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Navigating today's job market

Article  in  Science · August 2016

DOI: 10.1126/science.aah3463

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 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Navigating today’s job market
A step-by-step guide offers practical science career advice
By Teegan A. Dellibovi-Ragheb
A
ccording to data collected by the Na-
tional Science Foundation, only 7% of
life science Ph.D.s obtain tenure-track
faculty positions within 5 years of
completing their degrees. This statis-
tic belies the widely held belief in aca-
demic culture that the “default” career path
for such individuals is a professorship. The
landscape of science career opportunities is
changing, so-called “alternative” career paths
are on the rise, and the personal career expe-
riences of mentors are often not sufficient for
the trainees they advise. There is a need for
new resources, which are consistent with the
rapidly changing job market and sensitive to
the specific challenges of Ph.D. students and
postdocs in the sciences.
Next Gen PhD: A Guide to Career Paths in
Science is a practical and thorough manual
for the entire career transition process, from
defining personal interests and deciding on a
career path all the way to day one of a new job.
Written by experienced career counselor Mela-
nie Sinche, it is geared toward postdocs and
graduate students who may not have access
to efective career counseling or mentorship
or are not satisfied with what they have re-
ceived thus far. Speaking in a positive and en-
PHOTO: ERIC LONG/SMITHSONIAN’S NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM, COURTESY OF SMITHSONIAN CHANNEL © 2016
couraging tone, Sinche is not only a valuable
The reviewer is at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood
Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892,
USA. Email: teegan.dellibovi-ragheb@nih.gov
Building Star Trek
Mick Grogan
Yap Films for
Smithsonian Channel
and Discovery Canada, 2016
Premieres on Sunday,
4 September
at 8:00 pm ET/PT
September 8, 2016, will mark the 50th anniversary of the first
show of the television series Star Trek. To commemorate this, the
Smithsonian Air and Space Museum is hosting the show’s restored
11-foot USS Enterprise, and the Experience Music Project Museum
in Seattle has built a re-creation of the ship’s flight deck. In honor
of these events, the Smithsonian channel will be airing a 2-hour
special that describes the exhibits and looks at the effect Star Trek
SCIENCE sciencemag.org
resource but also an advocate for early-career
Ph.D.s. “The truth is that candidates who have
successfully completed a PhD in science have
myriad skills of value to employers of all kinds,
from universities to research institutions, gov-
ernment agencies to nonprofits, start-ups to
professional societies,” she writes.
Sinche provides exercises to help new
and prospective Ph.D.s identify their inter-
ests, skills, and values. She discusses differ-
ent career options, lists potential job titles
across various sectors, and includes survey
data on the percentages of scientists that
choose these routes, their reported levels of
job satisfaction, the skills required, the work
environment, and even salary ranges. She
also breaks down the job search process into
tangible goals.
To get the most out of graduate or post-
doctoral training, it is important for both the
trainee and his or her mentor to have clear
goals and expectations for the training pe-
riod, Sinche maintains. Career development
activities may have to be balanced with labo-
ratory work, and this requires communica-
tion with, and support from, one’s principal
investigator. Unfortunately, even if a men-
tor is supportive of a nontraditional career
path, he or she may not have the experience
to guide trainees in a substantive way. When
this occurs, Sinche suggests developing rela-
tionships with additional mentors who can
offer different perspectives and facilitate rel-
evant networking opportunities.
Sinche also gives practical advice on
cloak and the first real tractor beam, to the current XPRIZE chal-
lenge to create the first working tricorder. Uncountable numbers of
young people have wanted to be like Kirk, Spock, Uhura, or McCoy,
and the fostering of the excitement and mystery of scientific explo-
ration may be Star Trek’s greatest achievement. – Barbara Jasny
Published by AAAS
Next Gen PhD
A Guide to Career Paths in
Science
Melanie V. Sinche
Harvard University Press,
2016, 272 pp.
informational interviewing and network-
ing—two activities that are often among
the most feared by frequently introverted
scientists. Stressing the importance of these
activities during one’s job search, she ex-
plains, “Many job search methods exist, but
none are as powerful as networking—and few
work as well without networking.” However
she also offers the reassurance that “profes-
sionals from all occupations are typically de-
lighted to hear from and engage with junior
researchers.”
Downloaded from http://science.sciencemag.org/ on August 27, 2018
Sinche recognizes that, despite being per-
haps a decade out of college, many early-ca-
reer scientists enter the job market with no
concept of how it works. She carefully guides
the reader through a typical job application
process, from how to prepare for an inter-
view to how to negotiate a job offer. The book
is filled with examples of CVs, resumes, cover
letters, interview questions, and more.
Finally, Sinche encourages early-career
scientists to take charge of their own career
paths. There are many options to choose
from, and it is important to learn about
each one and to assess one’s unique talents
and passions. It is easy to feel pressure from
mentors, parents, or peers to follow a par-
ticular career trajectory, but the best career
is the one that is the most suitable match for
you. “Remember that you are the architect of
your own career, and you, like the majority
of Ph.D. scientists, can find satisfaction in
your work,” she writes. j
10.1126/science.aah3463
has had on science and technology.
Like the television show, the docu-
mentary—to adult eyes—is occasion-
ally cheesy, but there are more than
enough episode details to delight
the hard-core Trekkie (or Trekker,
as many enthusiasts prefer to be
called). More important, the program
presents a lot of cool science that has
been (and is still being) inspired by
the franchise—from the invisibility
10.1126/science.aai7464
26 AUGUST 2016 • VOL 353 ISSUE 6302 877
 Navigating today's job market
Teegan A. Dellibovi-Ragheb

Science 353 (6302), 877.

DOI: 10.1126/science.aah3463

Downloaded from http://science.sciencemag.org/ on August 27, 2018

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