March 2008

I got a job!!!

Yay!!! I found I job!!!! I will be going to work at Hantel, a medical device consulting firm in the east bay. In a nutshell, I will be serving as a subject matter expert to product development teams; supervising engineers, machinists, and technicians in the design development and manufacturing of medical devices; and collaborating with medical device clients and venture capitalists to define and direct their project requirements.

This job will be a great way to use all of the skills that I have... management, leadership, and communication, as well as maximizing the benefits of having both a clinical and research background. I am so excited. The improvment in salary doesn't hurt, either.

All in all, the job search process took 14 months, from the time I started looking, not sure what I wanted to do, to signing a job offer.
A friend of mine who graduated from a Stanford graduate program (product design) in June has still not found a job!!! So, my advice to anyone who is on the job hunt, especially in this economy, is to START EARLY! By early, I mean 12 months in advance. Seriously. Timing is VERY tricky on this though, and it is very difficult to coordinate ending a postdoc with starting a new job--what if you find a job in a month, and you still have 8 months of experiments? It may be that the job will wait... if not, frankly if you can find a job in a month once, you may be able to do it again later.... but it's a gamble.

I guess the rest of my advice is as follows:

Use interviews as a way of finding out more about what job you might like. Early on, apply to anything that sounds interesting, even if you don't know exactly what the position is/does. I found many job titles and job descriptions to be vague, and it was only after I had read a million of them and done some interviewing that I developed an intuitive "feel" for what a given job was within any given company. It takes practice, at first you may feel confused and lost when looking at that positions, but it will go away.

Tailor each resume to each job. Many companies either have a computer on-site reading their resumes, or are small companies but outsource their hiring to a company with a computer reading the resume. This means that a computer is looking for key words in the resume and matching it to the job description. So, if the job description asks for someone with "excellent communication" skills and you say that you have "strong interpersonal" skills, thinking that these are getting at the same point--guess what--a computer will not make the connection. Even people at one of these hiring firms will not necessarily understand the job you are applying for, and no, they really aren't able to connect how what you wrote addresses the requirements of the job--yes, you have to *spell* *it* *out* for them.
So, if they ask for "excellent communication skills," you put down that you have "excellent communication" skills.

Personal assessments are useful. I am a skeptic by nature, and frankly many of them seemed lame to me. But I tried one through the Career Development Center, and it was one of the most profound things I have ever done (as relates to job/career decisions). I did the "values" assessment, which basically determines what the top 10 or so aspects of your job are the most important to you. Knowing this *outside* of the context of a particular job title is important. For example, a career in academic administration, which I was focused on for awhile, only filled about 6 of my 10 needs, even though in my head, it was ranked as the #1 thing I wanted to do. Conversely, I was skeptical about entering biotech, but realized that a career in medical devices satisfied *all 10* requirements!!! Amazing! So even if you feel lame, do it. You'll feel even more lame if you end up with a job you hate.

There is probably more advice that I could offer, but I think those are the most important points.

In other news, I have been asked to serve as a speaker at the National Postdoctoral Association Annual Meeting, alongside Cora Marrett, Director of Education and Human Resources at the National Science Foundation, and Norka Ruiz-Bravo, Deputy Director for
Extramural Research at the NIH. The topic will be mentoring and the role of the government in promoting the mentorship of postdoctorates. I think we all recognize that effective, thorough mentoring is crucial in order for a postdoctorate to be successful in transitioning to an independent research career. However, faculty are given no incentive to mentor (their success, and grants, are based on productivity, and mentoring can be perceived as detracting from productivity). In the current grant system, there is no time set aside for mentoring, and mentoring activities are neither required or rewarded (this is changing with the NSF reauthorization, requiring mentoring on research grants, but the NIH has het to make any such change). So, it should be an interesting discussion.

I am looking forward to another quarter of Medicine and Horses. I am concerned about being able to get away from my "day job" in order to teach, but I'll take each day as it comes, and cross that bridge when it comes.

Finally, some sad news. My cycling buddy Kristy Gough was killed on Sunday, along with Matt Peterson from Roaring Mouse (they were struck by a deputy on patrol). I have been in tears all week. Kristy taught me a lot about life though, in our short friendship. I think the single most important lesson, that applies to scientists as well as athletes, was humility--she was a world champion, but never boasted or acted as if she was superior to others (even though she actually was). I see a lot of people in science act condescending towards others; perhaps this is a product of the competitive nature of the grant application process, in which one must convince peers that one is "better" than others and more deserving of funding... But cycling is equally if not more competitive, yet here was someone who showed a genuine interest and concern for *everyone* around her, from the bottom to the top. Arrogance serves no purpose but to destroy relationships, and narrow your field of supporters down to... well, nothing. Rest in peace, Kristy. May we all strive to rise to your standard.