Postdocs: Doing Your Job is not Enough
My Ph.D. mentor would wistfully tell me that being a postdoctoral fellow was the happiest time in his scientific training. I took that to heart and his influence has similarly colored my outlook. Graduate training can be challenging because of its uncertain timeline, relatively low compensation (compared to peers going straight into the job market), and the ever-present feeling of sunk cost that discourages one from simply walking away when the going gets tough. Additionally, there is often no discernible light at the end of the tunnel, even after 3-4 years in. On the other hand, the postdoc is a minted PhD, an exceptionally highly educated individual, which helps alleviate some impostor syndrome. At most institutions, the postdoctoral fellow is treated more like an actual job than for the graduate student. Having scraped by towards the end of my Ph.D. with a child in daycare, the modest pay increase as a postdoc felt tremendously satisfying. The postdoc is hired with research productivity to the lab in mind, sparking the opportunity to focus solely on the research endeavors, without the external obligations required of the faculty scientist.
As with much of my academic education, I did not enter my postdoc with much expectation as to how it would transition into a career. About 6 months before my Ph.D. defense, my mentor told me he suggested my name to our department's recently recruited faculty member. In retrospect, I know now that the ‘ideal’ postdoc would be to train at a different institution than their Ph.D. education. The common belief is that changing institutions reflects better on the postdoc to have a diverse training record, with the postdoc lab being one ideally of higher reputation. This postdoc position was at my same institution, merely in a different lab. Still, it appealed to me for pragmatic reasons: I had already spent 2.5 years on a waitlist for a good parking spot and 1.5 years for a place for my daughter in the university daycare. Also, the research scope was interesting, and, most importantly, it was what my PhD mentor recommended that I do! I say this with a little tongue in cheek since you should be ultimately making your life decisions; but honestly, a good mentor will have your best interests in mind and try to set you up on a good next step. In my head, I thought that surely, this would be a nice way to get a job right out of my Ph.D., having had a hectic last year finishing up my degree, then have the breathing space to figure out what I would do ‘when I grow up’ (why do I still feel like I am growing up though? LOL).
I was so excited to win the best presentation award at my department’s retreat. It was my first inkling that I could actually do this, though it came in year 3 of my 8-year postdoc.
I am a case study in that you need not make all the ‘right moves’ to transition from postdoc to faculty. In fact, I was certain I had not made those right moves, and I really did not consider the end goal of being a faculty at all during my postdoc training. I do have a certain degree of survivor’s guilt, as there is both anecdotal evidence as well as published literature indicating that the odds of making the jump are in fact very low. I recognize that I was very fortunate because I liked my postdoc job and was able to stay fairly productive. This can be outside one’s control, such as the care of family members or the limited funding support available from a lab’s budget. But there are things that are within one’s control, and you should implement these practices into your postdoc. Quite frankly, doing your postdoc is not enough. There should be an evolution occurring within you professionally, the goal of which is developing mastery as a scientist, demonstrated by a poise and skillset of a professional scientist. My 3 tips:
Every day at work should have a goal. “Do what you love and you never have to work a day in your life.” Well, you can love science, but this is still your job, and likely you would not do it for free. Hopefully, you have been developing a practice in productivity and disciplined habits as a graduate student, which enabled you to complete your Ph.D. But for many individuals, you could coast on the direction of a good mentor, who recognizes that you are still learning to be a scientist. Now, you are expected to be a scientist, which means you must take ownership of your daily work. Whether you have a specified task or develop your own project, you should enter every workday with a goal in mind: this could include an experiment at the bench, analysis of recently-acquired data, or focused reading or writing tasks. I avoid multi-tasking experiments unless they are tiny chunks of effort that can fit within one day without interfering with your focus. I refer to this as a practice of “not tripping on your way to the finish line.” Ideally, plan at least a work week at a time, so you can optimize your ability to reach your short and long-term research objectives. A high level of planning is especially critical for those with family care duties who cannot just spend unspecified hours on campus. If making plans and optimizing your workday are novel to you, there are many great resources, such as professor and blogger Cal Newport.
Be a problem-solver. Now that I am a faculty member, I can appreciate the staggering amount of tasks that require one’s attention in running a lab. I am highly appreciative of the ability to delegate, and my Christmas dream come true is if someone could solve a problem without my interference. I recognize that this is not a requirement—I trained a long time to get to this point, so it is foolish for me to expect everyone else to instantly obtain my own experiences. But as a postdoc, you should be sharpening your independent problem-solving abilities An instrument has broken down and you can’t run your experiment? Perhaps you can do a hard restart, look up the issue on a search engine, or call the manufacturer. A bonus to taking such ownership is that you can become familiar with the scientific vendors, and those relationships could be useful someday if you are interested in technical or sales jobs down the line. Someone used up a critical reagent and you can’t do your experiment? Instead of complaining, discuss ordering a backup with the lab manager, talk with your teammates, or just plan to check all your needed reagents a few days before a given critical experiment. Do you see that the way an experiment is run makes the results variable? Do some reading, talk to people working in other labs, and see if you can suggest a new technique to your supervisor. Your postdoctoral fellowship is the time to realize that things in the lab have been set up by the supervisor to the best of their ability, but that they are counting on you to continue to make the lab better.
Develop relationships with faculty who are not your supervisor. The lab becomes your work home, and as the postdoc you become a little prince, as your supervisor is usually busy outside of the lab. The other trainees look to you for wisdom, and you help set the lab culture. But you should not limit your scientific interactions to your peers and juniors. Get comfortable making small talk with other faculty in your department, and let them know what you are up to. They may be useful allies in the future, whether you need a recommendation or an ‘in’ to some opportunity. They were also once trainees as well, and are in academic positions presumably to be mentors, and as they have no stake in your work can be sources of encouragement and advice. Assist in the work needed for your mentor’s collaborations, especially with labs at other institutions, volunteer to present the work your team is collecting, and become a recognizable face. Working on my postdoc supervisor’s collaborations was tremendously helpful in developing relationships with faculty who could speak to my work and character. Many of those individuals later wrote letters of recommendation for me. Towards the end of my postdoc, I was bold enough to try to position myself seated near faculty members at meetings and events, rather than retreating to the safety of sitting with my peers. I wanted them to get to know me, so that they would be happy to assist me in my goals, and overall to see me as having the potential of being their colleague someday. Building your academic network is a process at all stages of your professional development- you should not wait until you are a supervisor yourself.
I see many postdocs now, and it appears that most are there because they are highly motivated and that they all have the aptitude to do good work. To continue progress towards a leadership role, whether in academia or industry, you need to not only continue your scientific journey but more importantly, be honing your professional mindset as well. While a postdoc’s role is to generate data for their supervisor’s vision, this is your chance to also be a little selfish, as you have the exceptional opportunity to develop your soft skills without the responsibility of running the lab. So keep these tenets in mind—productivity, self-reliance, and relationships—and you will continue to build your training and make the transition to your desired career.