Author: Cliff Mintz
Most job seekers understand that a job interview can be very stressful and emotionally draining experiences. After all, how you perform in a face-to-face job interview will likely determine whether or not you get a job offer. To that point, we provide below some tips to pull off a successful face-to-face job interview.
Professional Attire is Mandatory
In general, most scientists do not like to dress up. However, professional attire for both women and men is required for ALL face-to-face job interviews. This means suits and ties for men (no exceptions) and similar professional attire for women. First impressions do matter and a professional, well-polished appearance will help set a positive tone for the job interview.
Be Prompt or Arrive Early
Ideally, you should arrive at least 10 to 15 minutes early for an interview. This allows you to relax and compose yourself prior to the start of the interview. Tardiness implies that time management—required by all employers may—be challenging for you.
Bring Extra Copies of Your Resume
Interviewers sometimes “misplace” or have not read your CV prior to the interview. Rather than spend limited interview time reviewing information that is readily available on your CV, hand the interviewer a copy of your CV. This will save precious interview time and signal that you are organized, forward-thinking, reliable and helpful; desirable traits that most hiring managers are looking for in new hires.
Be Personable and Always Remain Positive and Upbeat
One-on-one interviews are an opportunity for you to demonstrate that you are socially-engaged, personable and have reasonable interpersonal communication skills.
Regardless of what is going on in your life, it is important to be positive, upbeat and outgoing during a job interview.
Eye Contact is Imperative
A lack of eye contact (or an inability to look directly at a person during a conversation) may signal to a hiring manager that they lack social and interpersonal communication skills, both of which hiring managers are looking for in right fit job candidates.
Answer All Questions Concisely and Honestly
It is not a good idea to waste an interviewer’s time with answers that are rambling, unfocused or irrelevant. Most interviewers expect direct, concise and well-thought-out answers to their questions. They are not interested in chit chat, professional gossip or who you may know in the field.
Never Interrupt an Interviewer
Interrupting anyone before they finish talking is rude, inappropriate and unprofessional. Therefore, it is imperative to never interrupt an interviewer and allow him/her to complete a question before you answer. This signals to the interviewer that you listen, can engage in a professional conversion and implies that you will likely fit in to the organization’s reporting structure.
Act Professionally at All Times
Job candidates frequently eat breakfast, lunch or dinner as part of the interview process for life sciences jobs. Viewing candidates in these settings offers prospective employers’ insights into a job candidate’s social skills and how he/she may represent the organization in future social situations. Remember, although it may feel as though you are in a social setting, you are still being scrutinized by your host for professional behavior.
Ask Questions
Prospective employers expect job candidates to ask questions about their company or organization. This shows them that you have done your homework and are interested in learning more about the organization. Employers generally view job candidates as not being interested in a company if they don’t ask any questions during a job interview.
Never Criticize or Say Anything Negative
The scientific community is a small one and chances are that any negative, pejorative or derogatory comments made about an individual or organization will get back to them. Also, like it or not, it is simply unprofessional to say negative things about a previous or current employer, colleague or organization. Again, nobody wants to work with a naysayer or an indiscrete or inappropriate colleague.
Turn Off All Cell Phones
Surprisingly, many job candidates don’t remember to turn off their mobile phones or other electronics prior to the start of an interview. Nobody likes being interrupted during a conversation or a discussion by annoying, ringing or vibrating cell phones. While being connected at all times is de rigueur, a ringing cell phone during a job interview can certainly be a job killer.
While there is no way to eliminate the anxiety or uncertainty of a face-to-face job interview, making use of the tips and suggestions offered in this post may make your next job interview less stressful and hopefully increase the likelihood of a job offer.
Author: Cliff Mintz
There was a very insightful article in the NY Times Science Section entitled “Building Resilience in Midlife.” that I thought was applicable to the challenges that many job seekers face while searching for a new job or pondering a career change. These insights were offered in a book entitled ‘Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges’ by Dr. Dennis Charney, a resilience researcher and dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York after being shot several years ago by a disgruntled former employee while leaving a NYC deli.
Practice Optimism. According to Dr. Charney, optimism is part genetic, part learned. That said, looking for a job in a highly competitive field without success can easily lead to feelings of defeat, failure and even depression. Put simply it’s normal to feel sad or “down” when things are not going your way during a job search. Rather than succumb to pessimism, Dr. Charney suggests that learning to think positive thoughts and surrounding yourself with optimistic people (there are people out there who ARE really optimistic all the time) can help. It’s easier to think more optimistically if the people around you are upbeat and always putting a positive rather than negative spin on things. I am not suggesting that you jettison all of your pessimistic friends but finding new optimistically-thinking ones will not only increase the breadth and size of your social circle but may also help to elevate your emotional state during a frustrating job search.
Rewrite Your Story. Instead of focusing on your shortcomings or difficulties that you have experienced, it may help to change your internal narrative and focus on accomplishments (rather than setbacks) and things that you may have learned about yourself to this point in your life journey. While this may sound like an existential exercise, changing the internal story that you tell yourself (from a negative to a more positive one), may help you to feel better about yourself and make things easier for you. And believe me–from my own personal experiences– others around you will notice the change; most importantly prospective employers and hiring managers!
Don’t Personalize Your Failures. Everyone tends to blame themselves for life’s setbacks and ruminate about the decisions that they have made to put them in difficult situations. A way to counteract this is to recognize that, generally speaking, other factors and uncontrollable life events likely contributed to the so-called bad decisions that you made. In other words, unexpected, mitigating factors, not simply your poor judgment, likely contributed to the situation that you find yourself in. Recognizing this may help to assuage that nagging tendency to blame yourself for your current situation and may also allow you to “learn from your mistakes” to avoid making them in future personal and career decisions.
Remember Your Comebacks. It is easy to wallow in your failures and feel bad about your current situation. Rather than letting things get you down, try to remember times earlier in life when you were able to overcome adversity and still “land on your feet.” This will remind you that you have the skills and experience to overcome a current “bad” situation. Also, it may be helpful to read about others who seemingly failed and were able to turn those failures into positive personal and career moves. In my experience, failure is a key ingredient to a successful and meaningful career.
Take Stress Breaks. Stress is a fact of life that nobody can escape. Rather than succumb to life’s constant unrelenting stresses, it is important to take breaks to regroup and push forward. For example, take walks, have lunch with friends, go to the gym or even meditate. One way that I relieved stress as a graduate student and postdoc was to play intramural softball as much as I could and then drink beer with teammates after the games. Putting your “head down” and pushing forward will not relieve stress or eliminate anxiety in your life.
Step Out of Your Comfort Zone. It is easy to continue to do the same thing even if that thing is stressful or hurtful because you are comfortable (despite assertions to the contrary) with what you know. However, doing the same thing over and over again because you’re familiar with it will not improve your current situation or change how you feel on a daily basis. Perhaps, taking yourself out of your comfort zone and placing yourself in new challenging positions may help to overcome those feelings of “being stuck.” For example, if you don’t want to do laboratory research for the rest of your career, learn new skills (that may have always frightened you) to help find a non-laboratory PhD job.
While doing the things that Dr. Charney recommends may not materially improve your current job situation or career choice, they may help you to look at the world in different terms, feel better about yourself and provide some clarity/insights into future career directions or job choices.
Author: Cliff Mintz
The first step in any job search is to ensure that your resume or curriculum vitae (CV) are ready for submission to prospective employers. The following can help make resume writing simple. For those of you who may still be struggling with the difference between a resume and a CV, a resume is usually a 1-2 page synopsis of who you are, where you have been and what you have done. In contrast, a CV is a much longer document that does the same thing as a resume but in much greater and granular detail. For most scientific positions a CV is the preferred document style. However, in some cases, employers may request a resume so pay attention before you submit your application.
While most people believe that a resume or CV is simply a list of your education, skill sets and experience, there is a preferred style, format and way to write these documents that will enhance the possibility of securing an interview for the position. That said, it takes many years of writing and editing to perfect the process-something that many of you may not have time to do. If you are unsure about how to write a resume/CV or have not updated your “paper” in many years, the quickest way to begin applying for jobs is to hire a professional resume/CV writer to do it for you. Generally speaking, this will cost anywhere from $200-$500. Sadly, many graduate students and postdocs don’t have the money to invest in resume writing and in many cases are unable to craft a job winning resume/CV.
If you are unable to hire a resume writing professional, I came across a DIY solution called Scientific Resumes. This service company exclusively caters to graduate students and postdocs looking for resume/CV writing help. In addition to their automated self-help products, they offer resume proofreading services and likely customized resume/CV writing too. I have not used or carefully evaluated their products but it may be worth a visit to their website.
Author: Cliff Mintz
There was an interesting article in Science Careers Magazine this week entitled “Should you consider another degree after your PhD.” The article traces the journey of several people who earned PhD degrees in science-related fields who transitioned into new careers including law, regulatory affairs, business development and science writing.
The gist of the article is that if you can afford the costs of earning another degree, it may be worth it for persons with PhD degrees who want to get “out of the lab.” However, based on my own experiences and those of the persons mentioned in the article, most graduate students and postdocs lack the financial resources to enroll in professional degree or certificate programs after completing their PhD programs. Consequently, most of the people showcased in the article were able to leverage unpaid internships and volunteer work into new jobs that paid for additional training or professional degree programs.
I have long posited that obtaining another degree after a PhD degree may not be in the best interest of PhD degree holders for a variety of reasons. First, as mentioned above, the financial obligations of a degree or certificate program may be too onerous or unrealistic for graduate students who worked for minimum wage for many years to obtain their PhD degrees; the funds simply are not available. Second, by the time a PhD degree is awarded and postdoctoral training is completed, most science PhD degree holders are in their mid 30s to early 40s and in many cases, have families, which may not be conducive to going back to school full time. Also, who wants to be a student for most of their adult lives? Finally, the mere exhaustion and stress associated with spending close to 10 years in a laboratory may discourage even the most ambitious individuals from pursuing another degree or certificate. Put simply, there may not be “enough gas left in the tank” to obtain another degree in the hopes of possibly changing a career trajectory.
More thoughts about another degree after a PhD:
Based on my experience as an instructor in a program offered to PhD students and postdocs who had already decided that a research career was not for them, internships, volunteer work and an unrelenting pursuit of an alternate career is probably the best way to navigate a career change. What I observed about all of the students in this program (over 70% of them obtained non-research jobs after completing their PhD degrees with no postdoctoral training) was that they were highly motivated and did whatever was necessary to network and leverage the resources offered to them by the program (which included mixers, invitations to professional meetings, and guest speakers outside of the research world including pharmaceutical executives, venture capitalist, medical writers and clinical study managers) to get “where they wanted to go”.
For example, one student, who was interested in regulatory affairs, went to the dean of her medical school to get the funds necessary to go to a national regulatory affairs meeting rather than attending an annual society meeting to present her research findings. Today, she is a director of regulatory affairs at a major biotechnology company. Another student wrote reviews for an online financial services company regarding the technology behind various private and publicly traded biotechnology companies as a graduate student, now works for a financial service company as an analyst. Finally, another student who was interested in technology transfer was able to leverage an unpaid internship in his university’s technology transfer office into a full time job (he is now a director of the office).
The bottom line about another degree:
While obtaining another degree or certificate may better position you for a possible career change, it may not be emotionally or financially possible or likely. That said, rather than fantasizing about what may have been if you simply chose law or medicine or business over a graduate career in science, you best shot at changing the direction of your career may be to identify alternative career options and obtaining the necessary skill sets, qualifications and real life experience to make it a reality, Once you have identified those things, the next step is to devise a financially-viable plan to obtain them and then spend the majority of your waking hours successfully implementing the plan. It won’t be easy but as the old adage goes “if there is a will then there is a way.”
Author: Cliff Mintz
Most human resource professionals contend that some form of online networking with colleagues and peers is probably the best way to land a new job. To that point, online networking offers several advantages over live networking and other traditional ways of keeping in touch with others.
First, online networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn make it easy for people to find you. Unlike live networking where information flow is painstakingly slow, online networking allows users to provide prospective employers with large amounts of professional information. Moreover, online network users can control the information that employers and others can access. Effectively controlling online information may mean the difference between employment or not.
Second, membership in online networks allows users to easily keep tabs on others and visa versa. Also, users can configure online networking platforms to automatically receive news, updates and alerts in real time. Being the first to learn about a job opening may give a jobseeker a competitive advantage.
Finally, online networking sites allow users to quickly connect with one another (or access the knowledge base of a network) without investing much time or effort. In contrast with live networking, small talk and casual conversation is not required to get the information that you or a prospective employer may be seeking.
Getting Started
An important first step is to create a professional profile. This should contain a candidate’s career path including educational background, past places of employment, awards and honors, and his/her current position and job responsibilities. Sites that are designed for professional networking usually provide new users with templates that allow them to quickly create a profile.
Personal information should not be present in a professional profile. Things like age, marital status, political persuasion or sexual orientation should not appear anywhere in a user profile. User profiles MUST be devoid of compromising photos, inappropriate remarks or political or religious diatribes
Ensure that the information is publicly available so that it will appear in Google searches. Also, keep the profile current and remember to add things like recent speaking engagements, new publications etc. to remain competitive.
Expand Your Network
The next step is to find people at the site to connect with. Connecting with people who work at companies or institution where you may want to work is a great idea! Don’t be afraid to connect with others who may be more senior or even junior to you. However, only connect with others who you think may be important or valuable to your job search. Connecting for connections sake may overwhelm your network with irrelevant or inappropriate information.
Finally, invite professional friends and colleagues to join your network. Having a Nobel Laureate or a member of the National Academy of Sciences in a personal network can really do wonders for a job search! Again, this is a professional network; so only invite people to join who you can trust to keep it that way.
Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn?
Despite its massive size, Facebook has yet to prove its value for jobseekers. Twitter is better than Facebook, but like Facebook, its value as a job seeking tool remains to be determined. At present, the largest and perhaps best online networking site for professionals is LinkedIn. It boasts free job boards, paid advertising and is regularly scrutinized by professional recruiters. One of the more valuable LinkedIn features, are the LinkedIn groups where it is easy to start conversations with prospective employers and hiring managers
Keep it Professional
These days hiring managers routinely scrutinize candidates’ online presence or personas before moving forward with the job application process. Therefore, it is a good idea to Google yourself from time-to-time to manage the information that is available to prospective employers. Any damaging information may mean the difference between employment or not. Finally, online networking, if appropriately used, can be an extremely effective job seeking tool for those seeking employment in the life sciences industry.
