résumé
(Figure 8.1). This hybrid document should be two to three pages and can be
tailored for a variety of research and research-adjacent positions in industry,
academia, and private sectors.

Purpose Impacts Style


You want to understand what your CV and résumé is and what it can and
cannot do because the purpose of this document impacts the style in which
you will format it. For example, if you are looking for an academic faculty
Some Advice on Application Materials

FIGURE 8.1
81

A sample “hybrid” document using the author’s credentials that represents a transition between a CV and résumé targeting a position in Postdoctoral
Affairs. Image provided by the author.
82 Making the Most of the Postdoc

position, the document you are creating will be a full CV. If you are looking
for a second postdoc or a residency, you will be using a CV that includes a
technical skills section. If you are going up for an internal promotion at an
academic institution, you will probably have to format your CV into a stan-
dardized institutional document which is fairly comprehensive and usually
inflexible. I must note that, because it is designed for internal promotion,
the institutional CV format is not especially helpful when you are on the
academic job market and applying elsewhere. If industry research is your
goal, I recommend that you draft a document that is more of a CV/résumé
hybrid. A transition into a non-profit, entrepreneurial, science-adjacent, or
non-science career is going to use a résumé or hybrid of one, two, or three
pages at most. If you are submitting a grant or a grant update, you should
NOT be using a CV, that will require you to draft a Biosketch (for US federal
funding you can use the NCBI’s SciENcv system). Please note that these
two documents, the CV and Biosketch, should not be treated as equivalent
because they convey different information for distinctly different purposes.
In conclusion, one size does not fit all and the style with which you write
this document is going to change depending on the purpose it is supposed
to fulfill.

How CV/Résumés Are Read


After submission and upon receipt, CVs and résumés are processed very
quickly. While they may be read multiple times by many people, the very
first time they are seen, you have maybe 30–60 seconds to make an impres-
sion. What the hiring manager, search committee, or HR representatives are
looking for is your academic, education, and research experience (Pedigree).
Then they are going to flip over to the back and look at your publication list
(Productivity). This is changing, however, due to the extensive use of com-
puters and digital devices to share and view documents, where a reader now
just continuously scrolls through the content. If they continue to look at the
document, then they open the subsequent middle pages and look at your
soft skills, presentations, and anything else you have in there (Proficiencies).
Regardless, the three most important things, at the first pass, are your educa-
tion, experience, and publications (i.e., Pedigree, Proficiencies, Productivity).
This document must be organized logically so that information is acces-
sible and obvious. It also unfolds in reverse chronological order, meaning
that the most recent experience is listed first. There should be no extra work
required by the reader to find or interpret the details elsewhere. This means
that the reader will not have to do any extra mental gymnastics to figure out
what you actually mean. The document also has to have uniform formatting
along with straightforward and specific headings. To ensure your document
can be understood by those trying to hire you, the best thing you can do is
have trusted colleagues read and critique it. This goes for all of your applica-
tion materials.
Some Advice on Application Materials 83

Organizational and Formatting Conventions


The organizational conventions for the CV or résumé should enhance the
readability and not distract from the content (Figure 8.2). Please note that
expected conventions can vary across fields, sectors, and regions (foreign

FIGURE 8.2
An example page highlighting typical organizational and formatting conventions. Image pro-
vided by the author.
84 Making the Most of the Postdoc

and domestic). Generally, the heading and contact info traditionally include
your name and associated degrees (i.e., James Gould, PhD) in big bold letters
at the top followed by an address, phone numbers, and email. For those of
you that may have changed your name, perhaps converting your maiden
name to a non-hyphenated married one or adopting an anglicized name,
and have experiences and publications that preceded this change, you can
show both names at the top using the following formats: Marie Gladstone
(neé Smith), PhD, Marie Gladstone (formerly Smith), PhD, or Zhien (Jenny)
Chang, PhD. Regardless, in the digital age, you only really need your name,
phone, and email. Mobile/cell phone numbers are fine and you can use either
a permanent (i.e., Gmail) or institutional email or both. In the US, you should
not include any demographic or personal information, photo, or government
or school ID numbers. The reason being that this info could potentially bias
the hiring process so those involved would rather not have it at all.
Another US-centric convention is having roles, titles, and degrees on the
left while the dates are placed on the right. I recommend this for two major
reasons: (1) since we read from top to bottom, left to right, the flow of infor-
mation should follow the same direction. In my opinion, the most important
information (roles, titles, and degrees) should be seen first, at the top and on
the left. Dates, while important, are not the most important details and thus
should be relegated to be read last, on the right side of the page. (2) Formatting
this way saves a lot of space while still allowing for separation of sections.
When drawing the attention of the reader, you should use bold, italics, and
underline functions as sparingly as possible. I highly recommend bolding
your name (especially in publications), titles, roles, and degrees. Within the
separate experiences of the CV or résumé, you should avoid large blocks of
text and instead use focused, single-line bullet points or references that con-
cisely convey the “who, what, why, where, and how” of your achievement.
When creating a multi-page document, you should use the header and
footer functions to include page numbers at the bottom and your name (with
degrees) at the top right. Not only does this look very professional, but there
are some that still print these out. For instance, if they are not careful, and you
have not placed your name and page number on each page, the printouts may
get shuffled, and it is your fault (fair or not) that the document is out of order.
You should stick to ¾- to 1-inch margins and make sure that your text is con-
sistent in both size and font style. I recommend using 11- or 12-point font with
Times New Roman, Arial, or something similar all the while using standard
symbols and characters. I know this sounds a bit boring but the more exotic
you get with the formatting elements, the more likely you will have format-
ting errors. Thus, simple elements make for consistent formatting.

Anatomy of the CV/Résumé


The section headings on your CV/résumé are the guideposts for your reader.
They should be clearly and specifically labeled as well as centered across
Some Advice on Application Materials 85

the page. While it depends on the specific audience and pursuit, in gen-
eral, I recommend starting with Education, Research Experience, Awards,
Service, Leadership, Presentations, and Publications, in this order, as major
sections. In the case of the CV/résumé hybrid or straight résumé, I encourage
the following general sequence: Summary, Education, Research Experience,
Technical Expertise, Awards, Service, Leadership, Patents, and Publications.
Overall, these sections bring the reader to a better understanding of your
work, experience, and context.

Typical Section Headings and Their Purpose


Summary = brief overview
Education = qualification
Research Experience = context of work
Technical Expertise = bench/informatics skills
Awards, Service, Leadership = scientific citizen
Patents & Publications = productivity

The “Summary” section is a transitional statement that connects your cur-


rent and past experience to a new sector or field. This section should only
be used on the résumé or CV/résumé hybrid and gives a brief overview of
your experience with a few bullets covering the key skills relevant to the job.
If you could summarize yourself in one sentence this is where it would go.
The “Education” section outlines only your educational endeavors that
resulted in degrees and demonstrates your minimal qualification for the
job, i.e., the Bachelors, Masters, and Doctoral degrees. While important, your
postdoctoral training is not degree-bearing and should not be listed in this
section. It is better placed under your name at the top of the document and
detailed in the “Research Experience” section.
Regardless of the type of document, I highly recommend having a
“Research Experience” section because it allows the reader to understand
the context of your work through descriptive bullet points. This section is
divided up based on your current and former research appointments, namely,
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Graduate Research Fellow, Masters Research,
and Undergraduate Research. Some of you may even have previous clinical
or industry research experience that can be placed here or highlighted fur-
ther in separate and more specific sections covering “Clinical Experience” or
“Industry Experience.” How you frame your research experience is impor-
tant. You have to decide whether to mention every project or just a high-level
overview of your interests with accomplishments, for example. Constructing
bullet points for research experience for a field application specialist position
can be very different than bench position.
Another section specific* to the résumé or hybrid is “Technical Expertise”
where you describe your wet lab, computational, analytical, and/or program-
ming techniques under distinct methodological themes. (*As mentioned, you
can also use this section in your CV when applying for a postdoc. It falls off
86 Making the Most of the Postdoc

the CV when applying for faculty positions because they are assuming you
know everything needed for running your lab.) You should use the term
“technical expertise” so you do not have to qualify the level of experience
you have in each technique; you are an expert in everything you list. I also
recommend using this section to collect in one place all the methods you
tend to repeat across appointments in the “Research Experience” section.
This allows you to stay on topic in each section while emphasizing impor-
tant information for the reader where they will best understand it. Again,
you will have to decide whether to list all the techniques you are familiar
with or use a focused or abbreviated approach.
The “Awards” section demonstrates that you are recognized as and contrib-
ute to being a well-rounded scientific citizen. You can be very creative with
the titles of your sections, and these sections, in particular, lend themselves
to descriptive, eye-catching headings. Many of you have different numbers
and types of awards that you may want to highlight as one or separately.
There tend to be as many as four types: “Fellowships,” “Grants,” “Awards,”
and “Honors.” Depending on what you want the reader to see, how many
of each, and how recent, I recommend using “Fellowships & Grants” and
“Awards & Honors” sections on the document. Fellowships and grants may
be straightforward, anything you applied for that gave you money to do
research. However, awards and honors may be less defined. I would suggest
putting travel awards, Dean’s list or honor roll, poster or talk awards, depart-
mental or institutional recognitions, and other related honors in this section.
If you place something in these sections, be sure not to repeat it elsewhere on
the document. That goes for information in all sections.
The “Leadership & Service Experience” section is one of the most effective
units you can use to demonstrate your leadership, teamwork, service, and vol-
unteer experience but, unfortunately, it is also the least utilized. Depending
on how extensive your experience is in this area, you may consider break-
ing it out into more than one section covering experiences in “Leadership,”
“Service,” “Outreach,” “Volunteer,” or any combination thereof. You may
even go a step further to distinguish the sector in which you served, for
example, an “Academic Leadership & Service” section may include any peer
review, departmental committee, or scientific society leadership experiences
you have. That said, I must note that this section can and should include rel-
evant non-academic or non-research-related activities and experiences such
as coaching youth sports, organizing a 5K run, or sitting on a school board.
Your “Presentations,” “Patents,” and “Publications” sections demonstrate
your research productivity as well as your communication and writing skills.
While there are divergent thoughts on where to place them and how to format
them in your document, I recommend placing them toward the end based on
the reader’s tendency to look at the first page and then to flip to the back page.
In addition, I advise formatting your patents and publications as long form
citations with authors and title of the work followed by the identifying infor-
mation for the patent or journal. As for your not-yet-published manuscripts,
Some Advice on Application Materials 87

there is a very straightforward means to show that they are indeed in the
publishing pipeline. You can either list these as full citations at the top of the
section or as a sub-heading called “Manuscripts in Preparation.” Regardless,
you will follow these citations through the pipeline and label them in pro-
gression from “In Preparation,” “Pre-Print,” “Submitted,” “Under Review,”
“In Revision,” “Accepted,” “ePub Ahead of Print,” to “In Press.” After your
paper finishes this process, it is now an official publication and needs no
further qualifiers. You should note that preprints count as a manuscript in
preparation and ought to be listed as such.
In the case of presentations, depending on your career stage and the sheer
number of your talks or posters, I suggest that you emphasize oral presenta-
tions over posters by having separate sections for them. You may also want
to only list a selection of each if you have so many that cataloging all of
them would detract from the document. Furthermore, you should only select
those that you were either the first author (i.e., primary researcher) or pre-
senting author (if you presented as the primary researcher or on behalf of
your research group). In this instance, since authorship is assumed, you do
not need to list the other contributors in the reference; you only need to share
the title of the talk or poster, the conference or meeting, and when it all took
place.
Including a section on “Teaching Experience” or “Mentoring Experience”
may be necessary if you are applying for academic teaching-focused posi-
tions. They can also be useful in non-academic settings, especially when
combined (“Teaching & Mentoring Experience”) or expanded to include any
supervisory experience you have (“Mentoring & Supervisory Experience’”).
I would suggest placing the teaching/mentoring section directly after
“Research Experience” and before “Awards” or “Technical Expertise.”
When appropriate, you can have other sections and information to tailor
your document. I recommend adding “Relevant Training” or “Continued
Professional Development” for non-degree granting courses, certifications,
and workshops such as a mini-MBA, commercializing science, or Cold
Spring Harbor methods course, to name a few. I also advise including a
“Collaborations” section for those of you that have many team-based proj-
ects across multiple labs, institutions, or countries throughout your research
career. Whether you were the lead scientist or cog in the machine, listing col-
laborations separately unclogs your research experience section highlighting
past and current experiences in team science. This is especially important for
careers in industry.
For international postdocs, you should also include all the languages you
speak or can communicate in using the following sequence of qualifiers:
Native, Fluent, and Conversational. In most scenarios, this is enough infor-
mation and you can always further describe if needed. However, if you have
taken language examinations, please share the results here. There are many
assumptions made and biases brought by the reader, so, while my general
recommendation is to be as transparent as possible, for some, the disclosure
88 Making the Most of the Postdoc

(or non-disclosure) of Visa, citizenship, or work status can either help or hin-
der. The final decision is up to your best judgment. If you think it will be
advantageous, then disclose your status, but if you think it might hurt your
chances, there is no need to share this information just yet. Ultimately the
point is moot because through the application process, employers are going
to realize your Visa/work status.

Statements of Research and Teaching


The Academic Research Proposal
Since it is of supreme importance, writing the research proposal can be one
of the most in-depth exercises in putting together the academic job pack-
age. While constructing the intellectual framework of your lab for the next
several years, you have to convey a feasible, fundable, and future-focused
research program in just three to five pages to a search committee compris-
ing faculty inside and outside the recruiting department.
Many of you, when drafting your research proposal, will struggle with the
scope and level of detail while grappling with not writing a grant, avoiding
technical jargon, and providing enough context so the audience can properly
assess your credentials and the feasibility of your aims. The early versions
of your proposals often lack developed aims where your major question,
approaches, methodologies, and potential impact are not distinct nor future-
focused enough. Another area you all tend to have difficulty with is provid-
ing too much background information and experimental detail leading to a
very dense and unwieldy structure.
The half-page summary section of your proposal should define a big
problem(s) or question(s) in the field that you will be addressing in several
different ways, thus hinting at your aims. You will then depict your past
and current research in the remaining half of the page, outlining your major
accomplishments and building the foundation of your credentials mov-
ing forward. You should mention grants that you were awarded while cit-
ing your publications described therein. The last two to three pages of the
research plan are used in the framing of your aims, a 10,000-foot perspective
that includes both the “smaller” problem (the what and why) and several
experimental approaches (the how) that particular aim will address, as well
as the impact of having completed that aim. In biomedical research, where
I am most familiar, you are expected to develop two to four cutting-edge
research aims where, in general, the first aim is usually an extension of your
current postdoc work, while the subsequent aims are further afield, mid-to-
long term, carry more risk, and can be very creative. Unlike a grant, which
this is most definitely not, each of your aims must be independent and on
Some Advice on Application Materials 89

such a scale as to potentially employ several lab personnel to achieve them.


It is highly recommended to have an accompanying figure for each aim, or
at least one figure per page, to help break up the text along with providing a
visual representation of the approach, methodology, or expected data output.
It should go without saying, but you should not craft this document without
examples, input, and the help of others, especially your faculty mentor.

The Statement of Teaching Philosophy


Drafting the teaching statement can be one of the most esoteric exercises
in creating your academic job package. While less philosophical and more
practical, the challenge is to communicate a tangible evidence-based teach-
ing approach alongside unpacking your teaching experience in just a single
page. The teaching statement outlines your approach, in theory and applica-
tion, to teaching as well as classroom implementation of active learning and
instruction. If written well, this document essentially describes what has and
will happen in your classroom due to your teaching interventions, cover-
ing inclusive student-centered methods, pedagogy, and lessons learned. As
stated, your teaching statement is a mix of concrete and abstract examples,
often explained in alternating sequence that demonstrate your command of
modern higher education and not just vignettes of passive education where
you learned (or were taught) in a certain way as a student from past educa-
tors. For those of you that may not have extensive in-class teaching experi-
ence, I remind you that teaching is teaching, no matter the format, whether
you are leading recitation, tutoring a small group, or mentoring someone
one-on-one.
Many of you, when drafting your teaching statement, will struggle might-
ily with aligning your experience with your philosophical approach. You
will find it hard to unearth specific teaching moments while translating
your familiarity with research and mentoring to what it looks like in prac-
tice in the classroom. Modern pedagogical terminology and techniques are
probably foreign to you so you tend to share teaching methods that use the
inscrutable primary research literature to demonstrate common scientific
concepts. Regardless, there are numerous strategies to tackle these struggles,
many being approaches shared throughout this chapter. For teaching state-
ments in particular, you can craft a compelling document by unpacking your
classroom content through current events, even connecting with what may
be happening in the student’s home and school environment. You can also
develop a theme for your statement while sharing philosophical approaches
and concrete examples that support and reiterate your premise. On the
whole, I encourage you to reflect on past teaching and learning experiences
and take ownership of how you will teach in the future.
9
Interview Preparation

Becoming a Storyteller
Thus far you have already heard about self-assessment, networking, and
updating your materials all with the hope of applying and getting inter-
views for jobs. Some say, and I tend to agree, that the only way to get better at
interviewing is to interview. However, I believe you can help yourself along
the way since interview preparation can start long before you are invited to
interview. This involves pre-work, understanding your skills, and storytell-
ing. For example, here is an email I received on the topic of storytelling:

Dear Jim,
I hope this message finds you well. You may remember me. I met with
you once to review my résumé and have attended a few of the postdoc
career development events. I also ran into you a couple of times on the
bike trail!
I want to share with you some good news: after a somewhat long(ish)
process of networking and interviewing, I recently accepted a position
at Momenta Pharmaceuticals. I started a few weeks ago working as a
Scientist in the Translational Research group.
I saw that you will be leading a seminar on “crafting your story for
career transition” in the coming week. I can tell you first hand that for
me, it was all about finding and refining that story! In the end, my skills
were secondary as compared to what my particular “story” was and how
it distinguished me. I truly believe that attending the many postdoc ses-
sions helped me craft this story.
I want to take this opportunity to thank you for all the work you do.
Know that it does make a difference, even if people just sit and listen, as
I have often done. Something always sticks.
If there is anything that I can ever do to help other postdocs transition,
please do not hesitate to reach out.
Best wishes,
A former postdoc

This message underscores the importance of interview preparation and the


power of storytelling.
The strength of storytelling lies deep in our collective history. Humans
are neurologically hard-wired to be captivated by stories and we learn from
them by default. To tell a compelling story, you only need three components:

DOI: 10.1201/9781003285458-13 91
92 Making the Most of the Postdoc

a protagonist, some conflict, and a resolution. Another vital element of story-


telling is your audience. A good raconteur captures their listener’s imagina-
tion by weaving tales around a well-known story framework by providing
exposition before moving onto escalating action, in the form of conflict and
crisis, ever rising toward a climactic resolution. Once achieved, they explain
any lessons that the protagonist learned through falling action. The reason
that storytelling is so powerful is that you can demonstrate authenticity,
reframe reality, evoke sympathy, convey credibility, build community, forge
trust, and wield influence with just a few words.
As scientists, you have many opportunities to develop an appreciation of
the importance of stories as you progress through your training. In terms
of interviewing, the protagonist of your stories is you, or your research, the
conflict is any challenge you encountered, and the resolution is what you
did to solve the conflict. Whether you are convincing yourself through inner
dialogue or influencing others through networking, you are telling stories
of growth, inspiration, and new knowledge. As such, interviewers will ask
a lot of questions, thereby giving you many opportunities to share your
experiences and points of commonalities through stories. Most of you will
get nervous when being interviewed, so I recommend using a methodical
approach to answering questions called P-A-R that highlights your actions,
behaviors, and competencies. Short for Problem-Action-Result, P-A-R pro-
vides a foundational structure for answering questions by telling proto-sto-
ries that approximate the traditional story arc by systematically describing
your experiences.

Crafting P-A-R Stories


Simply stated, you begin a P-A-R story by defining a problem (P) or chal-
lenge that you faced. Next, you specify the actions (A) that you undertook
to address the problem. Finally, you explain the measurable results (R) and
the impact of your actions. In developing the details for a P-A-R response,
I recommend using the “rule of three” as a persuasive technique whereby
presenting as many as three examples each for the P, A, and R, allows the
listener to better retain the information. You all know your research and
associated experiences do not take place in a vacuum and that others are
involved, but you still have to tell stories that specifically highlight your role
in these situations. Using a simple Problem-Action-Result structure is a very
good way to remember how to tell stories about relevant experiences in most
interview situations.
For example, your interviewer may say, “Describe a time when you faced
a conflict or challenge.” Or “Tell me about a situation where you had to
motivate others,” because that is an important part of your next job. Or they
might ask you to explain your most impactful paper or greatest research
accomplishment. To this last request, you might reply, “Well, in my recent
project the problem we address was [insert Problem here]. The experimental
Interview Preparation 93

and methodological approaches we used to address the said problem were


[insert Actions here]. This resulted in [insert Results here] and we ended up
publishing the work at [insert high impact/field-specific journal here] with
several citations already.” By sharing this P-A-R story, you are demonstrating
that the work you are doing is not only important, rigorous, and innovative,
but it also has an impact on the field. Below is an example of a response that
highlights the P-A-R structure, the relative ease of its composition, and the
use of the “rule of three.”

Sample P-A-R: Why are you the best candidate


for this job at our consulting firm?
Problem (P): Define your strengths – 1) Specific experience in
CRISPR; 2) Diverse and broad network of scientists and key
opinion leaders (KOL); 3) Experience leading teams in a
matrixed environment
Actions (A): Share the process of how you developed something
new – 1) Built a complementary team of experts; 2) Established
new protocol in X system; 3) Delivered on time with a quick
turnaround
Results (R): Talk about results and impact beyond publication –
1) Commercialized new IP and created a company; 2) Invited
to give a seminar at a meeting where you are now considered
among the KOLs; 3) Received seed funding and submitting
new grant

P-A-R Matrix
The strategic combination of the P-A-R storytelling with the certainty that
the majority of interview questions can be found ahead of time (through
friends, colleagues, and the internet), allows you to prepare your responses
before ever landing an interview. In fact, I developed a series of career clin-
ics specifically designed to help postdocs do just that. Additionally, a single
P-A-R story can cover multiple topics or skills and may be appropriate to use
across several different questions. Furthermore, you can have more than one
P-A-R story that describes a certain experience or answers a distinct ques-
tion. You can begin to imagine that you have actually created a matrix of sto-
ries to share at an interview that you can strategically deploy for maximum
impact (Figure 9.1). For example, you might be asked a question about leader-
ship and teamwork, and using the P-A-R matrix, you might have developed
two or three stories you can tell that fit the interviewer’s assessment. To fur-
ther extend this example, the two or three stories that demonstrate leader-
ship and teamwork may also address your communication skills, ability to
take initiative, or problem-solving skills. Depending on the question, you
can essentially pick and choose which P-A-R story you want to use at the
appropriate time that demonstrates the desired skill(s). While it is important
94 Making the Most of the Postdoc

FIGURE 9.1
P-A-R matrix of stories and skills. (Used with permission from Derek Haseltine.)

to prepare and practice interview responses with P-A-R stories, it is utterly


vital that you not commit them to memory word-for-word. You want your
reply to feel natural and in the moment and not wooden or rehearsed.

P-A-R Practice
When developing your P-A-R stories, I recommend that you practice your
responses with a partner or small group, especially non-native speakers. You
should practice with a native speaker to ensure your message is not lost in
translation and the tone is appropriate. These low-stakes mock interviews
are high-reward situations that allow you to get more comfortable with the
flow of details and structure as well as polishing the story. You will find
that your answers will naturally lead to more questions from the interviewer
(mock or real). Some will ask clarifying questions about details while others
will have deeper inquiries that address their interest, confusion, or curios-
ity. Your first few attempts may be difficult to follow as you are exploring
terminology, syntax, and pace while trying to craft cohesive answers. As you
practice, your stories will likely get more concise and convincing due to the
feedback you receive. Eventually, you will feel more at ease and gain confi-
dence. You may then realize that P-A-R merely provides a systematic struc-
ture and that you are the one performing all of the tantalizing elements of
memorable storytelling.

Sharing Negative Experiences


Not every question you are asked will be about an achievement or a posi-
tive result. Interviewers realize, as mentioned in Chapter 4, that negative
experiences and failures can lead to growth and learning in most people. It
is quite possible that this will be the basis of an actual interview question.
When answering such questions, you must be very diplomatic and not speak
negatively about yourself or others. In responding, you need to make sure
Interview Preparation 95

that you are taking responsibility for those things that you are accountable
for (perhaps you could have done or said or approached something differ-
ently). If it ultimately was out of your control, in a neutral-to-positive frame-
work using the P-A-R structure, you can tell what the situation was, your
approach to fix that problem (or how you worked around it or came through
it), acknowledge that as a result something did or did not happen, and what
you learned from the experience. Below is an example of such a situation.

Sample P-A-R: Tell me about a time when


you failed to make a deadline.
Problem (P): Define the failure in three parts – 1) Missed a fellow-
ship grant deadline; 2) Unsure of internal processes and dead-
lines; 3) Had a competing deadline for a publication
Actions (A): Share the actions that lead to missed deadline – 1)
Plan was not SMART AF; 2) Did not prioritize or say no to other
things; 3) Did not delegate or ask for help in time
Results (R): Talk about results and impact of missing the dead-
line – 1) No fellowship grant; 2) Delayed project; 3) Postponed
manuscript
Lessons Learned: Share what you learned and will do differ-
ently in the future – 1) Took project management course; 2)
Incorporated realistic time management/prioritization; 3)
Familiarized self with administrative process; 4) Built collabo-
ration with shared accountability

Therefore, you end up turning that negative situation into a “lessons learned”
or positive learning experience.

Common Struggles and Successful Strategies for Interview Prep


When it comes to interviewing, you are very concerned about having a
natural conversation and the inherent preparation required. Similar to your
application challenges, you struggle with talking about yourselves and your
research without sounding awkward or salesperson-like. A helpful strat-
egy to deal with that concern is for you all to share concrete, detailed, and
authentic experiences through storytelling. However, in the moment, you
tend to rush right into answering when you should be trying to slow down
and think through and structure what you are going to say. You need to
prepare stories that demonstrate soft skills while communicating your lead-
ership approach. Unfortunately, you are often made to feel that getting your
research done is your only priority. You do not realize the importance of
leadership roles early enough in your training and then, when it is time to
interview, you have trouble explaining how you worked with a team, or led
96 Making the Most of the Postdoc

a project, both of which are essential skills for setting up your own lab or for
joining a research group. Additionally, since many of you may have never
contemplated the skills valued outside of academic research until now, you
have had little exposure to other possibilities and thus are not comfortable
with handling interview questions that pertain to competencies involved
in interactive team science. When you remain unsure about your ultimate
career direction or are frustrated that you have to apply for jobs that are not
your first choice, your dissatisfaction can manifest in your storytelling dur-
ing the interview.
Having only known the academic environment, you need more knowledge
of the sector you are transitioning to, especially industry. Not reading up on
the organization and being unsure of who will be attending interviews puts
you at a huge disadvantage when interviewing. You also tend to get stressed
and question your confidence. It is expected that you will be nervous while
interviewing but you cannot let your fear of the unknown result in a lack of
confidence. Furthermore, many of you feel too intimidated to take advantage
of mock interview sessions, consequently, you end up facing a hiring commit-
tee without having practiced at all. Many of you are also unsure what ques-
tions to ask and to whom. Some of you may be uncertain how to handle your
two-body problem (where a spouse or partner likewise needs employment)
that can prevent you from moving in your preferred direction. You sometimes
get ahead of yourselves and become afraid of having to potentially choose
between jobs or even find it difficult to weigh a single job offer. You also need
to understand that the interview does not end when you leave but proceeds
through the follow-up and continues until the eventual hiring decision.
Many of the challenges outlined above can be mitigated by thoughtful
reflection, preparation, and practice. As I wrote with minute detail in this
chapter, you need to prepare to share authentic experiences through P-A-R
stories. In doing so, you should also take time to reflect on what your inter-
viewers may really be asking, as if some of their questions have a deeper
purpose. For instance, many of you are very anxious that you will be asked
about your greatest weakness (a question that is actually not commonly
asked). Your interviewer does not want to know your deepest darkest flaw. If
they ask, they want to know whether you are self-aware enough to acknowl-
edge that you still have room to improve on some important but non-critical
area or competency. They also would like to hear that not only are you aware
of a weakness, but you are actively seeking to develop new and better skills
in that area that might progress into a future strength.

Interview Performance
For the most part, interviews follow a familiar process and structure meant
to provide you ample opportunity to make an impression on the hiring
Interview Preparation 97

manager or committee. You must keep in mind that you may be contacted
by different personnel with differing levels of scientific or technical under-
standing of the job, before and after an interview. In these cases, you should
be aware of how to frame your responses (e.g., general HR recruiter vs. hir-
ing manager) which may require adjusting your technical pitch and discus-
sion of experience using or avoiding buzz words, jargon, and field-specific
terminology. Of course, certain sectors or fields have specific features that
differentiate them from one another. For instance, if you are interviewing at
a consulting firm, you will have to prepare for a case-based interview where
you are given scenarios and expected to perform back-of-the-envelope cal-
culations that lead to suggested solutions in real time. Many of you may
already be familiar with the academic faculty or industry expectation of pre-
paring and giving scientific presentations during your interview; however,
you may be less aware that you may also have to give a teaching demonstra-
tion or chalk talk. Additionally, depending on the sector and job type, you
may be required to go through several rounds of interviews across multiple
visits. Regardless, the following advice on interview performance is applica-
ble to all interviews, regardless of sector. Your institution’s postdoc office or
association as well as its career services office should have ample resources
for field- or sector-specific interview preparation.

Do Your Homework
Once you have been invited to interview, you will want to make sure you
are doing your homework by exploring the company, department, or insti-
tutional website. By researching the leadership team while reviewing and
understanding the mission and vision of where you are applying, you will
be better prepared to talk about how your values and trajectory align with
theirs. With the 24-hour news cycle, you need to be checking the news
and social media to see if anything, positive or negative, has happened in
between the time of applying and your interview. Upon being invited, you
want to make sure that you have a list of interviewers so you can prepare by
researching them, similar to when you are networking, to begin looking for
points of contact, such as, schools attended, lab pedigree, publications, and
relationships in common. When meeting with your interviewers, be sure to
point those out and leverage them throughout the conversation. In addition
to learning about your skills and experiences, what they want to do is verify
and examine what you are saying. For example, they may think to them-
selves, “They went to this school (or worked in this lab). I went to that same
school (or knew of that lab). That school (or lab) has a great reputation.” Thus,
by association, that means your pedigree (or your research) is respectable.
They can also go a step further and actually reach out to their contacts to
confirm connections.
98 Making the Most of the Postdoc

The Face-to-Face Interview


You have done your homework and background research on whom you will
be meeting with. You have also prepared and practiced your P-A-R stories.
Now that you finally made it to the face-to-face interview, there is some addi-
tional advice you need to hear for a successful experience. First, I recommend
bringing copies of your application materials as well as a small notepad.
Ahead of time, you should write notes, reminders, or potential questions for
your interviewer(s). I have a terrible memory for names as well as a mental
block on certain words, so I create a little cheat sheet for those names and
words that might come up in conversation throughout the day. If you have
something that worries you, write down any relevant details beforehand to
help you address it. Additionally, on the interview day, you will be inun-
dated with information that you may want to keep track of. Therefore, this
notepad will come in very handy. It is okay and even somewhat impressive if
a job candidate jots down a few notes. Beware, however, to not let it become
a distraction for you or your interviewer.
In most interview scenarios, regardless of sector, you will be meeting with
several people, from principal investigators, to staff, to chairs, to deans, to
CEOs. The first prompt, a non-question, you will probably have to respond
to is “Tell me a little about yourself.” What I recommend, in addition to your
many P-A-R stories, is that you prepare and practice your “career” story. In
particular, developing an origin story for your academic career and introduc-
tion for yourself, enriched with concrete examples is a great starting point.
An effective way to structure this response is to talk about the chronology of
your experience from the start (or spark) in science as well as your evolving
interest and understanding of science through to your academic experience.
You cannot just stop there, however, you also need to explain what led you
to that moment of the interview. It is a good idea to prepare versions of your
career story that span different lengths of time. This allows you to be flexible
and varied in your response (you will repeat this career story to just about
everyone you meet with) while helping you sound less rehearsed and more
spontaneous. A natural, confident delivery will also help you to engage your
interviewer in genuine conversation. It will feel less like you are trying to
impress them or sell your ideas and more like you are truly interested in
their story and the job. If you are able to move the interview from an inter-
rogation to a conversation then you can ensure that there is a flow where you
share but also let them talk and process what you are saying. It is during this
back and forth (occurring multiple times with multiple interviewers across
several hours) that you will be able to deploy your arsenal of prepared, but
strategically delivered, P-A-R stories.
On your end, you have to be (or appear to be) interested in not only what
they are sharing, but also observing and interpreting their non-verbal cues
while making connections to your experiences. Such visual or non-verbal
Interview Preparation 99

signals include maintaining eye contact, emoting through facial expressions,


assessing body language, and mirroring movements. When you share or
respond to a question in this interview conversation you are balancing con-
fidence and enthusiasm with humility and sharing credit with others when
it is due. Many of you worry but, I promise, you will not sound like an arro-
gant salesperson. As you learn more about them and the position, ask the
interviewer how you can make their job easier, inquire about what they are
looking for in a colleague, what their expectations are, or what their vision
is. It is encouraged, and even savvy in my opinion, to turn around and ask
the interviewer the same or similar questions they ask you. You should also
inquire about what you can expect to happen after you are done interview-
ing, such as the next steps and decision timeline. Many of you think of the
interview as a one-way information dump when in reality you are also inter-
viewing them. The interviewer’s responses will influence your decision to
accept an offer to work for them just like your responses will influence their
decision to move forward with your candidacy.

Gratitude and Follow-Up


After the interview, you should follow-up and be thankful for the oppor-
tunity. In fact, it is very important to show gratitude throughout the entire
process, from the initial application to the final offer, because once they con-
tact you, you are being interviewed. You should also be polite and show
gratitude to everyone who has helped you along the way, including everyone
you networked with, who reviewed your materials, and who answered a
question. Not only is this good practice and common courtesy, it also makes
it much more likely that they will help you again in the future.
Upon completion of the interview process, there is a good chance you will
be both exhausted and exhilarated. You may want to follow-up with your
interview hosts immediately while the experience is fresh in your mind. I
caution you to not do this. Slow down and give yourself, and them, at least
a day or two to digest the conversations you had. Take the time to reflect
on what you learned, how you felt (then and now), how they responded,
and the information you gained. If you send off a quick thank you email
right after the interview and you have not had time to reflect, you may look
too eager, heedless, or even desperate. When you do follow-up, along with
sharing your thanks, you can clarify the timeline and next steps in the inter-
view or hiring process even if that was one of your last questions during
the interview. In your “Thank You” email, you need to be specific and very
brief. You should say something like, “I appreciate your hospitality and your
time …” while resolving any lingering questions that you have. It is pos-
sible, when writing to specific people, to clarify an earlier response or share
100 Making the Most of the Postdoc

a link to a paper that you referenced in the interview. In this note, you also
want to reinforce your interest in the position (if true) and you can add a sen-
tence like, “Talking with you (or with the team) only increased my interest in
the job and I believe because of this conversation and the team that you are
building, I would be a fantastic fit for this position.”
Unfortunately, there may be a time when they do not respond to or follow-
up with you afterward. It is appropriate to follow-up but make sure you give
the time to finish an established timeline or fulfill their obligations to any
other candidates. As their timeline for follow-up nears, wait until the day
after then reach out at that time. “I am just following up to see where you are
in the process. I hope it is going well and am hoping to get an update.” If you
do not hear back, give them a few more days, maybe a week, and then follow-
up again. It is fine to reach out multiple times but remain patient because
sometimes the process is affected unexpectedly. The only time where it is
imperative to push is if you have multiple parallel interviews or offers and
you are still interested in that particular position.
In addition to following up with your interview hosts, you may also want
to reach out to your references as well as individuals in your network that
assisted you by setting up an informational interview. Touch base with them
and say, “I just had an interview with [insert employer here], thank you very
much for looking at my materials. I appreciate you being a reference, they
may reach out to you soon. So you can be better prepared, here are some
things that might come up in the conversation.”
Finally, I recommend that you reflect on the successes and challenges of
this entire job search process, especially aspects of the interview process.
Think about what you found easy, tough, challenging, surprising, enjoyable,
boring, and so on. Also, consider whether there were certain resources or
certain people that you really appreciated (or should avoid next time). Doing
this will help you process what just happened but will also help you prepare
for the next round of interviews as well as dealing with the offer.
10
Negotiating Your Exit

Considering and Negotiating the Offer


No matter how many applications you submitted or how many interviews
you were invited to, you only need one job offer to move on from your post-
doc. Once received, you will then embark on a series of new challenges,
though most of these will occur with a feeling of optimistic anticipation.
Regardless, as with most of your career and job transition journey, you are
likely uncertain of the best practices and possible pitfalls of negotiating and
accepting a job offer.
While you may not feel like it, you have a large amount of influence in this
situation. When an offer for employment is tendered, the employer has given
you enormous power and you have the most leverage to negotiate than at
any other time in your tenure. Do not abuse this opportunity but negotiate
as your best self by assuming good intentions and behaving professionally.
You can also dictate the time and place to discuss the offer at length. As
you prepare, find ways to relax and increase your confidence beforehand so
you are negotiating in the right frame of mind. You should use neutral lan-
guage, clarify concepts, and take responsibility for your role while staying
focused on your goals. Realize that the negotiation process may take place
over several days or weeks (for most sectors) and possibly even months (for
some sectors such as academia or government). As this is happening, check
in with trusted colleagues and mentors to assess your progress, changing
tack or altering items to negotiate. Throughout the process, there should be
a transparent and ongoing record of the conversation to keep track of what
has been decided thus far.
As you prepare for and progress through the negotiation, there are cer-
tain principles to which you should be adhering. One thing I emphasize to
postdocs is that you do not have an offer until it is on paper (in most cases
nowadays this will be emailed as a PDF attachment). You must insist on get-
ting everything in writing as handshake agreements or verbal offers are not
binding. Since they expect some level of negotiation, you have permission to
inquire about what is negotiable or open for discussion. While you should
have clear objectives, you must also be open to give and take as well as being
willing to revisit matters for a later time. You should aim to negotiate as
a team since they want you to join them as much as you do, but be care-
ful to not over-negotiate as it could harm this nascent relationship and sour

DOI: 10.1201/9781003285458-14 101


102 Making the Most of the Postdoc

them on your candidacy. I truly believe that open, honest, and transparent
negotiation is the best policy, however, full disclosure may put you at a dis-
advantage at times. When this is the case, you do not need to share all your
motivations but do not lie, ever. Nevertheless, this process may be arduous
and you may need to ask for time to think about and consider your options.
In entering into any negotiation, you should know your “walk-away” point,
that moment when you have reached an impasse and will not accept the
offer unless you get what you are asking for. Remember, you (and they) can
say no at any point in the process. It is possible that you might have to turn
down an offer (or they rescind one), not for lack of genuine effort, but due to
competing priorities or unforeseen changes in circumstances.
In negotiating the conditions of your job offer, you may mistakenly believe
that the only thing worth negotiating is salary. While indeed significant,
you may be missing out on other, possibly more important, aspects of the
bargain by fixating on salary. Besides, your compensation package may not
be very flexible owing to budget constraints, so instead concentrate on bet-
tering your quality of life and growth opportunities. It is not about what
you are owed but what you are worth. In general, start time, salary, mov-
ing expenses, housing allowance, significant other job placement, signing
bonus, rate of promotion, management opportunities, expedited evaluation,
and professional development are all negotiable. However, many perks such
as medical and dental insurance, retirement, and tuition remission are usu-
ally fixed.
When you do actually start negotiating salary, try your best to not name
a number first. If you have to, name a range that includes your target num-
ber (10–20% above and below), based on objective criteria whenever possible.
Websites like Glassdoor and public universities list salaries either through
crowdsourcing or actual data. Keep in mind that these numbers may be
biased or out of date. Salaries vary widely between, across, and within sec-
tors, due to demand, geography, and cost of living among other reasons.
Broadly, you can expect a starting academic salary to range from $60,000
to $150,000; $120,000 to $180,000 in industry; over $150,000 in business con-
sulting; and $60,000 to well over $100,000 in science-adjacent or support
positions.

The Academic Faculty Offer


As with everything regarding pursuing an academic faculty position, nego-
tiating a faculty offer has its own unique considerations. You will likely be
having this discussion with the department chair. In addition to the items
listed above, as part of the academic offer, your start date, teaching load, pro-
tected time, tenure clock onset, evaluation terms, and service requirements
such as committees and administrative duties are negotiable.
If you are planning to run a research laboratory, the most important aspect
of the academic offer is the financial start-up package. This is a competitive
Negotiating Your Exit 103

multi-year commitment from the school to support you and your research
that is hopefully enough to cover you and your lab expenses until you are
awarded a major grant or cultivate independent funding streams. As part
of your preparation, you are expected to know everything you will need to
be successful. In negotiating the start-up, you have to make sure that you
understand what it costs to manage a lab including the physical space, the
number of work benches, cold room access, and culture hoods. The depart-
ment chair can outline shared resources, common-use equipment, and core
facilities available while you can generate a detailed supply budget particu-
larly listing any special equipment. You will also be expected to plan for
personnel such as a technician, postdoc, grad student, and yourself as well
as how to pay for them.
Regardless of where your next offer comes from, after the negotiation is
finished, reflect on the information you gained while clarifying any linger-
ing questions as well as how much time you have to make your final deci-
sion. You should be brief and specific in your appreciation, making sure to
acknowledge their generosity and time. You ought to also touch base with
your faculty mentor, references, and trusted colleagues to seek out their
opinions and perspectives. Finally, you must give them an answer after con-
sidering whether the negotiated offer will help you be successful in your
new job while setting you up for future advancement.

Continuing “The Talk” with Your Mentor


Once you accept an offer for your next position, you still need to deal with
and determine many more things. Similar to accepting your postdoc years
ago, you again have two bosses. You will need to negotiate a start date (and
many other things) with your new manager or chair while negotiating your
exit with your current postdoc mentor. Among other things, you will need to
discuss how best to wrap up and hand off your project(s) as well as attending
to the details of your off-boarding requirements such as data use and materi-
als transfer agreements along with turning over your lab notebooks, hand-
ing in your keys, and closing down email access. Perhaps most importantly,
this postdoc exit conversation must include the next steps for ensuring that
any outstanding manuscripts are finalized and submitted with an agreed-
upon timeline and authorship order.
I have outlined an ideal exit situation where you and your faculty mentor
are in lockstep with your transition. I highly recommend engaging them
early and often in this process. However, some of you may not have a fully
supportive mentor or environment or both. In this case, your mentor may or
may not know of your job search, eventual job offer, or impending exit from
their lab. Whatever your reasoning for withholding this information, you
104 Making the Most of the Postdoc

will need to disclose to them that you received, or have accepted, a job offer
elsewhere along with a proposed plan for your departure. In order to avoid
blindsiding your mentor with the news, you should strive to extend every
professional courtesy in giving them notice, regardless of how contentious
your relationship may be. You need to notify them and the department at
least two to four weeks before your end date so as to expedite the adminis-
trative separation process.

Timing Your Exit


Deciding when to begin your next job can be difficult and is influenced
by several factors, some of which, like publications, are discussed above.
However, the choice could be taken out of your hands altogether if your
new employer’s timeline and budgets are dictated by the fiscal, academic, or
calendar year. Nevertheless, there are further elements you may also have
to take into account. For example, you may need to leave your current lab
as soon as possible or you have to honor the terms of your fellowship. You
might have a partner that is still awaiting their job search outcome or you
want your child to finish the school year. You could still have a few months
left on your lease and cannot afford to break it or housing is not yet available
where you are moving.

Wrapping Up
In making a successful and transparent exit plan with your lab mates and
faculty mentor, you will need to prioritize the projects you still need to fin-
ish, the pieces of the project you may be taking with you, and the parts of
the projects that will continue without you, thus necessitating coordination
in handing it off to others. Additionally, the start date of your new job may
preclude you from seeing any papers in the pipeline you have (co-)authored
to the finish line. If you plan to stay in academia, you may be able to negoti-
ate with your new department chair time to submit, revise, and publish your
postdoc papers so that they may count toward grants and possibly tenure.
If you are moving to an industry position or any other sector, you might
have to do the final steps on your own time or hope that your mentor and
lab mates will complete the process without you. I can say with experience
that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to publish a paper when you are no
longer in the lab. Therefore, my advice is to either finish everything before
you leave or reconcile with the fact that this particular part of your work may
never be published.
There are many reasons to be on good terms during your transition and to
remain so after your exit. You will continue to need references for future jobs
and promotions as well as having allies in grant and peer review. The advan-
tage of not burning bridges (even with a rough exit) is that you can maintain,
and perhaps enhance, your professional reputation while also leaving open
Negotiating Your Exit 105

the prospect of collaborating as colleagues later on. It is this collegiality and


sense of community born from the evolution of the mentor–mentee relation-
ship to one of relative equals that drive the scientific enterprise more than
anything else.
Index

A Applications and job postings, 75


job postings, 76
Academic cover letter, 78
stretch positions and multiple
Academic faculty offer, 102–103
applications, 76
Academia/industry career tracks, 33–34
struggles and strategy, 75–76
Accountable goal, 31
Authentic/authenticity, 12, 39, 44, 54, 71,
Accurate/inspiring story, 44
75, 76, 79, 92, 95, 96
Achievable goal, 30
Action, 92–93, 95
Activating your network, 67 B
Advice on application materials, 75
applications and job postings (see Becoming a storyteller, 91–92
Applications and job postings) crafting P-A-R stories, 92–93
cover letters, 77 P-A-R matrix, 93–94
crafting, 78–79 P-A-R practice, 94
struggles and strategy, 77–79 sharing negative experiences, 94–95
crafting the résumé/CV, 79 Building new skills, 53–54
anatomy of, 84–88 Building your reputation, 57–59
how CV/résumé are read, 82 Build transferable skills, 59–60
organizational and formatting
conventions, 83–84
C
pedigree, padding and
publications, 80 Cancer, 7–8
purpose impacts style, 80–82 Career, 20, 98
understanding your, 79 Career transition, 61, 75
statements of research and Career transition readiness, 65
teaching, 88 activating your network, 67
academic research proposal, common ground, 67–68
88–89 contact points, 68–69
teaching philosophy, 89 integrating networking, research,
Analysis paralysis, 37–38 and life, 70–71
Anatomy of CV/résumé, 84–88 knowing when to leave, 65
awards section, 86 launching your job search, 72–74
collaborations section, 87 navigating an unknown process,
education section, 85 65–67
leadership and service experience “the talk” with your mentor, 71–72
section, 86 Changing trajectory via data points, 27
presentations, patents and Clueless to clarity, 3–10
publications sections, 86–87 Common ground, 67–69
research experience section, 85 Common struggles and successful
teaching experience/mentoring strategy, interview prep,
experience section, 87 95–96
technical expertise section, 85–86 Communicating productivity, 24

107
108 Index

Considering and negotiating offer, meeting expectations, 48


101–102 their expectations, 48
academic faculty offer, 102–103 your expectations, 47–48
Contact points, 68–69 Executive level administration, 34
Convergence of skills, interests and
values, 28–29
F
Cost of living, 22–23
Cover letters, 77 The face-to-face interview, 98–99
crafting the, 78–79 Faculty mentor, 13, 18, 20, 23–24, 49–50
struggles and strategy, 77–79 Fear of “throwing away” your PhD, 42
COVID pandemic, 69–70 Finding strength through struggle,
Crafting P-A-R stories, 92–93 3–10
Crafting the résumé/CV, 79 Following up, speaker via email, 70
anatomy of, 84–88 Fortitudinous steps goal, 31
how CV/résumé are read, 82 Framing your training, 55–56
organizational and formatting
conventions, 83–84
G
pedigree, padding and
publications, 80 Gaining independence, 26
purpose impacts style, 80–82 Getting a job, multiple career paths,
understanding your, 79 33–34
Create a postdoc trajectory, 26–27 Gratitude and follow-up, 99–100
Creating a productive environment,
23–24
H
Current/future postdoc fellow, 12
CV/résumé hybrid document, 80–82 Harvard Medical School (HMS), 9–10
Hiring process, 19, 84
Human Resources and Employee
D
Development and Wellness
Defining success, 25–26 Office, 39
Developing plans and accomplishing Hybrid document, 80–82
goals
contemplating the steps, 29–30
I
planning and goal setting, 30
SMART AF goals, 31–32 Ideal job search process, 73–74
Developing your network, 67–68 Imposter syndrome, 43–44
Do your homework, 97 Integrating networking, research and
life, 70–71
International awareness, 23
E
International office, 23, 39
Employee Assistance Program (EAP), 39 Interview performance, 96–97
Environment training, 23–24 Interview preparation, 91
Envisioning the endpoint becoming a storyteller, 91–92
changing trajectory via data crafting P-A-R stories, 92–93
points, 27 P-A-R matrix, 93–94
create a postdoc trajectory, 26–27 P-A-R practice, 94
defining success, 25–26 sharing negative experiences,
Establishing ground rules and 94–95
expectations, 47 do your homework, 97
Index 109

face-to-face interview, 98–99 professional development, 52


performance, 96–97 build new skills, 53–54
struggles and successful strategies, postdoc skills and competencies,
95–96 52–53
Negative self-imagery, 44
Negotiating your exit
J
considering and negotiating offer,
Job postings, 76 101–102
academic faculty offer, 102–103
“the talk” with your mentor, 103–104
K
timing your exit, 104
Knowing when to leave, 65 wrapping up, 104–105
Network/networking, 6–7, 37, 58, 65,
67–71
L
Normalizing struggle and failure, 42–43
Launching your job search, 72–74
Lessons learned, 95
O
Ombuds office, 39
M
Optimistic future-focused self-
Maintaining progress, 32–33 advocacy, 44
Managing your inner dialogue, 43–44
Manuscripts in preparation, 87
P
Measurable goal, 30
Meeting expectations, 48 Padding, 80
Mentor, 71–72, 87 Pain points, 37–38
Mentoring up and self-advocacy, 51–52 P-A-R matrix, 93–94
Mentorship and individual P-A-R practice, 94
development plans (IDPs), Path to independence, 55
49–51 building your reputation, 57–59
Molecular biology/biotechnology, 3–4 build transferable skills, 59–60
Multifaceted network, 69 framing your training, 55–56
Multiple career paths, 33–34 preparing for the next step, 60
structuring your preparation,
61–62
N
understanding your priorities, 55
Navigating an unknown process, your training efforts, 56–57
65–67 PhDs and postdocs career options, 34
Navigating through your postdoc Postdoc job search, 19–20
establishing ground rules and interview, 20–21
expectations, 47 location, 22–23
meeting expectations, 48 mentor, 20
their expectations, 48 PhD transition, 22
your expectations, 47–48 Postdoc needs and worries, 40
mentoring up and self-advocacy, Postdoc office/association, 39
51–52 Postdoc pain/pivot points, 37–38
mentorship and individual needs and worries, 40
development plans (IDPs), tough environment, 38–40
49–51 Postdoc position, 17–18, 20
110 Index

Postdoc process, 25; see also individual Result, 92–93, 95


entries Rule of three, 92–93
Postdoc protocol, 11, 25
developing plans and accomplishing S
goals
contemplating the steps, 29–30 Self-assessment and reflection, 27
planning and goal setting, 30 assessing your situation, 28–29
SMART AF goals, 31–32 Self-awareness, 28, 29, 43, 44, 57, 75
envisioning the endpoint Sharing negative experiences, 94–95
changing trajectory via data Situational awareness, 37
points, 27 imposter syndrome, 43–44
create a postdoc trajectory, 26–27 postdoc pain/pivot points, 37–38
defining success, 25–26 needs and worries, 40
getting a job tough environment, 38–40
multiple career paths, 33–34 resilience and mental wellness, 44–46
maintaining progress, 32–33 stopping the negativity spiral, 41–42
self-assessment and reflection, 27 fear of “throwing away” your
assessing your situation, 28–29 PhD, 42
Postdoc skills and competencies, 52–53 normalizing struggle and failure,
Postdoc skills outlook, 18 42–43
Potential job search sequence, 73 SMART AF goals, 31–32
Preparing for the next step, 60 Some advice on application materials, 75
Problem, 92–93, 95 Specific goal, 30
Problem, actions and results (P-A-R), 92 Statements of research and teaching, 88
Professional decision academic research proposal, 88–89
creating a productive environment, statement of teaching philosophy, 89
23–24 Stealth network, 71
overview, 17 Stopping the negativity spiral, 41–42
postdoc job search, 19–20 fear of “throwing away” your PhD, 42
interview, 20–21 normalizing struggle and failure, 42–43
location, 22–23 Stretch positions and multiple
mentor, 20 applications, 76
PhD transition, 22 Structuring your preparation, 61–62
postdoc/not postdoc, 17–18 Struggles and strategy of application,
Professional development, 52 75–76
build new skills, 53–54 Successful postdoc, 25–26
postdoc skills and competencies, 52–53 Support systems, 71–72

T
R
“The talk” with your mentor, 71–72,
Reach/skillsets, 76 103–104
Reality and impression trajectory, 26 timing your exit, 104
Red/green flags, 21 wrapping up, 104–105
Relevant goal, 30 Their expectations, 48
Research and professional integrity Time-bound goal, 30
office, 40 Timing your exit, 104
Research enterprise improvement, 15 Title IX and gender equity office, 40
Resilience and mental wellness, 44–46 Tough postdoc environment, 38–40
Index 111

Training, 19–20, 66 W
Training and career offices, 14
Wrapping up, 104–105

U
Y
Underrepresented groups (URGs), 38
Understanding your priorities, 55 Your expectations, 47–48
US-centric convention, 84 Your training efforts, 56–57

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