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Mentoring Forum |
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Selecting Your First Postdoctoral Position |
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Set Your Goals The first and most important question to ask yourself is where do you see yourself in 10-15 years time? If you are considering a postdoctoral position within the conventional university setting, then it is likely that you see yourself as a tenure-track or tenured faculty member with a mixed load of research, teaching, and administrative responsibilities. You are probably fully aware of the problems associated with such a position (dependence on external funding, heavy teaching loads, extensive committee assignments), from observing your current thesis advisor and other faculty members in your department. However, one would hope that you also feel the great satisfaction that comes from doing laboratory science, i.e., testing and proving an hypothesis, trouble-shooting experimental problems, and having a manuscript submitted for publication. This is why your choice of postdoctoral mentor can be so important; at best this person will continue to foster and encourage your efforts towards your chosen career, and will have your best interests at heart; at worst he/she will be indifferent to your career goals and will be chiefly focused on their own success. Selecting a Mentor So, having thought about your future goals and having decided that you do indeed want to pursue a career in academic science, you now need to select a mentor. You should by now have had sufficient exposure to science to be excited by a particular area of research, which may or may not be related to your current thesis project. Make a realistic appraisal of your own skills, abilities, and accomplishments and factor this into your decision. What new skills and techniques do you want to learn? Take into account your publication record, which is important even at the level of a senior graduate student. Many, if not all, graduate programs require the publication of one to two manuscripts prior to graduation, so you should have something to show for the time spent in graduate school in addition to your thesis. Good mentors will encourage their postdoctoral fellows and even graduate students to apply for independent funding, either through the NIH NRSA mechanism or through charitable foundations, and it is far more likely that these applications will be successful if you are able to convince the reviewers of your ability to carry out a project using the evidence of prior publications in peer-reviewed journals. Finding Potential Laboratories It is common for people to take postdoctoral positions in laboratories run by colleagues/friends of their thesis advisor who work in related fields, or with individuals they have met either at scientific meetings or while that individual was visiting their institution. However, do not be put off from applying for a position in an area unrelated to your thesis work if that is what interests you; over the course of your PhD you will have acquired an easily transferable skill set and most prospective mentors will be willing to consider individuals with little project specific experience. Further-more, do not allow yourself to be pushed in to taking a position because it is convenient or because someone else thinks you should; you should have enough laboratory experience by now to realize that if you are working in an area or situation to which you are not committed, your research will quickly become tedious and uninteresting to you. Not being confined intellectually also extends to geographical locations. Many prospective postdoctoral fellows are restricted in their choice of location for their next job by family or other concerns. If you are fortunate enough that this does not apply to you, consider also the possibility of pursuing a postdoctoral fellowship outside of the country. If you speak a second language, your choice might be easier, but even if not, it is easier to function in a foreign country both in and out of the laboratory setting than you probably anticipate. While not always the case, the majority of graduate students will leave their thesis lab in order to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship elsewhere. What about staying in your current lab or institution? The motivation for doing this could be to complete a long-term study or because you are very committed to the research done in that particular lab. If funding is available and the mentor is willing, this can be a very comfortable option and for some people it may be the best; however, you should think again about your position 10 or 15 years in the future; what additional skills or techniques will you learn by staying in your current lab? Is there really nothing you would learn by moving elsewhere? Your PhD mentor may want you to stay on for a short time to finish experiments, write a paper or to teach an incoming lab member a technique. In general, this is rarely a problem, but in this case, you should have a clear idea of how long a period is involved. Consider the Laboratory What other factors should you consider when choosing a postdoctoral laboratory? As it is likely that you will be asked to visit the prospective mentor and to give a short talk based on your thesis work, you should get the opportunity to visit the laboratory and to talk to the other post-docs and graduate students. Consider the size of the lab; is this a small lab of three to four people or are there many post-docs and students? In some large labs multiple post-docs might work on the same project—-if this seems to be the case, do they have well-demarcated areas of responsibility or is there a lot of overlap? This latter situation can lead to an unpleasant and highly competitive working environment. Will you be the only post-doc in a lab with several graduate or undergraduate students? In this scenario, you may end up spending more time supervising and trouble-shooting student projects rather than working on your own research. Do the students and post-docs regularly attend local, national or maybe even international meetings to present their work either orally or in poster format? Do they have the opportunity to present their work in house? Do the people in the lab seem to get along well? Are there lab activities in which everyone participates (parties, picnics, film nights, ski-days etc.), or does there seem to be little social interaction? Remember, that you are going to be spending many of your waking hours with these individuals! Most importantly, do the other people in the lab seem to be enjoying what they are doing? Are they happy, confident, do they talk enthusiastically about their projects? Or do they seem stressed and depressed? Would you be excited to work there? Consider the Mentor Consider the mentor him/herself. Obviously you would want to work with someone with whom you can connect and by whom you are not intimidated. Is the prospective mentor a full professor with a solid track-record or a newly appointed assistant professor? In the first case, the laboratory environment is likely to be stable, the projects clearly focused, and all required equipment/techniques will be on hand. In the latter case, the laboratory environment may not be so established and publication rate may be slower, but it could be a very exciting opportunity and will provide hands-on experience of establishing a new lab that you can draw on when you are in a similar position. Does the mentor have time for you? If you like to interact closely with a mentor, working for a principle investigator who is a “star” may not be right for you, as that individual is likely to have a busy travel and administrative schedule. However, if you can work independently with little hands-on input from the PI, then such a position may be appropriate for you. On the other hand, a mentor that micro-manages the laboratory may make it difficult for you to work at all. Does the laboratory publish routinely in good journals? Or do they publish few papers but always in a high-impact journal? Or do they not publish much at all? Does the mentor give recognition and credit to the people in the laboratory when he/she is giving a talk? Is the mentor supportive of you applying for your own funding, or becoming involved in the teaching effort of the department? What are prior post-docs currently doing? Are they in independent academic positions, in other science-related fields or are they out of science altogether? Getting Advice If you have a good relationship with your thesis advisor, this person can be one of your greatest assets in selecting a postdoctoral position, and not just because he/she will be providing you with a letter of recommendation! It is likely that he/she may know the individual whom you are considering for your postdoctoral fellowship (if only by reputation) and will be able to offer you some insights as to the suitability of that position for you. If, for whatever reason you don’t want to broach this with your current thesis advisor, perhaps someone on your committee or another faculty member may be able to offer some advice. Your thesis advisor may not be fully supportive of your applying for a particular position; they may think that the work would be outside of your particular capabilities, may know something about that particular laboratory that you don’t or (rarely) it may even reflect their own personal prejudice against an individual or research area. However, they should explain the basis for their opinion; again you can always seek the advice of others concerning the suitability of a particular lab. Final Thoughts Clearly, not all of the points outlined above will apply to every mentor/postdoctoral fellow combination, but represent points that should be considered based on your own career goals and personal situation. The most important thing to consider is the project itself. If the topic you will be working on genuinely interests you and can sustain you during those sometimes long periods when “nothing works,” then the stage should be set for a successful first postdoctoral experience. To comment on this article, go to www.the-aps.org/careers/careers1/mentor/firstpostdoc.htm. |
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