Balancing act

How do you find work-life balance as an early-career scientist?

You can barely keep up with your own research programme, let alone grantwriting obligations, publishing and staying abreast of literature, news and other information. Is there such a thing as a 40-hour week, or is it as extinct as an 8-track tape?

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Eight things that are more important for success than intelligence

This week: a quick infographic explains why emotional intelligence is so important.

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What personal qualities do you need to stand out in academia?

We ask Richmond Sarpong what qualities he thinks scientists need, at the Naturejobs career expo, San Francisco.

https://youtu.be/c1JiEkHHuVE

Balance: Can scientists really have work/life balance?

Do we need to choose between life and science? No. If we learn to delegate and lose our perfectionism, we can have it all.

Naturejobs journalism competition winner Judith M. Reichel

Science is a balancing act. There are experiments to be run, grants to be written, manuscripts to be published, students taught, and conferences to attend. It’s not surprising then that the life of a scientist is a balancing act as well. But how can we balance it, and can we “have it all”?balance-716342_960_720

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How to combat implicit bias

The habit of implicit bias can be broken, but it takes awareness and behavioural strategies, says a new study.

Guest contributor Viviane Callier

Gender stereotypes affect our attitudes and behaviours, even if we’re unaware of them. But the habit of implicit bias can be broken: an intervention with faculty at the University of Wisconsin helped to break the bias habit, led to an improved department climate for everyone, and increased faculty hires of women and underrepresented minorities, a new study shows.

Bias, perhaps?

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Mobilise your creativity

How do you break into the publishing world?..

…That is, media and publishing, not publishing your manuscript. It isn’t the easiest path ever, but there is a breadth of opportunities and creativity, as celebrated this week by the UK Department of Culture, Media & Sport and the Creative Industry Council. And ‘break’ is not the key word – you don’t need a break. You just need to get creative – and get started.

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{credit}Getty Images/Mateusz Zagorski{/credit}

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Counting all the ways connections matter

New research shows that the size of a faculty member’s network predicts productivity, promotion, and probability of winning an NIH R01 grant.

Guest contributor Viviane Callier

Connections matter – in terms of productivity, in terms of obtaining grants, in terms of promotion and advancement, and in terms of retention in academic positions, a new Harvard-based study shows. Women and underrepresented minorities (URMs) have a smaller “reach” – a measure of second-order connections – and the discrepancy between the reach of women & URMs and that of white men is greatest at the junior faculty level. This discrepancy may account for differences in productivity, promotion, and retention of women and URMs in academia.

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CREDIT: CC-BY-SA Atos/Flickr

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Have you ever had to compromise your personal life?

We ask speakers at the Naturejobs career expo, San Francisco, if they’ve had to compromise on their personal life to make it in academia.

https://youtu.be/3oRQWv30XN0

How to answer: Behavioral questions

Based on advice given by Sarah Cardozo Duncan at the Naturejobs career expo, Boston. Sarah has 20 years’ experience in recruitment and career development as career strategist based in Boston.

Naturejobs career expo journalism competition winner Ulrike Träger

You’re in the interview for your dream job. You give a great presentation on your work. You looked up the company, their work and the person interviewing you. All is going well. Until someone asks “please give us an example of when you had a conflict with your boss”. You start to sweat. You don’t know what to say. You stutter. You didn’t prepare for this type of question.

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The precious, precious networking platinum that is Lindau

Alaina G. Levine is live from the Lindau Conference

Lindau is a special conference. Here, under the banner of Educate-Inspire-Connect, and above cobblestone streets, next to a city hall dating back to the 1400s, networking is very much encouraged, supported, facilitated and emphasised. And the networking here is precious, precious platinum.

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