Replies

• Maxine Clarke

  24 July 2008 | 15:29

  Yes, Caryn, people do come in for work experience and other short-term projects. I suggest you write to the HR department in New York, or the journal office there which is closest to your interests, with your CV, dates available, particular interests, and so on. You will find the relevant e-mail addresses either at the working at NPG website, or via a journal’s home page.

• Caryn Shechtman

  25 July 2008 | 13:01

  Thank you Maxine!

• Wen Jiang

  25 July 2008 | 17:09

  Dear Maxine,

  I also had a similar question in mind as well. Do the different Nature Journals use the same HR office? Or should we look for the contact information for each specific journal?

  Thank you.

  Wen

• Jennifer Henry

  14 August 2008 | 17:59

  Bear in mind that it is also possible to enter the publishing stream rather than pure editorial. before joining NPG in New York at the start of 2008, I was a content editor for a large plant sciences journal based in Australia. This was my PhD topic before becoming an editor, so I was quite comfortable handling manuscripts up to the point of the accept/reject decision.

  Over my eight years as an editor there, I picked up two more titles, where I did not handle content so mich, but rather handled the business aspects of the journal (co-ordinating budget, marketing, distribution etc. with those teams). This led to my current role as a Publishing Manager with responsibility for a range of biomedical titles. I love the job and still can’t wait to get to work each day (amazing after 9 years!).

• Maxine Clarke

  22 August 2008 | 08:49

  To Wen: NPG has two HR offices, one in London and one in New York. All current vacancies for all of the journals are posted on the same web page, which is here, but each position is handled by one of the two HR offices depending on the site of the advertised vacancy.

• Robert Olinski

  02 September 2008 | 10:05

  Dear Maxine,

  Bronwen Dekker from Nature Protocols kindly suggested to contact you with my question.
  I am Post-doctoral fellow in Japan and I would like to know whether Nature provides a training for new coming editors (in which offices offices in NYC, London, Tokyo)? Does the magazine organize a professional “nuts and bolts course” for a scientist who has never worked as a professional journalist/reporter?
  I know that I am trained to have a critical eye on published research articles and often I was asked to correct the language or edit the
  manuscripts of my lab-mates; I was asked to perform some reviews from other journals, etc.; but still I think that this may not be sufficient training in order to enter Nature world of publishing.
  Can you provide me a guidance on this subject?
  Thank you for replying.

• Maxine Clarke

  02 September 2008 | 11:01

  Dear Robert
  Thanks for your message. I am afraid Nature does not offer a training course for people interested in becoming editors. Our usual practice is to recruit people with excellent scientific credentials, then we train them in editing after they start their new post with us.
  The most important skills for a potential editor are to be fascinated by science, to understand it, and to be good at communication (particularly written communication).
  You can certainly develop editing skills by writing (eg freelance articles, a blog), doing what you are doing now (editing articles by yourself and colleagues) and so on.
  As you may know, journalist jobs are if anything even more competitive than editor jobs. I am not directly involved in this part of Nature, but I am sure you would need to have published articles (on a freelance basis, perhaps) to be shortlisted as a journalist at Nature. But the news team has a rolling internship programme (separate from the NPG internship programme) which you might like to watch out for (news internships are advertised in Nature when they come up).

• Robert Olinski

  03 September 2008 | 01:42

  Dear Maxine,
  Thank you for indeed helpful reply.
  /Robert