IMPORTANT NOTICE: This is a long essay. To reduce download times the essay has been divided into 2 web pages. The first page here represents parts 1-3. Parts 4-7 are available at http://www.his.com./~graeme/cpsj2.html. If you want a hard copy, you need to print both web pages separately.
People who are in the grad school to postdoc pipeline are, for the most part, hoping to see their dreams come true with a real and decent career job in science. The purpose of this document is to inform these people about the realities that will be in conflict with their dreams.
While the model "job" in this document is a faculty position in academia, much of the job situation holds true for non academic jobs in industry, also. The model "job" also has a research component. Today, most research is done in post baccalaureate institutions usually called a "research university", but can also be done at "health science centers" (usually dominated by a medical school), or one of many private institutions (eg. Salk Institute, etc.). The total number of faculty, in all subjects, at all collegiate and university institutions, is about 700,000. The total number of faculty at medical schools is about 80,000. Some research, better labeled as "development" also takes place in industrial and government settings. While some details of jobs in these environments will be discussed, the primary scope of this document is academia.
With the exception of a small number of "hot" fields, the number of all after-the-postdoc jobs is half or less of what it needs to be to absorb all of those coming through the pipeline. Some of the rest will, indeed, have some success and see their dreams for a career partly fulfilled but the career there will be a shortfall in rewards. This is because not only are there not enough jobs, but the funding levels (primarily through government funding agencies) are not high enough to support those jobs. Also, at many institutions, tenure is either already diluted, being diluted, or being separated from promotions. What this means is that you may spend one or two decades of hard work devoting your life to a pursuit that can be pulled out from under you at any time because of a funding glitch or politics in your local power hierarchy. I would also guess that in the future about five to ten percent of all scientists are likely to run into really nasty personality and ideological conflicts in their work environments and have their career unjustly derailed or delayed.
From personal contacts, my own experience, and much private email to me in response to my postings, it is clear that a large fraction of all young people in the pipeline are not getting good mentoring. I wrote this material to fill at least some of the gaps. There is an implicit fork in the road for you to take at some time in the future: decide if you can extrapolate from your present knowledge of your progress in preparation for your career and conclude that you have a competitive chance at success, or conclude that you will be, or already are, in the "bottom half" of the entire pool of people in your class and get out of the pipeline now and into non-academic pursuits.
Remember some things about my advice in this document. It might not be right for you. There is a lot of "conventional wisdom" out there in the world, but there are also a lot of "exceptions to the rule," too. YOU need to find what is right for you. Another thing about my advice: I think of it as "weak ideas that actually might be useful." I say that because there are rarely any "magic" answers that work all the time and often we do not have as much control over our future as we would like. Miracles are more likely to happen in dreams than in reality.
As I have a very large collection of relevant newspaper and journal articles, uncollated notes and references, and many untold stories, I suppose I should be thinking about a third edition of this document. This might become available in 1997.
(The Science Career Path Reality)
My 9 years in industry, 5 years in academia, and 4 years as a postdoc tell me this about getting a regular (tenure-track) faculty appointment:
On a very simple level, one who wishes to be in lofty pursuits (an academic position at a research institution, where the goals are noble and the intellectual rewards are pure and at least some people respect you) would follow this conventional-wisdom paradigm:
Get i) PhD (or MD/PhD), ii) get a postdoc, and then iii) get an
asst. prof. position. After that things are supposed to be more or
less automatic. Right?
Bzzzzt. Wrong answer!
In 1977 I got my PhD and did a postdoc (1978-1981) and then began to learn how all of this really worked.
The situation back then was, as it is today, about 200-300 applications per entry level (assistant prof) tenure-track slot. What I saw then (doing a postdoc at UNC, School of Medicine, Chapel Hill) was that the CVs that rose to the top, indeed, had or tended to have certain "obvious" characteristics:
A1 - Ivy league, big 10 or big 20 institution names for the PhD.
A2 - Places that are "exotic" for a postdoc to be from: eg.
Rockefeller, Max Plank, Cold Spring Harbor, IN ADDITION TO
the usual.
A3 - Publications (about 2-3 per year) in, yes, Science, Nature,
Cell, PNAS
A4 - An existing, transferable grant (usually NIH, and $60+K of
indirect costs).
A5 - A specialization that fit in with the specialization that was
desired (i.e. as advertised).
A6 - A specialization that could be a natural integration for one
to two existing faculty for the purpose of becoming a co-
investigator on future grant proposals (such arrangements
can be great since you have enthusiastic "partners" to help
with writing, but can be bad if the other guys let you do
most of the work and they take the credit)
A7 - (thanks to Ken Steele [at: steelekm@appstate.edu] for this
one). "The homeboy factor is stronger than many imagine"
quoted with permission. Basically, some selection mindsets
operate on what I will call the comfort principle: A few guys
in the department are from some region, school, or have a
religious factor in common, and this is what they look for, or
notice, in an applicant pool, and, ergo, true merit gets lost
in the dust (I am not arguing for or against this, it all
depends on your perspective). A variation on this may be
found by looking in college and university catalogs in
your libraries. Look at the faculty list and see if they show
where the faculty got their degrees from. Ivy league schools
usually recruit from other ivy leagues. Small, elite colleges
often recruit from prestige schools (eg. ivy league), and
state schools recruit from all places.
Teaching institutions often recruit for teaching promise
and experience while research competence means little or
nothing.
A8 - Small elite (or even not so elite) colleges are not going to
be research career focused. Rather, they will be more
concerned with the commitment you have towards teaching and
the small college ambience and culture. In other words, how
you look as a researcher doesn't matter much, but if you have
no teaching experience AND don't have anything on
your CV or cover letter (or the rest of your application
package) that really shows an interest in teaching, then your
CV is going to end up in the trash (or the fireplace).
There were anti-selection characteristics, too:
B1 - Subject areas not in "square" with job description (eg. an
entomologist applying for a job in an anatomy department).
B2 - Anybody higher than associate prof, and including chairmen,
and people who were only at teaching institutions, and
people who were not young, fell off the list, quickly, on
the first round.
B3 - Anybody who was already asst prof at 2 or more other
institutions. This is because the people on the sellection committee
figure that there is something wrong with you because you did not
get tenure.
B4 - Obscure, short papers in trashy, obscure journals (especially
if there were, eg., 10 or more per year).
B5 - Anybody who followed a non-ideal career path. For example, a
truck driver for ten years goes back to school for PhD, a woman
who steps off the path to be mother for 2-3 years (yeah, I'm sorry
but they see that gap as a blemish on a career trajectory).
B6 - People who had dirt on their name. Bad gossip, whether true
or false, certain political problems (10-20 years ago you
might have had trouble if you were very left wing - you would
not get a job in science). Today, it may not be important.
B7 - Thanks to for this one and I HAVE
heard about it before but left it out because I did not want
to stigmatize anyone. But, we ought to tell-it-like-it-is.
"Postdocs" at government labs may not be a good idea for your
career. Yes, academia generally does not respect time spent at
such places and that needs to be considered even though the
pay might be greater. says in his
private e-mail to me that "I'm one of those guys
in his 50s- and its hard to believe that I might not make it
in this career to retirement." and they "have postdocs..." and
"But they are committing professional suicide because we
are not in a glamour area of science and we are not at a fancy
institution." (write to him if you want, folks, but get the
help file first [send any subject any text to
before you get your password or send
non-anonymously, also see the help file).
IN OTHER WORDS, YOU HAVE A WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY
AND IF YOU MISS IT, THEN YOU ARE MESSED UP FOR LIFE.
People who are selected as candidates for a position had to give a seminar and spend at least a day at the institution. The seminar had to be in a quality level that I would call the "upper half" category. To fall off the short list, you had to give a really goofy or bad seminar (and this happened, too). In contrast, at a teaching institution, your seminar or (short demonstration of presentation abilities) will be more scrutinized for delivery, content, collegiality, and style.
Some real-life but non-obvious factors might play a significant role in a person being offered a position. However, these factors may never become public knowledge. Some are:
C1 - Real programmatic considerations.
C2 - Absolutely astounding letters of recommendation from
luminaries (one prof at Berkeley told me this: he considered
himself average, but he got the job because of an
exceptional recommendation letter).
C3 - Operation in the background of a personal connection or
preference of some kind (some people call this politics
and it does happen).
C4 - An agenda. For example, there may be an actual preference to
hire a minority or a female, or a science
subdiscipline (eg. HIV science, extracellular matrix,
biotechnology, etc., or some other "hot topic").
Some of these non-obvious factors may actually dominate the
decision making to the point of relegating the obvious factors out
of the question. Anti-discrimination laws help prevent some of the
outlandish anti-sellection factor processes, but they don't seem to
have much effect until someone already hired is released or
denied tenure or tenure removed (see Chronicle of Higher Education
all year long on this). I think not much else has changed since the
mid 1970s except the much greater competition for grant funding.
This is what you have to measure yourself against.
What was the most intimidating CV I ever saw? It was just two pages long! The top half of the first page had the education. The bottom half of the first page had a list of special awards. The second page just gave numbers of journal papers, books, and chapters, not the titles and citations. The second page also had a story in which the individual said how many PhDs he graduated (it was around 40-50 if I recall correctly), how many of those went on into tenure track positions (it was most of them) and how many of those were promoted with tenure (almost of them). In other words it was an awesome success story. This guy not only did get the job, but he also got the whole floor of a building. I am sure the rest of the "package" (i.e. start up money, etc.) was also impressive.
There is also a line of thinking that is developing. Departments are not going to play a significant role as much as centers of excellence (containing 10-20 or more people). Such centers of excellence will have a "life cycle" of 12-15 years and then be disbanded.
Try not to use the above material to gauge yourself in an absolute way, because there are often exceptions to the rule in real life. But do use it as a guide.
There are no magic answers or guaranteed solutions to the job problem. The major problem is that funding for most research is unlikely to increase, and more likely to remain flat or decrease by 5 - 10% or more over the next 5-10 years. The next problem is, depending on you view it, either not enough jobs or too many PhDs or a combination of both. I think there will be substantial agreement that two things contribute to this situation: i) the end of the cold war, and ii) global competition which lead to reorganizations in 1980s, and reengineering from private industry and reinvention from the government in the 1990s (new buzzwords for reorganization combined with increased workloads for the survivors), and iii) a recently developed mood in government to suicidally, rapidly, and prematurely dismantle a substantial fraction of the infrastructure of our society (eg. cut gov spending and simultaneously wipe out all the revenue flow to the private sector that built up around it). And, unfortunately, I don't think it will do much good if we all write letters to our leaders or otherwise present rational and logical arguments based on benefits and costs.
My advice:
1. Keep tuned in to deeper analysis in the significant newspapers or magazines which cover trends in our culture. I read the Wall Street Journal and The Scientist for the human-angle job/funding stories. The Chronicle of Higher Education covers all news in Academia including science and non-science, institutional problems, trends, etc. A new periodical, "Academic Physician & Scientist" (Academic Physician & Scientist, 907 Embarcadero, Suite 4, El Dorado Hills, California 95762, (916) 939-4242, fax: (916) 939-4249, internet: gopher.acad_phy_sci.com), is really a both newsletter for the medical science community and a job listing at medical schools/centers for primarily clinician and/or clinical science department jobs (95% MDs and MD/PhDs) and 5% or less jobs are for PhDs (in basic sciences). They list maybe 200-300 or more MD requiring jobs from all over the country and maybe 20-30 PhD jobs. Lastly, keep an eye out for things that are said by trend setter pundits (eg. Peter Drucker, Tom Peters [of "In search of excellence"]). Its not that they are right about anything, but a lot of people who have a lot of power do think guys like these are gods. Sometimes relevant material can be found in Science, but the career "specials" that they have been having annually in the last three years tend to be obviously "sanitized" or concentrate on the "positive" elements rather than the "reality" elements. It might be worth checking some of the other newsgroups and occasionally posting a question about what the job market is like in "?", etc. This is a resource, don't be afraid to use it and if you feel like sharing what you learn, please do. Yes, its probably more worthwhile to do this than keep up with the journals in your field.
2. Don't quit graduate school or you post-doc tomorrow. But DO start thinking about two scenarios. First, you wait and wait and wait while you do postdocs until at some point no one will hire you any more because you start to look old ... and ... why hire you (or keep you) when they can get a younger guy maybe doing something more in line with what the PI wants to do now than what he wanted to do three-four years ago. Second, you set a one semester or one year time limit to make up your mind about getting out.
3. Self evaluation: Part A. It looks to me like future funding is going to be even more programmatically controlled. Cancer, AIDS, Heart Disease, Medical/Clinical applications, Gene Therapy and certain areas in genetics (Human Gene Program - at least until the sequencing is finished, then those jobs will dry up), and certain disease entities, and biotechnology, may be areas where there will be money for some time. Remember that biotechnology projects all have life-cycles; after a few years the project either bombs out (you get laid off) or it is successful and makes money (the project is completed and they don't need you any more so you still get laid off). Keep an eye on the "propaganda-type" or "blow-your-own-horn" journals (TIBS, Current Opinion [on hot topic], BioEssays) and the journals of envy, Science and Nature. If you can't get a PhD at a neon sign school, then at least you can use the authors of these often self-promoting articles as leads with whom you can try to do a postdoc. Also, ask yourself if you (a postdoc) are getting your name on 2-3 good journal papers in good journals every year. Do you feel really good about your postdoctoral sponsor? Is the guy honest with you or does he have ego problems. Is he the kind of guy that will actually help you with a really positive recommendation letter. If you know you are having trouble, then you have to look for another postdoc. After you get at least your first paper accepted and you want to "test the water" and feel out your PhD advisor or postdoctoral sponsor's opinion of you, then just come out and say "Well, you have seen me through my (our) first paper, do you think I should stay in this stuff?". He will either tell you that you are dynamite and you should start applying for tenure-track jobs in 1-2 years, or he will tell you your progress is fine but you need to stick around for 8-10 years (he's using you). If he doesn't like you, then he will tell you, or you will notice that he doesn't notice you. Ask your co-workers if you haven't already, and for people going on to a new lab, then, before you make your decision, ask people who have already been through that lab and gone on, wherever that may be. If you are a graduate student looking for a postdoctoral sponsor, you should be researching out the guys who went before you. Call them up, look for them at meetings and just come out and, after you talk about science, then ask "how is this guy to work for?" Remember, its you that's going to burn out 3-5-7 years of your life in a relationship not unlike marriage and you are assuming that everything is going to work out. It may OR it may not. Personality conflicts and ideological clashes are part of real life. When these relationships go bad, its usually the "overling" that prevails and the "underling" that gets shafted. On the other side of the coin, ask yourself if you think you are God's gift to Man; sometimes its not just funded-tenured faculty that are the ones with ego problems and without contact with reality.
4. Self evaluation: Part B. You are in your postdoc by 2-3-4 years now, so, even if you are not quite ready to get REALLY serious about the job hunt, start anyway to send out your CV and test the waters for that tenure-track position. Tell your sponsor that you are doing this NOT because you WANT to leave, but to test the waters. You can send to places where they do not ask for recommendation letters with the application (to not burden your sponsor, and tell him about that too), and see if you get invited for a seminar. If you have, say, 4-5 papers on your CV and do not have at least one seminar invitation after about 20-40 applications in one year, then I think your career hopes are in trouble. If you don't get an offer after 3-5 seminar invitations, then maybe there is something wrong with you, or you're having a very bad string of luck (yes, you can be excellent, but just always be in the wrong spot at the wrong time).
5. A word about industry/biotech. There is a different kind of situation here compared to academia. In industry you will have to sign non-disclosure agreements. You won't be able to talk about at least some parts of your research (and forever, too, regardless of where you work afterwards). You may not be permitted to publish everything, and sometimes maybe nothing at all. You may have to live with your conscience under some funny conditions. Like, think about the stories involving: asbestos, (known to be) HIV-contaminated blood, tobacco, and certain organizations where there were cover-ups. When they decide to fire people, for good reasons, bad reasons, or no reasons, they can get nasty and without warning and without second chances. Also, there has been a high failure rate in biotech (flops in clinical trials, lawsuits that eat up money, insufficient capitalization). You will not have traditional academic freedom, although even that is disappearing from academia now that in most places there are now policies on intellectual property rights as there are in industry and your freedom is limited to programs where the subject mater is already decided. You will likely be subject to mission-oriented direction and maybe micromanagement.
6. A word about ending up in medical school. This has merit if you have been thinking about it already. Also, keep in mind that you need a personality to fit this option. Another problem that began to surface in 1995 is that, because of insurance industry- based health care reform, MDs are now just beginning to start having problems finding work. As of this writing, its more confined to specialists than general practitioners, but as portions of our industrial economy disappear (and jobs continue to move) to overseas countries, this situation might get worse. Also, remember that while jobs at the end of the pipeline might be much easier to get and move between, you will be under the pressure of the insurance industry and the climate on Capitol Hill is to cut government spending (eg. Medicare) by large amounts. Most of that money normally goes into salaries and wages and when it gets cut, so do jobs. There are bad things about medical careers (eg. malpractice lawsuits, temptations, chances to catch diseases, various pressures, and other risks). If you are the contemplative-introverted type rather than the outgoing-gregarious type, think again. Marines might make better MDs than "bookworms" and "lab rats". Also, the number of applicants to seats is much much higher than for graduate school. The good thing is that if you can get "into" medical school, there is a 99% chance you will get your M.D. which is much better than the average chance of success for a Ph.D. There will generally not be much financial support for you and large loans are the way most medical students go. Parents and/or your loan sources are where you go, and you will probably end up $100,000 or more in debt for a decade. Your med school dean of admissions is the person to make an appointment to see for further information. Note: These guys are "supposed" to be available to talk with you, but also don't forget that if they get an impression from you during such an appointment, it really CAN have an influence on the admission decision.
7. A word about tangential opportunities (these are non-glorious occupations, but in the long run, you may be better off). A short article in the Washington Post (page H9-May 14, 1995) said that "18 of the 20 fastest-growing occupations require a vocational education." Its something to think about. This brings up another afterthought. The NAS report on graduate education talked about broadening the PhD curriculum. This may be useful, but it still "slants" you in a direction that may not be good for you but is still good for the graduate school infrastructure. An unusual but possibly useful option which is under utilized is the second BS degree. It works like this: You are on a PhD for several years and see disaster, or worse, ahead. You have a look in your local big city sunday paper (the one with the classified ads) and see more ads for CPAs in that city than ads in the back pages of Science for integrin/laminin biologists all over the country. So, you have the heart-to-heart talk with yourself and see your campus office of admissions to see how much you would have to put in to get the Accounting degree. It could be two years or less if they accept for credit most of your undergraduate courses. The downside of this is if the government drastically reforms the IRS and taxes. Then there will be hundreds of thousands of unemployed and mad CPAs. Another area to think about are "staff" jobs at, for example, universities. From what I have seen first hand, staff (also may be known as "support" staff) have a lot more job security, less stress, and (many times) better offices than faculty. If it is any kind of state institution, they may have much more "protection" and/or "insulation" in the event of faculty-staff friction. Many times, staff (as opposed to faculty) are within the "administrative" hierarchy, as opposed to the academic hierarchy. In two cases in which I was personally familiar with the details, they (the administrative sector) not only had their own computer network, but it was a better network than the rest of the faculty. Remember, fate may determine for you, whether you like it or not, that science is not for you and you will have no choice but to find something else in life with which to be happy. And, don't laugh, I was at the beach with my wife one day and because I was wearing a painter's cap, a guy came up to me and wanted me to paint his house (I said I wasn't a painter). Later, I thought twice about that job offer. Another day I had two carpenters over at my house. Their work cost me a total of $49 per hour ($52,000 per year, each), and they didn't look like they were working very hard or losing sleep over their grants either. Yes, I still like science, but there were some elements in my ambience that I could do without.
8. Constructive suicide. An article in the Weds, May 24, 1995, Wall Street Journal (page B1, title: "When shopping sprees pall, some seek the simple life") prompts me to tell you that its really OK to bail out and accept that the high stress pursuit may not be right for you. Over the years, I have seen many articles on people in jobs that need a "Type A" personality but they are not "Type A" people. They work 70 hours per week and make a lot of money, but they decide after a while that its not worth it (in science you work a lot, too, and probably don't make a lot of money). The marketing people already have a name for this lifestyle - "voluntary simplicity". The specific article mentions a molecular biologist, Mr. Ed Medeiros, who gave it up to run a community center and loves his new work. The article mentions Helen and Kees Kolff. Dr. Kolff is going to give up being a pediatrician to work with environmental groups. Another person, Chris Curtis sold her two prosperous stores to get away from the nonsense. All of these people are acknowledgedly poorer but have found much more happiness in their lives.
9. A word about pressure. In a lot of the hot labs, doing hot research, there is also a lot of pressure and competition (and I think, sometimes bad feelings, too). Are strong, ego-driven personalities present? Is there an undeserving favorite person present? Is everyone working 60-70 hours per week, or 28 hours per day, 7 days per week. When I was young I had the idea that science was a contemplative, peaceful, and rewarding activity where people are civilized in their behavior and reasonable in attitude towards each other. As time went by, and as I learned about how science is really done, especially now, I would now describe much of the science being done in the establishment as something more akin to a money-grubbing rat-race. Someday you are going to start getting tired at the end of the day. Other days, you may even start the day in a discouraged mood to begin with. A lot of people who sent me e-mail said that they have this problem already.
10. Always try to have a fall back plan. Either in academia or industry, science or non-science. Consider what you would do if you do something to get your boss mad at you (how would that affect your future). Or your boss suddenly dies, like, in a car accident (etc). Or the chairman leaves or retires (etc). Or your bosses grant doesn't get renewed (etc). Or your boss gets in a fight with the chairman.
11. If you are a graduate student close to the PhD and have a lot of doubts, then consider dropping out or at least postponing the award of the degree. Talk this over with your advisor and explain why. Even better, talk to your fellow graduate students and/or postdocs; they are going to be in the same situation as you. After all, once you get the degree, you can't get rid of it and lots of people will consider you overqualified for the more mundane but, alas, abundant jobs. If you are a post doc, consider a heart to heart talk with your sponsor and see if you can form two kinds of CV. One where you are listed as a post-doc; the other where your work is listed as a technician (this might go over better for applications to jobs where you don't get any chance to "be independent"). Don't worry about doctoring your CV, its done quite frequently now, especially when you hear about things over the network (I don't mean the internet, I mean the grapevine). Have a look at the classified jobs section in the Sunday paper from a large city; see how many non-academic jobs you might qualify for that you think you could stand to do. Go apply for some and see if you can get hired NOW. Don't quit your career, but test the waters for alternatives. Actually, since the original posting of these essays back in early 1995, I have encountered many cases of graduate students up and quitting to take jobs.
12. Watch very carefully the changes in budget levels of government sponsored R&D. I see in the 14 April issue of Science (1995) that the Senate has voted on R&D cuts, and there is $ 90 millions in cuts out of the $ 431 million originally proposed for the Advanced Technology Program (page 195) and over on page 192 they are talking about big 10-15% cuts in Energy (some of that goes into the Human Genome Project, so where are those guys going to go), and 10-15 % cuts in the NIH budget. And 80-90 % of that money ends up directly in salaries. Watch how the next election develops. What I see so far is that it doesn't matter which party you belong to, they are all talking about budget and program cuts. If these budget projections turn out to be the case, newcomers are probably going to be hurt more than the established guys.
13. There is a lot of talk about broadening the PhD, whatever that means. If you have to bail out of the science career trajectory, I think it still hurts your job prospects in the commercial (yes, those boring mundane jobs, but they help pay the rent) world to have a PhD. You are still overqualified for almost anything. Consider this instead: go for a second bachelors degree. Again, look at the classifies and look at what course work you need. If you are halfway through a 4 year (4 years minimum these days) PhD, you could probably get credit for at least half of your undergraduate work and just bang away for the last two years for some subject more marketable. Remember, in the future, if you are that specialized, you'll likely have to move across the country maybe several times in your life. If you are not that specialized, you'll probably be able to find new jobs across town. Many a time I've told secretary-types that they are in better positions that they think. I've seen it happen many times. They can lose a job, and usually go down a couple of blocks and get another job in the same afternoon.
14. If you are early in your graduate education, try to get a teaching assistantship (to get teaching experience on your CV). It might be possible to do this as a post doc, but less likely at a medical school institution. Consider teaching night class.
15. Think about getting computer courses and experience. This is clean work if you can deal with it. Some people I know who have experience in this area are having some success getting work (i.e. job offers).