Being a good postdoc

I'm at a department now where I don't really have a group I plug cleanly into. There aren't undergrads and gradstudents who I share a PI or research program with. I'm also not here a lot. This has me thinking about what it means to be a good postdoc.  Being a postdoc is already a sort of limbo, both in academic roles, and in real life roles. This is me trying to make sense of this transitory phase. Your comments on the same are welcome.

My department went through an n-year review while I was in grad school. The evaluating committee gathered all the grad students into a room one day, and asked us about our experience.
"Are the post docs in the department a productive part of the community?"
Most of the room hemmed and hawed for a while, so I volunteered that the postdocs werea valuable part of the department social life, organizing pick up football games, or other social activities.
"That's nice, but we wanted to know about their academic contributions."
Someone else, whose advisor had a postdoc, verified that they were academically useful.

The evaluation committee at my graduate institution may not have valued the social and mentoring role of post docs, but I think that it can't be overlooked. Post docs remember what it was like to be a graduate student, and our experience, being more recent, is likely to be more similar to that of the grad students in the department, than those of professors who graduated a decade or more ago. We are more likely to be at a similar phase of life as graduate students, or at least at the "next phase" of life that graduate students are trying to plan navigating. I've seen friends in fields without a tradition of postdocs turn to young tenure track professors for this same role.

I remember asking professors in gradschool what being a postdoc was like, and I got very vague answers or anecdotes about postdocs that they learned a lot from. When I asked postdocs about the same, they told me that it was much like being a graduate student, but with less guidance from the mentor. My advisor, who also had/s a 2-body problem, told me about the fact that he and his wife moved every year for the first 10 years out of grad school, but conversations beyond that were not really possible. It was from the postdocs who came through our department for a year or two that I got  a perspective on what it is like to live such a transitory life.

My last year as a grad student, my advisor had a post doc. He knocked on my door a month before my defense.
"I was wondering if you'd like to speak in the knot tying seminar. We have some empty slots at the end of the term."
I look at my schedule and reluctantly agree. After the talk, he knocks on my door again with some good followup questions. We talk for a few weeks to see if there is a collaboration to be had. There isn't.

The academic role of a postdoc, working the in the main area of interest of a PI, who has lots of graduate students in the same area is relatively clear. I've never really found myself in that position, so I won't speak to it. Readers are welcome to fill in this gap.

What is the academic role of a postdoc who lives in the periphery of the interests of a department? Unlike previous positions, in this position I find that there are lots of people doing things that I am interested in, even though I am not actively involved in any of these areas. It's a little bit like living in an intellectual candy store. But other than showing up at seminars and asking questions, what can I do to be of service to the department?

• Topics courses: Teaching topics courses are a LOT of work. Be aware of this before you take this advice. However, teaching a course in your area of expertise, that is not the specialty of others in the department, is a great way to become one of those post docs that professors later talk about as someone they learned a lot from.
• Organizing in house seminars: This takes less work than teaching a topics course, but often requires having a PI or someone else with some clout in the department to kick some asses to get people to volunteer to talk. You may still end up giving several of the talks, but unlike a topics course, you won't be giving all of them.
• Volunteer to speak: Volunteer early to speak in one of the department's seminars. If you have a PI and a project that you fit in well with, your PI may already ask you to do this. But if you don't, and are hanging around the periphery, this is a good way to broadcast to others what you do. If there is a seminar series aimed at PhD students, give a short talk there as well. Then the students will also have an idea of what your general interests are, and will seek you out if they need help in something you may be an expert in. 

Having done some of these, and watched others do some of these, I need to emphasize that the earlier in ones position at a place one does any of these, the better. If people know the third week you arrive exactly what your expertise is in, the longer they have to think of you as the go-to person when a problem arises.

Hiring by the Numbers

Or, how regional difference make a big difference in the job hunt.

If there are job search lessons to be taken out of this post, they are:

• KNOW THE HIRING NORMS OF THE COUNRTY YOU ARE APPLYING TO! 
• GET PEOPLE YOU KNOW FROM THE COUNTRY OF APPLICATION TO SIT WITH YOU TO MAKE SURE YOU ARE COMING ACROSS THE RIGHT WAY!

Or, I suppose, you could be so good that it doesn't really matter how you present yourself. Your brilliance just shines through.

Over the last few months, I've been getting some much needed feedback on my applications, and I am being surprised by what I'm finding. Consider the following:

"Your CV makes you look like someone from the rope design and development department. When competing against other bridge makers for this position, it is really hard to advocate for a CV that looks like yours versus other CVs that come across our desk."

"But I make rope bridges. In the US, that lives in the Bridgemaking department." 

"I know, but the lines are different here. It does cause a good deal of confusion as well for applicants from here who are applying to departments in the US."

Okay. Good advice. I know how to make use of it, after a rejection from that position.

Then I have a conversation from a friend in a different setting who points out to me that my teaching and advising experience is not on my CV. Of course it isn't. That goes on the Teaching statement that is a standard supplement .... in .... the .... U... S.... 

I can't blame anyone but myself for this one. I know that for all the jobs I've been applying to, I've only been submitting my CV and a research plan. I know that my letters don't get read until late in the game. I know that my teaching experience makes me stand out from other applicants applying to a similar position. Why didn't I update my CV? 

Don't answer that.

Water under the bridge. A few more rejection letters have come and gone.

Then there's this:

 "You look like a decent candidate, but because of the rules of the upcoming review, the committee will be really looking for people who have X knots."

 Well, damn. This one is complicated. By the rules of the upcoming review, the university will consider the best Y knots I have, for Y<X. These Y knots are clearly marked on my CV. What is also marked (though maybe not so clearly) is one of the reasons I think I only need Y knots. But the main reason I only need Y knots is not mentioned at all on the CV. It is Epsilon.

So how do I communicate to the committee that I only need Y knots without talking about family? I had hoped that the picture of Epsilon on my webpage might be enough. But if the issue is that sometimes the faculty members on the hiring committee aren't abreast of all the details of the review, how do I make them aware? How many other places have seen my application, and not put two and two together to get Y?

I've settled on pointing out the Y knots again in my cover letter, and explaining why I expect that I will be evaluated on Y and not X. I hope that doesn't come across as bizarre. But this really emphasizes the need to know the system well, and how to make oneself look appealing to the constraints obvious and subtle.

Dear readers, if you happen to know what system I am talking about, and want to chime in with advice, I will eagerly accept it. Please do so privately, via barefootdoctoral@gmail.com. I will anonymise and post any useful feedback I get via e-mail in the comments section.

Useful trick for writing research statements

I spent Friday writing to a few letter writers about my current projects and directions I plan on going/ projects currently on the hopper. I'd meant for it to be a short e-mail detailing why I thought I was particularly good for a particular position that I'm currently excited about. 

I come up three hours later with what looks an awful lot like a draft of a research statement. But since this was a letter written to people I am very comfortable with, the e-mail flowed like a casual correspondence. This needs to be tightened up, and I need to cut and paste bits from old research plans I've written, but on the whole I think it is a good draft. 

I don't know if I'll be able to trick myself into writing like this for future job/grant applications. Maybe I can pretend to be writing a friend instead of composing a document for a scary process. 

When your talk time is cut in half

Several fellow speakers found out a couple weeks before the conference that our time had been shortened from 1 hour to 30 minutes. Some have been able to adjust admirably. Some, not so well. Here are a few lessons learned from both groups. First, what not to do:

• Fail to rewrite your talk and decide to speak twice as twice as fast. 
• Skip over examples and definitions to save time.
• When asked a question, say "No, that's not what I'm saying!" while pointing your forefinger at the questioner.
• Ignore the moderator when he/she tells your that your time is up, so you can get to the interesting results
• Stop abruptly at the end of a slide because the moderator tells you your time is up.
• Get frazzled by the lack of time, and fail attribute results properly (either to yourself or to other parts of the literature).
• Answer a question during your talk as "That's not pertinent to the main subject of my talk." If you are short on time, non-pertinent details should not appear.

Talks I've heard go successfully in this timing change share some of the following characteristics:

• Overview talks that don't focus on the details of a project, but give a general overview of a research program, along with key results.
• Lots of pictures/graphs of key information.
• Presentations stopped at the end of an interesting result, even if there were more results originally planned in the talk.

Non technical research proposal

I hate these. I really do. But I spent a good part of last week putting one together, and I've learned guessed a lot about what to put in, and what not to put in. You can google around and find different examples of these from different fields. Here are some of my favorites from Physics/material science, Medicine and Mathematics.

Why do I need to put myself through this ordeal? For the last 2 years, I've used this fellowship for postdoctoral women as an opportunity to polish my research statement, which has been a good exercise. However, it has wanted a NON-TECHNICAL research statement. Now several jobs I am looking for is asking for such a document. I've heard that many national science funding agencies in Australia require a non-technical research proposal. If you are an Australian reader (or other reader) with experience on this, I'd love to hear your 2 cents.

The most important common feature in the three statements above seems to be that I can understand what they are doing even though I'm not in their field. The panel of people sitting on these panels usually have PhDs, but not necessarily in your field. The proposals have a lot of "state then show" paragraphs, and many "for example" statements to make it accessible at this level.

On an initial reading, all of the research statements seem to be very applied. But looking through the publication list of the physicist and the mathematician, the research does not seem to be very applied. There seems to be a trick to going from the nose to the grindstone details of the work we do every day, to fitting it into the broader scheme of science. I think it is a bad idea for someone to make their research to be "sexy." I read a mathematician's statement that started out defining what the field of topology is, and gave an example of knot theory as an active field of research in topology. Then it said "While I do not study knot theory," and explained what related work the he/she does. This statement turned me off from their project. It seemed to me that this person was trying too hard to make their work sound interesting.

Finally, I don't think any of the good statements I read really got a chance to talk about what they do at a satisfying level. (I know I didn't. After a page of background, I had room for 1 sentence summaries of each of my papers.) But that seems to be what is desired. Unlike a technical research statement, the question is not "Is this person competent at their research?" It is "Can this person communicate well, and is their research interesting?" Information about the quality of one's research needs to come from letters of recommendation.
 

Advice from a post doc panel: Networking

I recently sat on a "looking for your post doc" panel. There was a lot said that was useful. This is my second post of selected questions and advice from the session. My first post is here.

I met a professor at a conference a couple months ago, and I would like to keep in touch with him/her so he/she doesn't forget me. But what should I say in this e-mail?

Do you have scientific content for this professor? If not don't write the e-mail. Some faculty members on the panel get 300 e-mails a day. If you don't have something interesting to say, you will probably be ignored. Worst case scenario, you may make a bad impression instead.

General advice about e-mailing professors?

If you do decide to e-mail a professor, keep it short.

If you had a scientific conversation with the person, he/she is likely to remember you years later when you are about to graduate and need a letter, with a little prodding about when/where you met and what you talked about. If you met the person over pizza and beer at a conference, he/she is less likely to remember you. In the former situation you should not hesitate to contact the person for a letter. Remembering you will not be the deciding factor in how they choose to respond.

When you do sign your name, put your FULL NAME down, as well as the name of your advisor. This is not about pedigree, but about putting yourself in context. That way if the professor needs a memory aid, they can look for your name at the appropriate institution, or have a good guess at the types of projects you may be interested in.

Have a webpage with your picture on it. This a good place for people to find your CV, papers, etc. It is also useful to those professors who are good with faces but not names.

How do I meet professors at conferences?

If a talk is interesting, but you don't have any well formed questions at the end of the hour, stand in the informal discussion group that often forms around the speaker at the end of the talk. Sometimes this discussion is at a lower level, and encourages questions. A student who is proactive in this type of participation is more likely to catch the eye of a more senior person, even if the student doesn't have a lot to contribute.

Getting to know graduate students is a good way to get to know their advisors.

What other types of networking should I do?

The fun part about job hunting is looking at a department web page and imagining yourself at the department. If there is a group or person there that you would like to work with, send them an e-mail. All the above rules for sending e-mails apply. In addition, do not give them too much personal information, but give them a sense of why you are interested in their work. Attach a CV and research summary. If you have preprints available on line, send them links. If you have a website, send a link.

If you are applying to a job in a different country than the one you grew up in, or the one you did your PhD in, make it clear that you really would be interested in living there for several years.

If the professor doesn't respond to the e-mail, don't be offended. It may mean they aren't interested. It may mean they don't respond to e-mails.

Compose a list of places/groups you would like to work with, and give it your advisors, or any faculty you have a good relationship with. Ask them to contact any people on that list that they feel comfortable writing.

If there is a particular place where you want to be, ask your letter writers to write a different letter for that place, speaking specifically to the institutions strengths and demands. Don't have too many of these, but 1 (maybe 2) is okay.

Poster Sessions

A graduate student asked me for advice about presenting a poster at a conference. My answer can be summarized as:

1) Put only a few theorem/results/definitions in big font on your poster.

2) Technical background/details should go in pictures or be described with an eye towards the BIG PICTURE (TM). If someone wants more detail, hand them a copy of a preprint.

3) Prepare 3 talks for the potential viewers, one lasting 30 seconds, one lasting 2 minutes, and one where you talk your heart out to the one person (if you are lucky) who really is excited about your research.

4) The 30 second talk should be the most polished as that will be the one most people will get. This gives an important first impression for people who you may encounter in future conferences.

I'm not an expert at poster sessions. I've presented 1 poster, and attended a few more, and have a good idea of what was or was not an enriching experience for me. I don't like the people who try to keep talking to me after I've decided that the material on the poster is not as relevant to me as the title suggested. I want the presenters to give me samples of their work, not be sales people.

I actually find attending poster sessions (and presenting at the same) very enjoyable. I get to see a lot of research without having to commit (usually) to an hour long talk. I get to have a lot of people come by to see my work, and I get a lot of different perspectives on what may or may not be interesting. And it's often much less painful experience than trying to give a short (10-15 min) talk.

It bothers me that poster sessions are much less prestigious as CV line items than giving talks, even the short variety. Posters are often given to people who's work was not deemed good enough for a talk. The presenters are overwhelmingly graduate student/post doc. As a result, the poster session is seen as a lemons' market, and it is hard to get good people to stop by.

Yet there are projects, undertaken by people in all stages of their career, that I feel are better suited for the poster format than for a 55 minute talk format. And yet, and yet.

So in spite of my preference for this format, I no longer choose to participate in it. It is unfortunate.

I'm curious if this is the same across all STEM fields. If there are fields where posters don't have a second tier status, what is done differently there to change this perspective. And, as an individual, what can I do to attract good people to my poster if I think a project fits this format better than a slide show?