As we approach the fall, faculty job ads will begin to be posted. How can you prepare yourself for a competitive job market? I have 5 pieces of advice from my own experience applying for faculty positions and work supporting postdocs in their job search. 

1. Self-assess & consider fit
2. Gather intel & information
3. Start early preparing application materials
4. Cultivate peer support
5. Consider diverse career options

Self-assess & consider fit
Before any career search process, you should spend time self-reflecting on your skills, interests, and values. Consider what types of roles and employers would best fit where you are in your life. Note that there are many roles in higher education beyond tenure-track faculty and there are many colleges & universities to work at beyond name-brand or research-intensive institutions.

For more see:

• Career Exploration 101
• Academic Career Readiness Assessment (ACRA) from UCSF
  • More on ACRA methodology 

Gather intel & information
What does it take to successfully land a tenure-track faculty position? While the ACRA referenced above assessed the faculty search committee's perspective on hiring new assistant professors, other work that I have collaborated on seeks to present data from the applicant's side.

See A survey-based analysis of the academic job market for more info on our applicant survey findings and variables that were associated with applicants successfully landing faculty job offers as part of the 2018-2019 job market cycle. 

While our survey data and ACRA provide some insights on what it may take to land a tenure-track faculty position, the best means to gain personalized insights from your discipline is to talk to individuals that have recently landed faculty positions in your field. Conducting informational interviews with newly-hired faculty at a variety of institutions can also help you better understand what being a faculty member looks like in different contexts as well as learn about these new faculty members' experiences on the job market. Some may even be willing to share their application materials with you to serve as models and inspiration as you construct your own documents. 
​

• For more see my Carpe Careers piece on using informational interviews to assist you in your faculty job search process. 

Arguably, the research statement is a good place to start for many STEM trainees as you probably have a good sense of what you have accomplished in your research and why it matters. However, a research statement needs to be forward looking and focused on what you plan to research as a new assistant professor. As such, you should think critically about where your field is going and how your training, skills, and interests can best be leveraged into a research program that is value-add to the department and institution you are joining. And if you are targeting research-intensive institutions, you must also seriously consider how your research will be funded and fit into funding priorities of key federal agencies and foundations.

• More on How to Construct a Compelling Research Statement

It's important to really think about your vision for your research first before tailoring your materials to a particular institution. I believe you shouldn't try to present the research you think a hiring committee will be excited about but rather research YOU are excited about. You want to be hired based on who you are and what you aspire to be and be OK with the realization that many hiring committees won't see a fit between your interests and theirs. That is OK because fit is so critical in any job search and you want to find it so that you can thrive in your new role and be your true self. 

For additional tips and advice on other faculty application documents, see:

• How to Write a Better Academic Cover Letter
• Tips on Writing an Effective Teaching Statement
• Diversity statement resources from UCLA & UCSD

And see the job search resources section of my website for documents I submitted on my own faculty job search, including a research statement for a research-intensive and primarily undergraduate-serving institution. 

Cultivate peer support
If you are currently a postdoctoral researcher interested in a faculty career, you should join Future PI Slack NOW. This community of nearly 4,000 postdocs is AMAZING and a great place to solicit advice and feedback from your peers. There is a channel in the Slack group devoted exclusively to reviewing one another's job application materials (#jobapp_reviewers) that you can join to solicit and provide feedback. It is a truly great way to see a variety of examples of faculty application materials and get additional feedback on your own documents from individuals who will often be outside your discipline. This type of feedback is critical as asking your current supervisor or lab-mates for feedback may not give you a sense of how someone outside your research domain views your documents...and faculty search committees will almost certainly be composed of a diverse set of individuals lacking a deep understanding of your particular area of research focus. So, getting broad-based feedback allows you to refine your documents to convey your points effectively to a wider audience.

You can also form your own peer support group at your institution or amongst others in your network. Find trainees also planning to go on the job market soon to meet with regularly to discuss your experiences and share your approach to the job search (where did you find job postings?, how are you handling requesting letters of reference?, etc...). Ideally, having this group be composed of individuals going on the job market this year and those planning to go on the job market next year is a great way for trainees a year out from applying to learn from those going through the process this year. As the hiring cycle progresses, your group can think learn from those who have had interviews with search committees about their experiences and serve as a space for feedback on the job talk and chalk talk (and see this presentation or this one on YouTube for more) your group members plan to deliver at institutions who have invited them for a final round interview. Through this experience, you'll gain a wider perspective on navigating a job search as you learn and support one another. 

Consider diverse career options
While a faculty role may be what you aspire to, it is always good to have options for the next step in your career. Consider using self-assessment tools such as myIDP, ImaginePhD, or ChemIDP to learn about the breadth of career paths that could fit your skills, interests, and values. Make plans to develop the skills and networks needed to pivot into careers beyond the tenure-track. There are so many amazing careers out there to pursue and remaining open to those possibilities will help you realize that there is no one path to "success" when it comes to your career. 

See my recent Standing Out from the Pack presentation for a summary of some of the resources and tools mentioned above as well as advice on navigating the faculty job search. 

We've also curated a variety of resources and perspectives on the academic job search and how to craft compelling application materials on the NC State Graduate School's ImPACKful blog under our "Academic PACKways" category. 

I also highly recommend this Faculty Corner YouTube playlist from Michigan Medicine's Office of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies to learn more about the faculty job search and hear from faculty on how they manage their work & responsibilities. 

Marcus Lambert, Ph.D., Associate Vice President for Research Strategy and Operations at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, and his colleagues have been interested in understanding factors that affect whether biomedical postdoctoral scholars pursue career paths as faculty, particularly at research-intensive institutions. They have published two studies on the topic over the past few years:

• ​Career choices of underrepresented and female postdocs in the biomedical sciences
• Postdocs’ advice on pursuing a research career in academia: A qualitative analysis of free-text survey responses

​Below I summarize some of the insights from these studies as well as thoughts shared by Lambert when he visited NC State in Fall 2020 to discuss his work with our graduate students, postdocs, and faculty. 

The Problem
Training and mentorship often do not align with careers available for Ph.D.s and postdocs.

Academia has traditionally viewed graduate education and postdoctoral training as preparation for a faculty career. However, estimates of the number of PhDs who enter tenure-track faculty positions range from 8 percent for life science Ph.D.s within 5 years of graduation to 20 percent for biomedical postdocs. 

Thus, our training programs must reimagine the pipeline to address the needs of a changing scientific workforce, particularly as they relate to diversity.

Lack of Diversity in Faculty: A Leaky Pipeline
Perhaps one of the more striking datapoints Dr. Lambert presented during his talk is that while the percent of underrepresented minorities earning bachelors, Ph.D.s, and entering postdocs in the biological sciences has risen over the last 20 years, their representation in full professor roles has not increased since 2001. 

Data have shown that underrepresented groups including women and certain racial/ethnic groups are less interested in a faculty career at research-intensive institutions than well-represented male researchers. 

Surveying Postdocs to Understand Their Career Choices
Dr. Lambert presented data he and his colleagues collected from postdoctoral scholars regarding their motivations for academic research careers. This research group was specifically interested in understanding what factors motivate postdocs to persist in academia. In total over 1,200 postdocs from 50 universities were surveyed. 

What were the results?
Nearly 50% of respondents reported a faculty career at a research-intensive institution as their top choice.

• Interest in a faculty career wains around year 2-3 of the postdoc, representing a potentially critical time for mentorship and career support to be provided.
• Those reporting that self-worth and career mentorship were large determinants in their career choice were more likely to indicate an interest in a research-intensive faculty career.
• Conversely, those rating financial security as a key determinant of their career choice were more likely to pursue non-faculty careers.

The Importance of Outcome Expectations & Research Self-Efficacy in Determining Faculty Career Choice
Two key metrics, outcome expectations and research self-efficacy, were higher among those interested in pursuing a faculty career versus those who chose career paths outside academia. 

• Outcome expectations: expectancy (will my effort lead to high performance), instrumentality (will performance lead to desirable outcomes), & valence (do I find the outcomes desirable) lead to a motivational force to pursue an academic research career
• Research self-efficacy: belief in one's own ability to succeed at research-related tasks (publish, secure grants, mentor students, develop novel & successful research ideas)

Female postdocs rated themselves lower in research self-efficacy and had lower outcome expectations than male postdocs. Self-worth, the sense of one's own value or worth as a person, was also a strong factor in determining career choice. In fact, the strongest predictors of underrepresented minority postdocs indicating an interest in pursuing a research-intensive faculty career were positive self-worth and high research self-efficacy. Similarly, the best predictor for women indicating an intention of pursuing an academic research position was positive self-worth. 

Research self-efficacy is associated with higher rates of first author publications, particularly for female and underrepresented postdocs. Thus, programs that increase research self-efficacy could have positive impacts on supporting postdocs and their overall research productivity.

Underrepresented Postdocs Desire More Specialized Training
Underrepresented postdocs were more likely to indicate a desire for more specialized training to assist them in pursuing a faculty career including:

• A transitioning to research independence course
• A scientific teaching course
• Fellowships and grants to support investigators like them
• Training in the application of basic science principles to community-based settings

Qualitive Insights - Advice for Pursuing an Academic Research Career
These results, just released in PLOS One, focused on investigating advice postdocs would give others pursuing academic research careers.

Specifically, the authors investigated text responses to the question:
"What advice would you give someone thinking about an academic research career?”

Data from 994 postdocs were analyzed for common themes and sentiments among a diverse sample (56% US Citizens; 62% female; 13% underrepresented minorities). 

A theme that continued to emerge in the qualitative data was the role "passion" plays in pursuing an academic research career. In fact, the authors organized many of the postdocs' responses about academic research into the concept of it being a lifestyle where one's research work and life are often one in the same.

With that in mind, other common advice centered around the need for those considering an academic career to engage in self reflection to determine if an academic research lifestyle was congruent with their values, life priorities, and personal and professional needs. Are they willing to commit long hours and much effort into academic training with no guarantee they will land a faculty position that this training traditionally prepares them for?

Pros and Cons of Postdoctoral Work
Other concepts that emerged from the postdocs' responses were that while the challenges of working as a postdoc are many (low pay, demanding workload, unanticipated setbacks, & a competitive funding and research climate), the positives in a postdoc position are scientific creativity, academic freedom, the ability to travel, and building problem solving skills.   

Luck Plays a Part in "Success"
Many of the postdoc respondents mentioned that luck can play a significant role in the success of experiments, publications, funding, and job opportunities. Thus, ensuring your self-worth is not defined by "success" in your research work is essential to maintaining your mental health and wellbeing. You only have so much control of the various outcomes that are traditionally associated with academic success but you can control how central academic success is to your life.

On a side note, I routinely encourage graduate students and postdocs to get involved in things outside the lab/work as you need other outlets to feel accomplished and successful, which can help guard against allowing research or academic success to fully define you as a person. 

Need for More Postdoc Support & Resources
Several responses to the advice for prospective academic researchers prompt emphasized the importance of strong mentorship and support while conducting postdoctoral training. Many recommended those interested in pursuing an academic research career to be proactive in researching and choosing the best work environment to complete postdoctoral training. In addition, the importance of finding multiple mentors, beyond your primary faculty supervisor, building a community of support, and asking for help are critical to success in your postdoc and beyond.

Realizing there are multiple career paths available to those with Ph.D.s and postdoctoral training and being proactive in researching your post-postdoc career options can also bolster postdocs' confidence in their futures and lessen the feeling that they must "win" the faculty lottery to be considered a "success".

Take-Home Points from Dr. Lambert's Research

• Self-worth, career mentorship, and financial security were all strong predictors of intending to pursue an academic research career (or not)
• The likelihood of underrepresented postdocs persisting in academia increases most with self-worth
• Female postdocs are slightly discouraged by lifestyle when deciding whether to pursue an academic research career
• Those postdocs most comfortable with choosing an academic research career cited the following as important factors:
  • adequate support with family and childcare
    
  • financial stability
    
  • geographical flexibility
    

These findings offer ideas about how to best support postdocs wanting to pursue faculty careers. A critical component is ensuring adequate support in the form of compensation, mentoring, training, and other resources to allow postdocs to pursue these careers with great confidence in their own abilities. 

Advice to Current Postdocs
To make the most of your postdoc, Dr. Lambert recommends:

• Be strategic about your mentorship team
• Recognize that a career in academic research is a lifestyle which may or may not be suitable for you
  • Thus, reflect on you motivation to pursue a faculty career
• Prepare for multiple career paths
• Assess your readiness & preparedness at each stage
  • For two excellent resources around readiness for a faculty career, see:
    • The Academic Career Readiness Assessment (ACRA)
      • More about the ACRA's methodology, published in CBE Life Sciences Education
    • Survey-based analysis of the academic job market (paper in eLife)
• Strengthen your research & writing skills
• Network

For further reading...
Explore more posts related to the academic career search in the Academic Packways section of the NC State Graduate School's ImPACKful blog.

“Find your passion. Do what makes you happy.”

We hear this advice all the time and think, yeah, it would be great to find a career one is passionate about, that makes one happy, pays one well, and fits one’s skill set and interests. But is it reasonable to expect this out of one, single job? Maybe, but we Americans are, too often, allowing our careers to define us (termed “workism” in this Atlantic piece and see also this piece by the New York Times), which can be problematic.

The challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic that have persisted over the past 13+ months are many and further highlight the fact that work should never come first. People have had to juggle many priorities this past year:

• Trying to stay healthy, physically & mentally, in the face of so many unknowns (though perhaps that is changing with vaccines rolling out at higher numbers)
• Taking care of loved ones, physically & mentally, sometimes at a distance
• Assisting their children with virtual learning
• Striving to stay "present" in their work while often working virtually and juggling the priorities mentioned above
• Having to decide that trying to maintain a job and balance the priorities above is not feasible and needing to take a step back from their career (a major issue for female workers this past year; see also)
• Setting boundaries between "work" and "home" when you work from home, etc...

As we begin to reset our lives as we emerge from this unprecedented event, many are looking to redefine their work lives to achieve greater balance and flexibility. 

In this blog post, I will talk about some of the key aspects of work we find fulfilling. According to the book Drive by Daniel Pink, and based on research by Edward Deci in the 1970s, we perform best when we are intrinsically motivated. The three key factors that determine intrinsic motivation are autonomy, mastery, and purpose. I will break down those three concepts in terms of work satisfaction (I will use my new job as an example; with new reflections 2+ years into it added), but other activities can also fill these human needs.

Autonomy

By autonomy, I mean feeling in control of your situation in life, work, etc. Autonomy in terms of work means not feeling micromanaged in your job, having the ability to prioritize your schedule, and choosing to do things in an order and manner that work for you.

I can say in my current position that I have a lot of autonomy: I decide how to prioritize and order my day, the tasks I need to accomplish, and my larger goals for the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs at North Carolina State University. This is great and a huge plus for my current role.

Now, it isn’t like I have complete autonomy and one shouldn’t expect such autonomy, unless you are self-employed and, thus, your own boss. In my current role, there are still somewhat mundane tasks that I have to do.

For me, that is human resources-related tasks associated with the postdoctoral appointment and hiring processes at NC State. Would I say completing human resource actions in the multi-layered systems at NC State is my passion and makes me happy? No. Is it an essential component of my job and the function of my office (at least as currently defined)? Yes.

Over the past year, my administrative load has INCREASED by at least 30% as we now have additional processes that must be undertaken to hire postdocs given UNC System-wide restrictions on new hires. There have also been more requests by faculty to extend postdoctoral appointments past our 5-year limit this academic year. I have worked to accommodate these requests as these are unprecedented times we are living through and pauses to research projects have necessitated a need for many postdocs to stay in their position longer. In addition, many faculty advisors want to shield their postdocs from a tough job market or a need to move to secure other employment and so I am supportive of them staying here longer until conditions improve. Note, though, that many of our postdocs were able to land jobs in 2020 despite the pandemic. 

The blurred lines between work and home have certainly not helped detach from work...I think I work more now than pre-pandemic. This challenge of disconnecting from work started long before the pandemic but like so many things was exasperated by it. The ability to always be connected to work via one's phone (I probably should discount my work email from my phone Gmail app) has led our leisure time to be turned into what some researchers describe as "time confetti". Time confetti are the little bits of seconds and minutes lost to unproductive multitasking often aided by our devices and super connected world. The term was coined by Brigid Schulte, author of Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time. 

We live in an age where our attention is increasingly fragmented, which often prevents us from focusing on high-value work AND our personal lives. It is so easy to let those work email pings distract us from being present at home and with our loved ones. We all need to work on being more present and our employers need to more effectively encourage us to disconnect after 5 PM or on the weekends (in fact, France has a law seeking to restrict after-work emails).

Back to my administrative work: I take the approach of framing my human resource tasks as critical to the purpose of my job – to improve the postdoctoral experience. This is important because it ties to another key factor of intrinsic motivation – purpose. I need to review these hire actions to be sure the institution (and the faculty supervisors) are treating postdocs in an appropriate way that both follows our institutional policies but also ensures the postdoc’s best interests are considered.

Despite a taxing year in 2020-2021, I am proud of what my office and our postdoctoral association have been able to accomplish this year to support NC State postdocs from virtual social hours to professional development awards geared toward online learning or networking experiences. Many other institutions have also taken efforts to support their postdocs during COVID. So, in spite of the increased workload and administrative burden, I know I am making a difference by facilitating needed processes to keep our postdocs employed, supported, and connected during a difficult year.   

Life is a matter of perspective and having the right mindset of WHY what your doing is important/necessary can get you through some mundane tasks and tough times.

Mastery

People want to feel like they are making progress in their lives; that they are improving and getting better. Humans seek mastery in their work.

As a Ph.D. student or postdoc, you have spent years mastering your experimental, analytical, and communication skills to produce a dissertation, publications, and conference presentations. It feels good to know you are making progress and, as a Ph.D. student or postdoc, you are keenly aware of how frustrating it feels to not make noticeable progress. And this past year of COVID have certainly interrupted early career researchers' progress and job prospects, which we much seek to address at our institutions (for more see this article & this one).  

​A career is also filled with both sides of the mastery coin: moving forward and spinning one’s wheels. Sometimes it is very clear you are progressing toward mastery in a key task/component of your job or nearing completion of some large project or deliverable. Sometimes, though, you feel like you are not progressing. That is life and sometimes measuring progress is tricky.

So, while a sense of mastery and self-improvement is important for fulfillment, you can define what that means to you. If you feel like you have learned a little more than the day before, that you are a little more comfortable in your role than the day before, then you are making progress. It is often dangerous to put too much stock in measurable progress as it doesn’t usually capture subtle aspects of one’s job. As anyone in the sciences knows, the number of papers one publishes does not, in and of itself, denote the degree of mastery or accomplishment one has achieved in your training. I have only been in my new role for a few months, but I feel like I am making progress in understanding the key responsibilities of my position, including learning how to best interface with key people at NC State and how to interact effectively with our postdoctoral community.
​
In some ways, progress has been made over the past 2 years on the job and in some ways not. It helps, I think, to look back at accomplishments of my office and our postdoctoral population. So, I started at the end of each calendar year to construct a "Postdoc Year in Review" document to highlight the impact of my work. Constructing this document each December and looking back at the 2019 & 2020 versions remind me that much progress has been made by my office.

I know much more needs to be done to improve the postdoc experience here and nationally but progress takes time and effort. I have worked over the past 18 months to advocate for more resources for myself and the postdoc office here and those efforts have been only minorly successful (and further budgetary challenges due to COVID have certainly not helped). I hope that as I continue to build awareness of myself and my work on campus and make connections with more stakeholders, more resources will follow. I continue to persist and strive for what I believe is possible for our office and our postdocs in the future.   ​

Please define mastery and self-improvement in a way that makes you appreciate the slow, incremental progress that accompanies much of work.   ​

Purpose
​
Working toward a larger purpose can help one persevere when times are tough. It allows you to keep in perspective the reason you do the work. Ideally, your career fills your need to be doing work that has a purpose. In my case, I focus on improving the postdoctoral experience at NC State University. I know firsthand that the postdoctoral years can be challenging and filled with uncertainty (even more so now after living through a pandemic that threatens progress and potential job prospects for postdocs), and I hope that I can help current postdocs identify the unique skills they can bring to the workforce and match that to a career that fits them. I will know if I am successful if I see our postdocs moving on to satisfying careers of their own. And that is certainly happening as evidenced in the career outcome data reported in our 2019 & 2020 NC State Postdoc Year in Review documents mentioned earlier. 

All work does not have a higher purpose, though. Sometimes you are in a bull*hit job (which are common in academia, too) or, as others have labeled them, a rent-seeking job—jobs that don’t produce tangible products or results. These jobs are plentiful and involve processing transactions, moving money around, lobbying, etc. While it could be argued they produce something, their value to society is debated. I won’t get into economic theory, but the point here is that it is difficult to find purpose or feel like one is making the world a better place in some careers. That is OK, though, because you aren’t just your career.

Too often in America, we allow our careers to define us. I am as guilty as the next person; I often ask at social or networking functions, “So, what do you do?”. This question doesn’t specifically ask about someone’s job function, but often that is how individuals interpret the question.
​
Perhaps even worse than that question is the awkward response, “well, I am between jobs right now.” A paying job doesn’t have to define what we do with our lives. You can volunteer for an organization you are passionate about, you can stay at home spending quality time with your kids, or you can take time off to travel the country with your loved one(s), making memories along the way. COVID has forced many to reconsider their life priorities and make difficult choices, which while tough in the moment, may ultimately lead people to lead happier, more fulfilling lives. And a new YOLO (you only live once) movement post-pandemic is emerging as younger workers seek greater meaning, autonomy, and real-world experiences (travel).  

I took my new job to be closer to the people who mean so much to me. I plan to frequently visit my aging parents who live on the coast of North Carolina (a 2.5-hour drive from my new job), I will reconnect with old friends from Furman University and UNC-Chapel Hill who live in the area, and I want to see more of my sister who lives a couple of hours away. I also am plan to take the time to visit my other sister in Memphis, TN, from time to time. The flexibility of my new role gives me all these opportunities and I am thankful for that. Furthermore, there is data suggesting recent graduates who value time over money report greater well being and more intrinsically motivated activity pursuits—pursuing work that they find meaningful in itself versus work they seek for financial/status reasons.

You Are More Than Your Work

It is essential to have activities outside of work that give one’s life meaning. What those are will vary from person to person, but you should seek out activities that fill the key components of intrinsic motivation: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

If you can’t find purpose in your job, you could volunteer for an organization whose mission statement aligns with your interests: tutoring, helping the homeless, advocating to Congress regarding some issue, etc.
​
If you don’t feel like your job allows you to achieve mastery, take up a new hobby and learn how to knit, build a chair, speak a new language, etc.

​If you don’t feel like your job gives you autonomy, take control of some other aspect of your life. Maybe you decide to take up a new exercise routine or re-connect with an old friend you haven’t talked to in a while. Do something that gives you a sense of control and brings with it self-fulfillment.

Keep that COVID hobby you started this past year (it's great for your health) and lean into the increase in empathy and volunteerism that has emerged during and as a result of the pandemic...you will never regret finding ways to help others.  

Final Thoughts

In closing, be careful in your search for the elusive “dream job.” Finding a job that fills the needs of autonomy, mastery, and purpose, plus pays you well and fits your interests and skills is a tough, perhaps an impossible order. The good news is that your job doesn’t have to define you as a person nor should it be your only sense of self-worth or fulfillment. Even the best job has its tough moments, and that is when you need to have other activities (volunteering, hobbies) and roles (sibling, parent, son/daughter, friend) that give your life meaning and purpose. You are more than your job, and you can define what a successful, fulfilling, and meaningful life looks like for you.

Hopefully as we adapt to a "new normal", post-COVID, we will be able to find increased flexibility in our work with potential hybrid roles where we spend some time physically in the office and some time working from home. We need some balance of in-person human connection with our coworkers while also having the capability to work virtually to balance family and personal needs with those of work. And, as the ability to engage with others face-to-face returns, we should also look for ways to collaborate and contribute to something bigger than ourselves by joining groups or volunteering for organizations with a mission we can get behind.

If the past year has taught us anything it is that life is too short to not find purpose in something and seek each day to grow, evolve, and make a difference if only in the smallest way. 365 days of making a 1% improvement in some aspect of the world results in it being 37x better at the end of each year. Whether you make that difference via your job or in the  community at large through volunteer or other efforts, just be sure that you do.​

For Further Reading
The Impact of COVID-19 on Boundary Management, Work/Life Integrations, and Domestic Labor for Women in STEMM, report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, & Medicine

Designing Your Life

• The Book
• Resources
• YouTube Video
• New: Designing Your Work Life Book

The Future of Work Post-COVID
​Prudential's Pulse of the American Worker Survey (March 2021)

The new negotiation over job benefits and perks in post-Covid hybrid work

Other Blog Posts of Interest

• Why you should get involved in things outside the lab/work
• ​The power of human connection
• Giving thanks: Finding personal fulfillment
• More from my NIH BEST Blog Rewind series

The National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) held its first ever virtual annual conference April 15 & 16. By all accounts, it was a huge success with 900+ attendees (>2 times the largest previous attendance mark for a NPA annual conference). 

The online format allowed for greater accessibility for postdocs as travel and lodging costs were removed. I also appreciated that the conference platform allowed for attendees to easily download copies of posters that were presented as well as resources and materials provided by presenters.

The conference agenda was packed with great content relevant for postdocs and those who support them. An effort was also made to promote engagement during breaks through trivia and bingo games. The platform used to host the event, Big Marker, performed well and had many great features to promote exchange of contact information and content.
​
Below, I share some of the publicly available resources and tools highlighted during the conference in the hopes they are valuable to my readers.

​This is only a subset of resources and opportunities shared at the NPA Annual Conference. Recordings of all talks/sessions will be available to those who attended via the meeting platform soon. 

Science Policy Career Paths
I moderated a panel, Policy Career Paths for Postdocs and the Things I Wish I Knew
​Resources shared: 
AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowships, Providing opportunities for outstanding scientists and engineers to learn first-hand about federal policymaking while using their knowledge and skills to address today’s most pressing societal challenges.

The List of SciPol Fellowships, a crowd-sourced list of science & technology policy opportunities through member societies, the federal government, state governments, foundations/non-profits, & more

Zintellect, Access hundreds of research internships, fellowships, and scholarships funded by the government and private sector organizations.
Powered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) & Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU)

Science Policy Fellowships for Non-US Citizens, a crowd-sourced list of science policy fellowships available to non-us citizens

Science Policy and Advocacy for STEM Scientists
An innovative program from the University of California, Irvine GPS-STEM in collaboration with the Journal of Science Policy & Governance, Union of Concerned Scientists, & Ridge 2 Reef Program.

This group offers an online course in science policy and advocacy for STEM scientists (PhD students & postdocs) with a focus on learning basic skills and concepts, as well as identifying concrete ways to transition into careers in these areas.

They will be offering the program online, open to any interested trainee, starting July 15, 2021.
Enroll in the Science Policy & Advocacy for STEM Scientists Certificate Program 2021 by June 1st via this Google Form.  

Building Peer Networks to Enhance Postdoc Career & Professional Development
​
Stony Brook University PhD Career Ladder Program (PCLP)
A peer-led career mentoring program for grad students and postdocs pursuing any career pathway. 
PCLP helps participants set aside a few hours each week to develop a framework for their job search. Biweekly meetings guide participants “up the ladder” of career exploration from self-assessment to career research and skill identification, to informational interviewing, to resume crafting.
The creators of PCLP have developed a Toolkit to assist individuals seeking to start a PCLP Group at their institutions. 

Leadership & Management in Action Program (L-MAP) at Washington University in St. Louis
The L-MAP, Leadership and Management in Action Program, is a new active-learning training program for graduate students and postdocs in the biosciences to build a leadership, management, and inclusive teamwork skillset. Trainees work in teams on experiential case studies and activities in the L-MAP curriculum, led by a facilitator with expertise in leadership training.

The WashU team has made their L-MAP Curriculum publicly available via a creative commons license and will be hosting a virtual Train-the-Trainer workshop on May 10th, 10 AM - 12 PM Central, to assist individuals wanting to launch the program at their institutions. You can register to attend the workshop when downloading the curriculum at the link, below. 

Volunteer Opportunities Through the NPA
Volunteering with the NPA is a great way for postdocs to expand their leadership and teamwork skills and contribute to improving the postdoctoral experience. You can write about topics or experiences that impact the postdoctoral community through The POSTDOCket, help the NPA in its advocacy efforts on behalf of postdocs, assist in the development and dissemination of resources for postdocs and postdoc offices, and more. 
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It is so important for postdocs to get involved in things beyond their lab/work. I know writing for The POSTDOCket and taking on leadership positions in my postdoctoral association was critical in helping me develop into who I am today as well as transition into my current role in postdoctoral affairs.  

2021 NPA Institutional Policy Report Released
​As a postdoctoral affairs professional, the data the NPA collects and reports on postdoc policies, benefits, demographics, and postdoc office resources every few years is critical advocating for increased institutional resources to support postdoc affairs. In the most recent report, the NPA Institutional Policy Survey Taskforce and Data Analysis Team show trends in various metrics collected in the survey over time (from 2013, 2016, & 2019). It is nice to see progress is being made on a variety of fronts to increase postdoc & postdoc office support. More work is still needed, though, especially around the fact that the mode size of a postdoc office remains one individual.

The United States' National Science Foundation (NSF) collects a large amount of data on individuals receiving their doctorate degrees from U.S. universities.

These data include:

• Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED)
• Survey of Doctorate Recipients (SDR)
• Science & Engineering Indicators, published by National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics

The SED focuses on recent Ph.D. graduates from a wide range of fields (lifes sciences, physical sciences, earth sciences, engineering, education, psychology, humanities) each year while the SDR captures employment information of individuals with Ph.D.s in science, engineering, or health fields, regardless of when they received their degree. 

I referenced some of these data a year ago in my blog post:
​Post-Ph.D. Career Plans: Consider the Possibilities 

A new batch of SED data was released in December 2020 containing data reported in 2019.
​So, while this data does not yet capture the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on new Ph.D. graduates, we can still look at trends in employment, earnings, and more across a wide range of disciplines. New SDR data (from 2019) will be released in April 2021. So, stay tuned for a deeper dive into insights from that survey in a future post.

How US Ph.D. Employment Has Shifted from 1999 to 2019
The SED contains much historical data, allowing us to look at trends in Ph.D. production, employment, and more. The survey's Post-Graduation Commitments data is reported from 1999 to 2019 and we'll delve more into it below. 

Ph.D.s with Post-Graduation Commitments: Employment vs. Postdoctoral Training
The data plotted below reflects the breakdown of doctorate recipients with either employment or postdoctoral training commitments post-graduation.

​Keep in mind, though, that many recent Ph.D. recipients do not report definite commitments post-graduation in the SED survey. In the data from 1999 to 2019, the average percentage of all Ph.D. recipients reporting definite post-graduation commitments is ~60%. ​

For the purposes of the data plotted above, postdoctoral training and employment are separate post-graduation commitments and the percentages in these two buckets plotted in the graphs above sum to 100% within each degree field. In these data, all post-graduation commitments are categorized as either employment or postdoctoral training. 

These historical post-graduation commitments data tell us a few things:
1) Pursuing postdoctoral training is far more common in the Life Sciences and Physical (Chemistry, Physics) & Earth Sciences
2) Data collapsed across all fields show a trend toward a lower percentage of Ph.D. recipients securing employment post graduation, with particular declines in the Humanities & Arts and Psychology & Social Sciences
3) More Humanities & Arts and Psychology & Social Science Ph.D.s with post-graduation commitments are pursuing postdoctoral training, especially over the last 10 years 
4) There are trends toward greater employment pursuit and lower engagement in postdoctoral training over the last 15 years in the Life Sciences and Physical & Earth Sciences (with a hint at a "peak postdoctoral training" level in the high 60% range in the year 2004)

Again, the data plotted above reflects only those Ph.D. recipients with definite post-graduation commitments. Let's examine the trends in the percentage of Ph.D. recipients reporting definite post-graduation commitments over the same 20-year time period, below. 

Takeaways from the graph above:
1) The "shock" of the financial crisis beginning in 2008 is evident slightly in the 2009 SED data and noticeably in the 2014 data of recent Ph.D. recipients with definite post-graduation commitments
2) While post-graduation commitment percentages recovered by 2019 in most fields, the Humanities & Arts were an exception with percentage of recent Ph.D. graduates with post-graduation commitments lower in 2019 than in 1999, 2004, or 2009
3) Mathematics & Computer Science Ph.D.s consistently experience the highest percentage of definite post-graduation commitments
​
It will be interesting to see what the SED show in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on post-graduation commitments in the coming years. 

Overall, there has been a 35.5% increase in the number of total US doctorates awarded from 1999 (41,100 Ph.D.s) to 2019 (55,703 Ph.D.s). Education doctorates (Ed.D.s; Ph.D.s) awarded decreased by 29.3% from 1999 to 2019 while the decline was 4.2% for the Humanities & Arts. The growth in Ph.D.s awarded in other fields over this twenty year time period was staggering: a doubling of degrees (118.7% increase) awarded in Mathematics & Computer Sciences and near doubling (93.3% increase) for Engineering Ph.D.s awarded. While less dramatic, the growth of Ph.D.s awarded in the Life Sciences (55.8%), Physical & Earth Sciences (53.7%), and Psychology & Social Sciences (22.8%) was still quite robust from 1999 to 2019.

​Take-home point from the Ph.D.s conferred data:
There are a lot of Ph.D.s being produced each year and while some fields may be producing recipients with good job prospects (Mathematics & Computer Sciences, 70.2% with post-graduation commitments in 2019) others continue to produce very high levels of Ph.D.s with moderate job prospects based on the SED data (Life Sciences, 62.3% with post-graduation commitments in 2019). The Humanities & Arts field showed a plateauing to slight decrease in Ph.D.s awarded over the past 20 years, suggesting this field is responding to lower "demand" for Ph.D.s (52.3% with post-graduation commitments in 2019), though some may argue not rapidly enough.

The sector employment data make clear employment in academe has declined over the past 20 years across all doctorate recipients, though more so in some fields of study. Across all doctorate recipients, there has been a 15.4% decline in the proportion of individuals employed in academe from 1999 to 2019 while the proportion employed by industry or business grew by 40% over the same time period. 

​The Ph.D. degree areas with the largest decline in the proportion of recipients working in academe from 1999 (48.1%) to 2019 (27.5%) was Mathematics & Computer Sciences at 42.8%, followed by a decline of 24.2% in the Life Sciences - from 47.5% of recipients in 1999 to 36% in 2019. In fact, as the graph above shows, the 2019 SED data indicates a larger proportion of Life Sciences Ph.D. recipients employed in industry or business than academe, a first since the data have been collected. Again, a reminder that postdoctoral training is NOT INCLUDED in these data. Rather, the graphs above display the breakdown of 2019 Ph.D. recipients with employment post-graduation commitments by sector.

Interestingly, employment in academe remained relatively stable in the fields of Psychology & Social Sciences (51.9% in 1999 and 51.7% in 2019), declined more modestly in Humanities & Arts (10.4% decline from 80.7% of 1999 Ph.D. recipients to 72.3% in 2019), and actually increased for the field of Education (20.3% increase from 47.2% of 1999 Ph.D./Ed.D. recipients to 56.8% in 2019).

Regardless, the data make clear that employment trends for recent Ph.D. recipients, especially in the Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math (STEM) fields, have changed markedly over the past 20 years.

​These data bring to light a question that continues to be asked more and more in graduate education: Are we preparing Ph.D. students for a 21st Century career landscape or one of the past? Clearly, employment prospects in academe are shrinking. 

It should be noted that there are vast differences in which sectors employ Ph.D. recipients based on their field of study, as indicated in the pie charts below. 

While not plotted above the breakdown for employment sectors for 2019 Mathematics & Computer Sciences Ph.D.s was: 64% Industry/Business, 28% Academe, 5% Government, 2% Nonprofit, & ~2% Other or Unknown. 
Clearly, being employed by industry or business sectors was the most common career path for recent Ph.D.s in STEM in 2019.
Conversely, academe is by far the largest sector employing recent Ph.D.s in Humanities & Arts, Psychology & Social Sciences, & Education.  

Clearly, in 2019, the sectors employing Ph.D.s varied WIDELY based on Ph.D. field. These facts raise the question, are we adequately preparing all Ph.D.s for their next career step given the diversity of paths they pursue?

Post-Ph.D. Plans: Pursue a Postdoc or Not?
While I have discussed my personal perspectives on the value of doing a postdoc, including using it for career exploration and self reflection, this is often a crucial decision point for many recent Ph.D. recipients. There are clearly financial considerations as postdoctoral salaries or stipends are relatively low compared to many Ph.D. holders' earning potential (discussed in more detail, below). However, the freedom and autonomy one can have in a postdoctoral position may not be matched for the rest of one's career and it can provide a nice period of scholarly and self exploration before making your next career move in academe, industry, or beyond. 

Postdoctoral training has also become necessary in many fields to be competitive for faculty positions as this additional training allows time for Ph.D. holders to build a larger collection of scholarly work, begin to demonstrate research independence, and develop crucial skills in lab management and grant writing, among other tasks required of faculty at research-intensive institutions. Teaching postdocs have also become more common for recent Ph.D.s seeking to build pedagogical and classroom management skills as they pursue teaching-focused faculty positions. 

As mentioned above in the breakdown of post-graduation commitments of recent Ph.D. recipients over the past 20 years, postdoctoral training is the majority commitment path for many fields: 59% of Life Science Ph.D. recipients in 2019 with post-graduation commitments pursued postdoctoral training while that percentage was ~56% in the Physical & Earth Sciences. The postdoctoral path is less common in other Ph.D. fields, though. 

The sheer numbers of 2019 Ph.D. recipients (collapsed across fields) pursing postdoctoral training (12,091), though, still dwarfs employment numbers in any other single employment sector (8,019 employed in academe; 7,476 employed in industry; 3,929 employment in other sectors).

​For many a postdoc is the default "next step" in their academic training and while it may fulfill this role for some, we should be empowering Ph.D. students with the information and space to decide if a postdoc makes sense for them (whether it fits into a career plan). 

Median Salaries of US Doctorate Recipients in 2019
While others have published about the financial impact of pursuing postdoctoral training versus employment post-Ph.D., the 2019 SED data allow us to look at how salaries differ between those pursuing postdoctoral training or employment by field of study (and by sex, though not discussed in this post). 

The percentage of median postdoctoral salaries to other employment salaries for new doctorate recipients demonstrate that the salary discount for pursuing postdoctoral training various greatly by field. In the Life Sciences, median postdoctoral salary ($50,000) is 61% of the median of other employment salary ($82,000). The percentage is as low as 49% in Engineering and as high as 94% in Humanities and Arts.

The median salary for recently employed doctorates also varies greatly by field. $53,000 was the median salary for Humanities and Arts doctorate recipients in 2019 while it was $68,000 in Psychology, $70,000 in Education, $85,000 in Biological and Biomedical Sciences, $95,000 in Chemistry, $102,500 in Engineering, and $120,000 in Mathematics and Computer Sciences. 

While these data are aggregated over many sub-fields and employment sectors and represent the median of a wide salary range, they hopefully allow Ph.D. holders to have a sense of the salaries they can obtain post-degree.

An interesting question these data cannot answer by themselves is whether there are more Ph.D.s interested in employment in certain sectors than there are positions, which affect their ability to secure employment. It is possible (and probable) that many individuals pursue a postdoc after their Ph.D. because they cannot secure other employment upon graduation. ​

More Data to Explore
There is a wealth of data in the SED and beyond. This post has just scratched the surface. 
Next​ month I hope to touch on some of the SED data comparing temporary visa holders and US citizens and permanent residents. In addition, 2019 SDR data should be published by NSF in April, which will allow for a deeper dive into employment trends for Ph.D.-holders in the US.

​If you are interested in exploring the data that made up this post, please visit the link below.
​You can also check out all the SED data on NSF's website.  

Conclusions
While the NSF SED data prompt several questions about the doctorate workforce and career pathways that remain to be interrogated, what is clear is that post-Ph.D. career pathways for doctorates issued in the United States are changing across a wide range of disciplines. Through data such as this, those of us interested in improving graduate student and postdoc career and professional development can hopefully share post-Ph.D. employment insights with a variety of stakeholders (students, postdocs, faculty, university administrators, & lawmakers) to influence the environment at our universities.

​We must be more intentional in considering what we are training Ph.D. students and postdocs for and how their employment prospects have changed. By doing so, we can hopefully build a responsive graduate-level training ecosystem at our universities that takes into account the future economic stability and prosperity of our Ph.D. students and postdocs.