In a prior post I spoke to the importance in getting involved in various organizations and groups as a way to build skills, expand one's network, and give back. Volunteering around causes you care about is vital to so many areas of one's life. Sadly, however, volunteer engagement is on the decline. 

In a survey of over 1,200 non-profit leaders conducted in 2022, 46.8% said that recruiting sufficient volunteers is a big problem for their organization. Those numbers have almost doubled from the 2003 survey, in which 29% of nonprofits saw this issue as a big problem. Furthermore, nearly half of non-profit leaders believe that the lack of volunteers is a "big problem" to their organizations fulfilling their missions. This same report also pointed out that the ~100 institutional funders they surveyed were less likely endorse the belief that volunteers provide important programmatic and functional support to non-profit organizations (when compared to responses from non-profit leaders) and  were less aware of some of the challenges organizations faced in recruiting volunteers. This gap in funders' understanding of volunteer engagement and impact may result in it being difficult for non-profits to solicit funding support for these efforts. Importantly, the study also found that most non-profit organizations do not ask for funding for volunteer engagement and emphasized that funders see benefits to supporting volunteer engagement if they perceive the investment increases the capacity of volunteers to form or strengthen connections with other people or organizations in the community.   

I have seen some of the challenges in volunteer recruitment and engagement first-hand as part of my involvement in two organizations close to my heart: the National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) and the Graduate Career Consortium (GCC). Across both organizations, interest and engagement with one might call "service" committees has eroded, potentially because some volunteer tasks and activities in these areas seem like "work". 

While the NPA has a small staff (of 3.5 FTE as of this writing), many of them are focused on the day-to-day running of the organization and trying to "keep the lights on." As such, focusing on a complex problem like "volunteer engagement" and "leadership development" is a challenge. The GCC suffers from the fact that is a 100% volunteer-run organization. So, all day-to-day operational tasks of the GCC lies it its leaders and members to execute. Having served on the Executive Committee of the GCC, I can tell  you that it is A LOT of work. Furthermore, much like the NPA, GCC leadership spends much of its time trying to keep the organization running and fiscally stable.  

Both the NPA and GCC are great organizations with important missions and are working diligently to try to improve and evolve their operations and structures to serve their members better. That said, they can only do so much at their current volunteer levels. Both organizations would be transformed if more members engaged in volunteer efforts and activities. This requires infrastructure and a plan to accomplish, however. And while leadership in each organization can start to shape processes and procedures to improve volunteer recruitment, engagement, and retention, it will ultimately be up to volunteer leaders across various committees and taskforces within each organization to do the work. We need to engage volunteers in volunteer engagement which highlights the weird circularity of the problem. It will take effort to get this fly wheel going but perhaps combining established volunteers and leaders in each organization with newer volunteers would allow for fresh ideas and insights to emerge. There are no easy answers but we have to start somewhere. 

Certainly the COVID-19 pandemic hit many hard and led to burnout and a re-setting of priorities. Ironically, non-profit, volunteer-drive organizations offer an important service to those affected by the pandemic. Feeling isolated and uncertain? Organizations that foster community, connection, and resource sharing conceptually are more important to you now. But taking advantage of organizational resources and programs is quite different from helping to run and manage them. 

Perhaps part of the lower levels of engagement in volunteer work (and paid work, too) is a general issue in our limited attention and bandwidth today...stretched to its breaking point with the proliferation of content and technologies engineered to distract us. Email, notifications on applications like Slack, and the infinitely vast distractions available via the internet and streaming content services like Netflix provide a countervailing force on our attention and focus on work that is almost insurmountable. And this is work we are paid to do that gets crowded out by digital distractions. What hope do we have for engaging in work we are not paid to do (ie, volunteer work) in such an environment? 

There is also the issue that engaging in volunteer or leadership capacity in a non-profit organization is WORK. It requires effort and commitment that many have too little of these days. 

Similarly, developing more robust structures to engage and support volunteers within non-profits requires work on the part of an organization whose bandwidth is already stretched due to lower levels of engagement. Ironically, solving the problem often requires more engagement and volunteers. One can see how this state of affairs could lead to a sort of "doom loop" where a decrease in volunteer engagement erodes the organization's ability to "get stuff done" and provide examples of projects and activities for prospective volunteers to get excited about, ultimately leading to less new volunteer interest in the organization. 

There is some interesting research looking at what factors affect both volunteer retention and engagement. In the sample of 232 active volunteers working in social or environmental non-profit organizations, regression analyses found that commitment, and not engagement, predicts intention to remain with the organization, and that engagement, and not commitment, predicts psychological well-being of the volunteers. These data suggest a need for non-profits to articulate their "why" to volunteers to solidify their commitment to the organization and its mission to keep them engaged and then through their engagement, volunteers improve their sense of well-being (ie, feel "good" about their involvement). 

Indeed, other studies show that the volunteers perceive that their satisfaction with life had significantly changed as a result of doing voluntary work. In addition, this study found that the link between self-determined types of motivation and eudaimonic well-being ("living a life of virtue in pursuit of human excellence") is mediated by engagement. Engagement also mediated the positive effects of motivation on satisfaction with volunteering, which in turn acted as a second-order mediator on the relationship between self-determined types of motivation and hedonic well-being ("feel good"). In other words, volunteers need to be internally motivated to contribute to an organization and then be given pathways to engage with the organization to feel fulfillment from their involvement on a variety of levels. 

Qualitative analyses of interviews with experienced volunteer managers have found that key engagement strategies could include "fulfilling ulterior motives" of the volunteers. So, organizations must work to understand what is motivating their volunteers to engage and how can the organization help to fulfill this need while also involving the volunteer in activities crucial to the organization itself. Flexibility in engaging volunteers also came up this analysis, supporting the notion that providing volunteers different mechanisms for engagement (including potentially asynchronous tasks) allows them to remain engaged on their own terms. None of these findings are that surprising but they emphasize a need for organizations to develop infrastructure to hear from their prospective volunteers and offer them a variety of options to engage with the organization. Additional studies on volunteer engagement are linked at the end of this article. 

Reader, perhaps you can help jump-start volunteer engagement efforts in societies or organizations you care about by taking the first step of getting more involved? This could look differently for each person and organization but active engagement of some kind is critical. Perhaps you can identify a leader of a subcommittee or group within an organization and setup a meeting to learn more about their work and whether your skills and interests could contribute in some way? These conversations (and your continued involvement in an organization) ultimately help you widen and broaden your professional network and you can develop new skills in interpersonal communication, project management, and leadership by becoming involved in a project or initiative within the organization. If you are helpful and provide value, people around you will notice and could also be excellent references for jobs you may apply to in the future. In closing, volunteering is helpful for you professionally but also helps the organization accomplish its mission. It is the ultimate win-win. So, what are you waiting for? 

If you are a postdoctoral scholar or individual working to support this population, consider joining the NPA as a volunteer. There are several committees and taskforces to get involved in. 

If you work in the graduate-level (graduate student or postdoc) career & professional development space, the GCC is an amazing organization that could benefit from your contributions and involvement. Learn more about GCC committees and the organization's work and consider joining as a member if you aren't one. 

Additional Reading & Resources

• Nonprofit Volunteer Management: Three Tips to Increase and Maintain Engagement
• Initiative for Strategic Volunteer Engagement
• Council for Certification in Volunteer Administration 
• University of Maryland Do Good Institute
• Understanding and Improving Employee Engagement - Insights from Gallup

Research on Volunteer Engagement​

• Volunteer engagement and organizational commitment in nonprofit organizations: What makes volunteers remain within organizations and feel happy?
• Enhancing Volunteer Engagement to Achieve Desirable Outcomes: What Can Non-profit Employers Do?
• Volunteer Engagement and Retention: Their Relationship to Community Service Self-Efficacy
• Leading Volunteer Motivation: How Leader Behaviour can Trigger and Fulfil Volunteers’ Motivations

Get Involved!

• Great Nonprofits.org
• Volunteer Match

More from the Blog

• Why You Should Get Involved in Things Outside the Lab/Work
• ​To Be Rather Than To Seem

In last month's blog post I discussed how our perspective matters in how we interact with and see the world. As I was exploring research to cite in that piece I came across some very interesting work related to how how a person's mindset can affect them, physically. 

Much of this work comes from Alia Crum, an Associate Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. The Stanford Mind & Body Lab she directs studies how subjective mindsets (e.g., thoughts, beliefs, and expectations) can alter objective reality through behavioral, psychological, and physiological mechanisms. Her first publication, Mind-set Matters: Exercise and the Placebo Effect, found that informing female hotel room attendants that their work cleaning rooms was good exercise that satisfied the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's recommendations for an active lifestyle perceived themselves getting significantly more exercise 4 weeks later than a control group despite no overt change in their actual physical activity. Informing the attendants that their work was good exercise also affected their physiology measured at the 4-week time point. In fact, the subjects in the informed group lost an average of 2 pounds, lowered their systolic blood pressure by 10 points, and were significantly healthier as measured by body-fat percentage and body mass index.

​This study is a remarkable demonstration of how perception and belief an affect not only how one perceives their actions but also how this impacts their bodies and health. Crum has gone on to examine other interesting effects of mindset and beliefs on human physiology including how a milkshake perceived as more caloric and decadent increased participants' feeling of satiety ("fullness") and reduced ghrelin levels (a physiological signal for satiety) more than a milkshake labeled as healthy/diet despite the fact the milkshakes were identical in their make-up. The simple belief that one shake was more decadent and rich (despite it not actually being so) led to a physiological signal of more "satisfaction". Beliefs are powerful things.

And while certainly these findings are interesting and potentially impactful in how we think about food and exercise, Crum and others have also demonstrated the power of mindset on our mental state and ability to function productively in the world.

​For example, stress can both enhance and hinder human performance and work by Crum and colleagues show that one's stress mindset can impact both physiology and behavior. Based on responses to a scale developed by these researchers (Stress Mindset Measure), individuals fall into either a “stress-is-enhancing” or “stress-is-debilitating” mindset by default. Importantly, though, information presented to individuals that emphasize the enhancing nature of stress show improvements in self-reported health and work performance. Additionally, the authors found that individuals with a stress-is-enhancing mindset have a stronger desire to receive feedback on their performance and show more adaptive cortisol (stress hormone) profiles under acute stress.

Crum's stress work indicates the importance of mindset on how we respond to challenges in the world. One of her most recent publications, though, takes her lab work out into the real world. Specifically, they investigated differences in how individuals viewed the COVID-19 pandemic at its outset in Spring 2020 and the impact these varied viewpoints had on a variety of measures collected from them 6 weeks and 6 months later. Over 20,000 American adults participated in this study at intake (which took place on the very day the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a global pandemic: March 11, 2020) with analyses investigating subgroups that completed the follow-up assessments at 6 weeks (May 2020; n=9,643) and 6 months (October 2020; n=7,287) post initial assessment. A total of 5,365 COVID-negative participants completed all three surveys and were included in the subsequent longitudinal analyses by the team.

Study participants' mindsets (using a modified version of the Illness Mindset Inventory, for more see) about the pandemic were categorized along three dimensions:

• Catastrophe Mindset: The COVID-19 pandemic is a global catastrophe that is wreaking havoc on our society.
• Manageable Mindset: The COVID-19 pandemic can be managed so that people in our society can live life as normal. 
• Opportunity Mindset: The COVID-19 pandemic can be an opportunity for our society to make positive changes.  

​Importantly, mindsets differed between individuals and within individuals over time (some individual's mindsets shifted across the timepoints assessed).

Here is an excerpt from the discussion section of their paper explaining their findings:
"Those who endorsed the catastrophe mindset more than others took the situation more seriously; they stayed home, washed their hands, and (when it was recommended) started wearing a mask. Interestingly, this appeared to be at the expense of other aspects of their wellbeing.

This contrasts with the effects of the manageable mindset. Despite maintaining high levels of wellbeing during the pandemic, people who adopted the manageable mindset to a greater extent than others were much less likely to prioritize these CDC recommendations. As such, endorsement of this mindset may reflect an attempt to deny the reality of the global pandemic and a refusal to engage with it in a socially responsible way. Over time, as people adjusted to the changes necessitated by the pandemic, it may have become more adaptive.
​
The opportunity mindset seemed to provide the best of both worldviews; those who adopted this mindset to a greater degree compared to others staved off major declines in wellbeing without subverting the behaviors necessary to engage with the pandemic in a socially responsible way."

Indeed, framing stressful and challenging situations as an opportunity is crucial to aid us in persisting in activities despite the perceived and real barriers we face. And viewing the stress associated with life as enhancing can help us channel our stress to productive efforts.

​For many seeking to enter the world of work, the modern job search is one of those stressful experiences than can benefit from a mindset shift. 

Your mindset affects your career. 
​Data show that students with a lifelong learning mindset (ie, a growth mindset) receive higher supervisor ratings of their performance in a co-operative education program and report higher levels of job satisfaction, work engagement, and job-related self-efficacy in their careers after graduation. In addition, they receive more promotions in their careers.

​A study of Duke University MBA students mirrored these findings: those with an optimistic attitude about life (assessed at the beginning of their graduate program) received more internship offers, had better employment prospects at graduation, and were more likely to be promoted 2 years after graduation.  

Your mindset, uncertainty, and the future. 
​We must acknowledge that while optimism and a growth mindset can help you navigate the world and your career more effectively, we are living through a time of rapid technological progress and change. The rise of artificial intelligence, machine learning, large language models, and more have added increased levels of anxiety amongst knowledge workers (a topic I will discuss in March's blog post). We must remember though, that by its very nature, the future is uncertain and unpredictable. Dealing with this uncertainty and change by abandoning your agency is not a winning strategy, however. 

Regardless of what is happening in the ever-changing external world, we must believe that we have, at minimum, control over our mindset and, as a result, believe that things can get better for us despite the stress and uncertainty we face. Cultivate optimism and a growth mindset. 
​
​Indeed, optimistic individuals tend to have better health prospects and live longer and cultivating a growth mindset is associated with increased subjective well-being & health and relationship & job satisfaction. ​

I spend much of my working days thinking about how to help individuals with Ph.D.s navigate their careers. It is both a reflection of human nature and a sign of the times that some of the most educated individuals in society are stressed, anxious, and pessimistic about their job prospects.

​Some of this is surely rooted in how academia has constructed graduate and postdoctoral training (ie, an apprenticeship model) as well as actual barriers to work that exist for international students and scholars needing work visas to be employed in the United States, for example. 

A great deal of job search anxiety comes from the fact that humans are often wired to focus on what they don't have versus the attributes they do possess (see last month's post and a discussion of the negativity bias). We all have valuable skills and perspectives to share but we have to believe this is the case before we can convince others of these facts.

In addition, we need to work to channel our stress and unease about a job search into productive efforts (ie, view stress as enhancing vs debilitating). Instead of allowing our feelings of inadequacy to push us toward a state of inaction or resignation remember that growth and development is part of life. Just because you aren't good at something yet doesn't mean you can't develop that skill or competency.

​Take a growth mindset to developing your growth mindset. Construct a plan to enable you to assess your skills, determine where you need to develop, and chart your future, ideally before you enter a job search.  

To return to the fundamentals of your mindset, a critical first step to making progress in your career, job search, and life is believing you have something to offer and contribute. Focusing on your strengths and unique experiences can help and as we have seen in some of the data shared in this piece, simply reframing your beliefs (in this case about your job search) in an affirming light - I have something to offer and contribute - can make all the difference in your experience and even, perhaps, your outcomes. 

It's all a matter of perspective.

Human beings are remarkably adaptable creatures. In fact, our ability to adapt to different climates and environmental circumstances has allowed homo sapiens to colonize virtually all of Planet Earth. Essentially, adaptability is our evolutionary advantage. 

Adaptability is a double-edged sword, however. We often become so accustomed to a particular state that we forget what a different state can feel like. Biologists might resonate with explaining this in terms of homeostasis, where the body seeks to maintain a steady state of internal conditions (think temperature, pH, etc...). Our brains are no different. A neuroscientist might explain the "homeostasis" of our minds as habituation. In its most classic form, habituation involves our minds becoming accustomed to a constant stimulus to the point that it is not perceived after a period of time. A good example is the texture or feeling of our clothes on our skin. There is certainly a stimulus being applied but it becomes essentially imperceptible as we habituate to its constant presence. In essence, our conscious minds filter out this stimulus as it is not new, novel, or salient enough to devote attention to.  

Both our perception of external stimuli and our behavior can become habitual. Our ability to interpret and react to the world consistently produces a habit. Stimulus produces response almost reflexively when a habit is formed and conscious thought of why a particular action was taken is often absent. Habits are often useful as they free up cognitive resources and allow "routine" actions to proceed automatically. No need to think about how to walk once you have developed the action and, at a higher cognitive level, bicycling or driving to work everyday ultimately proceeds on autopilot after you have been using the same route for a month. Because of this amazing capability of our minds, we can think about other issues and goals during our commute as the "automatic" processes of our brains take over to get us from home to work. 

​The unconscious nature of habits means that we are often unaware of why we make choices or take actions that have become habitual. We may not even be aware or able to resist engaging in actions that are objectively "bad" or harmful. A classic example is drug addiction. One hallmark aspect of being addicted to a drug of abuse is that use of the drug becomes habitual (automatic) and that addicted individuals continue their drug use despite negative consequences. This occurs because drug use has become habitual in a biological sense, often triggered by stimuli in the environment that prompt craving and use in a powerfully unconscious way. There is strong evidence that habit and "wanting" drives drug use more than "liking" in once a drug has become addictive. 

Drug addiction may be one of the most stark demonstrations of how corrosive and destructive habits and the unconscious processes between stimulus and response can be on us and our lives. It is far from the only problematic behavior fueled by the environment acting on core neurobiological processes. Our modern world has resulted in the development of a variety of problematic habits, many of which are driven by the ability to obtain entertainment and content in an instant. Our attention is also sapped by a plethora of digital signals coming from our screens and attempts to appeal to our basal instincts of pleasure seeking and pain avoidance. The effects of technological proliferation on our brains and behavior is being studied and a particular focus on how it is shaping the minds of adolescents' during their development is critical. 

Personally, I feel patience and taking the long-view is in short supply these days. The current climate leads many to think feedback or "results" should be instantaneous in all aspects of their lives. We expect response to rapidly follow action in the 21st Century but all aspects of life are not as quick to give us the feedback we want as clicking "buy  now" on your smartphone. Overcoming these modern temptations is a challenge because of how easy it is for them to tap into habitual behaviors and our core needs of resource acquisition, human acknowledgement, belonging, and more. Fortunately, however, we have the ability to consciously frame our experience of the world in positive, constructive ways and take steps to behave accordingly.  

Humans are exceptionally good at allowing their perspective to construct their version of the world.

In our modern information age, one can often be captured by negative headlines. And while certainly negative information is more attention grabbing (ie, salient), it does not mean there are no positive narratives to speak of. 

In addition, many events or outcomes we experience are not objectively ALL negative or positive. Rather, there is a perspective that can often be taken that sees the positive in mostly negative events or the negative in mostly positive ones. 

I believe some human beings are wired to be more drawn to the positive or negative aspects of an experience...seeing the flaws in nearly all things or viewing the world through rose-colored glasses. Indeed data show individual differences in the experience of stimuli as positive or negative which may have a biological basis (see also). Through conscious decisions and processes, however, we can regulate our innate biological tendencies to focus on the negative or positive. 

Our perspective and view of the world ultimately shapes how we interact with it. If you feel the world is a hostile place and that everyone around you is motivated by their own self-interest, you will begin to take the same perspective. On the other hand, if you believe most human beings are altruistic and get fulfillment from helping others, you will perceive your interactions differently.

This can perhaps best be illustrated by thinking about the many instances we encounter in day where we are trying to discern a person's intent or motivation. This can be especially difficult if it comes in a form of communication where tone and other cues are absent - email.  

When you receive an email with a comment or request you project onto it your own belief about what the person intended to communicate. It is critical, then, to try to "read" the message from multiple perspectives and not assume that it was written with either ill intent or effusive praise. 

When we are faced with fear and uncertainty, I think it is even more important to keep our perspective and not spiral into a negative state. Indeed anxiety and stress heighten our negativity bias. A tendency to engage in cognitive reappraisal, or changing the way one thinks about potentially emotion-eliciting events, can mitigate these effects, however. 

Another concept that comes to mind when thinking about perspective is the impact a growth versus fixed mindset can have on our willingness to learn and develop. Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck coined these terms and her and her colleagues have researched how growth and fixed mindsets impact us. Those with a growth mindset believe that, with effort, perseverance and drive, they can develop their natural qualities and "improve". In contrast, those with a fixed mindset believe talent and abilities are fixed/innate and, thus, less likely to expend effort to try to enhance their skillsets. 

A similar concept is that of locus of control. Locus of control describes the degree to which individuals perceive that outcomes result from their own behaviors (internal locus of control), or from forces that are external to themselves (external locus of control).  

​We could all do better by developing a growth mindset and internal locus of control as we navigate a complex world. 

In an increasingly polarized and atomized United States and world, considering other's perspectives becomes a critical skill in short supply. It takes more cognitive resources and effort to consider other perspectives and ideas. This contemplation requires us to slow down and not rush to judgement. The process also requires decoupling our perception of a person's intentions from that individual's actual intent. As we've discussed, it is easy to fall into negative assumptions or construct narratives of ill-intent or maliciousness. While those assumptions could be true, starting from a negative space is rarely productive or effective. 

I choose to carefully reframe my perceptions of interactions before responding. To take a measured approach and understand the other party's position and viewpoint. While this takes time and effort, changing our default perceptions and habits can lead us to a more productive relationship with others and the world. 

Related Blog Posts:

• Wanting, Liking, and Dopamine's Role in Addiction
• Stress and the Brain: How Genetics Affects Whether You are More Likely to Wilt Under Pressure​
• To Be Rather Than to Seem

​
Further Reading:

• Brain health consequences of digital technology use
• ​The impact of the digital revolution on human brain and behavior: Where do we stand?
• Where do desires come from? Positivity offset and negativity bias predict implicit attitude toward temptations
• Your powerful, changeable mindset
• Negativity bias, negativity dominance, and contagion (PDF)
• The psychological and neurobiological bases of dispositional negativity (PDF)
• Propensity to reappraise promotes resilience to stress-induced negativity bias (PDF)

 

• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (book)
• The Impulse Society: America in the Age of Instant Gratification (book)
• Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Lab at UNC Chapel Hill (led by Barbara Fredrickson, who developed the Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions)
• Stanford Mind & Body Lab, which has led interesting studies on how mindset affects one's biology including: 
  • Making sense of a pandemic: Mindsets influence emotions, behaviors, health, and wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic
  • Mind over milkshakes: Mindsets, not just nutrients, determine ghrelin response
  • Mind-Set Matters: Exercise and the Placebo Effect
    

Life Advice, Professional Development, Personal Perspective

I have a lot of ties to the state of North Carolina. My mother was born and raised there, both my parents met at college there, I received my Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, and ultimately took my first job after my postdoc in North Carolina (at NC State University). 

I have always found North Carolina's state motto - ​Esse quam videri: To Be Rather Than To Seem - to be quite inspiring. I also think this motto is a good way for us to think about navigating our current (often online) world where it is relatively easy to seem a certain way but much harder to be real and present in the physical world. Furthermore, being involves - at least to come extent - action and doing versus projecting "action" through online signaling and seeming engaged​. 

Furthermore, in an age where it is easy to post one's opinions and thoughts online, to critique and pile-on, and to signal authority without real expertise, we as consumers and distributors of information must work to be rather than to seem...to be critical consumers of content and to work hard to be honest and effective communicators of information. None of this is easy...being in the real world, with all its messiness, never is. However, only in being action oriented can change happen both in our lives and in society writ large.   

In a world with many systemic issues (climate change, inequality, discrimination), we must work to be change agents rather than to seem concerned and virtue signal without taking real action. 

It is quite easy to be a critic, to point out the flaws in systems, institutions, and other's arguments. It is more difficult to be the change that is needed through involvement and engagement.

​I firmly believe most systems can only be changed from within as knowledge of a current system helps inform how it could be improved...and the barriers to this improvement.  

Systemic Issues in the Higher Education Workforce

​Recently, many have pointed out the flaws in the United States' higher education system, specifically how the system is broken and exploits contingent labor (adjunct faculty, postdoctoral scholars) and graduate students.
​
While these points are well-founded and certainly providing living wages to graduate students and postdocs is critical, what would change look like in the current system? That is a post for another time (but see my Reimagining the Postdoctoral Experience opinion piece written earlier this year for some thoughts) but what I do want to say here is that without being embedded in a system, it is very difficult (if not impossible) to understand the various factors that have led to a current state of affairs and the barriers to change. One can only be pragmatic through carefully assessing the limitations others within a system face when making change. In the example of academic labor, recently the University of California System's postdoctoral scholars reached a tentative agreement for higher salaries and other benefits but it is currently unclear who will pay for this. If the institutions push the additional cost of supporting a postdoc on faculty research grants, this will necessitate research cuts in other areas. And if there are less funds available to support research efforts in these groups, couldn't that have a negative impact on the postdocs involved in the research? So, while this seems like a positive development, it has not necessarily changed the various systems and institutions associated with the academic research enterprise. Although this is still a developing story, it seems one approach the University of California System could take is shifting the burden of covering the increased postdoc compensation package onto faculty supervisors who are already burdened with funding their work under the current system. 
​
​Change is challenging and multi-layered...when you solve one issue you introduce others. 

Let's take a step back from higher education and academia, with its own unique issues, and look more generally at societal challenges around seeming vs being and reflect on the need to change current incentive structures that undermine human flourishing for many. 

In this modern age we need...

To be...real.

Crypto and $ Trust...
The recent news of the collapse of FTX and reports that the company leveraged its self-created digital token to shore up its finances seems at first unbelievable. How is such a thing even possible? One can create a digital "asset" out of nothing and assign it value? Well, yes. This is essentially what cryptocurrencies are - digital assets that have value because a group of people believe they have value. While the cryptocurrency bitcoin can point to the fact that it has scarcity on its side (ie, mathematically, only so many bitcoin can be "mined" and produced), many other digital assets have no constraints. 

​And while certainly all fiat currency is based on belief in a system (ie, government issuing it), there are often security measures in place to ensure the currency is protected and maintains a stable form of value (see the US Federal Reserve System and FDIC insurance as examples in the United States). 

This is not the case with cryptocurrency. So, why did it gain so much popularity over the last few years? Mostly through rampant speculation but also it centered around a story many wanted to believe - that decentralized financial systems represent the future. And why that narrative may prove right over time, the largest flaw in this system is that while it points to the fact that it does not rely on trust in governments to keep currencies afloat, it does still involve trust in individuals to believe the currency has value. Money is ultimately a human trust exercise centered in belief with little tangible "realness" to any of it. Though trust may be stronger in some assets than others, especially at the current moment.

Ultimately, I think many recent cryptocurrencies exploded in value and popularity the past few years because they seemed like a great concept and way to speculatively grow one's assets without offering anything of real value. The collapse of FTX is yet another lesson in being critical and discerning in one's investments and not blindly buying into hype and groupthink. 

Signaling Status...
The rise of social media over the past 10-15 years powered by a smart phone in virtually everyone's pocket led to rise in individuals signaling "success" or satisfaction on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. An outside observer would be left to believe that nearly everyone on these platforms had amazing lives but, as we know, social media posts are really curations of one's daily/weekly "highlights" and not really what one's life actually looks like. New platforms have emerged to try to foster more "realness" on social media - see BeReal - but the fact remains that most people want to project a version of success and contentment to others. 

As such, spending too much time on these social media platforms can produce unwarranted envy, depression, and other mental health issues in adolescent and adult consumers who weigh their current lives as deficient compared to what they see online. 

To be...present.

The proliferation of modern, on-demand media and the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic moved programs and events online have resulted in many individuals not engaging in "real time" with content and programming. This trend leads to a lack of community building and reduces social and community ties. I see it first hand in the work I do offering career and professional development workshops to graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. 

It is so easy to sign up for workshops or events and then either not attend and wait for a link to a recording or resource or to "attend" but not really be present - the dreaded Zoom event where everyone but the presenter has their cameras off. While certainly some of these workshops are focused on information transmission which one may argue does not necessarily require "engagement", there is the hope individuals use the time to ask questions and engage not only with me but with each other. 

Why is this important? Well, it is easy in our online world to feel alone while being virtually connected. Making space for individuals to engage with one another around topics like career exploration, having difficult conversations, the job search, etc....allows attendees to see they are not alone in their struggles and self-doubt. It is easy to think you alone are experiencing challenges and setbacks if you don't interact with other human beings for real and make space for authentic conversations.  

If when one felt down or uncertain all one did was Google terms for "help", one would unfortunately often be presented with results that would suggest there is a clear way forward by following steps 1-X as outlined by expert BLAHBLAH. Sure, that advice could be helpful but reading cold insights online detaches you from the personal nature of the many challenges we face as human beings. The information shared might work for the individual sharing it given their unique situation but might not work for you.

Finding communities of support to engage with authentically is critical. And technology can help make these connections. In the end, though, you need to connect with others on a more personal level to have them open up about their own struggles, doubts, and experiences. Ultimately, these individuals may also be able to offer more personalized advice by engaging with you one-on-one (informational interviews). Most people want to be helpful but first they have to get to know you and trust you.

To be...involved.

Involvement in institutions has dropped precipitously in the US over the past few decades. The 2020 book Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam brought an issue that had been simmering for years to the forefront. Social capital and involvement in civic institutions in the US has plummeted and the pandemic only made this worse. 

Getting involved in a group or organization helps bring meaning to our lives. Human beings need community and belonging to thrive. This can look different for each of us but the benefit of involving yourself in organizations or groups whose causes you care about provide an opportunity to meet and interact with others and the ability to bring change to the world in areas important to you. 

To be...the change.

Speaking about change is quite different than driving forward change. The later is difficult and filled with challenges. Real, structural change involves work. Ironically, though, it is often by overcoming large obstacles and challenges with instituting change that we feel the most fulfilled. Making change when it is hard means we have overcome something and fought for what we believe in even if there was a chance that change would not come. In fact, change might not come from your efforts initially but perhaps you spark conversations and reflection within organizations that eventually lead to change. These changes may not even occur in our lifetime. While this sounds deflating, humanity's evolution can sometimes be an incremental process. Changes can result from small beginnings in the past. 

I think of scientific advances as a good illustration of this concept of effects sometimes not being realized in real time. Scientific theories and ideas often cannot be implemented until other breakthroughs occur that make the technology needed to execute them cost effective and/or there is collective need to implement the science to respond to global challenges. The science that ultimately led to mRNA vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 (corona) virus was developed over 30+ years, though it took a global pandemic for it to be fully realized as a tool to swiftly and efficiently create vaccines targeted to the specific genetic fingerprint of a virus.  

To be...content.

Learning to be truly content is difficult. It is not the natural state of human beings and especially not the case in cultures that strongly value growth and progress over nearly anything else (ie, Neoliberal capitalism). 

You could also rephrase this as being present. Too often in modern society we are either super focused on the next task, item, or goal or we ruminate on past choices and decisions that can't be changed. Living in the present moment is challenging but is also the most actionable course to take. You control your present in many regards while your past is, well, past and the future is unpredictable and, frankly, unknowable. 

To be...vulnerable. 

The not so dirty secret of being "real" and authentic is that it makes one vulnerable. Similarly, being involved, present, and invested in change and the betterment of systems means you are bound to encounter obstacles and setbacks. In short, "being" involves the potential of failure. We must acknowledge this fact and try our best, despite our human nature, to embrace it. ​

To be...optimistic about the future.

In summary, while it is easy to stay in your comfort zone and seem engaged, involved, and like you have it all together it is much harder to be involved in the real world and a change agent...to push for progress despite setbacks and face the potential that your hard work might not have an immediate impact. 

​Certainly there are challenges we face in our current world and it can be easy to get stuck in the mindset that structural challenges and barriers are too large for us to overcome. This can lead to paralysis and detachment...in fact we are seeing it in the data. Americans' confidence in major institutions are near all-time lows (measured since 1973), according to Gallup.   

Percentage of Americans reporting great deal or quite a lot of confidence in:

• Congress: 7%
• Television news: 11%
• Big business: 14%
• U.S. Supreme Court: 25%
• Large technology companies: 26%
• Banks: 27%
• Public schools: 28%

The average confidence in major US institutions reached an all time low of 27% in 2022. For comparison, average confidence was 36% in 2020 and 43% in 2004. So, in 18 years we saw a confidence decline of ~37%. 

A new survey, conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of the American Psychological Association, tells a story of a stressed nation facing uncertainty about the future. From their report: 

A majority of adults (62%) disagreed with the statement, “our children are going to inherit a better world than we did,” and 63% disagreed with the statement, “I feel our country is on the path to being stronger than ever.”

More than three-quarters of adults (76%) said that the future of our nation is a significant source of stress in their lives, while 68% said this is the lowest point in our nation’s history that they can remember. 

Certainly the data don't point to a rosy picture but, as I have been saying, perception (seeming) is sometimes different than reality (being). There is also data showing that, objectively, many aspects of the human experience have improved as a result of technological innovations over the past century and even the past few decades. Steven Pinker's book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress, illustrates clearly that technology and innovation have made many citizens of the world better off. 

As the graph above shows, in 1950 approximately 63% of the global population lived in extreme poverty. That percentage in 2015 was ~10%....a massive decline. United States Census Bureau data also show a historical decline in poverty from the mid 20th Century to now. The poverty rate in the US in 1959 hovered at 22% and was down to ~12% in 2021. And while certainly inequality is on the rise, the US and the world are arguably wealthier and healthier than we have ever been.

Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic and other challenges (opioid crisis) we have encountered over the past decade or so only highlight the amazing power of science and technology. In less than 12 months we went from sequencing the coronavirus to APPROVING mRNA vaccines for distribution in the US. A remarkable scientific achievement. Just as easily, however, scientific advances can produce powerful, highly addictive opiate medications that can destroy the lives of many who find the modern world unbearable. 

What all these finding show are that humans have the capacity for innovation and adaptation...that we can push forward technology and change (both societal and environmental) with the power to create or destroy.

​It is in our mindset and perception of the world, however, where we choose what path to take: a hopeful future where change happens for the better or a pessimistic view of humanity torn asunder by its own envy, discontent, and detachment. One requires action and individuals stepping up to be the change they want to see in the world...the other is, frankly, easier on the individual - let entropy and chaos reign.

​Will you stand by and feel disempowered and disengaged or find ways to contribute in tangible, real ways to the lives of others? 

To be is to do...

Being implies doing. A recent article in The Atlantic by the fantastic writer Derek Thompson illustrates nicely that while innovation and advancement are nice in and other themselves, it is in their implementation that they truly impact society. A focus on action is critical to making the world a better place. Furthermore, this action has to take place in the real, physical world with all its messiness and limitations. Practicality must be considered and various stakeholders engaged to drive forward lasting change. 

This is because for a society to really change and advance it has to see the value in the change. It has to be bought into the notion that, on balance, the benefits of change outweigh the risks.

Doing requites putting oneself out there in the world, literally, and connecting and working with others to accomplish shared goals. 

To close, I hope you find ways in 2023 to engage more with the "real" world, with others, and with your real self...to be rather than to seem. 

For Further Reading
From the Blog

• Why You Should Get Involved In Things Outside the Lab/Work
• Cultivate Serendipity by Giving Back and Getting Involved
• Find Your Passion? Finding Meaning and Purpose in Your Work and Life

Online reads

• Why the Age of American Progress Ended
• What Happens When Americans Don’t Trust Institutions?

Books

• The Achievement Habit: Stop Wishing, Start Doing, and Take Command of Your Life
• Better Together: Restoring the American Community
• Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
• The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again

In my last post, I touched a bit on some of my challenges in my first role, post-postdoc managing the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs at NC State University. As the year 2021 began, certainly there were challenges in my workplace in terms of feeling supported and appreciated, which only grew into the Spring. I realized I owed it to myself to start exploring other opportunities.

A cynic would tell you the grass isn't always greener on the other side...that changing employers will not necessarily change the challenges one encounters working in a specific space or just working in general. All work contains its challenges and annoyances. So, even if we think a change may be needed there is no guarantee a change will be good for us in the log run. All that said, applying to other positions while you remain employed can serve a variety of useful functions:

• It forces you to keep your application materials (resume, cover letter) up-to-date and ensures these materials are ready to go when you see a truly amazing opportunity. It ensures you are prepared to seize opportunities.  
• Part of keeping those materials up-to-date involves revisiting your past successes and impact. This process can remind you of your accomplishments and that you are a great employee...ie, it improves your self confidence. 

I applied to several different types of positions in Spring 2021 including some very close to my current sector of postdoctoral affairs, some tangential to it (graduate student career and professional development), and some further removed but still of interest to me (science communication, project management). 
​
Importantly, I leveraged people in my network for their advice and consul and reached out to others to learn more about open positions. As with any job search, I didn't hear back from some of the positions I applied to while others I made it through a first-round interview but no further. That is just part of the job application process. Fit is a tricky thing and you will often not be the right person with the right skillset for many roles. And some roles you think you might not be a good fit for or "ready" for might lead to interviews and offers. You can never really tell until you put yourself out there. 

One position I ultimately applied to I saw advertised back in December 2020. When I read the job description I thought to myself that it was a really BIG JOB. Was I prepared for such a role that involved leading the creation of a program that didn't really exist at the institution? It seemed daunting and so I put it out of my mind. A about a month later, I was chatting with a colleague from the Office of Biomedical Research Education and Training who worked with while a postdoc at Vanderbilt University. I told them a bit about some of the struggles I was encountering at NC State and they asked if I had seen that job advertisement in December. I mentioned that I had but that it seemed "too big for me". They immediately countered that I could do that job and would be great at it. They also mentioned that they were consulted by that institution about building support for their graduate student population So, she had inside information on the attributes they were looking for and could provide me with the knowledge that the employer knew they were asking for a lot in the position. She mentioned they understood that the person hired would be building toward many of the goals listed in the job description. Finally, she offered to reach out to the search committee and inquire on whether they were still taking applications and that, if so, she could put in a good word for me if I was interested. 

An important side note here, virtually all job descriptions are an employer's wish list of all the attributes of the ideal candidate. This ideal candidate rarely, if ever, exists. You don't need to meet every qualification in a job description to apply for it. 

After my Vanderbilt contact put in a good word for me and I formally applied through the application portal, I was fairly quickly offered a screening interview followed by a more formal interview with the search committee chair and key faculty leadership. The final step was an intensive, day and a half virtual visit to campus to meet with stakeholders, present a vision talk, and engage with the search committee. It was a long process but I felt I did well. A few weeks later, the search committee chair called to offer me the position...a position I originally thought was too big for me just a few months ago.

While the job title was great and I felt it would be an amazing opportunity to build programming and resources from the ground up, I have to admit it was a challenge to see myself accepting a job offer at a place I had not visited in person. I had been to the city before and it certainly had some great attributes going for it in terms of weather, the state tax structure, and overall "good vibes" associated with the area. I even started imagining my life there...I thought it would be pretty awesome. 

I also tried to keep perspective on this opportunity, though. It was a city many people were moving to during the COVID-19 pandemic and I knew housing costs would be high. Was it worth uprooting my life in the Raleigh area to make that move?

Then came the job offer...a number so below my expectations that I felt I needed to turn it down out of principle. I was shocked that they would offer someone with the responsibilities associated with this "director-level" position that salary. ​

As a result of both the final salary offered being low relative to the cost of living and a feeling that resources might be more limited than I realized when applying for the position, I ultimately turned down the role. Even if I could have imagined an amazing life at that locale, I was not going to accept a salary below what I believed to be a competitive, market-rate. ​

While the saga was going on with this employer I also interviewed and received an offer from another employer at a very well resourced "prestigious" institution. It certainly would have been a place others would have been impressed you worked at. You could name drop: "I work at X", and everyone would think "Wow" or "Impressive" or something along those lines. Despite the strong employer "brand", I had some reservations about the role I interviewed for.

First, I would be inheriting a team that would have reported to me and that made me pretty nervous for a lot of reasons. Managing people is no easy task and I debated with myself whether I was ready to take on that type of role. In addition, the structure of the office included a faculty director and an administrative director, which was the role I applied to. It became clear to me that the faculty director was the individual really in charge. That wasn't necessarily a problem, though, as I felt the faculty director and I got along well during the interview. I think my nagging worry was that I would be stuck carrying out someone else's vision for the office. 

That "prestigious" institution gave me a very strong initial offer, though,...so strong that I didn't see the need to counter it. I was most interested in negotiating some flexibility around when I would start and initial remote work options, which seemed like a possibility. I told them I need to think about it for a week.

With such a strong job offer from "prestigious" institution in hand, I realized now was the time to try to obtain more resources and support from my current employer. While NC State University had a salary action "freeze" in place (as a result of COVID), it was not a "hard" freeze. Retention counter offers were still allowed to take place if the Dean of the unit signed off on them. So, I figured it was worth asking for a retention offer and, following my supervisor's advice to me, additional resources to assist me in my work leading the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs there.

It wasn't just about making more money. We had been asking for an open line on our team to be filled since January 2020 (this was now June 2021) and had received very little traction on that request. Our team recently had presented the position as an administrative support role as we all were feeling underwater with our administrative tasks. We presented the idea to the Dean and he seemed supportive of it. So, I figured now was the time as part of my counter offer to ask for the administrative position to be posted. In addition, I asked for a dedicated office budget (I hadn't had one previously) and the creation of a working group of leaders from across campus to assess support for postdocs and the office in an attempt to ultimately increase resources for myself and the office.

First, it is critical to research what is the procedure or standard practice, if any, at your institution. At NC State University, there were pretty clear classification and compensation guidelines that outlined the types of salary adjustments that were possible. While many of these areas, including market and equity adjustments were on hold during the pandemic, the university was still authorized to allow retention adjustments to salary, not to exceed 20% of one's current salary or $15,000, whichever was larger. I had done my homework and knew this was possible.

So, when we had our meeting between the Dean, my supervisor, and our unit's finance officer, I clearly articulated that I knew that the retention salary adjustment was possible, should the Dean be willing to sign-off. This request was met with some pushback that the unit "could only do" an amount smaller than the 20%. Since my offer in hand was a good bit higher than even my retention ask, I felt confident in standing my ground but in the moment did not want to respond in a rash way. Frankly, I found the initial counter offer around my retention salary insulting but instead of saying that, I simply reiterated that I felt I was doing good work and wanted to keep the momentum going with my office but would need the full retention offer and other contingencies to be able to stay and feel confident in that decision. 

I left the Zoom call with the rest of the leadership planning to continue the conversation. From what I have heard, my supervisor really advocated for me and the work I was doing after I signed off the call. Despite what I and others on the team may have thought of her ability to lead (which, as I mentioned in last month's post, was probably due to a variety of environmental challenges), I have to say she was a strong advocate for me that day. 

Long story short, I did receive the full retention offer (20% salary increase) plus most of my other asks: dedicated budget for the office, the creation of a working group to examine how to improve the postdoc experience and support for the office at NC State, and promises that the administrative position for our team would be posted. Given all of this, I was determined to try to make things work for me at NC State.

​I conveyed this information to the "prestigious" institution who had offered me the administrative director role and told them that I felt I needed to continue in my role at NC State given their increased commitment to both me and my work there. They were disappointed but understood. I think I showed some character and loyalty in my exchange with them that could be helpful in future interactions with that group and employer. I offered to be of assistance on relevant topics, should they be interested in the future, and even shared a copy of my NC State Postdoc Climate Survey with them.
​On the whole, I think I exited the situation as gracefully and amicably as possible. 

There were several reasons why I decided to try to make things work at NC State. First, moving is a pain and the grass is not always greener on the other side. Despite many of the challenges I encountered in my role there, I did have a great deal of autonomy and felt like the work I was doing was making an impact. I also believed this newly-formed Reimagining the Postdoc Experience at NC State working group of campus leaders I assembled could lead to greater institutional buy-in for what we were trying to do to support postdocs at NC State. 

Also, to be candid, I was half-way to my 5-year service requirement to vest in the state pension plan and that was a pretty larger incentive to stay. The state benefits are excellent in North Carolina and their pension plan and retirement benefits (including subsidized retiree health care insurance with 10 years of service) provide a large incentive to stay employed with them long-term. This plus the knowledge that I could get a job offer if needed (I had received two offers in the past few months) gave me the confidence that I was not sacrificing too much by staying. I would give myself time to see if my situation would improve before abandoning the progress I was making. 

We hired the administrative support person for our team in October and I began training her to support me in postdoc human resources functions. I was happy about this as I knew we really needed coverage of these functions beyond myself. Had I taken one of the job offers I received in the summer of 2021, I don't know what the unit would have done to cover postdoc HR. They may have been able to make it work but part of me felt like I owed it to my coworkers to ensure someone could carry on the tasks I was performing should I leave. In a way, this assuaged my guilt in keeping my options open. You can't perfectly plan for or anticipate opportunities, after all. 

In fact, during the retention offer saga, I was also interviewing for another position which, in my eyes at the time was my dream role.... 

In April of 2021, I learned from a colleague that she was moving into a new leadership role at a different institution and vacating her postdoc office director-level position at her current institution. From prior interactions with her, I knew she was setting her former office up for success with a new staff member being onboarded and increased financial support from her institution. In addition, the postdoc community at that institution was vibrant, engaged, and, in my view, very well-treated and supported (paid parental leave, salaries tied to the NIH NRSA stipend level, etc...). As an outside observer, I viewed the position she was leaving as one of the best opportunities available for an individual wanting to work in postdoctoral affairs. It seemed like whomever occupied that position was going to be setup to succeed given the strong foundation there. I scheduled a time to chat with her about the institution and role and, after her confirming my understanding of the situation there, she said she would let the recruiter know I was applying. 

I felt pretty good after the first-round, online interview for that position, which was occurring in the midst of me turning down prior offers and negotiating my retention offer at NC State. It was all very awkward and uncomfortable. I felt like I was cheating on my current employer in spite of the retention offer but, to be fair, I had applied to the position before that came through and thought it would be an excellent move for me, should I be their top candidate. I think it is important to not close yourself off to opportunities or be too loyal to an employer, especially one that has not been the most supportive of you. I don't think there is ever a perfect way to navigate these types of situations but in the end you have to lookout for what is in your best interests. 

I had my on-site interview at my "dream" employer in August 2021 and I thought it went really well. I met with a lot of stakeholders at the institution from faculty to postdocs and thought I conveyed my past experience and ideas on making continued progress in postdoc support there effectively. To be frank, I expected to get a job offer from them. Wasn't this what I was building toward? I had done good work at NC State...I knew it and other potential employers could see it. It had led to prior job offers earlier that summer that, while not perfectly ideal for me, gave me confidence that I was a hot commodity. But it wasn't meant to be...

One thing I remind the postdocs and graduate students I advise when it comes to a job search is that it is more subjective than anyone would like to admit. You can be an ideal candidate but that does not mean you will get the job for a whole hosts of reasons. It is best as a candidate to try not to overly analyze a rejection as you will never really know why you weren't selected and, furthermore, there may not be much you could have done to change the outcome even if you knew what was really wanted by the employer. For example, you can't change who you are. If an employer prefers a candidate with a different background from you, that was their preference but not your fault. ​

Quick coda to my dream employer story: I later learned who was hired for that position and think they are an amazing choice for that institution. So, in the end, it is hard to hold any bad feelings there. ​

In Bill Burnett and Dave Evans' Designing Your Work Life book, they make a point that it is worth tryin to redesign and shape one's role at a current employer before deciding to leave. With my retention offer in hand, I attempted to do this at NC State University.  

I pushed on with my Reimagining the Postdoc Experience working group and thought we had a good initial meeting to discuss compensation and benefits for postdocs at NC State. I also think leadership in our Office of Research and Innovation was taking notice. I was even encouraged to draft a strategic plan for postdoctoral affairs at the university. While this was occurring, our new team member was getting up to speed on learning the various postdoc HR processes, which I was pushed to document more extensively for her. I felt like that burden would soon be lifted from me and that the documentation would ensure postdoc HR would be able to operate without me.

​Doing all this assuaged my gilt of having flirted with other employment opportunities. I believed I was leaving things better than I found them, which I think is about all one can ask of an employee. The big unknown lingering in the back of my mind was: was change possible at NC State?...would these efforts lead to increased institutional support and resources for me and the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs? I knew change would be slow and difficult and part of me thought I just needed to see some movement in the right direction to be convinced to stay. Another part of me thought things would never change. That is the thing about the future, it is hard to predict. So, making decisions about the future state of things in one's life is challenging if not impossible. We must act and decide with incomplete information and come to grips with our decision. Living in the what ifs or what could have beens is not healthy of productive...we must sometimes act and move forward. And I was approaching one of those pivotal moments in the fall of 2021. 

I didn't know it at the time but I was establishing a relationship with my now current employer nearly two years before accepting a job with them. 

Back in late 2019, I received an email from the head of Human Resources in the Research and Innovation Office at Virginia Tech inquiring about postdoc benefits and salaries at NC State. At the time, I was compiling my own list of peer institutions' postdoc benefits and happily shared not only my information but that from my peer institution sheet with the HR lead. That one act showed a lot...that I was collaborative and helpful and also knowledgeable about this area. It planted a seed of goodwill that led to other opportunities to provide value and demonstrate my expertise. I am generally a helpful person and so engaged in this information sharing with no sense of what I would personally get out of it.

​I also generally want to see recognition and support for postdocs improve at a national an international level. So, when Virginia Tech reached out in late 2020 to ask me to speak over Zoom with a working group they had established on improving support for postdocs there, I happily said yes. I shared with those on the call some of the things we were doing at NC State and my general thoughts on what ideal postdoctoral support would look like. Many of the individuals I interacted with on that call would sit on the search committee for my current position. Obviously, it was difficult to predict this at the time but it goes to show you that anytime you have a professional interaction with others it can set the stage for future interactions where the stakes can be much higher. It pays to say yes to opportunities to engage with those in professional areas you are interested in as you never know where those engagements will lead.  

Flashforward to my 2021 summer of job searching and I received a message from one of the members of the Virginia Tech working group asking for a sample postdoc office budget as they were planning to stand up a postdoc office there. I kept that info in the back of my mind and happily shared a budget I proposed to NC State but was never awarded. Again, I showed value and expertise in this area and also gained knowledge about a future position that might be worth pursuing.

​Indeed, Virginia Tech did post their Postdoctoral Affairs Program Administrator position in Fall 2021 and I reached out to my HR contact there about it before applying. Again, this was the same individual who reached out to me about data over a year ago and now I was reaching out to her to learn more about the position, expected salary range, and more. After talking with her, I realized I had to apply for the Virginia Tech position despite trying to make it work at NC State. First off, they were compensating this individual at what I believed to be an appropriate level which was substantially higher than what I was making at NC State even with the 20% retention increase (wow was I underpaid my first few years there!). Second, the Virginia Tech position would involve helping to establish a new Office of Postdoctoral Affairs there. I saw it as an amazing opportunity to grow professionally and make an impact. I also knew there would be latitude to build the office with intention and that I would not be inheriting preconceived notions of what the office did (which was the case at NC State where I believe many saw OPA as a purely administrative unit). Long story short, I had a series of video and in-person interviews at Virginia Tech and was extended the job offer in late Fall. It was now decision time.  

As I mentioned earlier, my work with the GCC allowed me to benchmark what a director-level salary level should be. When I applied for my "dream" job back in Spring 2021 I had bracketed by expected salary range around the median director-level salary from the GCC's benchmarking survey. I realized throughout the search process, however, that one has to value oneself appropriately. Emboldened by my retention offer and past string of offers, I made sure in my initial screening interview with Virginia Tech HR to bracket my expected salary higher than the director-level median. Not wildly higher but higher. I realized I needed to know my worth and ask for more than "average". If an employer wants you and your salary expectations are based in reality (ie, benchmarked), they will probably meet you at a higher level than you might think. This may be especially true in the hot labor market we are experiencing as I write this in Spring 2022. Now, all this said, you need to be a reasonable person when you negotiate your salary. Perhaps unsurprisedly, Virginia Tech initially offered a salary at the lower end of my desired range. To be fair, it was a good salary and they offered to pay for my moving expenses. I also knew their benefits were quite good. While some might advocate for pushing toward the top of the salary range, I thought it prudent to meet them in the middle of the range I proposed. You don't want to start off a professional relationship with an employer be being seen as inflexible and unreasonable. I was satisfied with where we ended up and felt well compensated and supported in the new role.   

So, after spending several months in 2021 navigating interviews and job offers and retention negotiations and generally trying to make things work at my current employer, the year was winding down with a final choice I had to make. Stick it out at NC State or take on a new opportunity at Virginia Tech? You would think this decision would have been an easy one, right? Virginia Tech was going to pay me more, I would have more responsibility there, I would be removed from day-to-day HR administrative tasks, able to think big picture, grow my leadership skills, and make a difference. And while the leadership environment and interpersonal conflicts above me in the Graduate School at NC State were certainly not great, I knew the lay of the land there. I had made a lot of progress in supporting postdocs at NC State and believed we might be turning a corner in better supporting them and my office. It came down to a decision of whether I wanted to stay at NC State with the hope things would get better or make the move to Virginia Tech to take on new challenges (and opportunities) and have to, in a sense, capture momentum and support all over again. 

Over my three years at NC State I was also a member of the Graduate Career Consortium (GCC)'s mentoring program. Each year, I was paired with another more senior professional in the graduate-level career and professional development space. These mentors and other individuals I grew close with as part of my service with GCC became important sounding boards as I navigated my situation at NC State and decision on whether to move on to a new position. While a big life decision like changing jobs is ultimately a personal one, it is often valuable to talk through things with individuals outside your working environment to gain their perspectives. I had often complained to my original GCC mentor about my frustration in my current role and he would tell me as our conversations progressed over the years that he could tell I was not in a good place and needed to leave. He was also a helpful confident to discuss negotiations and the pros and cons of the various offers I obtained in 2021.

I also relied on my National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) and GCC network to serve as references for me during my job search, demonstrating the importance of developing professional relationships outside one's coworkers. My leadership within NPA and GCC and the willingness of these individuals to speak to it certainly were helpful in my job search. Reminder: you must build professional relationships before you need them. They often will come in handy later on. 

Reflecting on other career conversations I had with my mentors and other professional colleagues, many encouraged me to aim high in my job search and not sell myself short. Also, when I told my current GCC mentor about my Virginia Tech offer he encouraged me to take it, seeing it as a great career advancement opportunity for me. While I also saw this, it was helpful to hear another person confirming my belief that this was a great opportunity. And my original GCC mentor encouraged me to write about this career search journey in the hopes of helping others see there are opportunities beyond the struggles you may be encountering in your current role.
Thanks, Dinuka Gunaratne, for pushing me to share my job search journey in this post! ​

After accepting the Virginia Tech position, I was determined to document as much as I could from my role at NC State. I did not want to leave them in a bad spot as I generally want to see the Professional Development Team and Office of Postdoctoral Affairs there succeed. I also met with many stakeholders and leaders on campus to explain why I made the decision to leave. I really hope they reflect on some of the challenges I and others in the Graduate School encountered and find ways to better support people doing good work there. As I said in last month's post, I don't harbor any bad feelings. They gave me the chance and latitude to grow as a professional in a new career area for me, post-postdoc, and my work there allowed me to demonstrate the expertise needed to move into a new position with more leadership opportunities and upside. 

I think I left on good terms. I hear from a colleague there now that my name is routinely mentioned around the office with an air of appreciation. It is good to know I made a difference there and hopefully began to change people's perceptions of what could be done to support postdoctoral scholars at NC State. 

So, what should you take from this rambling account of my 2021 year of reflection and job searching? I hope a few things:

• Applying to positions, getting interviews, and hopefully an offer or two can give you the confidence to know you have skills and experience employers value, even if there are times when you think your current employer doesn't see or recognize them
• A strong network is crucial to your job search
  • Colleagues from the NPA and GCC served as key references for me
  • Colleagues made referrals to recruiters and hiring managers on my behalf
• Be of value, expecting nothing in return. It can buy you goodwill in the future.
  • As mentioned, I provided value and engaged with Virginia Tech years before taking this position. Doing this made me more of a "known quantity" with them, which probably helped my chances when interviewing for this job.
• Know your worth
  • I think I undersold myself early in the job search when asked my desired salary range. As I become more confident during the job search process, I realized I could and should ask for more. I ultimately got it.
• Don't get caught up in the moment...carefully weigh the pros and cons of a new role.
  • It would have been easy to focus on the role at the "prestigious" institution as some sort of status symbol or the fun-in-the-sun lifestyle of the other role I was offered in the summer of 2021. However, carefully considering whether those roles truly aligned with my career goals and needs allowed me to decline each. Eventually, I found a role more in alignment with my strengths and other priorities (proximity to family, autonomy, ability to build something). If you can, consider waiting for the "right" opportunity to materialize and try not to jump at the first offer, unless you feel pretty confident it is the right role and environment for you.
• Give real effort to try to make it work with your current employer
  • It is so easy to bolt when things aren't working out. However, if you don't articulate your challenges and then make a concerted effort to improve things, if only for the rest of your team or next person in the role, are you showing true commitment to your craft? People will respect you more for not giving up right away and doing your best to improve the situation...it takes character to do that.  
• Know when to leave
  • At some point, though, you must objectively assess your options and make difficult decisions. It is never easy to leave a place and move into a new role, with all its unknowns. Talking it out with family, friends, and trusted mentors and colleagues can help.
• Things can work out, in the end.
  • While I didn't take the role at the "prestigious" institution or land my perceived "dream job", I found something better, something I was not expecting.

This role at Virginia Tech checks so many boxes for me from professional growth opportunities to the ability to make an impact through building a dedicated office to support postdoctoral scholars.
I also learned during my interview process that Virginia Tech postdocs have access to the same employee benefits as faculty and staff, something I can feel good about as I promote the value of postdoctoral training here.
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In addition, the pay and benefits here are great, I am able to focus more on the things I love (building programs, interacting with postdocs, and helping faculty recruit and support postdocs), and am close to family and friends in North Carolina and Tennessee. It would have been impossible to imagine in early 2021 this is where I would be now and, little did I know, I may have been laying the groundwork for my own success by answering that initial email about postdoc benefits and salary from Virginia Tech in 2020. I engaged with them in 2020 because I wanted to be helpful and assist them in thinking about what effective support of their postdoctoral population could look like. Now, I am working toward that goal with them while also growing as a leader and strategic thinker.

​I hope to build a positive legacy for both myself and postdoctoral support here at Virginia Tech in the years to come. Our aspirations and goals are ambitious, in a good way. We are striving towards building something impactful and innovative for our postdoctoral population, including the recent launch of a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship program this Spring.
Stay tuned for additional exciting announcements and developments in the months ahead!

​In closing, I truly believe that if you put yourself out there (ie, apply for positions you think may be a stretch for you), volunteer for causes you care about, build your credibility and network (which I did through leadership roles and involvement with NPA and GCC), and know what you are looking for in a role (turning down good but not great opportunities), you can land at a place that meets most if not nearly all of your needs.
​It might take a year or it might take longer but all good things, as they say, are worth the wait.