Last updated – July 19, 2020.
Disclaimer: I have never worked as a PostDoc myself. I am currently mentoring a close friend who is pursuing a PostDoc position in Israel after graduating with a Ph.D. from India, which motivated me to write this blog. Also, I worked closely with several Postdocs during my grad. school, which has shaped my experience and thoughts.
Pursing a Postdoc position is an excellent opportunity to pickup new technical skills, venture in a new technical domain, expand your network, and work in a different environment. However, just like the PhD program, it is reasonably unstructured, and your experience can vary significantly by the lab, advisor, and timings in general. Unlike the PhD program, the end goal is not as clear. This calls for a fresh thinking in your strategies to set meaningful goals and manage your productivity towards it. I summarize my thoughts here.
Goal Setting
A PostDoc position is a intermediate opportunity towards a more stable position in the near future. One needs to gain competence in many areas (research, teaching/mentoring, networking) in a relatively short span of time. However, everyone comes with a different level of competence and exposure in each area. One needs to set their own goals and prepare for the next position. In addition to the traditional techniques like SWOT analysis, here are some of my tips to help set your goals and expectations.
a) Write/edit your research/teaching statement regularly
One of the outcome of your postdoc experience is a crisp and solid research and teaching statements. Such documents provides a holistic picture about your past and present experience, and your next goal in career. Rather than writing the statement at the end of your position or when you are applying for a new role, it will be great to write it regularly. This will help you identify gaps and potential areas of improvement. It will be great to share this document with your advisor and colleagues regularly to seek their feedback. This will help them coach you better.
b) Recommendation letter
By now, you would have realized you will be drafting most of your recommendation letters yourself! Why not use this as a goal setting tool? In addition to your statements and publications/projects, solid recommendation letters can have an enormous impact on the hiring decisions.
c) Job Market
Try to peek into the job market every quarter or so, to see what skills are being talked about, the domains that are picking up steam and so on. Use this information to steer your projects in a direction that will help you pick up those skills/domain, while still meeting your existing projects/funding requirements and your advisor’s expectations. I plan to share more thoughts here in a future blog.
Productivity
a) Work like a professional
In a PostDoc position, people around you (lab colleagues, Advisor, funding agencies, collaborators etc.) expect you to work like a professional. This should reflect in your communication, your lifestyle, your maturity and so on. Practice working limited hours. Value your time in terms of $/hour and judge if a task is worth your time, otherwise delegate to a junior who would benefit from that learning. Set the expectations with your colleagues and practice delivering on time. This is the minimal expectation from a Postdoc graduate, whether you land up working in academia or industry after this.
b) Schedule regular meetings with stakeholders
Stakeholders includes your advisor, colleagues (junior or peer), funding agencies. Schedule meetings with an appropriate frequency (like weekly with advisor and colleagues, biweekly or monthly with funding agencies and so on). Share updates, challenges encountered, and keep in-sync.
Also schedule regular meetings with your mentors, discussing your career progress, lessons learnt, etc. Regular meetings will keep you keep your eyes on a big picture. Do the same with your mentees.
c) Health and well-being
I bet you weren’t expecting this as a productivity tip. This is key to the long-term career success, and in many cases, the learning starts only once you are “over” with the college lifestyle. Very likely, you have moved to a different location or even a new country for your postdoc position, resulting in significant changes in your lifestyle. Spend time to cope up with it, whether its furnishing your new home, picking up a new hobby, socializing with your new friends and so on. Check if the weather of your new location can affect your health, like possible Vitamin D deficiency in cold places.