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.

Survey: How long does a job hunt take?

I had dinner with the person who got me my internship, and she told me that spending "only a year" job hunting after earning my PhD isn't something to be frustrated about.  She said she spent the last year of her post-doc scrambling to get something together and STILL had no where to go for months.  I've heard several variations of this story, but how common is it?  

Two questions, and then you can see the answers.  Please share this around so we can get a bigger response.

 
Quizzes by Quibblo.com | SnapApp Quiz Apps

The survey will give us a little perspective, but feel free to add additional details into the comments (what field, when was your job hunt, which job finally felt like "the first job," or what finally worked).  Thanks for your participation and encouragement!

UPDATE: For those who would like to see the results without taking the quiz, you can find them here.
   

Project Job Hunt 4: Risk Assessment

As promised, a risk assessment for my Project.  To keep it organized (and because I'll need this for the Network and Schedule), I've converted the WBS into a task list.  I take the lowest level of division from that outline which are the specific things that need to be accomplished and from there I can assess each task for possible failures. I've changed the verbage on some of these that need a bit more detail to stand independently or be more specific, manageable tasks (see 1.1.4).  I will be adding my assessment of failure (what would failure look like here?), and how I plan to deal with that directly in the list.

          1.1.1 Take Meyers Briggs
          1.1.2 Take Strengths Finder
          1.1.3 Ask colleagues for career recommendations
          1.1.4 Soul Searching: Define 'adequate' in terms of job satisfaction, use of skills, pay and potential for mobility
For all the 1.1 tasks, I may find recommendations I don't approve of- in which case I will keep assessing.  I may find that the jobs I should target are not common in the the Seattle Job market.  This is one reason to assess how I want to use my skills (transferable and technical) so that I can be more flexible given the limitations of the job market.  Overall, I am not too worried about failure here, as I have already begun this process.

          1.2.1 Target employers
          1.2.2 Target job titles
If I include the limitation that my target employers and titles must be in Seattle, this might be overly limited.  In this case, I will go back to the 1.1 tasks and reassess (deferring risk).  This might might be part of the quality control for these sections- 1.1 is not complete until 1.2 can also be complete.

     1.3 Informational interviews to refine target positions and employer
If I can't get people to talk with me, this may prove to be difficult.  I am (often) sharing the risk on this  task by asking for introductions through my network.

          2.1.1 Prepare Resume
          2.1.2 Prepare CV
          2.1.3 Prepare Cover letter
          2.1.4 Prepare Networking Brief
          2.1.5 Prepare Statement of research interests (?)
 Failure for any of these documents would be if they are prepared too poorly to earn me a job.  To mitigate this risk, I always have a proofreader, and will seek out peers to read updated versions of these documents as they drastically change form.  Basic quality control should manage the risk here.

          2.2.1 Update Job Board search clients
          2.2.2 Update CV/resume on file with job boards
          2.2.3 Contact Recruiters
 One issue when working with recruiters is that if a candidate gets submitted multiple times for a job, companies will sometimes drop them, due to confusion over who gets paid the finders fee.  I will only work with recruiters who can be clear about which positions they are submitting me for, so that I don't shoot myself in the foot by also submitting myself.  Further, working with a recruiter may limit my ability to negotiate the job package (pay, benefits etc) later on.  I am totally cool with this if it means I still get a job (accepting the risk).

          2.3.1 Ping network for opportunities
          2.3.2 Add to network though mixers and introductions
One worry about these types of tasks is that it isn't clear when I am "done."  In managing my time, if too much time is spent on this part of the project, I might never move to completion.  But these are still important steps.  It's possible these tasks are outside the scope of this project, or that they might be administrative in nature (something that will be done to support the project (like a status update meeting), but doesn't have a specific schedule for completion of the project).  To deal with this risk, I am going to arbitrarily remove these from the schedule.  I'll still be doing these, but if managed separately they aren't as likely to bung up my schedule.


          3.1.2 Find nice interview clothes 
I might have unfashionable taste.  I am willing to risk my career on this. (Risk accepted.)       

          3.1.1 Practice Interviews
          3.2.1 Use Glassdoor to find relevant salary info
          3.2.2 Practice Negotiation
This is another area where perspective will be very helpful.  I will attempt to share some of this risk by practicing with other job hunters and recruiters so that I can get as many different types of feedback as possible.  Another consideration for this is that I will want to be prepared with these relatively close to getting interviews etc., these may be repeated at various intervals depending on the length of the project.

    *3.3 Apply for jobs
          3.4.1 Phone or email to follow-up
          3.4.2 Use excel to keep follow-up schedule organized
 This is the riskiest section of the project.  If this doesn't work (ie, task completion doesn't lead to desired outcomes), I'll be repeating these tasks.  I'm not really sure how to deal with this type of iterative process, except to expand my definition of 'task completion' to having something to move forward with (like an interview scheduled, etc.)  What if that never happens?  Oh, it keeps me up at night...  I will mitigate this risk by focusing on applying for jobs I am a reasonable candidate for, and using the other tasks in the project to support this effort.  I'm not comfortable trying to transfer or share this risk, since this is my responsibility to solve this problem.  The remaining risk, I just have to accept and not get too hung up on, right?


One thing I've realized just going through the risk assessment is that spending a little more time with the plan has helped me to understand it better.  I've re-written some of the task titles, and thought a bit more about the order these should be done in.  I didn't uncover any big surprises, but I'm also more confident that there won't be any big surprises because I've thought about these tasks individually and in the context of the whole project.   Now I see why so much effort is put into the planning stages of well-executed projects.

Getting press for volunteering

Without a doubt, the best thing I have done as a job hunter was to volunteer with my local science center.  It's provided me with many more opportunities then I could have imagined, because I ended up working with a phenomenal team- motivated, bright, well connected, clear vision- who for some reason, really needed what I had to offer at the moment that I walked into their office.  As a result, a lot of fantastic work was done (sure, I contributed some, but it wasn't going to be lame without me), and they are very willing to give me credit and props for adding my unique perspective.  The nature of their work also requires a little more... contact with media outlets and others in the field.  A couple weeks ago, I gave an interview to someone writing a book about informal education.  I gave a quote to someone writing an article about the work that led to the funtastic trip to NySci. 

It's all been a lot of fun, no doubt, but I think it is really helpful to get plugged into to professionals who are willing to promote me for what I have to offer professionally.  I know many scientists feel uncomfortable with self-promotion, either that it feels inappropriate or just difficult to get the chutzpah to do.  One way around this is to work with people who will do it on your behalf.  And, one way to encourage folks to do this for you, is to do it for them as well.  You can give recommendations on LinkedIn, or just talk up your collaborators who have great ideas AND stick to their deadlines.  Perhaps I'll have more ideas on this later, but sharing positive experiences is a really helpful way to add some content to your networking. 

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.

Project Managing My Job Hunt 2: WBS

Once the project has been defined and authorized, then the tasks can be defined and organized.  This results in a work breakdown structure (WBS).  The WBS helps define the budget, schedule and delegation.  It is not in chronological order, but rather grouped by phases or task types.  For example, in class we are working on a landscape project.  Construction efforts are separated from the planting efforts, since these are likely to be dealt with by different aspects of the team.  Again, in my case, all the tasks are my responsibility eventually, but it is helpful to me to see all the things I should be doing so I can determine whether I am spending my time appropriately.  Creation of the WBS, and even the schedule and budget are still planning

Our teacher showed several ways these can be organized, either like the outline for a long paper, with headings like 0.0 Landscape the park
     1.0 Landscaping
          1.1 Plant Grass
          1.2 Plant Trees
          1.3 Make walkways... right?
Or like a phylogenetic tree.  This would work better if I were doing this by hand.  Since I am putting this together in Blogger, you'll see the paper outline version.

My professor specifically recommended to think global first, keep the organization light at first, and not to define any task which seems to burdensome to manage.  Although he said it is common to refine to too much detail, and then remove tasks that don't seem worthy of being a line item on a schedule.  (I'll be honest, I am not entirely sure I understand what he means).

For myself, this means I am creating a gross brainstorm of tasks, then organizing them into groups and subgroups and looking for gaps.  It's an interesting exercise for the job hunt.  I can imagine how on a larger project this might be a more iterative process with different teams weighing in on the essential tasks and predicted schedule and budget while the project is still in the planning phase.  Oh, and things that don't end up on the WBS include administrative tasks, such as "meet to create schedule," "budget," or "update supervisors..." even though these things will likely happen as well. 

0.0 Project Job Hunt
1.0 Define Job requirement
     1.1 Assess my skills (transferable and otherwise)
          1.1.1 Meyers Briggs
          1.1.2 Strengths Finder
          1.1.3 Ask colleagues for recommendations
          1.1.4 Soul Searching
     1.2 Define my job requirements (what is adequate?)
          1.2.1 Target employers
          1.2.2 Target job titles
     1.3 Informational interviews to refine target positions and employer

2.0 Locate Job opportunities
     2.1 Prepare targeted application materials
          2.1.1 Resume
          2.1.2 CV
          2.1.3 Cover letter
          2.1.4 Networking Brief
          2.1.5 Statement of research interests (?)
     2.2 Find sources for relevant jobs
          2.2.1 Update Job Board search clients
          2.2.2 Update CV/resume on file with job boards
          2.2.3 Contact Recruiters
     2.3 Network
          2.3.1 Ping network for opportunities
          2.3.2 Add to network though mixers and introductions

3.0 Secure the Job
     3.1 Prepare for interviews
          3.1.1 Practice Interviews
          3.1.2 Find nice interview clothes
     3.2 Prepare for negotiations on salary, benefits etc.
          3.2.1 Glassdoor
          3.2.2 Practice Negotiation
    *3.3 Apply for jobs
      3.4 Follow-up with applications
          3.4.1 Phone or email
          3.4.2 Use excel to keep these organized

*In the first version of the chart, I forgot this critical step.  Aha.

Notice which tasks end up in the project and which don't.  Working at my current job or taking contracts is not strictly in the scope of this project.  Blogging is beyond the scope of this project.  Taking the PM class is beyond the scope of this project.  None of these are bad things, but this does reinforce the notion that I seem to spend time on things that aren't getting me a job.  What the WBS contains are only tasks/deliverables that are essential to successful outcomes.  <== How business literate do I sound now?!

I have a certain skepticism that this rigid structure can work for nebulous projects where there are many uncontrolled external factors (I'm gonna have a hard time putting a deadline on this).  Research is another area that is hard to manage in this way.  Next up, we'll talk about risk.  For now, go ahead a gloat in that righteous feeling that 'if I'd done this in graduate school, I would have graduated in like 4 months!'  I'll revisit that (Spoiler Alert: that feeling goes away.)

Project Managing My Job Hunt 1: Charter & Scope

My project management course has proven to be interesting, but I decided I would get more out of the process if I had a project to manage.  If only I had a short-term, complex problem to solve that needed to balance schedules and outcomes... oh wait, I'm looking for a job.  And that has proven to be an unruly, challenging project.  I am hoping that applying the PMI principles to the hunt will help me get organized, and reinforce what I am learning in class.  Here goes.

The first week of class, we talked about defining a charter and scope.  The charter grants the authority for the project, the scope defines the bounds of the project (which should be temporary in nature).

In my case, I already have authority to find myself a job, but setting up the project in this way necessarily organizes other downstream events. 

Sandlin's Job Hunt Project Charter and Scope:

This charter grants authority to Sandlin to find adequate employment, including enlisting necessary resources and refining the outcomes of the search (which must include a definition of 'adequate').  This project is only intended to identify and secure her next full-time employment, not necessarily future employment opportunities.

Notice how my charter includes some key phrases like "identify and secure employment," and "enlisting resources."  In the next round, we'll be defining the necessary tasks to complete this project, and those phrases begin to suggest what some of them might be.  One of the first things I am hoping to take on in the project is to more clearly assess what fields I might be able to apply my skills to, and then direct my applications to positions there, using appropriate tactics.  If there were a budget or specific deadline, these would be included.  Unfortunately, the job hunt has neither (this might turn out to be challenging in future steps).

Also, the charter is not very proscribed- it doesn't state that I will secure 'employment as a senior scientist in the operations division at Amgen.'  A project isn't worth managing unless there is an element of creativity/problem solving that needs to occur during the time frame of the project.  If the only creative exercise is to create the task list, which then is given to a team of automatons to complete without any further input, you may be micromanaging.   But, there is also an outer limit- I don't have to figure out what I am doing with my WHOLE life, just my next job.