Samantha Morris talks about getting her first faculty position at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis.

{credit}Photo credit: Todd Druley{/credit}

What did you do in preparation for your job application?

It was 10 years of watching, observing, following advice, and soaking up any mentorship and guidance on how to become a faculty member. Collecting these experiences really helped. It was interesting to see that many people didn’t take a traditional trajectory into a faculty position.

When I came to the end of graduate school, a friend told me about a workshop at Harvard Medical School about faculty positions, so I dropped everything and ran there! There were 300 postdocs in the session, which was terrifying when you’re thinking about applying for a position because they’re the competition!

What was your job application strategy?

I thought I should apply to everything so I applied for 33 positions and interviewed for 15.  By seeing different institutions side-by-side I was able to decide more clearly on what I was looking for. It slowly emerged that the places I was most excited about were the ones that had medical schools and close connections to clinicians. Washington University in St Louis certainly has that: many clinicians here are closely connected to the research enterprise. Continue reading →