Tips to identify the perfect employer

Knowing yourself, what you want and what motivates you should be the foundation of your job hunt, says Ulrike Träger.

Finding the right job and organization to work in after your PhD can be a daunting task. Coming from an academic setting, researchers tend to struggle to identify skill sets needed for a change in their career paths, asking questions like ‘what skills should a medical writer have?’ Job titles sometimes explain little about the actual work responsibilities—did you know, for example, that an ‘Innovation Facilitator’ communicates science and sets up links between academia and industry, to help speed up drug development or begin business opportunities?

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Putting your science to work: You WILL find a great job

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Contributor Scott Chimileski

No matter how tough you are, everyone needs a little pep-talk once in a while. Dr. Peter S. Fiske, science communicator and CEO of PAX Water Technologies, Inc., knows exactly what it is like enter and navigate a complex and sometimes challenging scientific job market. After paving his own way through many jobs and career advancements, Dr. Fiske offered advice to early career scientists by suggesting 6 strategies for “putting your science to work.”

Twenty years after finishing a PhD at Stanford, Dr. Fiske has seen the number of available science positions rise and fall several times. Like any market, the job market is cyclical. And for that reason, he believes that no matter what the career landscape looks like right now, “you will find a great job, really, you will.” All researchers finishing a PhD in the life sciences need is some good advice and a little confidence boost. Continue reading