Yesterday, I sat in on a panel discussion at Harvard Medical School for postdocs about the academic job search (the event was organized by the postdoc office at HMS). Five postdocs, all having recently received/accepted job offers, talked about their job-hunting experiences and doled out plenty of advice on writing cover letters, giving job talks, and going through interviews. The room was packed (almost 100 people, my guess is) and the Q&A session lasted almost an hour and a half.

The five postdocs talked about how their job search lasted anywhere from eight months to three years. Most applied for around 25 jobs in a given year, but one guy said he applied for 75 (the whole room gasped) and another applied for almost 50, all around the world. They all agreed how time-consuming job hunting was, since each application should be customized to the school/department. It’s almost a separate part-time job.

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the tips given:

• One of the important things people are looking for in a candidate: fit. Does your research fill a niche the department is trying to fill? Does your research make a nice contribution to the department? The other thing: can you bring in the money?

• You should think about applying for jobs every year of your postdoc, because the research areas that are in demand change from year to year. So you may fit in with a given department one year, but not another. A lot of it is luck and timing. Be aware of the latest trends and developments in hiring.

• Back-to-back one-on-one interviews during a long day can be grueling, but it gets easier with every interview, because after a while, they start asking you similar questions. You should ask lots of questions too.

• Be aware of rigged searches. Sometimes, recruiters already know who they’re going to hire (the spouse of another recent hiree, for example). But those interview/job talk experiences can still be useful. The more practice, the better.

• When leaving your mentor’s lab, you need to find a balance: pursue research that won’t directly compete with your mentor’s lab, but you still have some links to your old lab and be able to bring stuff with you, to show that you can hit the ground running, and have a broad range of original ideas.

• After sending out an application, if you’re going to hear back, you probably will within 2 or 3 months (from a US university, that is)…otherwise, you’re probably out of luck.

• If you’re hearing back from 10 to 20 percent of the places you applied to, you’re probably doing well. If you’re in the 1 percent range, it’s time to revise your application materials.
• Don’t do 2 interviews in the same week if you can avoid it. They can be exhausting: seminars, dozens of interviews, etc.

• Don’t be the first one interviewed for a particular job. The first person is often the one most easily forgotten.

• Stay in touch with the people you interviewed with, in a meaningful, non-annoying way (ie to talk about research, etc)

One thing I found surprising was the response to the question: are people looking to hire the next ‘rising star’ or are they looking for a ‘team player’ or some combination of the two? The answer seemed to be: the latter. People generally want someone they can talk to about science, someone they wouldn’t mind sitting on a committee with, etc.

Were any of you at this event? What were you thoughts from it? If you’ve been through this process, do you agree with the advice?