Over at the New York Blog, Caryn Shechtman discusses her experiences and thoughts after a recent career advisory fair. As is typical of these, Caryn points out the discussion was steered primarily towards to the academic career search. I think that’s sad, but common, and it makes it very hard for young scientists to grasp the possibilities offered away from the bench. This Post developed as a comment at Caryn’s blog.
Some of the things Caryn talked about are very near and dear to my heart; I’m an advisor to our Postdoc Office, and am developing a career development package with our Postdoc Advisory Council right now. I’m also an elected member of the Board of Directors of the National Postdoc Association, so believe me when I say I take the thesis of training and mentoring junior scientists very seriously. I made the decision to leave the bench last year, and it wasn’t easy. Part of that is the cultural dynamic that if you can’t make it to faculty, you’re a failure. This is a pervasive and pernicious untruth.
There are between 60-90,000 postdoc scientists in the US, and only ~20% will go on to become full time tenure track faculty at major/tier 1 research institutions. About 60% of that 60-90,000 say they want a FT-TT position. Spot the disconnect? the biggest reason for this gap is not the quality of scientists nowadays as some assert, it’s just that there aren’t enough jobs: an increasing candidate pool coupled with a lengthening age-of-retirement.
It is especially vital nowadays that young scientists formulate and focus their career aspirations early on, in order to be as competitive as possible when the time comes to take the next steps in their career. Here on Nature Network there’s a very nurturing environment that can be incredibly useful as a career guidance resource. We have senior faculty who blog and post regularly (c.f. Brian; Stephen), as well as those of us who have moved away from the bench (Noah, Anna & HG are three Naturites, as well as Eva, Sara & Cath), those moving away from the bench (RPG) and those went away and then moved back again (Jenny Rohn).
As a PhD student you have a different set of concerns than you will as a postdoc (if that’s where you go). But now is a great time to think about where you want to steer your career and start building that into your program. If you want to go onto a traditional postdoc the path is fairly clean, but if not, what other skills might you need in the “real world”. and that argument extends to postdocs who find themselves looking at non-bench jobs for whatever reason. You have to find a way to encourage your mentor to help you develop, or find ways to develop, alternative skills.
The best western blot in the world is no good if you want to work for the Discovery Channel as a science advisor!
Here at UTHSC I work closely with our Postdoc Office in developing schemes to get our postdocs any additional training they might require. Do you need teaching skills, communication skills, editing skills, writing skills? What else?
It can be hard breaking down the traditional barriers, especially if your PI is of the opinion that your hourly productivity is the sole determinant of his/her future success (a common fallacy). Making the moves can be emotionally challenging too.
As Christie says in her close, “it seems you just have to put yourself out there, try your best, and hope you get the job.” True, but maximise your chances for success by developing an Individual Development Plan (IDP) and putting together a mentoring committee to help you define, plan for and reach your goals. Then it doesn’t have to be such “a random and try-as-you-go process”.
Funny, we had the IDP seminar today in our “post doc appriciation weeks” :) Self assesment is not as easy as I would want it to be but it was a good bunch of papers with skills, interest etc working up to the “what do I want to become and how do I plan to get there”.
Nice post Ian. A couple of immediate (superficial?) thoughts, for those aiming for a research career. For PhD students – your project need not lock you into a particular field/method of enquiry – concentrate on learning new skills (inc. learning how to learn). For postdocs – choose a ‘good looking’ university or college and a project that will get you publications.
Oh, and it just gets harder and harder as you get older, even with tenure.
Great blog!… thanks for the tips!
Well Ian, now that I see I can inspire a blog post, maybe I always can have a career as a motivational speaker, should science not work out:)
But really, that is great advice. I will have to decide on my next step (a.k.a. postdoc) in the next year and a half, so I will definitely spend some time thinking about my career path and what skills I want to gain from my postdoc.
I will probably come to you looking for advice!
a project that will get you publications
Is there a way to talk to the project beforehand, to see if it will be willing to cooperate with your career aspirations? ;)
I’m glad the post went down well (so far…Ed.)
The NPA magazine, The Postdocket, has a long running career guidance series, written by Prof. Jeff Townsend at Yale. It makes for some good reading. The first in the series coincides with the beginning of my tenure as Associate Editor; Spring 2008.
@Caryn: Always happy to offer advice/a shoulder to cry on :D
@Christian: Don’t trust ‘em!! I had a nice chat with mine and it said, "ooh, don’t you worry love. There’s two or three in here, at least one in a high profile journal." A mentor with different ambitions to mine thought otherwise…
I contribute to the Alternative Scientist careers blog, and last year wrote a post about how to start preparing for an alternative (non-research) career while still in the lab. (Hey, at least it’s an on-topic link!)
LMAO, nice plug Cath!
I daren’t “plug” with a link now, Ian, after that comment ;-) But there is the big annual UK science and science-related careers’ fair, The Source Event, which has a forum on NN (run by Nature Jobs). Simon Frantz from the Nobel Foundation gave a talk last year about alternative careers and took suggestions on NN beforehand about topics people would like covered. One of our editors went along also, to talk to delgates interested in science publishing careers.
In my time at Nature I’ve seen people come and go in both directions – I think it is more common to leave research and stay out of research, rather than do as Jenny has done, but I have certainly known editors to go back into research after a stint at Nature (“runs screaming back to lab” kind of thing). Training as a scientific editor or publisher is an interesting intermediate steop for many scientists, I think, because you can train to be an editor without experience of any other career apart from being a scientist (eg undergrad, PhD student or postdoc). You can then use your editor training to go on to other things – eg science policy, journalism and other types of authorship, management, administration, conference programming, all kinds of professions.
@Maxine: You can then use your editor training to go on to other things – eg science policy, journalism and other types of authorship, management, administration, conference programming, all kinds of professions.
That’s exactly why I looked at science editorial positions. I think it would have been a stepping stone into the policy/management/advocacy side of the business. Once I really understood, and having interviewed at Nature Neuroscience, I realised I should side-step and take a more direct approach (nice mixed metaphor… Ed.)
So you managed to skip out a step, and acquire all the necessary knowledge via the interview process, thus saving yourself the two or three years of the intermediate job – clever. Why didn’t I think of that?
Cos I am a geeeeeeeniououuus!!!
…and way too much of a soft touch to make it as an editor :)
way too much of a soft touch to make it as an editor
Deep under our cruel heartless exteriors we all just want to be loved. Go hug an editor today.
But seriously … many years ago when the world was young and the Gee was just some farty graduate student, my funding body (the Science and Engineering Research Council), in the full knowledge that most of its grant recipients wouldn’t stay in research, sent a lot of us to the University of Surrey for a few days to open our research-blinded eyes to other careers such as marketing, advertising, and journalism. This was more than a careers fair, it was
a way of lifea thoroughly intensive course involving team building, role-playing games, the whole bit. It was a blast. We worked hard and long, and got blind drunk in the evenings, and I made useful contacts in journalism which certainly opened doors (by that time I was sniffing around Nature, you see).My advice to anyone offered such an experience by their funding body would be to jump in with both hands, seize it with both feet, or combinations of the above.
That’s a brilliant idea! One of my fellow Board members is looking to approach the new head of the NIH to see about getting some funding for things like this. But at a local level it would certainly be doable…
If you want me to help out, Ian, you know where I am
Third Park Bench from the Left
East Beach Promenade
Cromer
Norfolk
This was more than a careers fair, it was a way of life a thoroughly intensive course involving team building, role-playing games, the whole bit.
Henry> Sounds awesome. Both fun and useful, just what one needs.
Ian> we’ve had our first week of post doc apprication week and next week it keeps coming. It’s been basicly one lecture/even a day with a panel discussion about “alternative careers”, “self assessment of your skills and interest” and a recruiter talking about “recruitment industry” (I learned a lot of things that I haven’t thought about before… really some things were just too strange) and next week it will be a bit about “how to start as a new faculty” and other useful things.
No “career fair” though but so far I have a goody feeling about the resources. Then the only thing left is to have time to rewrite that resume, look for all these different kinds of jobs, decide what I want to do etc…. all while my bacteria grow in the background I am sure.
I think we might talk a bit about this over a beer or so :)
Interesting and important.
‘There are between 60-90,000 postdoc scientists in the US, and only ~20% will go on to become full time tenure track faculty at major/tier 1 research institutions. About 60% of that 60-90,000 say they want a FT-TT position.’
Which means that the approximately 40% of that 60-90-000 say they don’t. So, either they embarked upon their Ph.D. as a means to another end – or they’ve become disillusioned very early; which is also unfortunate, I think.
@HG: I’ll bring cocoa & a tot of whisky
@Asa: I’m meeting some of your PDAC tonight to talk about this and other things :)
@Lee: It’s an interesting part of the demographic isn’t. How many became disillusioned? How many got a PhD & postdoc for other reasons? The latter might be increasingly common and that’s another group. All of us know someone who got a PhD but “shouldn’t”. A faculty friend of mine just had to release a grad student who clearly, and self-admittedly, doesn’t even want to be in grad school (couldn’t get into Med School, doesn’t want a ‘real job’). I have lawyer friends who did law school purely as a stepping stone into management and politics. I think that group will grow to fill a niche. We need to offer training to those grad students and postdocs who follow this path.
goodness, that’s a bit of sobering post, seeing as..I haven’t really seriously considered what I would do after grad school. Thanks for posting the advice and tips!
Thank you, Ian. Highland Park, 22-year-old, please.
@Linda: I think one big part of the “issue” is that few of us do soberly consider what we will do once we have our degree. I, like most of my peers, assumed I would do a postdoc or two and then open my own lab somewhere… It was much later, and much too late some might say, that I saw the folly of my naivete.
Brooks> Sounds like a good plan. Good luck and have fun! Hope you get good ideas/advice/suggestions.
@Henry: I was aiming more at a bottle of Teachers, or even a few cans of Special Brew. We can get drunk and flash passers by. That way we get to spend a nice warm night in the cells at Cromer Police station. They even give you a cup of tea before kicking you out the following morning.
…so I’m told…
Ian, I agree. But I’ve long wondered whether we could temper the inevitable disappointment for the many who do want to be scientists, but will still get squeezed out early, no matter how good and dedicated, by employing them from the off.
Nice post Lee. I agree with you to an extent, benefits et al. would be ace. But if we don’t give those to postdocs what hope for grad students? It would be too expensive (is the argument) to make postdocs regular employees. I also hear tosh from to time that making postdocs employees would encourage a more 9-5 attitude and that science would suffer a result. I have to bite my tongue at that, as senior faculty seem to think that we’re an inherently lazy and disingenuous bunch…
Postdocs are cheap slave labor.
Grad Students are cash cows bringing in much needed tuition money.
There is no incentive to change the system…and there in lies the rub.