So You've Just Received Your Ph.D. - What Happens Next?

When aquatic toxicologist Greg Smith recalls the way he got his first job after receiving his Ph.D. in 1988, he has every reason to consider himself lucky. For one thing, unlike many other newly hatched scientists, he never had to answer a classified ad. Smith, now employed at Battelle Memorial Institute, a nonprofit research institute in Columbus, Ohio, was spared a lot of the hassles of job-hunting because he took his degree in a specialty that happens to be in extremely high demand. Although Smith recalls that he had "started to scan the classifieds," as soon as he was done with his academic training at Oklahoma State University, he was pursued by four different prospective employers. He chose Battelle because the job allowed him to work on specific, small to medium-sized aquatic toxicology research projects and because he considered Columbus a good location, halfway between where his parents and his in-laws live. Not all scientists fresh out of grad school have it as easy as Smith did. Faced with figuring out a job-hunting strategy after years of seemingly endless academic training, different applicants use different methods to find their first jobs: some by choice, some by consequence. Many scientists have special connections through their academic advisers; others must go it alone with a stack of resumes and a handful of journals filled with classified ads. Still others, like Smith, have experience in fields that are in such high demand that prospective employers call them with opportunities before they're even done with their training. Take Norman F. Sheppard, Jr., who was appointed to his position as assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University in 1989. Sheppard's academic training, like that of many biomedical engineers, involved study in several different disciplines. He completed his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering, his Ph.D. in electrical engineering, and a postdoctoral fellowship in nutrition and food science, all at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While he was particularly interested in pursuing research in biosensors, an increasingly hot area of biomedical engineering, he covered his bases by applying for academic positions in chemical and electrical engineering as well. Sheppard says that, in addition to Johns Hopkins, he applied to at least 30 or 40 positions he saw advertised in newspapers and journals. But it wasn't a classified ad alone that led Sheppard to Johns Hopkins. "I had friends at MIT who went to Johns Hopkins, and I heard through the grapevine that they might be interested in biosensors," Sheppard explains. "Meanwhile, I already knew the chairman of the department, because he did a sabbatical at MIT in the electrical engineering department in 1979, when I was a graduate student." So Sheppard made contact with the chairman and was immediately folded into the interviewing process. His varied background and the research he conducted and published at MIT, as well as his personal acquaintance with the chairman, were the big door openers, he says. The deciding factor that motivated Sheppard to accept the position he was eventually offered at Johns Hopkins was an exciting funding situation. "The biomedical engineering department had just received a hefty grant from the Whitaker Foundation for half a million dollars for four or five years," Sheppard says. "The grant was to improve curriculum with a focus on a number of areas, one of which was biosensors. It was an ideal situation for me." Grant money not only paid Sheppard's salary, but also provided enough funds to develop curricula and outfit an entire laboratory just to study biosensors. As for his job search, he acknowledges that word-of-mouth, or "the grapevine," had a lot to do with his coming to Johns Hopkins. Word-of-mouth was also important for Dennis L. Hjeresen, neurophysiologist and research scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, N.Mex., when he was looking for his first job in 1985. But his connections weren't academic. Hjeresen said he made his contacts in the five years before entering graduate school, when he worked in bioelectromagnetics research at Battelle Northwest, a Richland, Wash.-based division of Battelle Memorial Institute. He originally went to Los Alamos for a postdoctoral fellowship, a typical career path for scientists in his field, he says. Robert E. Shadwick, Assistant Professor, Marine Biology Research Division, Scripps Institution of Oceanography: "Pick your references carefully. This is a really critical part of the job search. Personal referrals and `names' hold a lot of weight." David Nugiel, Research Scientist, Du Pont Co., Medical Products Division: "Define what type of job and what type of environment really suits you by taking advantage of all interview opportunities. It not only helps you decide what you want, you also find out what you don't want." Norman F. Sheppard, Jr., Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University: "Network. Become connected by going to meetings, especially small meetings like the Gordon Conferences, if you can. And once you're there, participate and ask questions so people get to know you." Sue Ann Bidstrup, Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology: "Your resume is important. Try to get as many publications and make as many presentations as you can. Start early. Too many people start graduate school not knowing that they're interested in academia, where publications and presentations are very important." Dennis L. Hjeresen, Research Scientist, Los Alamos National Laboratory: "Neuroscience is an increasingly competitive field. Connections are very important. Be careful whom you pick as an adviser. It's important that he or she have strong connections in the field." "Postdocing is the common route leading to a full-time, permanent position at Los Alamos," Hjeresen says, explaining that at the national lab, a postdoc is "less of a training position and more of a pre-full scientist position." He adds that the organizational structure at Los Alamos initially attracted him because it provided the opportunity to take a multidisciplinary approach, enabling him to collaborate with electrical engineers, biologists, and high-energy physicists without crossing departmental divisions, as he says might be likely in an academic setting. Location was another reason for his choice of employer. Hjeresen says he fell in love with picturesque northern New Mexico, where Los Alamos is located, approximately 35 miles northwest of Santa Fe. Location was also a very important issue to neuroscientist John McElroy, who, like Hjeresen, did his postdoc at Los Alamos. But when he started to look for a permanent position in 1988, he decided not to stay on at the national lab because he wanted to live in the eastern part of the United States. He also wanted to work in an industrial, rather than a governmental, setting because he believed that industry would offer less bureaucracy, higher earning potential for scientists, and better staff morale. That's why he accepted his first position as a clinical research scientist at Burroughs Wellcome Co., a pharmaceutical firm based in Research Triangle Park, N.C. He chose the position over several comparable ones in Illinois because he and his wife wanted to in the East, where they would be closer to their families in Massachusetts. McElroy found his first job by making contact with his employer through an interview at the annual Society for Neuroscience convention in New Orleans in November 1988. Interviews were arranged in advance by the society's placement service (The Scientist, Dec. 11, 1989, page 20). Like many other budding neuroscientists taking advantage of the service, McElroy sent a capsulized version of his resume to the society before the convention. When convention time came, he went to New Orleans with the intention of meeting as many prospective employers as possible. While he notes that most of his peers got their jobs with the help of their advisers' connections, Mc-Elroy says, "in my case, my mentors weren't that active." That's why he felt lucky to meet his future employer at the convention. For some scientists, reading classified recruitment ads is their single most important job search tactic. Robert E. Shadwick, assistant professor in the marine biology research division of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, says applying to classified ads was "the only strategy" he used to find his first position earlier this year. Shadwick is a Canadian citizen who earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Western Ontario and his Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia; he then did a research fellowship at the University of Calgary. He says that because of the greater number of jobs available in the U.S., many Canadians send their resumes across the border in response to classified ads. Some companies in search of applicants capitalize on their locations as a big draw, especially when they're in cities that are known for what they have to offer residents. Repligen Corp., a biotechnology firm in Cambridge, Mass., is such a company, according to Barbara Fleming, the company's senior staffing and development specialist. "People are always very interested in the metropolitan Boston area because of its proximity to major academic and cultural institutions and hospitals," she says. Not everyone who wants to come to work at Repligen is offered a position there, of course; according to Fleming, only the top candidates receive job offers. What kind of applicants is the company looking for? "People with excellent training," Fleming stresses. "People who have [studied at] good schools and have gone on to work in good laboratories as postdoctoral fellows." For these qualifications, Repligen recruits nationally for three to eight new Ph.D. scientists per year. Networking is extremely important for the applicants, Fleming acknowledges, as are personal recommendations. "If we know a professor personally, his reference can be very, very effective," she says. But there has to be an open position even for a well-connected applicant to be considered, Fleming notes. "We can't just hire generically. But we will save the resume on our database," she says. That's why Fleming encourages people to send Repligen a resume even if there aren't any current open or advertised positions. "When there is an open position, we will search our database for the most appropriate candidates," she says. Fleming also uses the placement bureaus at professional societies to find qualified applicants. But she tends to avoid personnel recruitment agencies. The reason? They cost her money, so she'd rather find her own prospects. Indeed, personnel recruitment firms are rarely used to find entry-level candidates, says James Hall, personnel consultant with the Meador Companies in Pasadena, Texas, which actively recruit Ph.D.-level engineers and chemists for industrial positions. "We receive search assignments from clients with very specific needs in terms of academic and on-the-job experience," Hall says, "and this typically excludes entry-level positions, because previous industrial work experience tends to be so important." How do companies fill their junior Ph.D. scientist positions? According to Hall, most companies actively participate in on-campus recruiting programs. Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research Division, in Ann Arbor, Mich., is one of those companies. It has a national on-campus Ph.D. recruiting program, which is one of its primary avenues for finding entry-level scientists, according to Michael Pavia, chemistry section director. The company also recruits through classified ads in important journals and by heeding letters and calls from professors recommending candidates, he says. Entry-level candidates who receive job offers at Parke-Davis are those who have had excellent training, with exposure to and significant skills in many different types of problem solving, Pavia says, adding that he is on the lookout for creativity and initiative. These are difficult attributes to judge in the limited time of an interview, Pavia says, so he often assesses these qualities by asking candidates about their interests outside of chemistry. "The more you know, the more you can apply to new and, perhaps, novel ideas," Pavia says. "I look for motivation, energy level, and intuitiveness--how much the candidate has accomplished in chemistry, but also in life." David Nugiel, a synthetic organic chemist and research scientist in Du Pont Co.'s medical products division in Wilmington, Del., was recruited through an on-campus interview organized by the University of Pennsylvania's department of chemistry. It was one of more than 10 he had as he was was finishing his Ph.D. this past spring. More than half of these on-campus interviews led to on-site interview visits at pharmaceutical and consumer products companies. And a phone call from his graduate adviser to one company that didn't recruit at the University of Pennsylvania also led to an on-site interview. "On-campus interviews definitely opened doors for me," Nugiel says. "Because they were conducted by other Ph.D. chemists, I really felt like I got a good, basic introduction to the science being done at each company." After completing the interviewing process and receiving several strong offers, Nugiel decided on Du Pont.The company's policy of encouraging scientists to spend 20 percent of their time pursuing independent research projects was the motivating factor in Nugiel's choice. He also liked the idea of being on an industrial campus where scientists in many different advanced disciplines conduct cutting-edge research. He does acknowledge that teaching, a responsibility he enjoyed as a graduate student, is something he'll miss in industry. Teaching was the main reason Sue Ann Bidstrup, assistant professor of chemical engineering, chose to go to the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1988, after she had completed a Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota and a postdoc at MIT. She applied for the position in response to a classified ad in a trade publication. "I wanted a school where teaching was very important, but I also wanted a school that had the resources to do research," sometimes a rare combination, Bidstrup explains. She also wanted to be in the Northeast. It was the brand-new chemical engineering department head who convinced Bidstrup to seriously consider coming to Georgia Tech and living in Atlanta. Once she started to take the offer from the school seriously, the "friendly, supportive, young faculty" being assembled was another big draw for Bidstrup. And she was particularly enthusiastic about the fact that there is room for everyone hired at Georgia Tech, unlike some academic institutions, where five tenure-track assistant professors will be hired to compete for two tenured positions. That's a situation that inspires competition, rather than camaraderie, among peers, she says. Now, as a graduate adviser, Bidstrup is helping her students find their first jobs. Unlike industrial employers, who actively recruit new Ph.D.'s, Bidstrup says she has found that academic institutions confine their recruiting efforts to women and minority students. "Everyone realizes that the percentage of white men in science is declining," she says. "Institutions are looking for women and minorities as role models. Sometimes they're even followed through graduate school." Bidstrup gave one example of a black woman who recently completed her Ph.D. at Georgia Tech. The student was watched closely by several academic institutions well before she completed her degree. Bidstrup, a member of Georgia Tech's faculty search committee, says the important qualifications she's looking for are the schools applicants attended, the professors they worked for, and the number of publications and presentations to their credit. She notes that the number of applicants is on the rise, with hundreds of applications being received for each advertised position. The reason? According to Bidstrup, chemical engineers who choose the academic route can now make salaries that compare to the pay offered to their counterparts in industry. Traditionally, academic salaries for chemical engineers have lagged behind those in industry, she says. Getting as much experience as possible in one's academic training before it's all over seems to be the underlying advice from scientists who have already been through the process (see box on page 21). They recommend that those who are about to complete their academic training accomplish as much in the lab as possible, publish as many articles as possible, and make as many presentations as possible to enhance their marketability to prospective employers. While advisers' connections, classified ads, and professional conferences can all lead to a scientist's first position, the best job-hunting strategy is to amass a long list of qualifications. Lisa Simon is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia.

So You've Just Received Your Ph.D. - What Happens Next?

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July 1990

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