{"id":386,"date":"2016-12-14T09:53:09","date_gmt":"2016-12-14T14:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ecologybits.com\/?p=386"},"modified":"2016-12-14T09:53:09","modified_gmt":"2016-12-14T14:53:09","slug":"how-not-to-get-a-postdoc-position","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ecologybits.com\/index.php\/2016\/12\/14\/how-not-to-get-a-postdoc-position\/","title":{"rendered":"How NOT to get a postdoc position"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day I was talking to a last-year PhD student about finding a postdoc position. I’ve written before about the various ways I’m aware of to get a postdoc position<\/a>, but in this conversation, I was recalling all the things I tried that were utter failures.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

My situation at the time was a tricky one. I had a three-year-old at the time, and my young family needed two incomes. If I couldn’t find a postdoc position, I’d have to get a job in industry, and for me that pretty much meant leaving ecology, which I didn’t want to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

I had missed most of the deadlines for the big national independent grants. The timeline on those is so slow that you have to apply more than a year before you need the money. I wasn’t on the ball for that, in part because I had been moving cross-country again<\/a> at the time, and in part because I wasn’t really sure exactly when I’d be finishing.<\/span><\/p>\n

One thought I had was to approach professors with similar interests and see if they had any money just lying around. I’d seen this sort of thing happen — or at least, I thought I had. A senior grad student comes and talks to Prof A and then a while later the student shows up as a postdoc. Poof!<\/span><\/p>\n

I was eager to move closer to family and it just happened that my advisor Dave was going to be spending some time at a university close to my in-laws. So I arranged to drive there to spend a couple days and set up meetings with a few professors at the university.<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember the first meeting I had with well-known Professor X. I went in and we exchanged a little chit-chat, and then I asked him what he was most excited about in his research. (Always a great question to get a professor talking, by the way.) I was familiar with what he had been doing, but was looking for where he saw his future directions. Part-way through the meeting, Dave arrived; he’d intended to be there for the whole thing, but had been delayed. After Professor X said a few things about what he was interested in, he asked me the same. I floundered. I hadn’t really thought too much about future directions, so I talked a bit about the projects I was working on, which didn’t, on the surface, seem to have much to do with Professor X’s interests. There were some awkward silences. Finally, a “nice meeting you.” I should say that Professor X was completely courteous and kind the whole time. But we definitely didn’t click.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Dave was quiet for most of the meeting, and after, when we had left, he looked at me and asked, “what were you doing?” I asked for clarification. And he explained that when you go and meet a future advisor, you’re not fishing for commonalities, like I was doing. Rather, you pitch ideas. You get the potential advisor excited about working with you because he or she is super excited about your idea.<\/span><\/p>\n

During that same trip, another well-known ecologist was giving a public seminar. He had done a postdoc at this university and his former advisor introduced him. The former advisor recalled that many years ago a grad student he didn’t know from another institution had asked to meet with him. When the grad student showed up, he was bursting with enthusiasm. He had a cool idea and the technical skills to answer a really important ecology question, while the to-become-postdoc-advisor had the perfect system. It was, in short, a great match.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that’s exactly what I should have been doing. Approaching potential postdoc advisors with an idea and presenting the combination of our skills, knowledge, and resources as the perfect match for answering a science question.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It’s not easy, of course. I was so focused on finishing my dissertation that I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about potential new research directions. And for me, my dissertation was so broad that it was difficult me for to figure out where I wanted to focus next. But several months later, I arranged to meet with more potential postdoc advisors at the annual ESA meeting. I think that those meetings went a little bit better, though none of them turned into a position. (Eventually, I found a postdoc position by responding to a job ad.) <\/span><\/p>\n

In general, I’ve seen that the people who get ahead in academic ecology are those who have a clear vision of what research they want to pursue and why it matters. As you finish your PhD, spend time thinking about a few possible future research directions. What do you want to discover? Why? And what will it take to make those discoveries?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day I was talking to a last-year PhD student about finding a postdoc position. I’ve written before about the various ways I’m aware of to get a postdoc position, but in this conversation, I was recalling all the things I tried that were utter failures.\u00a0 My situation at the time was a tricky … <\/p>\n

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