{"id":4231,"date":"2017-02-03T05:09:21","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T05:09:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/?p=4231"},"modified":"2017-02-03T05:09:21","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T05:09:21","slug":"finding-job-satisfaction-in-industrial-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/2017\/02\/finding-job-satisfaction-in-industrial-research.html","title":{"rendered":"Finding job satisfaction in industrial research"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s talk career with\u00a0Naturejobs<\/a><\/em><\/h2>\n

Every week,\u00a0Indigenus<\/a>\u00a0brings you some interesting and relevant posts from sister blog\u00a0Naturejobs<\/a>, a\u00a0leading online resource for scientists in academia and industry who seek guidance in developing their careers. The blog delivers a mix of expert advice and personal stories to help readers review, set and achieve their career goals.<\/em><\/p>\n

Today we have a guest blog by Shikha Mishra<\/strong>, who after a PhD and postdoc studying the cellular mechanisms behind cardiovascular disease, decided not to continue in academia. She found she could still do the work she loved at the bench by doing product development research at Thermo Fisher Scientific.<\/p>\n

\"Shikha<\/a>

Shikha Mishra<\/p><\/div>\n

Why did you decide to go into research?<\/h2>\n

I decided as a very young girl that I would be a scientist. I chose Johns Hopkins for college because I knew it gave undergraduates research opportunities. The question wasn\u2019t whether I was going to graduate school, it was what I wanted to do and what I wanted to study.<\/p>\n

What do you do now?<\/h2>\n

I design experiments, I set up experiments, I analyze the data, I present the data. We are doing work that is on par with academia. \u00a0I have to be on top of the field, to understand what people are doing and what they want to do.<\/p>\n

Did you consider academia?<\/h2>\n

My postdoc advisors at Harvard Medical School wanted me to be happy ultimately, but they were encouraging me to stay within the academic realm. They had volunteered to be my mentor on a grant.\u00a0 My fianc\u00e9 and I did have discussions about whether I should stay in Boston to work toward junior faculty, but he had a steady job in San Diego. It didn\u2019t make sense to have one unemployed person and one (salary-wise) half employed person. It would be hard to support and start a family.<\/p>\n

How did you find the job you have now?<\/h2>\n

One of the ways that I got my resume floated was that I knew someone who knew someone and people would offer to send it on. But in the Thermo case, that\u2019s not how it happened. I applied for the position when I saw it on LinkedIn, and then I followed up by emailing a contact on LinkedIn, a senior manager that popped up on my feed. looked up his actual email and sent him a note.<\/p>\n

Tell us about your job interviews.<\/h2>\n

One place wanted someone with my qualifications and skill set, but they wanted a technical person who would run a core facility, to do the same experiment every day. It was clear that I would get bored the first week. I told them what I was proud of in my post doc. It wasn\u2019t the papers, it was problem solving, and being able to push myself outside the box. They immediately asked me if I would I be okay doing the same thing every day, and I thought \u2018no, absolutely not\u2019. I could have said that I would love that, but that would have ended up with them having a disgruntled employee.<\/p>\n

An interview is really about you. If you misrepresent what you like to do and what\u2019s important to you, you will not get a job that\u2019s right for you.<\/p>\n

I learned not just to go and stand in front of people and say \u2018I know how to do this experiment.\u2019 \u00a0At my job talk at Thermo Fisher, I explained what problems I ran into in my research and how I got around them. That\u2019s what industry is all about, knowing when to move forward and when to change direction. I showed that I was happy to work on any problem I was confronted with and could innovate. I think my manager responded well to that.<\/p>\n

What advice do you have for other trainees looking for jobs and getting discouraged?<\/h2>\n

For every scientist, 70% of your experiments are nonproductive and you just struggle through it. A job search is similar. Making sure that you don\u2019t lose your confidence is really important. And several colleagues said doing anything worthwhile takes time. Finding the next step to your career is not going to happen overnight. And if it does, it may not be the thing that is right for you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Suggested posts<\/strong><\/p>\n

Finding job satisfaction as a science liaison<\/a><\/p>\n

Finding job satisfaction in technology transfer<\/a><\/p>\n

Finding job satisfaction in research development<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every week,\u00a0Indigenus\u00a0brings you some interesting and relevant posts from sister blog\u00a0Naturejobs, a\u00a0leading online resource for scientists in academia and industry who seek guidance in developing their careers. The blog delivers a mix of expert advice and personal stories to help readers review, set and achieve their career goals.  Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":4233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-careers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}