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Episode 0015 Shownotes
Red flags indicating your career in academia is at risk
Aren't you enthusiastic & passionate for (your) research (anymore)? Is your publication or research output non-competitive? In this episode you'll learn about warning signs that your career in academia might derail, so you can reflect on your career options leaping out of science. Is it difficult for you to secure research funding? Dealing with junior and senior academics spans from networking & collaboration to mentorship & guidance, and also teaching. At worst, all that happens in a toxic group culture, which can ultimately lead to limited career development opportunities.
Listen to Prof. Dr. Eleonore Soei-Winkels as she shares actionable tips in this episode of the weekly PostdocTransformation show.
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Lack of passion for (your) research
Invest in your PostdocTransformation. Welcome to the weekly show for scientists leaping into business in every episode. We are happy to recommend employers of choice for you, for your career transition. We offer customized career transition, e-courses and memberships also at graduate schools all over the world.
Maybe yours too. And if your university isn't yet, our customer, enroll in your free email course for career transition made simple as linked in the show notes. I'm your host professor, Dr. Eleonore Soei-Winkels, and let's build your PostdocTransformation with this episode.
What are red flags indicating that your career in academia is at risk? Welcome to this episode of the Weekly [00:01:00] PostdocTransformation Show. I'm really happy to know that I'm in your earbuds. It's an honor for me. I also uploaded a video of this podcast. So maybe you also see me, I'm waving on YouTube.
But let's dive right in. So, one of these red flags are lack of enthusiasm or passion for your research. So, if you are not interested, if you are not the driving force behind your research, then this will be really hard for you to become a postdoc because even as a PhD student, it's expected of you that you are the thought leader and that you lead the bachelor /master students who maybe collect the data for you and you supervise them how to run your experiment, et cetera. But the ideas should come from you. And if you are a postdoc, then you should [00:02:00] think about your own series of experiments towards a research question to demonstrate you're a scientific leader, so that you have what it takes to become a professor.
Because if you don't do this as a postdoc, then it's really hard for you to obtain a professorship to obtain a tenure track position in academia. So, lack of enthusiasm or passion for your research.
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Limited research output & funding
The next one is limited publication or research output. Now, I have to say, of course, that this is absolutely dependent on your research field. I've [00:05:00] seen during my PhD at the International Graduate School of Neuroscience of Bochum, PhD students who were absolutely productive and had seven publications. While I've got three. I think that's already great.
And others didn't have a single publication and still we all got a doctoral degrees. So, it depends on your field, but when you are compared to other PhD candidates for a postdoc position or when you are compared to other postdocs for a tenure track position or professorship, then you need to be outperforming the other applicants. They have also qualitative criteria in the sense of that if you are a parent, and you had childcare obstacles, then this is also something that you can also state, but I'm not sure how considerate the committee is when the committee [00:06:00] comprises of supervisors who are all old probably men, and if they have children at all they probably were not the primary caregiver, so it's like, how can they judge how much time goes away when you are a parent caring for your children and not being able to carry out your research with the full attention.
The next one is difficulty securing research funding. Well, there's two perspectives on that. So, either your research your passion is not worthwhile funding. Okay? Maybe it should be something else. Maybe it's also you are not communicating the case. You need to make the business case for funders, funding agencies, industry partners. If you're not getting their funding, then they're not convinced that your [00:07:00] research is important for them, and there is no return on invest if it comes from an industrial partner or whether there is no long-term societal return on invest, so to speak. So, either way, wrong research field or wrong communication. So, these are things that you can work on.
Number four, limited networking and collaboration. And this is imminent everywhere also in business. But in academia, you need to be able to network with your research collaborators all over the globe. they speak different languages, they come from different cultures, time differences, work interdisciplinary, and if you don't like that and not able to secure collaborations and to build them for your research team, for your bachelor & master students, and your PhD students in the future, then it will be hard [00:08:00] for you to be successful in academia.
All right, number five is lack of mentorship or guidance. You don't have any role [00:09:00] models that you can relate to because they don't look like you, they don't feel like you. They do spend like 10, 11 ish hours in the lab and return on Saturdays and Sundays as well.
Or maybe they do not mentor you in a way that you feel supported, guided. You feel they're putting so much time into their research, but not so much in their leadership, which is also a big task in heading a department: developing the new talent in their research; that is so critical.
And if you don't have that, or on the flip side, you don't like to mentor people, you don't like to guide people, then maybe that career is not for you. Which is also not bad, if you know that.
People skills
Number six is difficulty in obtaining academic positions. Well, actually the job market is quite okay for early career scientists leaping into business because there [00:10:00] is a shortage of experts and leaders in business. Maybe it's harder to get an academic tenure track position nearby in your preferred country, et cetera. So, if you have difficulty in obtaining academic positions, that might be related to your field, your research is not worth funding. So, that's why there aren't so many positions.
Maybe it's also you aren't competitive enough to obtain those academic positions. And that may be relates to the previous five points I just alluded to earlier.
Red flag number seven is limited teaching or mentoring opportunities. And this is really important because this is maybe your runway to leap out of science: if you only do your research, but do not mentor your own bachelor & [00:12:00] master students, that's taking away your opportunity to develop leadership skills: so, every head of department should allow you to have your own bachelor & master students and to learn how to develop them and lead them.
And that can be based on your research, but even better, you become a teaching assistant; a grading assistant. So, that you have your own class of bachelor & master students who are dependent on you, whether you can deliver the script in a way that they are inspired, motivated to learn more about the topic that you are teaching.
These are all opportunities that you can use to build a runway into business, right? Because all these skills are valuable in business as well. So, if you don't have these opportunities, that's like keeping you away from becoming [00:13:00] employable outside of academia. That's why I would say this is a red flag.
Your systemic environment impacts or nurtures you!
Flag number eight. A negative or toxic work environment. Maybe you don't have an academic leader. Your supervisor is not helpful for you, but instead, It's a toxic leader who doesn't give you the feedback that you need, who throws obstacles at you, who prefers openly someone else who has an hostile environment, who gives you no opportunities to learn.
So, this is a negative toxic environment and that you can also change during your [00:14:00] PhD, so you don't have to stick with it until you end your PhD, if you sense that you should leave the lab within the first year of the PhD program and go to another lab, right?
Number nine, which is not so much related to the environment, but instead if you feel isolated and disconnected while you're doing your research, because your research maybe is something that you know you have to do on your own and without daily supervision, daily opportunities to talk with your lab mates, this is part of a researcher's life in your field, then you need to think about that as well because if your personality craves for human contact with other people, you know, then this is not for you. Or you need to change the research field where it's more collaborative.
Career development & work-life balance
Number 10 is limited career development opportunities. And that's a tie on all of the previous points. As a professor, I also went to conferences and said, you are the two students who worked on the results and I'll take you with me so that you can present the poster while I'm heading the whole section.
So, it's not just division of labor, but instead it's giving them growth opportunities. And that means if you don't have growth opportunities for your career where you can try out things that are maybe just a little bit too big for you right at the moment- then this is something, you know that clearly is a [00:16:00] red flag for you in your lab and maybe you should find someone else, like a new supervisor or different lab colleagues where you have better career development opportunities.
Now here's the bonus flag: you are struggling with work life balance because academia hasn't been giving you the role models. It's a job, it's not your life. You shouldn't be living in the lab, you shouldn't be carrying your research everywhere where you go in your mobile so that you can work remotely from wherever you are, private home or in your vacation or whatever. Then you need to think about whether academia is good for you because academia will always pull and pull and pull. You'll always have supervisors who have learned to become workaholics in academia and it's hard for them to unlearn. And if these are the only role models, then chances are quite high that you become a workaholic.[00:17:00]
But you need to be aware that once you are young, maybe you have the capabilities to be a workaholic. But as soon as you become a parent, as soon as you grow older, you need to prioritize your own mental health and your physical health. And that's why it's so important that work is work. Life is life. And you have to have clear boundaries so that you can defend them. And if you don't defend them, your chances are that your colleagues, your postdoc supervisor, your professor, supervisor will not stop and will ask more and more. This is a great side project. This is a great opportunity. You need to say no. And if you don't want to say no that often, you should maybe get a nine to five job.
And now we're talking about an activity for you. So, how many red flags do you have? And maybe it's time to [00:18:00] check your readiness to leap out of science because one flag is okay. Two or three, depending on the research field, et cetera, is also okay.
But if you have more than half of the red flags, then you will probably have to change a lot of things to make them green flags and then still you should also consider maybe changing your career path altogether into business according to your vision of life.
So, I want you to reflect on your career prospects. And if the outlook is not good, then maybe a career in business is for you. And if you want to check your readiness to leap out of science, please use my questionnaire of 15 easy, yes and no questions. And that's also enriched by the first episode of this podcast.
And maybe you will find out that, well, [00:19:00] business is maybe interesting. And then you can enroll also in your free email course career transition made simple. And in closing, I want to say invest into your doctorate according to your vision of life.
Oh, btw, do you or someone else you know need Eleonore to improve the CV, cover letter, assess suitable job ads? We will practice job interviews and contract negotiations for landing the first job in business asap (to avoid wasting months and opportunity costs)? Then our PostdocTransformer Bundle is perfect!
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