What's negotiable?

Lately, I've been trying to learn a bit about negotiation.  Specifically, what is negotiable at the start of a job.  I have a general sense that the starting salary is, but I don't know how I would ask for that.  I've also heard plenty of internet blabber that Everything Is Negotiable.  But at the very least, no one is going to want to sit down with the new hire and negotiate every little dumb detail about the job before they are clear you are pretty much onboard.  So I surveyed some friends and colleagues to see what is common to expect from a professional job, and what/how to ask for other things.

Basically, everyone said you should negotiate your salary, and this was across the spectrum of "Take'em for all their worth!" to "it never hurts to ask."  What was interesting to me what what was suggested as things to factor into this number.  A friend said, you have to get out of "Ohmigosh, I'll do anything to work for you!" sucker mode, and move quickly into, "My skills are valuable, and valued at X price."  But really, if you think of yourself, your potential, you as The Whole Package, it can be hard to distill all that into one number, especially when it's hard to gather objective evidence about your market value.

Several people (with enough work histories I am inclined to believe them) said vacation, health insurance and retirement aren't usually negotiable.  But I need to find out about them so I can adjust the required salary accordingly. Terrible health plan?  I'm going to need extra cash to make up for the fact that your competitors would include this in my package.  Several people recommended I look at Glassdoor.com and Salary.com to be sure that the number was in the range for the position, and use this as the start point to add extra salary on to.

As for these other things, what can a professional still expect these days? Healthcare is a yes.  Hopefully details of the plan can be made available before just accepting that "Health Plan" = "Good."  There should be a 401K, with matching, most people said matching at 5% was standard (still), although it may take time to vest.  I heard 3-4 weeks of paid vacation.  I find that odd, since my husband only gets 2 weeks of "vacation time'" but he also gets another 10 days of holidays during the year.  I suppose it all works out.  The idea is, if an offer is lacking in any of these things, you ask for more salary to make up for it (since that makes for good leverage).  No one addressed how to respond if these were all above average- probably thank your lucky stars and keep your mouth shut.

I also asked about other things like parking, bus pass, gym membership and other random perks.  Most people said it's ok to ask for and about those things, but I should wait until the salary number is already lined up.  When the question of salary is still on the table, it seems like you might walk.  And it would be weird to turn down a job because you had to get your own bus pass, right?  Or worse, if you are fussing about the parking, you are cool with the crappy salary number, right? You often have more leverage for those little things at that point.  By the time an employer has gone through the HR hoopla to get you that far, they are keenly aware of how much they want you and need to make you happy to get you. Of course, if it was generally considered that these perks were valued by employees and available, they might think to mention it during the hiring process.  That being said, the corporate goon who hires me might not be aware of how amazingly liberating I think it is to work flex time, so I will ask rather than assume someone will tell me about this nonsense. If I have learned anything in looking for a job, it is that what is important to me as a job-hunter is not what is important to a potential employer.

And then tactics.  With luck, the employer will make the first offer, which gives you a number to start from.  Countering with 5-10% more (and valid, sound reasoning), seems pretty much expected.  Since I am terrible with arithmetic under pressure, I would make a table of annual and monthly salary numbers to compare with.  I also heard that it is ok to take day to think about it- do your due diligence, and prepare a thoughtful counter offer.  (Seriously? That's allowed??)  And the valid, sound reasoning for your counter offer should include other offers, previous salary, the accepted salary for the industry etc., not so much personal budget issues (I've got this HUGE mortgage).

That's what I've learned so far about negotiations.  This seems like a pretty key moment to have a spine and stick up for yourself, which isn't a good time to decide you dont't need one.  I should probably practice this stuff.

Individual Development Plan

A new e-friend sent me a link to a tool on the Science Careers website to help PhD level scientists develop an Individual Development Plan.  It's great, it does a skills assessment, interests assessment and values assessment and then compares your scores to various career paths.  Ironically, entrepreneurship (starting your own business) and K-12 education (specifically curriculum developer) ranked as the bottom two on my list.  Ironic, because I am actually running a sole-prop based on my ability to write curriculum.

I look forward to using these tools more in the future, but wanted to share the link here.

My IDP at Science Careers

Scientists don't have just a PhD

I don't want to be pessimistic about my job hunt. I have been learning a lot about careers, employment and how to get there over the last year, however, and it is quite obvious that Seattle does not support a job classification for people to be employed as scientists who have a PhD but no post-doc. Of course, if you know someone really well, if your PI is part owner in a start-up, maybe this can happen for you.  But I've met a lot of people who work here, working as a scientist (at the bench) requires a post-doc.  (For the record, working as a tech with a PhD is regarded as a very bad idea.)

For the last year, I've been quite confident that I could find something that wouldn't require a post-doc, and here is what I've come up with. 
You don't need a post-doc to become a medical writer. 
You don't (always) need a post-doc to teach, particularly at non-research schools.
You don't need a post-doc to get into patent law, or that arena of intellectual property, but you do need to pass the patent bar or have some significant business savvy. 
And you don't need a post-doc to just have a job- many positions (again, not at the bench, but administration springs to mind) don't actually require that PhD in the first place, but if you can make the case that you are well qualified it shouldn't preclude you working. 

So if just a job is the goal, a PhD is great- it shows you can work hard, learn challenging things, juggle multiple projects with changing priorities.  But you might not use your science at all. And frankly using that science is what people will pay the most for.

Now I am wondering, it's been a year, and I still don't have my dream job (although I am a lot less dissatisfied with contract work), and I don't actually know what that dream job looks like (I've found fixating on a single position has not been that good for me). Perhaps I should keep trying things to see what sticks.  Right now I am looking at medical writing.

Interview with a Former Molecular Biologist

This networking thing is still a real challenge for me.  I'm working hard to introduce myself in terms of where I am going (I'm a freelance editor and I work in instructional design) instead of where I was (I have a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology).  When you start with the second one and then say, "I am looking for a job," you get a look that says 'how smart do you think you are?' and someone suggests you get a job at a University.  'Uh, I had one of those,' and I usually get too flustered trying to explain why after 10 years at the bench I would walk away form that, instead of focusing on what I am doing to develop better communication skills.  I had this problem again at a networking event for Women in Science that was part of the Seattle Science Festival recently.  It was a great mix of people in outreach (ALL the museums were there), trainees and working professionals.  One of the people I met there introduced herself as a "Former Molecular Biologist."  Fortunately, she agreed to meet with me after the event and tell me a bit about that path.

She realized in graduate school she wasn't going to stay at the bench, and ended up working at Science Magazine.  Some of her experiences won't be relevant to the current job market, but she understood that.  For example, she said that science writing these days is possible to break into, but it can be a bit dicey to make a living at it.  Places like Wired Blogs or SciAm blogs make it easier to have a voice, but they don't cut big checks.  From there she transitioned into her current position as a usability expert at Philips.  They design new products, and she helps engineers make them impossible to use incorrectly.  We actually talked very little about her current job, although I'm curious about it now.

What we talked about instead what how to make that first step away from the bench.  She is fortunately very well connected to many people who had moved away from bench science at various career stages, and had a lot to say about what worked well for them.  Her biggest piece of advice was to create a transition story for yourself.  A good story can save you from that flustered babbling in and scenario.  And I need a story that shuts the door on a career as a scientist.  Not burn the bridge, just make it clear that I am going somewhere else now.  These days I feel like grad school is a bit of a black hole- I just can't move beyond the clutches of having a Ph.D. and the trappings of an academic career path. 

In her case, she enjoyed the challenge of research, but wanted much more human interaction.  She had a friend who was often in an organizational role in lab, and moved from a post-doc to an Operational position.  Her partner took a couple classes in bioinformatics and enjoyed the computation, and ended up in a support role a tech company.  See how that works?  And no one  says to them, "but your dissertation work seemed so promising..."

So how does the transition story come together?  She suggested I go back to what motivated me to go to grad school in the first place, because that probably hasn't fundamentally changed.  Then think about where I want to go, and weave the story so that my transition to this new place I am going (that suits my motivations and values) is inevitable.  In her case, she loved the process of solving problems, but found bench work was too small scale for her.  Helping teams catch and solve problems is much more inline with her interests and abilities.  She said most people have had a transition of some sort, and if you tell the story with optimism, they can identify with it.

What does this mean for me?  I'm still working on my own transition story.  More on that as it develops.

New Contract and a Leave of Absence

Some interesting opportunities have opened up, and I want to document some of the choices I've made and why.  In another fit of "Maybe I'll just apply for some OTHER crazy job!" I put my hat in the ring for a position as a developmental editor with a curriculum development company in Seattle. Remember, I wrote a ridiculous letter and put in for a position that a hundred people had already applied for?  Well, I got a call back the next day (Ha!).

The call was from the director who confessed that he was too swamped to hire a developmental editor because they were behind on writing.  It's a growing company with some very interesting projects, and the just need some extra hands right now.  Would I be willing to take on a writing contract?

My feeling on writing contracts is that they are a good way to make money, but not really a career. When you work off-site, you don't hear about things like new openings, or extra work or other things that would make it easier to advance your position.  They are a growing company, but will I get a chance to grow with them?  And frankly, I find working off-site boring.  I miss having awesome coworkers.  That being said, I've also come to realize that contract work is what is developing my CV these days, and frankly I do like the work.  And the money.

So I agreed to take on a 5 week writing contract.  But it sounds like a 40 hour/week position.  (Oh, and I'll be paid hourly, unlike my work with Words and Numbers where I bill per task).  I consider contract work one of 3 jobs I juggle currently, and so I knew I'd need to push back on the other two.  I notified my internship I was going to be away, and that I am planning to send them a status update this week.  The scary conversation was to tell the bank I was going to need some time.  I'm just a teller, so I didn't figure they would be interested in making concessions for me- but for a 5 week contract, it seems stupid to walk away from a steady pay-check. 

I thought a lot about how to have this conversation- I knew I needed to ask for something, so I tried to ask in a way that made them feel like they were generous to offer (not that they OWED me this- Here's to negotiation training!).  And I also tried to be really clear about what was already decided, and what wasn't.  I have accepted a contract.  It is a great opportunity for me.  It will take up all my time.  I don't want to leave you guys in the lurch, and I am not sure how to do that best.  To his credit, my manager was very excited for me, and was able to give me everything I need to make this work.  I'll be at the bank for 2 more weeks, and then I am going on a leave of absence.  In August, I'll get back in touch and get my old position back.  I may be at a different branch when I come back, but I shouldn't have to reapply for my job.  I'm glad that I asked for that, because it makes taking this contract much less intimidating- as I said, it's a contract, not a career. 

Doing what I like so I can do it more

My dear friend the Blobologist recently wrote about a meeting she had with a science writer- they were talking about navigating your way to a successful career.  She was sharing her worry about how to break in, and where to break in, and this guy told her that

When you change careers, everything is going to be very difficult at first. Why bother going through all that hassle for an area you’re not interested in? Why not start with what you like?

 If it's going to be a long haul to get the right experience, meet the right people, do the right things and just BE the right candidate, we may as well find something enjoyable about the struggle.

On that note, I am headed to the Seattle Science Festival EXPO today. I'm going to be enjoying myself to bits for the morning, and then volunteering at the NWABR "Thank a Researcher Booth," which sounds like fun.

Disclaimer: I'm educated, not handicapped

When moving outside of academia, it's sometime hard to know how to address having a Ph.D.  Lately, I've been trying not to overemphasize it (I'm a strong communicator and critical thinker who happens to have a Ph.D), but I think I am missing an opportunity to talk about what I really learned in graduate school.  A lot of the feel good literature for Ph.D.s thinking about finding a new career path teaches us to recognize the value of the Ph.D. in terms of communications skills, teamwork, independent work, critical thinking...  Sometimes I forget that other people (and I mean hiring managers), don't read this stuff.  I have certainly written cover letters where I failed to address some of those secondary job requirements.  I'm not sure if that cost me the job, but "strong communication skills," "attention to detail," or "Proficiency in Microsoft Word" sometimes seem to obvious to state.  

Then again... I met someone a while back who was really surprised, could barely contain his surprise, that I was such a capable communicator.  Not that I did anything out of the ordinary, he just assumed I would speak only in math equations and that I'd never hear a word he said. He really thought I'd be handicapped by my education. He was thinking about ways to get kids into STEM fields, and gave me one of those "geeks don't have social skills" lines that made me sigh.  I carefully corrected him, scientists don't always value their interpersonal skills, but it is impossible to be successful in science if you cannot write a grant that present a compelling argument to fund your work or present a clear story of your novel finds that gives you credibility with your colleagues.  He was sold, but it reminded me that a huge part of communication is understanding your audience.  If I am applying to a position where a Ph.D. is unexpected, I should probably explain why I think that 5 years in drug discovery provides me enough professional experience to be successful in a new role.  I gotta remember that to some people, a Ph.D. is for those who are too single minded to make it anywhere but in that chosen field.  And saying, "This job isn't as hard a grad school," isn't likely to win any hearts or minds.

Currently, I am applying for a hot curriculum development position (LinkedIn can tell you how many people have applied- I'm #117.  I suspect my application won't be read, or if it is, it will be forgotten.  I'm developing the materials for similar positions, so what the heck- I'm being ridiculous and possibly memorable).  My short cover letter explains my background and interesting in the position, but I felt it needed more.  They wanted someone with a BA in Comm, so I included this paragraph. 

Briefly, I want to address some of the other job requirements that may not seem obvious given my background.  I earned my Ph.D. in molecular biology by taking the lead on a large collaborative project that involved investigators in 3 states, so I am familiar with team work, collaboration and the value of interpersonal skills.  This project allowed me to share my work in both papers and talks for an audience of highly educated skeptics, so I have developed strong communication skills, attention to detail and a thick skin.  As a freelancer working off-site, I have mastered independent work and time management.  

 Too much?  My new, fatalistic attitude about the job hunt is helping me to try new things.  But approaching every job thinking, "well, I already don't have this job, how bad can it get?" might not be the fast lane to my dream job.

Interview: Patent Law

Working at the UWs tech transfer office puts me in touch with a lot of scientists using their training in a non-traditional way.  I work directly with tech managers who have a portfolio of projects that they cycle through the development- moving from an idea, to a funded idea, to a company, or a patent or a license to another company.  This is a very cool job that I might talk about more later, but these tech managers also work in close contact with patent agents and patent lawyers.  In our office, these are all former researchers who've made the leap into law.  I got to sit down with a woman from an engineering background to talk about her move into law and her job now.

When we first sat down, she said, "you know, all you need to become a patent agent is to pass the patent bar, and that's really no big deal.  Seriously, just sign up, study for a couple weeks and take the test, and you can jump into law."  Hold that look of cautious surprise while we back up a bit.  Entering patent law is different than other forms of law- in order to sign up to take the Patent Agent Bar, you need a B.S. at least in a narrow list of technical or scientific fields.  If you have gone to law school following that degree, you can take the Patent Attorney Bar, which is a different exam.  I'm going to focus on the Patent Agent route, since there is no way I am going back to law school now. 

What the patent Agent does is help prepare and file documents related to patents with the US Patent and Trade Office (USPTO).  There are several levels of documentation that go in with a patent, depending on that nature of the patent and it's claims.  What this looks like on a day-to-day basis is juggling several projects, each which requires about 8-80 hours of work, and doing anything from prior art searches, provisional patent language to prosecuting (fancy lawyer term meaning "to persue") patents.  Sometimes patents come back from the patent office, and need a response, so you get to advocate for why your client's patent is different that patents 6,923,245.  In order to be effective, you actually need to understand the fundamentals of your patents well enough to distinguish it from other patents/ literature available.  Even though you don't "do" science in the traditional way, you really need to keep your understanding sharp and up to date.

A little more on the career path.  I've heard people say that a Patent Agent is kind of a dead-end job, there isn't room for advancement.  It's probably true that your job title doesn't change much over time, but my contact had a little more perspective on it.  She said that most people start out in a law firm for at least a couple of years.  You work with all the lawyers in that firm and really get experience in the entire life cycle.  She said (and I was stifling a smile here), you really need to develop a tough skin and be prepared to put in long hows.  You'll be doing a lot of work, getting different types of criticism from the partners.  The stakes are high and the deadlines are short, so there is a lot of pressure.  The hours can be long and the intellectual labor is exhausting.  But after a couple years at a law firm, you have enough experience to pursue another position, like her position at the University, or in a USPTO office.  In her position, she manages the law firms that are contracted to do a lot of that work for the tech transfer office.  Or to work part-time, or generally take more control over your career. I'm not sure what the job opportunities for Patent Agents are right now or are predicted to be in the near future.

That said, this doesn't sound all that different from post-docing (or graduate school, she had a B.Sc. in engineering before making the switch).  Except for the pay.  The USPTO reports the average salary for a patent agent is $74500.

Back to the bar then.  It's a 3 hour exam, you can probably take at your nearest testing center.  You need to pass with a 70% score.  The fee to take the exam is a few hundred dollars (which feels like a lot when you are out of work), but could provide some new exciting opportunities.  Or, if you decide you don't like it, it doesn't shackle you to the debt of law school.  For a career that is a dynamic, challenging way you use your training, the barriers to entry don't seem too high. 

Post-quiz analysis and reflection

That quiz I posted last week prompted a MAJOR spike in blog traffic.  Thanks to everyone who participated.  It was gratifying to know that I can drive traffic to the blog, if I want/need.  It's also pretty obvious that my usual low number of visitors is not the reason I am still searching for a job. 

Although I am leaving the quiz open for anyone else who wants to take it, I wanted to throw down a little analysis.  (So go ahead and add new answers, make my analysis irrelevant).  My big fear in putting together the quiz was that an overwhelming majority of respondents would say they had a brief job hunt with no struggle.  Unfortunately for everyone who had to sweat it out, this wasn't the case.  It's not rare to have a job with minimal job effort (you know, compared to the MAJOR effort that was earning the Ph.D. in the first place) (19% of participants report their job hunt was 0 months, 8/36 reported having no major barriers in their job hunt).  But it's pretty far from the norm.

On the other hand, people often tell me that being on the market as long as I have been is no big deal.  Again, more than half of respondents DID get their position in less than a year.  So it's ok to feel like this is taking longer than I thought it should.  I find it terrifying that a FIFTH of respondents said it took more than 2 years to find a job (22%), which is terribly long time to be seeking the stability of a job.  In a future post, I will have more to say about the STEM Skills Gap Crisis (15/36 reported having difficulty finding jobs that meet their qualifications), but for now it should be clear to us all that there is no "usual" way Ph.D.s get that first job- and it's probably because there are so many directions to go from here.

Today I got to chat with one of the other interns about her job hunt, she post-doced in comp bio, then took a staff position for a year and a half before deciding to leave academic science and has been looking for a position while doing some consulting for about a year.  She is hoping to spin-off with a company that she's been working with for a couple months.  She reminded me that lots of people post-doc while they are looking for a position, eventually everyone goes somewhere.  It helps keep your skills from getting stale, even if it doesn't add anything else.  Because how long can you be out of your field and still claim to be an expert in it?  As she was saying this, I was reaching for a paperbag to breathe into with one hand and starting to surf "post-doc uw" with the other.

But I stopped myself.

She has a really good point, you don't want your skills to get stale.  That's actually why I've been working so hard to get more communication experience as an intern and a contractor.  If I took a post-doc, I couldn't do that.  And then I would be letting go of the skills I've been working so hard on and I enjoy so much.  I asked my editor at Words and Numbers to be a professional reference for me, and she agreed.  I'm clearly not wasting my time, this is just MUCH slower than I wanted. 

I have a looming anniversary.  I defended my Ph.D. at the end of last June.  In just a couple months, I won't really be a 'recent' graduate anymore.  So I look back at what I've done with a year all to myself.  It hasn't been lucrative, but I've learned a lot, taken on and conquered some new challenges and developed new contacts and skills.  I don't know how long that will feel sufficient, but I'm not going to give up on this dream yet.

Project Job Hunt: Risk Assessments

Risk Assessment is the part of Project Management that I'd like to learn more about.  It seems very relevant for research.  The Project, as defined, relies on the success of all the outcomes.  In science we are more likely to take on projects that aren't guaranteed to succeed compared to other fields (cure for cancer vs. build a better tooth brush).  Risk Assessment is meant to look at the various components of the project, consider how they might negatively impact the success of the project and make choices about how to deal with those eventualities during planning.  What if you sat down at the beginning of your dissertation and your PI said, "I'd like you to cure brain cancer.  If that doesn't work, you should probably characterize the ways that curing brain cancer is different than treating other cancers.  Either way, you can publish and graduate."  Even though this is eventually what happens to most of us, this is more likely to happen in year five than year 1.

Risk should be identified in the planning stage, and decisions should be made about each risk.  These should be assessed from both quantitatively and qualitatively.  Will you spend all the remaining grants funds to solve this problem?  Will you be too beat down and burned out after tackling this to ever lay eyes on another pipette ever again?  Things that put the project off schedule or budget are more quantitative, those that negatively impact the team or the quality are quality issues.  Should these risks be mitigated, transferred, deferred, reduced, shared, accepted or avoided?  Let me present research relevant examples for each, because I am studying.

There is a risk that you might have the wrong construct from a previous student- you mitigate that risk by sequencing or otherwise verifying the identity before doing any real experiments with it.  I often struggled to grow the quantities of HeLa cells I needed for my experiments, the risk was transferred when I bought the cells I needed.  Some risks are deferred, you wait to run those expensive follow-up experiments that might derail the project until after the grant renewal.  Always running multiple samples and controls reduces the risk that you are just viewing and anomaly.  Taking on a collaborator can help share risks in a productive way- you can't do MUD-PIT, and they don't know much about growing yeast- sharing risk can decrease it as well.  In research especially, there is a high probability that whatever we are working on might not work- we accept that risk, including the consequences on time, money and talent.  The alternative is to avoid it, don't run experiments that you don't have confidence in, staying away from high risk-high reward avenues. 

What does this mean for my Job Hunt Project?  Well, I go back and look at each of those tasks, and try to think about what failure might look like.  Some of this is just more rigorous quality control- I'll be sharing the documents (CV, Resume etc) I create with peers to be sure that I am presenting myself well.  One reason it is important to do this in the planning stage is that risk assessment might create new tasks, which will need to be incorporated into the plan/schedule downstream.  Since this is such an important idea, I am going to split this into two posts- my next post will provide the actual risk assessment.

Job opportunties for PhDs?

If you read any academic/career blogs for the PhD audience, you are probably aware of the debate about the over-production of PhDs.  Are there too many?  What jobs are they supposed to get?  For some fields (chemistry especially), there is an painful mismatch between training and industry needs.  Chemjobber started some nice dialogue about the opportunity costs of grad school in response to a Chronicle Article by Jon Bardin, a chemistry grad student and science writer who talked with excitement about the many directions a person can take graduate training.  I agree, there are many places you can take a PhD, teaching high school for example, but many of those positions don't require the PhD which can make a burnt out graduate feel like the years of toil were for naught.  DocFreeride responded very candidly about the risks of going to graduate school (it's not a guarantee for a job).  These are all great articles, and I would encourage you to look at the comments section of each.

Some may point to the low unemployment rate for those with PhDs as evidence that there is not a mismatch.  First, remind yourself that this number only accounts for those who have had a job that pays into unemployment- grad students and post-docs in between positions don't count.  I would like to respond to this, as a technically 'employed' PhD.  Someone asked me recently on a particularly optimistic day if getting my PhD was worth it.  And I responded that I'll always be able to find work (editing papers for China or taking contracts, for example), but as someone who has invested so much time in my professional development, I have ambitions to find a fulfilling career.  And that has proven to be much harder than I might have thought.

I was meeting recently with a couple of other out of work scientists (casualties of the boom-bust Seattle Biotech market).  One of them walked me through his current career plan: 
Plan A- Dream job as a scientist.
Plan B- Full time work using transferable and technical skills.
Plan C- Contract work using any transferable skills.
Plan D- any type of work.  His unemployment is running out, so Plan D is a major focus.

I was starting to complain that I had just achieved Plan D- I can pay my bills, but now I spend all my time running around like a crazy person between 3 jobs and networking events and try to spend a few minutes sending out applications.  This is not the dream- I never aspired to be a full-time job hunter.... but both of these scientists (politely) told me to stuff it.  They knew too many scientists who had lost their homes, spouses and lives as a result of not being able to find a job of any sort.  Am I really career savvy for taking a part-time job?  Is the most important skill that I learned as a graduate student the ability to work diligently on seemingly pointless tasks?

Well, it is one the skills I learned, but I prefer to think that my analytical ability and aptitude for critical thinking were more important.  Another skill I learned is the importance of jumping through hoops when necessary (as expressed by the great @GeneWrangler).  When I told these guys I was thinking about getting my CAPM, they were skeptical that I would learn anything I didn't already know.  And that's not the point- you don't always get certified to learn things, sometimes you get certified to prove you are a joiner, that you can put up with the necessary Bureaucratic Stuff (BS) to get the job done.  A tolerance for BS is important in some jobs, like it or not.  Yes, it would be awesome if we could all be fairly evaluated based on our potential for success stemming from a thoughtfully objective assessment of our strengths.  But in reality, we just have to find a way to be the right person, in the right place at the right time.  I'm not willing to leave that to chance, so I am committed to polishing my candidacy in as many ways as I can in an effort to be ready for when opportunities present themselves.  To me, having my PhD means I have the skills to overcome the issues that my field and job market have.  I'm not sure what the solution looks like at the moment, but I have spent years looking for something with a much lower probability of success, so I know I got this.

Breaking in to Project Management

Sometimes I rely on other's optimism about my job hunt.  I mean, objectively, it isn't heading the direction I want, so it is really great to have someone who knows what they are talking about say, "C'mon, I think you'd be a good fit for this position." 

This was the formerly job hunting friend of mine who hooked me up with some of his great contacts- he suggested that for the right person and project, a Project Management job could be entry level.  I have since learned that there are sometimes "associate PM" positions, but I don't see many listed currently.  He saw a job at an old employer, and put me in touch with someone who knew the role and the hiring manger.  Slam-dunk, right?

Not so much.  The contact at Philips, while very encouraging and empathetic, was pretty clear that for that specific role they needed someone who understood either oral health, or manufacturing... ideally both.  You can double check my LinkedIn profile, but I've got experience in neither.  I was feeling pretty crestfallen, when he said, "You would probably be a better fit for a scientist position" which obviously made me want to explode.  But, instead, I said, "I'd love to work as a scientist, but I don't have the clinical experience that most positions in the area are looking for.  I can't find a role as a scientist, which is why I've been looking at alternative ways to use my education."  He said he knew that Philips would be opening some positions 'soon' (in a couple months) and offered to pass around my CV, which isn't a bad outcome.

I had this phone call, and then went to my first Intro to Project Management class at Bellevue College.  They offer a certificate, and can help people get the coveted PMP certification through PMI.  The PMP certification requires thousands of hours of experience, which means it probably can't help me with my current effort to find a job.  But, I head about another one that might.  Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) requires much less experience (or just two classes, one of which I am taking already) and a certification exam.  There is a knowledge requirement, so it is meaningful, but it is something I could get before the summer- so it might be possible to influence my current job hunt.  This is a certification that isn't for established experts in the field, but does show that you take the PMI methods seriously, and have spent some time in this area of professional development.

I'm thinking about taking the CAPM, it will be nice to have something concrete to show for all this "professional development," but it might be hard to justify the time away from the job hunt.

Great news for Medical Scientists, except epidimiologists!

Over at ChemJobber, there has been some interesting discussion about the derth of jobs for chemists, and many perspectives on why chemists are unemployed and what to do about it.  I'm not a chemist, but I identify with the struggle- I was also trained to do something that isn't what industry wants, and am struggling to transition that technical experience into gainful employment.  There is always a certain amount of finger pointing that "kids these days" can't get jobs because we are lazy, or that our professors pulled the wool over our eyes.  What I like about Chemjobber is that he uses numbers whenever possible- and he pointed out a Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs projection report that he pulled data from to show the shrinkage of the chemists job market.  Ouch.

So I went to look.  I used the most recent version of the same report and found some interesting things.  First of all, based on the career categories used by the BLS, I would consider myself a Medical Scientist (who is not an epidemiologist).  My previous work was to research a human disease to improve human health. Directly from the BLS Jan 2012 Monthly Labor Review:


Life, physical, and social science occupations.
Most new jobs:
Medical scientists, except epidemiologists +36,400
Fastest growing (in percent):
Medical scientists, except epidemiologists +36.4
Fastest declining (in percent):
Forest and conservation technicians –1.0
Highest paying:
Political scientists $107,420

BLS predicts and extra 36,000 jobs for Ph.D. or professional degree carrying medical scientists in the next 20 years.  It thinks the median income for these will be above $70K.

At first blush, I was baffled- if 'medical science' is growing why don't I have a job?  First, this are prediction from 2010-2020, so the growth is not over.  But, as I read the report, I realized that what is needed is scientists with clinical experience.  That's basically the missing piece in my job hunt.  I'm not sure what to do about it, but it's refreshing to have some cold hard data to put up next to my experience. 

Another interesting fact was from the table looking at employment by education level.  BLS believes that 3.1% of the country had a Ph.D. or professional degree (MD, JD etc) in 2010, and that 3.2% will in 2020.  The median income for these folks is $87,500/year.  (For reference, the median income across all education levels is $33,000/year.)

Stuck in the box

Following some advice to reach out to diverse recruiters on LinkedIn, I found myself with a phone screen for a Project Manager position at a clinical software company.  (That experiment is currently 4 in 4 returned contacts- good sign, right?)  The recruiter was very nice, and gave me every opportunity to reveal where I had hidden several years of clinical experience or software development on my resume.  In the end, we both agreed it wasn't a great fit, and he suggested if I was serious about project management roles, I should look into getting my PMI- a certification for project managers.  I've heard mixed reviews on this- for starters, you need something like 3,000 hours of project management experience to be fully certified.  This WOULD be a great addition to your resume, but it's not something to whip out in my evenings and weekends.  The certification doesn't necessarily add anything to all that experience (that could be one 300 hour project that took 10 times too long), but it shows that you value that skill set enough to participate in this professional group. 

At the end of the interview, the recruiter said, "You know, I used to work at Amgen and Merck.  You would be perfect for a Molecular Biologist job at a place like that.  Have you thought about applying to those sorts of places?"  A-haha.  Have I thought about it?  Yes, that's in fact why this conversation started with me saying "I would like to transition my research experience to a more applied and clinical position."  Amgen doesn't need molecular biologists- they need immunologists, they need compliance officers, medical writers etc.  These are also jobs I think I could do, but people look at my resume and say, 'oh, you should continue doing what you used to do.'

This is one reason I've been working so hard to do other things to show that I am not a one-dimensional candidate.  I can write, I can communicate with different groups, I have some business savvy.  But people see Ph.D. at the top of the resume and not much more.  I don't want to oversell several months of contract work (I have been doing bench work for a decade- it's hard to ignore that's where my experience is), but how do I highlight that in a way that gives me some appeal to a non-traditional job?

Do I have experience yet?

Oh, experience.  Job ads always seem to think you should have it- and it's never clear where you are going to get it.  The few times I have gotten feedback about why I am not the candidate have included notes of "you don't have experience."  Arg.  I sometimes list my entire time in grad school as experience- because, uh, it was all work.  Doesn't seem to make much difference. 

I have been feeling pretty unappealing as a candidate after numbly reading through so many ads.  But I met with a more senior scientist recently who is also in between jobs, and he complained that there are tons of jobs out there for recent grads and early career people.  What? I have a friend who is senior enough to have hired many folks in his day, and he always encouragingly says that 5 years can become zero years for the right candidate.  How do I get to be the right candidate?

Just to be clear- the following pertains to industry careers in non-research positions.  Part of the distinction that ISN'T clear from job ads is not that they want that 'job experience' you got in HS or summers in college.  They aren't concerned you can show up for work 5 days a week.  I think.  They also don't really want to know that you can use pipettes or run a gel- although if you can't do those things, you aren't looking for a job as a scientist.  It's got more to do with training you out of that Research mentality.  For a publicly held company, or a company beholden to investors, not all ideas are worth pursuing because they are interesting.  If you remove the incentives of publication, and replace those with profit, you end up with a different reasons to do the things you do at work.  There isn't time to dither about making the decision to move ahead with a project, or strive to incorporate new and unproven tech just because it seems awesome, and you might make a major investment of money to shorten a schedule.  The little work I have done with the start-up has showed me that.  A company who wants to hire someone who not only has good ideas, but can follow all the way through with them.  To a successful product, or project or outcome of some sort- I know I need to find a way to prove that.

I went to another networking event a couple nights ago, and one of the people I ran into is a manager at a major engineering recruiting firm (Experis).  I recognized that I had introduced myself wrong when he started to suggest that I should find a company who would be willing to let me volunteer for a couple months, then go back out on the job market a lot more desirable.  At the time I thought, "Are you kidding me?  Haven't I volunteered enough- when does this count for something??"  But, I realized I hadn't mentioned it.  I told him I graduated in June and was looking for a job.  So, a few things things:
1) volunteer work can be a legitimate form of work experience. 
2) I need to find a succinct way to explain where I am in my career to people when I meet them. 
3) Does my volunteer experience add up to sufficient 'experience' to sell it as such?  Am I still a green newbie, or can I start to own the fact that I have accomplishments that occurred after my graduation, and were independent of my former adviser.  Sure, I don't have my publication record in order yet (4th submission- keep your fingers crossed!), and I didn't do anything so famous or important in grad school to get a job on the merit of that alone.  But since grad school, I've applied my experience there to becoming the Scientist in Residence at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, where I put together some successful demos, I've opened my own small business to cover my consulting and editing work, and I'm on the board of two important local professional societies.   I should be on the cusp of having a job, right?  Progressing to the next step is what I need to work on next- how do I sell that??

I'm not sure customer service is for me

One cool thing about working as a teller is that it is giving me a chance to explore a professional identity I hadn't had the chance to consider.  Like it or not, banking is a LOT about sales and customer service.  I took the job because I figured, what the heck, I'd like to be around people more.  And I do like that part of the job.  We have regulars come in, we get to chat with them about lots of different business; I get to learn about the challenges of retail, or accounting or consulting from our clients.  That's cool.

But not all of our clients are like that.  Sometimes they are having a bad day, some of them are jaded with the banking industry, sometimes we really screw things up for them.  And I am supposed to be nice, positive and helpful will all of them.  I don't have much of a problem smiling and saying, "Why don't I have you speak with my manager about this?" but it really makes me wary of who is coming through the door next.  Sometimes they don't want to speak with a manager, they are busy and believe *I* should be able to deal with their problems, or they take offense that because I can see enough of their financial identify, I will suggest products to them. (In their defense, might not be very good at this part yet.)  This isn't the major interaction I have with people, but it really dampens my enthusiasm for seeing other clients walk through the door. 

Much like my thoughts on research, I either need to figure out a way to deal with the downside of this job, or accept that customer service and sales are not for me.  This possibly doesn't seem like a major leap, but Clontech is currently trying to recruit a Ph.D. to a sales position in my region.  I was contacted by a recruiter on LinkedIn about the position, and am very confident that No, that's not where I want to take my career.

On the other hand, as a teller I get to learn more about what is called Operations, which is a job I might be more interested in pursuing.

How to be a good panelist

In a couple weeks, I will be a panelist at a STEM conference for K-20 education at a local college.  (How did I swing that?  I wanted to go, so I asked the organizer if she needed help.  She looked at my background and this is what she came up with.)  I have never been a panelist before, but I have experienced panel discussions that were not great.  I am hoping the conference will be an opportunity to meet some local folks.  Being a panelist might give me a patina of importance when approaching strangers, so I want to avoid being the long-winded or argumentative type of panelist that can make such things painful.  Ideally, this is a chance to make myself look savvy and approachable in a group of my professional peers.

So I called my uncle the communications professor, to see what he would recommend.  Since his input was so practical, I wanted to share it.

First he recommended I reach out to the moderator, if there is one, to ask about the format for the panel.  Are the questions set?  Will this be open to audience feedback?  Are there topics we will definitely cover?  He said that email should start out as "I am on a panel you'll be moderating and I want to make your job as easy as possible..."  The response to this (which will likely be warm, if I start out like that) can help shape the rest of my preparation.

Then he recommended I think about why people are going to this panel, and who might be there.   Why would they want to hear from someone like me, and what can I add to this discussion.  In my case, I'm a little unclear on why I was invited, but I am confident I can give a different perspective then the other panelists.

And he said unless the moderator is likely to give a really swell introduction, they will likely ask each person to give a brief introduction.  It should be less than 2 min, but hopefully cover where your ideas come from and why anyone should listen to them.  Prepare that.

Based on what the moderator thinks we'll cover, he recommended I come up with some short talking points.  In an hour long session, no panelist should ever speak for more then a couple of minutes, and might only have the chance to speak a handful of times.  In order to be make those talking point effective, they should include a memorable fact, or a poignant anecdote- stories are really good for reenforcing those points.  You know how after a seminar you've been trained to supply answers that include evidence?  Like that, but more personal, and shorter.

The rest of his advice was seemingly obvious, but probably good to remember.  Don't get mad.  Listen to the other panelists.  Don't repeat their great ideas- expand on them.  Let the moderator be in charge, which means stay on time and on topic. Mostly have fun and try to learn something.

Experiment: Learning Computer Programming

Today I am beginning to learn to program in Python.  I'm not totally sure why I am doing this- those Makers make you feel you should just jump in and do things, I've seen some jobs for computational biologists that don't seem stressful and I am bored by job hunting are all reasons.  A couple weeks ago, a computer programmer friend of mine said that "Not everyone has the mentality to code." and he suggested I just take two weeks to see which camp I was in.  Then he made an "If/Then statement joke" and everyone else at the table laughed.  That might be the real reason I am doing this.

I have been saying "I am going to learn computer programming and get a job" for a while now, so I have already amassed some tools to get started.  I have also set the bar really low- I don't need to be an elegant programmer, I just need to know if I am the kind of person who can break problems down into codable, solvable, chunks.  If in two weeks, I am ready to pitch my computer out the window, well, lesson learned.

Anyway, if you, for whatever strange reason, want to follow along with the Are You a Programmer? Challenge, here is what I am doing.
My intent is to learn Python, as this is a language that might be relevant for a biologist, and is not entirely dissimilar from MatLab- which is the other language people in the know have suggested.  I've downloaded Enthough Python as my python-ing environment.

And while that was dowloading and installing, I learned Java.  Ha!

Actually, I did take a lesson at Codecademy, which has some very gentle resources for learning the basics of programming (what is a variable, how is it defined...).  I passed my first (free!) course online in about an hour and half, and that gave me a boost of confidence for Project Python.  Oo, and that is the name I am going to stick with.

My personal outline for Project Python: 14 days.  If I have to take breaks for contract work or meetings, I'll skip a day.  But, since I've promised the internet I am going to give it a try, I feel obliged.

Here are some other resources that were recommended to me by former colleague @synapticarbors,

Learn Python the Hard Way -- http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/  (It's not really the hard way)

Think Python http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/thinkpython.html

Anyone else have resources or encouragement to send me?

Professionalism- areas of improvement

The other morning, as I was running around my house trying to decide which of my frumpy sweaters looks most professional and wondering what combination of make-up I should wear that would appear professional and not childish, it occurred to me that these are things I thought I would have figured out before I turned 28.  I learned many important lessons in graduate school besides science: how to effectively answer questions, how to keep a cool head during tense moments, how to convey complex ideas.  But being on the job market, there are some really basic things I wish I had managed to master before I made it this far, or perhaps will need to master before I move on to the next step.  In no particular order, professional skills I wish I had mastered already to help me in the novel job hunter situations I find myself in these days.

• Professional dress.  A quick survey of my closet suggests that my clothes go from bleached bench clothes to annual seminar with no middle ground.  What about attending a networking event, or meeting a colleague at their place of work?  I want to convey "put together-ness" rather than "trying too hard," with my wardrobe, so this needs some help.  And if I had to dress like a pro 5 days a week, I would be doing laundry every day.
• Professional hair and make-up.  For the first half of graduate school, I didn't own a hairbrush.  I've made some strides since then, but I am haunted by the feeling that there is some unspoken rule like "mascara is never work place appropriate." Years of college at a hippy school mean I never really mastered the art of wearing a "natural" level. Pasty blemish face, or clown?
• Taking notes in person.  I know better than to think I am going to remember every nugget of information that comes from a personal meeting.  Years of attending seminars means I have a wealth of beat up notebooks and swag-pads to take these notes in (is that appropriate?).  I usually tuck one under my arm, and resist the urge to write every detail like a stenographer, since I have found this makes people nervous.  Should I be writing at all?  Should I have a nice notebook for this?  Carried in a briefcase bag, instead of my childish purse or tucked into my coat with last fall's pumpkin spice latte spilled down the front?
• Making small talk. Everytime I move to a new city, I wish I were better at this.  But I cannot really take in my surroundings and talk at the same time.  Networking event somewhere unfamiliar?  I clam up.  I'm getting better at learning a couple easy questions where I don't really have to remember the response (How are you? Have you been here before? etc) which gives my under-practiced social skills a grace period to catch up, and I try to ask questions rather than provide answers right off (I'm embarrassed by how often I hear my own voice trail off mid-sentence while my mind has been rerouted by other thoughts like, "am I the worst dressed person at this event??") but I know I come off as a robot when meeting new people.
• Sending short follow up emails. I have gotten much better about sending emails that make sense, including context, subject matter and clear decision points.  But sometimes you just need to convey "Yeah, I got that, Thx."  Why is that a 200 word email? There are several others of these types of emails I find myself sending these days (introducing myself, requesting a meeting or info from someone who might not provide either etc.), and I still wondering if I am doing it right.

I know much of this seems superfiscial, but I am trying to present myself well.  As a job hunter with no golden ladder connections, I need to appear polished enough to earn myself the opportunity to share how bright and motivated I am, rather then just eliciting a negative response that wastes my chances. Any tips out there on becoming a polished professional for a lifelong dork?

Mixed feelings for my peers: Network!

Over the summer I caught up with a colleague, I had just defended, and was winding down my work as a bench scientist, and he was gearing up to defend.  I told him about my struggle finding a job, given my limitation that I didn't want to teach at the university level (even in the short term, I worry about getting tied to a contract) and therefore I don't want to post-doc.  But how to get an in with a company?  How do I make myself appealing? Like me, he is married to someone with a normal job, so a few months off the payroll weren't a panic for him, so he could empathize with my desire to stick to my guns on the post-doc issue.  But he said after graduating he was just gonna get a job with one of the companies his adviser consults with and enjoy living in Europe for a while.  That made me really frustrated.  Had I really mismanaged this whole process, were other people not worried about jobs??

Fast forward a few months, I still without a formal job, but managing to make my own way and quite enjoying the adventure (if not the frustration).  And his LinkedIn profile is getting an overhaul: post-docing in town and looking for a new position.  While I have to say I'm a little relieved that I didn't miss the boat here, it's not like every other graduate is having their first pick of jobs and I am out in the cold, I am frustrated for both of us.  Our training was similar enough that we both presumed we'd find jobs at drug companies, he even had some good contacts and really relevant experience.  If he can't get a job with his training, what am I supposed to do?

While others of my peers have gone on to adjunct teaching positions and post-docs, these aren't permanent positions either.  Just look at the post-docs in my old lab whose funding is running out.  Where do they go?  I'm not the first to notice this disconnect, and despite my anger and frustration for myself and my peers, I am trying to take a positive spin on it.

That is one thing about meeting more working professional scientists that gives me some faith, people DO get jobs, a Ph.D. is not unhireable.  But why must this transition be so unnavigable?  I actually thought I was well ahead of the curve on this.  I had been thinking for years about what I wanted to do, and worked on ways to indicate those interests and strengths on my CV.  I ran a networking group for grad students and post-docs to talk about learning relevant professional skills.  People often blame the ivory tower to failing to adequately prepare students for the real world.  But I am starting to get annoyed with the industry as well.  Those of us trying to do right by hiring managers and future bosses could benefit from more transparency about what they need, and how we can prepare for that.  Most of the things that distinguish my CV were things I did on my own anyway (designing my own course to be taught at night, attending conferences on science policy and algae), I was perfectly willing to go above and beyond my experience in graduate school to ensure a job at the end.  But how was I to know what to do?

I think the lesson from this is that students (at all stages of training, dear readers) should seek out successful scientists with real professional jobs to learn about what they do and how they got there.  And if someday you find yourself as a real professional scientist, please reach out to the confused graduate students who are about to navigate those choppy career waters.