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Reflections Blog

Career Resources for the Humanities and Social Sciences

3/9/2021

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Career Development, Career Exploration
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While my background is in the biological sciences, during my time working in career and professional development I have learned about career resources for a variety of fields.

Here, I share resources and datasets I am aware of that speak to the career prospects of individuals working outside the biological and chemical sciences, particularly those in the humanities and social sciences.
General Career Resources for the Humanities & Social Sciences

​Modern Language Association Career Resources

​In particular, see their Job Market Data

American Psychological Association - Careers in Psychology Resources


Career Outcomes Data & Insights for the Humanities & Social Sciences

American Academy of Arts & Sciences
Humanities Indicators
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Humanities Indicators - Workforce Data

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American Historical Association
Where Historians Work Database

Closing Gaps in our Knowledge of PhD Career Pathways: How Well Did a Humanities PhD Prepare Them?
Publication from the Council of Graduate Schools' PhD Career Pathways Project

​See the Association of American Universities' PhD Education Initiative Activities Page for a List of Several Ongoing PhD Program & Career Outcome Data Efforts from Institutions, Multi-Institutional Efforts, & Professional Societies.

Despite its name, the Coalition for Next Generation Life Sciences data often contain humanities and social science programs (for example: Cornell Graduate School, Emory Graduate School PhD & Master's data, University of Wisconsin Graduate School, University of Toronto 10,000 PhDs Project). Explore all the data.

The National Science Foundation's Survey of Earned Doctorates also has some data on general workforce trends for Ph.D. recipients by field of study.  
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Career Exploration Tools
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ImaginePhD: A Career Exploration & Planning Tool for the Humanities and Social Sciences
A product of the Graduate Career Consortium
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Create a FREE ImaginePhD account to explore their resources or job families and complete self assessments to discover potential job families that fit your skills, interests, & values. 

Read more about ImaginePhD in Career Exploration 101 on my blog.

Are there other resources that should be included in this post?
Use the comments, below, to share them!
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Conveying Your Value Prior to and During a Job Search

2/25/2021

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Career Development, Academic Job Search, Job Search
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Last month, my blog post focused on growing your personal brand and network and the importance time plays (i.e., starting early) in experiencing compounded returns. This month, I turn to discussing the importance of conveying your value, especially as it relates to a job search.
Selling Yourself
Most scientists and scholars dislike the idea of "selling" themselves when on the job market. It feels a bit forced and disingenuous, right? Shouldn't good work and your abilities speak for themselves? The answer is, unfortunately, NO.
As all of us, including hiring managers, are bombarded with ever increasing amounts of information and content you need to work to ensure your brand and message can rise above the noise. For a job search, this relies on ensuring you as an applicant can convey a coherent value proposition of how your skills and abilities translate to an employer's needs clearly and succinctly. This fact applies whether you are seeking positions in academia or industry. There is data showing the average resume is viewed for only 7.4 seconds by recruiters. In addition, faculty searches routinely receive 200+ applicants per open position in the biological sciences.

How do you stand out from the masses? Through powerfully communicating who you are and the expertise you bring to solve problems an employer cares about. It starts and ends with effective communication in your conversations, on social media, and in your application documents. 
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The Academic Job Search - Building Impactful Documents
For those readers looking to pursue a faculty career, the quality of your research, teaching, and diversity statements is essential. But don't forget to craft a cover letter that provides a description of how you fit the department, institution, and role. The key across all of these documents is to convey the value you bring as a potential colleague to the department you are applying to. You should ensure throughout these application documents that your tone is written from the perspective of a colleague that has expertise and knowledge to add to the unit's teaching and research efforts. And please don't write these materials with a deferential tone, saying things like "it would be an honor to join your department" or "I would love the privilege of working at institution X". Words like honor and privilege convey the idea that you are asking for a job (that they are doing you a favor by considering your application). Rather, you want your tone and word choice in your application documents to speak to how you can add to their department and bring value through teaching needed courses or leading new research efforts (via particular techniques or areas of expertise you possess) at the institution (that you are doing them a favor by applying).
The distinction between asking a department to hire you and conveying why the should want to hire you seems minor but it isn't. The goal is to present yourself with confidence and demonstrate how you will immediately add value to the work of the department and institution through your teaching, research, and service. This requires a bit of research into core courses taught in the department, understanding the aspects of your research that are a funding priority by various agencies, and what the university values in their faculty (teaching over research, working mostly with undergraduate students, etc...).
The Value of Talking to Current Faculty Members, Including New Hires
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While you cannot completely network your way to a faculty position, you can certainly learn a lot about an institution and department prior to applying by talking with faculty, especially newly-hired assistant professors. Informational interviews with faculty can be immensely powerful in helping you understand the expectations for new faculty at various institutions. You can also use these conversations to learn from those who recently navigated the faculty job market in your field and get a better sense of what is valued in faculty applicants.
Ideally, you should start these conversations at least a year before applying as you are using them to gather information NOT to talk about a specific job opening. ​What you learn could then be helpful if the department has an opening the following year as you will know a bit about resources and expectations in the department and can speak to them in your application materials. 

You can also reach out to faculty at departments you know are hiring to talk more about their research and experience working there. These could be future collaborators even if you don't land the position. So approach the conversation with the goal of learning more about the individual, their research, and their experience working at the institution NOT about a single position, though the open position may come up in conversation and allow you to learn about hiring priorities for the department. 

For more see my Tales from the Academic Job Market post from July 2019.
Explore My Job Search Resources

Shifting back to discussing general tips for a broad job search outside faculty positions, informational interviews and networking are essential as many jobs are not advertised. Tapping this hidden job market will increase your odds of landing a position but building the relationships you need to accomplish this does require considerable time and effort. 
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Like an iceberg, most positions are not visible to you. You access this hidden job market through your network. A great way to start networking is via informational interviews.
Start Early to Avoid an Employer's "Front Door" 
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One way to immediately improve your odds of landing a position is not to apply to one in the traditional sense.

​Applications submitted online (especially for employment at large companies) are likely to be sifted through by an applicant tracking system that automates review of your materials. If you lack the keywords or experience the job advertisement calls for, you could be screened out before a human being even looks at your materials. And while there are certainly strategies to improve your application making it through such automated systems, why put your employment fate completely in their hands? 

How do you avoid being subject to the whims of an online system? You leverage your network. This is the piece of advice that job seekers typically don't want to hear as it requires advance "groundwork" and effort that needs to begin 6-12 months BEFORE you need a job.
Informational interviews are a powerful entry point to building a professional relationship with someone in a career field of interest to you. By talking with individuals with job titles you are interested in or who work at companies you think you would like to work for, you learn:
  • ​Whether a particular position fits your skills, interests, and values
  • Whether a potential employer fits the environment you want to work in
  • What an employer's future plans are - where they are growing, what types of positions may become open in the coming year
  • How individuals with similar backgrounds to you (Ph.D., postdoc) made career transitions
  • Advice on how to make a career transition yourself
  • Whom else to speak with in your career field of interest or at the company
  • And more....

Remember to treat these conversations as fact-finding missions and a chance to learn and connect. Be sure to take notes and follow-up with those you speak with as well as strategize ways to keep them updated on your plans and accomplishments as you progress toward the end of your training. Also, be sure to consider ways you can provide value to those you speak with by either sharing research (recent publications) or news that could be relevant to their work or by connecting them with individuals you know who could help them fill an open position, learn about a new technique or process, and more. You have more to "give" than you think. 

Read more on career exploration and informational interviews on the blog: 
  • Start Here
  • ​Career Exploration 101
  • Exploring a Variety of Career Paths
  • Post-PhD Career Plans: Consider the Possibilities
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​Build Your Narrative
As you speak with professionals about their career (via informational interviews) or attend networking events, you will certainly also need to be able to talk about yourself and your value in an effective way: your professional narrative. 

As human beings we are all working to construct narratives of others...it is how we make sense of a complex world. So, if you don't do a thorough job of crafting your own personal narrative and value proposition, one will be created for you.

When scanning your resume or LinkedIn profile, instead of "10+ years of experience working with leading genetic editing technologies including CRISPR-Cas9", someone may see career "student" focused on academic minutiae. Or, they may see you as just a scientist with a lot of great technical skills but wonder how you will do interacting with others or with clients who lack a full understanding of the technical details you take for granted. You must ensure you craft a compelling and clear narrative about your experience and expertise that is accessible. Less jargon and more focused on results and the impact of your work. 
Reframing
One of the largest challenges faced by graduate students and postdocs when describing their experiences and skills is ensuring they frame the work they have performed and tasks they have accomplished in an accessible way. Filling your application documents with technical jargon and listing out the papers you have published is fine when applying for academic positions. If you are looking for a career outside faculty or university research roles, however, you need to reframe and tailor your application documents. 

A resume should always be tailored to a position and be focused on how your contributed toward various projects, with an emphasis on the results and impact of your work.

For more advice on reframing and tailoring your experiences in a resume, see this Guide for CV to Resume Conversion from Yale University. 
Practice Your Messaging
A crucial step in conveying your skills, abilities, and interest in a particular career field is having your personal brand messaging honed and ready to share.

When at a networking event, for instance, you are meeting professionals that may work in areas of interest to you and your task upon meeting them is to efficiently and compellingly convey who you are, what you do, and your future interests in 30-60 seconds. You might have heard this referred to as an elevator pitch. Having this short description of you, your work, and your aspirations ready to share can really help those you meet understand who you are and where you may fit into the world of work.
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Ideally, this pitch touches on your skills and expertise but also how you are seeking to apply them after your graduate school or postdoctoral training. You can also condense and use this pitch in your LinkedIn headline and profile summary sections. 
Your professional narrative needs to be coherent and pervasive across platforms like LinkedIn, your resume, and in your communications with others.

Some other points to consider as you work to convey your narrative and value as part of a job search:
Believe in Your Value
It is critically important when applying and interviewing for a position to ensure you project confidence but not cockiness
You need to make clear to potential employers that you have valuable skills and experience to offer them. Sometimes this requires working to explain how your background and training fit aspects associated with the role. You will often need to "connect the dots" between your past experiences and the role for an employer.
Also, you must not view yourself as just a student or trainee but rather as a professional with valuable skills & expertise. See 
Reframing, above, for tips on this. ​
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Appeal to Emotion and Not Just Logic
While many believe they must appeal to concrete examples and data points that speak to their fit for a position, they often leave out the clear role "feeling" plays in most human interactions and decisions. Human beings are very good at rationalizing a decision based on "gut feeling" after the fact and the hiring process is not immune to this rationalization process. So, it is critical to ensure you are also making a reader of your application materials feel something​.

If you have successfully used your network to have your application materials elevated to the point that a human being is reviewing them (i.e., a referral), remember that a human being is influenced by more than just metrics and data. Why we often think of ourselves as logical beings, our emotions and "gut feelings" play a larger part in shaping our choices and behavior than we consciously realize. In terms of crafting your application materials, remember that a potential employer wants to hire someone who is qualified for the role (i.e., has made a good argument) but also someone who conveys interest and passion for the position and work it will entail. Going even further, people want to hire people they want to work with as colleagues. So, show a bit of humanity in your materials. 

​For example, it is sometimes worth using a few sentences in the cover letter to speak to why the role you are applying to is right for you as a human being. You might add details related to how the role fits with your personality or passion for working in a particular area...things that can't often be conveyed in a resume. This is certainly a personal decision but also mentioning you have family in the area or, after speaking with employees at the company/institution, really value the emphasis they place on work/life balance can demonstrate that the choice you are making is about more than just the job. It also emphasizes your priorities and shows you are thinking about the long-term prospects associated with working there. Remember a potential employer is also trying to surmise ​whether you will take the job if offered. So, be sure you convey why you are interested in the position professionally and personally. 
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Job Interview Narratives - Ensure You Hit Your Key Points 
When it comes time for a job interview, you will need to be sure you have a 
compelling career story to share and are ready to use narratives around your experiences to respond to the behavior-based interview questions that are certain to be asked. 
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You have heard these behavior-based interview questions before:
  • Tell me about a time you encountered a set-back or failure and how you worked to overcome it.
  • Give me an example of a time you faced a conflict while working on a team. How did you handle that?
  • Tell me about a time you were dissatisfied in your work. What could have been done to make it better?
  • Describe a decision you made that wasn't popular, and explain how you handled implementing it.

The critical piece of advice I want to offer here and one that you should remember if nothing else from this piece: Be the author of your own story.

By this I mean make sure you are speaking to key talking points you want to convey whenever you are interacting with someone professionally as part of your job search. Don't let behavior-based interview questions hem you in. Rather, be sure you have 5-7 great stories to tell that emphasize key aspects of your personality, work ethic, or expertise that you want to ensure a potential employer hears about. Then, it is your job to weave these stories into your response to an interviewer's questions. The goal is to leave a job interview with the sense you expressed what you can offer to the best of your ability and have few regrets that you missed a key talking point.

None of this is easy and practice makes perfect. While mock interviews can certainly help, nothing beats the real thing. As such, consider taking any interview you are offered, even if you aren't sure of the career fit. Getting experience telling your story is never a bad thing and you never know when talking with someone, even an interviewer, could lead to unexpected opportunities down the road. 

See the two Resources at the end of this post on tips for navigating a job interview, including a Story Circle activity that can help you frame your talking points in response to questions you might encounter during an interview.
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Caveats
There has been much mentioned in this piece and my previous post about the need to start early, network, and have conversations with professionals (informational interviews) well before you are on the job market to effectively uncover opportunities. I acknowledge that this advice might not be feasible with your current timetable, though. 

I completely understand many of us need a position NOW and cannot lay the networking groundwork referenced above to land our immediate next job. Certainly you may need to take the best position available to you right now. This doesn't mean the tips shared above can't be used once you have a job.

Maybe you want to explore how you advance at your new company? Maybe you are interested in learning about other roles at the company? Maybe after working in your new role for a few months you realize it isn't right for you.

In all these cases, you can use informational interviews and networking to learn more about your employer, coworkers, or other careers available to you. It is never a bad thing to work to expand your network and continue to learn about options available to you in your career. 

As a graduate student or postdoc, many of us have seen how an academic career path is quite linear and regimented:
Ph.D. student -> postdoc -> Assistant Professor -> Associate Professor -> Full Professor 

Most careers aren't that way, though, and most professionals don't stay with one employer or in one job family for their full career.

Thus, you need to be continually accessing your skills, interests, and values and how your current career fits with them. By continuing to have conversations and working to convey your current and future value effectively, you will keep yourself open to opportunities and be agile enough to take advantage of them. All this is crucial in a rapidly changing world where we can't even begin to imagine what career opportunities will exist in the near future. 

Finally, remember that no one will care about your career more than you. So empower yourself to take charge of your story and talk to people to discover what possibilities await for you out there.

​You can do it!
For Further Reading

A Ph.D. is Not Enough: A Guide to Survival In Science

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If Your Really Want a Job, Show You Have These 6 Qualities

How to Tell a Concise, Compelling Career Story in an Interview

How to Write a Personal Value Proposition

Interview Question: "Tell Me About Yourself"

Storytelling: The Secret Weapon To Wow A Hiring Manager
Contains excellent advice and tips to assist you in telling your stories during a job interview

Mirror Neurons: Why Good Stories Provoke Empathy and Connection

Go with Your Gut: Emotion and Evaluation in Job Interviews

Emotions in the Hiring Procedure: How ‘Gut Feelings’ Rationalize Personnel Selection Decisions

Emotion and Decision Making (from Annual Review of Psychology)

Resources

Informational & Job Interview Overview & Resources

Story Circle Activity Worksheet - a framework for crafting stories around your experiences and skills to use to convey your expertise and value during an interview (credit careercontessa.com)
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Compounded Returns: Growing Your Network & Personal Brand

1/28/2021

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Life Advice, Career Development, Personal Perspective
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The Power of Compound Interest
Albert Einstein purportedly described compounding as the most powerful force in the universe and compound interest as the eighth wonder of the world. 
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We most think of compound interest in the form of finances and growing wealth. And compound interest in that domain is, indeed, quite powerful and important. The crucial aspect of this type of growth is that it relies heavily on time. The more time one has to allow their money to grow at some rate of return (3%, 5%, 8%), the more money they will have at the end of some specified period of time. The earnings that accrue each year (or day, or month, depending on how interest is paid out) adds to the amount the individual invests themselves and also, itself, produces interest and earnings over time.

​An example from the investment learning blog grow illustrates how much of a difference 10 years can make: if a person starts saving $5,000/year for their retirement at age 25, they will end up with more than twice as much retirement savings ($1,300,000) by age 65 as someone who waits until 35 to start ($565,000), assuming an 8% rate of return, compounded annually.

​So, don't wait to invest in your retirement...even if it is $50 or $100 per month. That adds up over time. 
Exponential Growth & COVID-19
Time matters so much in the world of compound interest as the growth of money in this case is exponential.

You might have heard a bit about the power of exponential growth as it related to the 
spread of COVID-19 within a population. While pure exponential growth is not the best way to model the spread of COVID-19 infections, using it as an example demonstrates the point that, again, time matters when it comes to compounding growth of, in this case, a viral infection.

​An example used in the Forbes article linked above nicely illustrates the point of growth in viral spread: if just 1 person is infected on January 1st and the number of infected people doubles every three days (1 person has the ability to infect another in three days time from casual interactions, etc...), 1,024 people will be infected on January 31 (as each newly infected person also infects someone else every 3 days), 2,048 on February 3 (doubling of infections every 3 days), and by March 19th (78 days after the initial infection), 
67 million people will be infected! Obviously COVID-19 didn't spread this fast due to various measures to slow the spread but, clearly, exponential growth is scary.

​The point here, and that we learned all too well in 2020, is that if one does not intervene early to stop the spread, the growth of viral spread will produce levels of infection that are nearly impossible to deal with barring some major new intervention like a vaccine, which thankfully, is coming in the case of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the disease that is COVID-19. 


Another interesting bit of research that resurfaced in the media during the spread of COVID-19 was the concept of exponential growth bias - the fact that most people ​consistently underestimate how fact value increases exponentially. In fact, an interesting study published in PNAS found that helping individuals better understand how impactful exponential growth can be for COVID-19 transmission led to increased support for measures to slow the spread of the virus.

So, while we may struggle to comprehend exponential growth initially, understanding this process better is critical to taking actions that can affect this type of growth, whether we want to harness it for good (i.e., saving for retirement) or combat its negative effects (viral transmission).
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Big Things Come from Small Beginnings - Growing Your Professional Presence & Career

​What does exponential growth have to do with your career?

Well, I believe we build our expertise and personal brand over time and can experience outsized returns in our careers if we start early and seek out means of increasing our rate of return, which could include:
  1. Publishing your scholarly work (if you are a researcher)
  2. Building an online brand and presence (via LinkedIn and/or a personal website)
  3. Sharing your work & expertise via online platforms (LinkedIn posts, articles, or blog posts on other platforms)
  4. Growing your professional network & reach
  5. Developing relationships with professionals in your current or desired career field
  6. Communicating your value, expertise, and story broadly, including learning how to communicate to general audiences  
Where to begin?
Any academic researcher knows you usually don't develop a reputation overnight. Rather, you build it by consistently doing good work and publishing it in the public domain. If your work is not published, the wider scientific community cannot easily access and assess it. And it often takes time for your published work to be discovered and cited by others and, thus, be acknowledged as valuable to the field.
​Academic Publications and Citation Metrics
When my first academic manuscript was published in 2012, it seemed like I would have to wait forever to have anyone cite my work. In 2013, that publication received 7 citations, representing my total citation count that year as I worked to write-up and publish more of my Ph.D. research.

With 3 papers published in 2014 (I received my Ph.D. in May 2014), my scholarly output increased and citation counts soon followed:  17 citations in 2014 and 23 in 2015.
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Personal citation metrics from Google Scholar.
Continuing to publish both my graduate research and postdoctoral work during my time as a postdoc (which ran from August 2014 to January 2019) ultimately led to 20 publications (11 as first author) and 92 total citations in 2019. It took 5 years from my first publication for me to reach 45 citations/year (in 2017) but only two additional years to double that citation amount (92 citations/year in 2019). Again, returns on your research productivity take time but can accelerate as you continue to produce good work.  

It is a bit unfortunate that scholarly productivity metrics like published papers and citation indices (h-index) 
​are delayed measures as they cannot reflect the potential of younger researchers. It takes time for these measures to accumulate and grow for any scientist. So, the old adage of publish early and often is still relevant to increase these metrics.

​In fact, one study has shown that the number of publications pre-Ph.D. predicted publication productivity over a period of 10 years post-Ph.D. In addition, another study of biomedical scientists who graduated with their Ph.D. from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus between the years 2000 and 2015 found that the number of first-author publications published pre-Ph.D. were higher in those who ultimately landed academic faculty positions. So, if you goal is to pursue a faculty career the earlier you can begin establishing a publication track record, the better.   
What other metrics are associated with success on the biological science faculty job market? ​Read our e-Life publication from the 2018-2019 faculty job market: ​
A survey-based analysis of the academic job market
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​Network Early & Often
Network effects also compound over time. As your network grows so does your reach. Think of your LinkedIn network: the more individuals you are connected to, the more likely your updates are to be shared with those in your connections' networks, increasing your reach. Growing your LinkedIn connections and presence takes time, though.

​Plotting the number of LinkedIn connections I have amassed from opening my account in April 2013, the growth looks pretty exponential from a total of 43 connections in 2013 to 2,302 connections by the end of 2020.
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Over time, your network connections can grow exponentially, as indicated in the total number of my own LinkedIn connections.
A key point in growing your network, including on LinkedIn, is to start early as time is your friend and will facilitate compounding effects.
You shouldn't just seek to grow your connections on LinkedIn but also your presence on the platform. A great way to begin establishing a brand on LinkedIn is to not only post updates and thoughts but also author articles on the platform. In addition, data have shown being an active LinkedIn user (keeping abreast of what is happening with your contacts or organizations you follow) is more important than the sheer number of LinkedIn connections you possess. ​
Your professional network also grows with time. As you meet and get to know individuals working in a space of interest to you, they will introduce you to more like-minded individuals and opportunities and your network will grow. A great way to locate individuals interested in professional areas you are interested in is via national societies and organizations. There is nearly always an opportunity to get involved in these organizations and doing so can really help you expand your network and diversify your skillset. Collaboration, teamwork, communication, and leadership skills can all be developed by volunteering in these organizations. 
Looking to grow your LinkedIn network by 1? 
Connect With Me on LinkedIn
Don't Under-Estimate the Personal Touch
Clearly online tools like LinkedIn are extremely powerful and useful in growing your brand and professional network. Don't forget, however, the importance of personal, human connection. People have to know and like you before they will trust you (these are key concepts in building client relationships, too). So, building a personal rapport with others be they potential future colleagues, mentors, or influencers in your career of interest is critical.

Developing personal connections is admittedly difficult in the current COVID-19 pandemic. When life begins to return to normal, though, I encourage you to really work to meet more people. Volunteering is one way to do this as is working with a society or organization in an area of professional interest to you.  
Invest the Time to Build Your Brand
In a world full of information and content, building a coherent personal brand takes time and effort. You will undoubtedly start putting content out in the world without much immediate return. Going "viral" in terms of your personal brand isn't easy or even very attainable.
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​However, if you are developing content that is useful, you will eventually gain followers. 
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I started this personal website when I began my postdoc at Vanderbilt University in August 2014 and it took 5+ years for it to really take off, in no small part due to this blog. In addition, I realized sharing documents I used in my funding search (my successful NIH F31 & F32 applications) as well as job search (resumes, CVs, cover letters) would be of great value to current trainees. I really wanted to offer resources that I thought would have been useful to my younger self. ​
The combination of the blog posts and resource sharing has led to this site seeing increased visitors. In 2015 I averaged 20 to 50 unique visitors a month. Upon adding the resources and blog content in 2019, unique visitors per month ranged from 35 to 305 and in August of 2020 I reached 962 unique visitors in a single month which was more than the cumulative visitors I received in all of 2018. It helps that during this time I was also sharing updates from my blog and website across my expanding LinkedIn network. Again, returns compound over time.  
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Unique monthly visitors to christophertsmith.com from inception (August 2014) to present.
While launching a personal website and writing a blog may be a lot to take on for many of you (though Google Sites are, I am told, easy to construct), you can certainly start small. A great way to begin is by making sure you are active/visible on LinkedIn, have a strong LinkedIn profile, and contribute content in the form of LinkedIn articles or posts.

If you are an academic, you need at minimum a Google Scholar account, and if you are a biological/biomedical scientist, you need to create an NCBI My Bibliography (start by creating a NCBI account). These free platforms allow others to quickly see your scholarly productivity and impact and will likely be reviewed when you begin applying for faculty positions. 
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Communicate & Tell Your Story
Another great way to build your personal brand is to tell your story and share your work in a publicly accessible way. These efforts will help you hone your communication skills - both oral, visual, and written. LinkedIn data have shown communication is the most in-demand skill sought by employers and learning how to develop you communication skills can also help you advance your career. There is even scholarly work showing the critical nature of storytelling to the survival of our species by helping to organize cooperation among individuals. Clearly, being able to relate and communicate with others is essential to being effective in our personal and professional lives. 

How can you as a scientist tell the story of you and your work with others? One website I am aware of open to graduate students and postdocs writing about their research work is 
PassioInventa. Another goal of this platform is to humanize scientists as people who struggle with the same issues as everyone else and to make the scientific process more accessible to readers. PassioInventa was started by three graduate students and they have a great passion for this work. Listen to the founders tell the PassioInventa story on the excellent When Science Speaks Podcast. 

Other online platforms available for scientists to communicate their work to a general audience include Club SciWri and The Story Collider. Or maybe you want to hone your skills talking about your science to K-12 students? Consider the Skype a Scientist program.
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​You can also check out tons of great resources and opportunities around science communication via the NPR Scicommer community and their associated Slack group.

When the world returns more to in-person activities, you might also want to look into presenting your research at a local science café or group, which are often housed within your area's science museum(s). 
By getting outside your comfort zone and building awareness of you and your work via different communication opportunities (outside academic talks and publications), you can grow your network and influence. Who knows where these experiences will take you?
Closing Thoughts
Building a personal brand and reputation as a researcher or thought leader in a space takes time. I feel like my journey as a professional working in postdoctoral affairs and graduate-level career and professional development has only just begun. I have only been working in this field full-time since January 2019 and so far have one publication in the education/workforce research area. I know it will take time to build recognition for the work I do now just like it did to build recognition of my neuroscience research that began back in 2008 when I started graduate school.  
But, as the famous Chinese proverb says: 
​

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
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I think the key piece of advice to take from my past experience and the research highlighted in this piece is to start early and make small steps to increase your visibility in relevant spaces for your career goals. LinkedIn is a great place to begin generally but you can certainly expand from there. 

My final thought to leave you with is that in an increasingly noisy and distracted world, you have to be sure you tell your story clearly and effectively. This includes clearly communicating your skills, interests, and values and understanding yourself and your goals well enough to articulate them. 


Stay tuned for more on the topic of communicating your value in a future blog post.

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Readings & References

How to Build Your Network

Networking via LinkedIn: An examination of usage and career benefits

Is LinkedIn making you more successful? The informational benefits derived from public social media

​Presentation with Tips & Examples: Crafting an Effective LinkedIn Presence

​
LinkedIn Profile Writing Guide from Jobscan


Other Relevant Readings from the Reflections Blog

Career Exploration Series                                 
​Career Development Series


Why You Should Get Involved in Things Outside the Lab/Work

​The Power of Human Connection

Career Exploration 101
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    A neuroscientist by training, I now work to improve the career readiness of graduate students and postdoctoral scholars.

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