Welcome to the (Academic) Jungle

You’ve graduated from a PhD and now you’re moving onto you first proper academic job - a postdoc! Here are some key tips to get the most out of your postdoc and set yourself up for an academic career.

Navigating the Postdoc Jungle: Expert Insights for Success

Embarking on a postdoctoral journey is undeniably challenging. The landscape is tough, if not actively hostile, demanding resilience and strategic navigation. Reflecting on this demanding phase, I want to offer three overarching tips from my experience to aspiring researchers.

The important thing to note is that it is possible to thrive and build a career, but it is demanding.

What's the difference? The transition from PhD student to postdoc is hard. Very hard.

You now have more responsibility, less time to work on yourself, and likely have to learn new skills and subject matter. For lack of a better phrase, you now need to grow up fast.

How is it different to doctoral studies?

In your PhD, you spent 3-5 years becoming an expert in your research area and largely focused solely on your own project. Now, you must multitask and propel your own success. You will usually have to start a postdoc in a different topic, and you'll be expected to get up to speed quickly, and that can be a challenge. Moreover, you have a short-term contract, which you must make the most of.

This is your first step into being an independent researcher and academic, and you only have 3 - 6 years to prove yourself, i.e., get more publications, expand your area of expertise, start taking on some level of supervision/leading projects, and attract competitive funding (grants, industry partners, etc.).

I say these things not as a warning but as a guide to increasing your chances of success.

So, the points:

1. Metrics Reign Supreme

The first thing employees, peers, editors, or paper/grant reviewers will do is check your metrics (Google Scholar, SciVal, etc.). It sucks, but it's true.... People will be, and are, judging you based on your number of papers, your total citation count, and your H-index (more to come on that pest in another blog). Moreover, your employers are judging the above metrics in addition to your grant income, the number of industry partners, patents, student graduations (PhD, Master's, Honours), and your teaching scores (in addition to alternative metrics (alt metrics) - again more to come later).

So, what does this mean - You need to start performing, and now. Tomorrow is too late. You need to start publishing, building a robust publication record, accruing citations, securing funding, and start supervising students... Now! Initiate this endeavor immediately, as procrastination is the killer of progress, and your career.

2. Network your butt off

You will live or die by your network - You need supportive peers, colleagues, supervisors, and mentors within academia, both at your institute and beyond. These people will help you generate ideas, support your publication record, edit your grants, share student supervision, etc., and pick you up when you collapse. So, start now - Only speaking with other postdocs in your group is a giant mistake. You need people at all levels of the University in your sphere, and if you aren't naturally extroverted, then you need to put yourself out there. Believe me, you will be surprised how welcoming and helpful people can be (not all people, but the right people. Find your tribe!)

Academia is no longer a solo activity; it is a team endeavor (team sport... Yay, sports metaphor!)

So, how do you do this? Initiate communication without reservation - send an email, say hi on LinkedIn or Twitter (or X, or whatever the monstrosity is now), say hello in the tea-room, organize meetings with people you admire. People are busy, but you lose nothing by asking! Reach out! Now! Do it!

3. Grants, grants, grants! Now, now, now!

Let's confront the numbers: the reality is harsh.... It can make you want to cry! Grant success rates are often only 10% for competitive funding (note: this is a made-up stat from experience), and that reflects the 'good grants'. Bluntly, this means that you must submit ten applications to secure one grant (I'm aware this is not how stats work, but accept it for the argument... Shhh!). Start now; delay only stifles progress. Grants not only bolster your research endeavors but also enable the expansion of your team and facilitate negotiations for full-time positions (more to come later on this). Embrace the competitive nature of grant acquisition as an opportunity to refine your grant-writing prowess and propel your academic pursuits forward.

So, how do you start getting grants? Like all things, you start small:

Find some small grants and apply for those to get some runs on the board. These are typically travel, philanthropic, society, internal (at your institute), or fellowship funding which supports your work or salary. Funding could be less than $1K, or sub 100K.

You should also look for grants that are targeted at ECRs, as they expect your track record to be emerging, and you are competing against people at similar stages.

Moreover, you can partner with other academics (see above networking) and be a contributing (rather than lead) author. Once you understand the game more and have a small track record, then you can start applying for bigger grants.

My first competitive grant was $5K, then $50K, then $100K, then 600K, and I'm now applying for multi-million-dollar allocations. The idea here is to walk before you run (lots of metaphors in this blog).

The takeaway?

In academia, passive behavior leads to failure. Long enough without taking your destiny in your hand will leave you without a position. The job is much, much larger than arriving in the lab (office, study nook, etc.) and conducting research. To thrive, you MUST actively engage and assertively pursue opportunities.

A wise mentor of mine once said 'No one cares about your career, but you'.... He meant this in the most positive way. It made me reflect and understand that I must take my career into my own hands. You cannot rely on others (bosses, mentors, supervisors, etc.) to get your opportunities for you. You must create them and pursue them, or else you will fail. You cannot be passive!

Now, go! Publish, apply, seek funding, and speak to people. Build your network. Be successful.

An overarching note: I am aware this blog sounds overwhelming and a bit negative. This is on purpose. When starting an academic position, you are competing with the top experts in the world, and this means you have to position yourself as competitive. I write these words not to dissuade you, but to encourage you to have a go and get moving.

The more you can build up your professional experience early, the better outcomes you are likely to have by the time you are looking for a permanent job.

A final note: Your postdoctoral supervisor may not always be overly supportive of you branching out, especially if you aren't fulfilling their expectations. You must balance this, else you can find yourself offside with your supervisor(s). However, if you are achieving what is needed within your role and they still try to hinder your progress, then this is a MASSIVE red flag. This will be the focus of an upcoming blog on 'Toxic Supervisors'. More to come, watch this space."