Career Guidance | Weecology Wiki

Applying For Federal Positions

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Applying For Postdoc Positions

Thu, 05 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Funding

Allison Barner has very helpfully put together a google spreadsheet of postdoc fellowships (get your own money=freedom to do what you want): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cHkWrbvNrRdhJL9Z8ucgBZ2HSts2GPA_yozbQPl_x_8/edit#gid=0
Beckman Postdoctoral Fellows: The Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellows Award Program supports postdoctoral scholars with the highest potential for success in an independent academic career in chemistry and the life sciences, to assist in their transition from “mentored yet independent” postdoctoral projects to an independent, tenure-track position. These individuals are expected to become the next generation of leaders and innovators in science, engineering, and technology.
Gulf Research Program’s Science Policy Fellowship. For folks interested in government and NGO science roles this is an opportunity to get a years worth of post-PhD experience working “on the staff of federal, state, local, or non-governmental environmental, natural resource, oil and gas, and public health agencies in the Gulf of Mexico region”

Finding a position

There are also many sites where people who may already have money for a postdoc post ads (get paid from someone else’s grant = less freedom to do what you want):

Investigate the lab

Talk to people at different career stages who have worked in that lab (current and former students/postdocs). Current students can give you insights into what things are like now, but may feel inhibited to speak freely since their careers depend in part on their current supervisor. Former students can be more uninhibited, but may lack understanding of the current state in the lab (depending on how long ago they finished). Ask the same questions of many people and then think about those answers. Are the answers generally consistent? Are there differences in responses? Are there patterns in those differences in responses (i.e. differences between students and postdocs? Men and women? People from marginalized groups?)? Are people enthusiastic when they respond or meh? For example: “I loved working for them!” provides clear positive information. “Yeah, it was fine” may indicate the person is uncomfortable talking about their experience. One person responding negatively is not necessarily a bad sign (no one is capable of providing a universally great experience for everyone), but a pattern is not good and requires some thought about what is going on and what it may mean for you.

Working environment questions for other lab members: “How has [adviser] changed since you first began working with them?”

“Is there anything you’ve been hoping [adviser] would have changed by now, but hasn’t?”

Career Paths

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Data Analyst/Scientist

Summary: Data analysts/scientists are involved in data manipulation, visualization, analysis, and interpretation. They work in a broad variety of environments including government, NGOs, industry, and academia.
Core skills: data manipulation, visualization, and analysis in high level languages (primarily R and Python), oral and written communication of results to broad audiences, and the ability to collaborate with people with a broad range of technical backgrounds.
Things to do: 1) Learn R/Python, git/GitHub, statistics/machine learning, and Rmarkdown/Jupyter/Shiny; 2) Build website showing off these skills; 3) Start a data analysis related blog.
Weecologists to talk to: Xiao Xiao, Dave Harris, Kristina Riemer, Ben Morris, Clayton Bingham.
Job Ad Examples
- Data Analyst (for profit company)
- Data Scientist (academic setting)

Entrepreneur

Take your skills and start your own business.

Wecologists to talk to: Elita Baldridge, Clayton Bingham, Juniper Simonis

Faculty - Research Focused

Summary: Research focused faculty are involved in conducting research, writing research papers, mentoring graduate students, writing grants, and teaching. They work primarily at R1 and R2 universities (see Carnegie Classifications for more details).
Core skills: conceiving scientific questions, implementing data collection and analyses to answer them, oral and written communication of results to broad audiences, mentoring, and project management.
Things to do: 1) Do and publish research; 2) Learn research related skills (e.g., field work, R/Python, statistics/machine learning, metabarcoding, experimental design, mathematical modeling, and many more)
Weecologists to talk to: Morgan Ernest, Ethan White, Zack Brym

Faculty - Teaching Focused

Summary: Teaching focused faculty are involved in classroom teaching, mentoring undergraduates (including on research projects), writing research papers (typically with students), and writing grants. They work at variety of institutions including community colleges, small liberal arts colleges, and state colleges and universities.
Core skills: course design, modern pedagogy, oral and written communication to broad audiences, mentoring, and project management.
Things to do: 1) (co)Teach a course as an instructor of record; 2) Become a Carpentries instructor and teach workshops; 3) Do and publish research (postdoctoral research experience is increasingly desired by more selective teaching institutions).
Weecologists to talk to: Sarah Supp, Kenneth Locey, Daniel McGlinn

Faculty - Extension Specialist

Summary: Land-grant universities in the U.S. have an outreach mission mandated by the federal government that is referred to as extension. The goal of extension is to communicate research products to the end-users. This mandate covers the general areas of agriculture, home and family, the environment, and community economic development. At a land-grant university there are special faculty who serve at the interface between research and outreach. These faculty often have part of their appointment dedicated to outreach and part to conducting research. Research is typically focused on an applied need in the state. Outreach activities may take a variety of roles from consulting with state agencies, running workshops to train state agents and/or the public in resources or tools, creating outreach material through websites or pamphlets, giving public talks to local organizations. There are a number of faculty in WEC with extension appointments (e.g., Mark Hostetler, Elizabeth Pienaar, Mathieu Basile).
Core skills: oral and written communication to broad audiences, project management, research-related skills.
Wecologists to talk to: Zack Brym

Research Scientist

Summary: Research scientists is a general descriptor for individuals employed to conduct specific research tasks and are employed in government,NGOs, and consulting. Individuals in these types of jobs are employed to design and conduct research that meets specific needs of that organization (e.g., provide analysis on management effectiveness, evaluate and recommend monitoring designs, determine potential environmental impacts or assess recovery). These jobs often also have an element of project management (managing the budget allocated for those research activities, management of field technicians, coordination with other units or agencies). Government scientist positions (at state and federal levels) often involve course requirements to qualify, which depend upon the title of the position (i.e. a Field Botanist would require a certain number of credits in plant-focused courses).
Core skills: research-related skills (depending upon the type of position - field ecology, data analyst, statistician), oral and written communication to broad audiences, basic project management.
Wecologists to talk to: Kate Thibault (her original position at NEON was as a Research Scientist)
Example Job Ads
- Ecologist - Federal

Science and Technology Policy

Program Officer

Project Manager

Summary: Project managers oversee the planning and execution of projects. The difference between a project manager and a research scientist is that the project manager is often not involved in the execution of the project itself, but in managing and facilitating the ability of others to execute on the project. Project managers are employed in government, NGOs, and industry. They may manage a single lab, an institute/center, or extensive programs within large organizations.
Core skills: personnel management skills, project management, administrative skills (procurement, hiring, budgets), oral and written communication to broad audiences.
Wecologists to talk to: Glenda Yenni, Kate Thibault

Software Developer/Engineer

Wecologists to talk to: Henry Senyondo

Statistician

Summary: Statisticians are involved in data manipulation, visualization, analysis, and interpretation. They work in a broad variety of environments including government, NGOs, industry, and academia. Similar to Data Analyst/Scientist but typically with greater emphasis on the statistical analysis component of the job.
Core skills: statistics/machine learning, data manipulation and visualization in high level languages (primarily R and Python), oral and written communication of results to broad audiences, and the ability to collaborate with people with a broad range of technical backgrounds.
Things to do: 1) Learn R/Python, git/GitHub, statistics/machine learning, and Rmarkdown/Jupyter/Shiny; 2) Build website showing off these skills; 3) Start a statistics/data analysis related blog.
Weecologists to talk to: Xiao Xiao, Dave Harris, Juniper Simonis

Technical Writer

Other Resources

Aurora proves self-paced learning modules for PhD students & postodocs that include exploration of different career paths. UF students, postdocs, and staff can access Aurora by: 1) clicking this special: link to Aurora; 2) selecting University of Florida from the drop-down menu; 3) clicking Submit; and 4) logging in with their GatorLink username and password.

Interviewing

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Congratulations!! You’re at the stage where you’re being interviewed remotely (e.g. skype, zoom, phone) or in-person. Here is some info on preparing.

Interview Format

First, note that many places do interviews differently, so it helps to read up a bit on the format/structure of the interview process. Below are some resources relevant to academic interviews:

Responding to Questions

The format of the interview can make it challenging to give the best impression of yourself. Usually, a group of people will ask you questions, and give you time/space to give a freeform response without a back-and-forth that would usually occur in a conversation designed to reach a consensus on a topic. (One supposes this helps to keep the process fair to each applicant, and enable responses to be comparable.)

This means that many questions are of some form of “Tell us about your qualifications in X”. While it is natural to respond by describing your qualifications in X (and you should certainly do so!), you can turn a good response into a great response by further offering your opinion/thoughts about your experience in X. This helps demonstrate that you have thought about what worked and what didn’t, with potential for growing in the new position. (Instead of only being able to give a correct/expected answer of “Yes, I do have experience in X.”)

For example, for “tell us about your qualifications in teaching”:

do talk about your experience in teaching
do talk about your training in pedagogy
do talk about specific things you do in teaching and why (e.g. using formative assessments, because XYZ); perhaps also things you don’t do, and why not

This can be a challenging mindset to get into!

It can help to practice, on your own or with colleagues. The above links have some sample questions you can work from.

Asking questions of your own

In many cases, you’ll have some time to ask questions of your own. You can demonstrate interest by asking about aspects of the position that are unclear, or about the interview process (e.g. “when will I hear back about the next step”).

Career Advice from Others

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Intro

A lot of info linked to is from a specific point of view, or has intrinsic biases, so general advice is to read broadly and take everything with a grain of salt. Usually, you can synthesize out what are the common generalities (everyone says it) vs. anecdotes.

General

Cover Letters

(i.e. “how to brag about yourself without coming across as arrogant”)

Academic

general tips

Faculty

myths about TT job search
[selected links on applying](https://medium.com/@cMadan/advice-when-applying-to-faculty-positions-and-on-academia-in-general-7c8b3652b9d4）
sample docs collected by Jeff Ross-Ibarra
sample docs from Future PI Slack

Postdocs

There is some general info on finding jobs and asking questions on this page.

Non-Academic

preparing for non-academic careers
researching companies (see also “informational interview”)
Resumes vs. CVs
Note that for jobs posted on usajobs.gov (many of the federal government agency positions), the applications go through filtering by HR before reaching the hiring scientist. Often they are looking for keywords that match the job description, so some careful prep is good to make sure your application isn’t filtered out by HR. (Some more info and resources on this would be good to fill out…)

Faculty Job Offer Negotiation

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hooray! You have an offer. Now what?

Scope of negotiations

Things you can (potentially) negotiate:

Salary
Startup (the money they give you to start your group)
Teaching release
Lab/office space
Partner accommodations
Moving expenses

Depending on the type of institution the importance and possibility of negotiating different things will vary.

Salary negotiations

We recommend taking a “data driven” approach to salary negotiation. Start by looking up the current state of salaries for your position at that institution and their peer institutions. You can find this information for faculty positions in a number of databases:

Full-Time Faculty Avg. Salary, by Academic Rank | AAUP Data
Faculty Pay | Chronical for Higher Education
https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/AAUP-2023-SurveyAppendices.pdf
Public institutions (like UF) will often have individuals’ salary information publicly available somewhere.
Folks sometimes self-disclose on the EcoEvoJobs Google Doc or on social media.

If the initial offered salary is lower than one or more of the numbers you’re finding you can ask for a higher salary in the context of that data.

This approach is more comfortable for many folks (you’re not being greedy or full of yourself, just asking to be paid appropriately for the position). It can also be more convincing to an institution because: 1) it’s hard to argue with internal salary discrepancies; 2) colleges/universities tend to be quite competitive with their peers; and 3) it can give the person you are negotiating with (often a department head) something to take to their boss (typically a dean) to ask them to provide more money for the position. It also has the potential to help reduce bias.

Partner negotiations

This varies greatly institution to institution, and your strategy will depend on your priorities.

Some general thoughts:

Common approaches to dual career accommodation include
- A second tenure-track (or tenured if you’re senior) faculty position
- A second faculty position that is short-term or soft-money and not tenure-track
- A non-faculty job
- Support/prioritize partners in hiring for jobs at the institution (while still requiring them to apply and be accepted)
Start by figuring out what your ideal outcome is and what you’d be willing to settle for
- Institutions should try to provide permanent solutions when hiring, but many will not
- As a result one common strategy is for the second person to take a temporary/suboptimal job for both partners to stay on the job market. A competing offer (or sometimes just an interview) can then be used to leverage an more permanent solution from either your current institution or the one making you an offer.
Search for institution policies for dual career accommodation and if you can’t find them ask to see the policy if it exists
- The person you are directly negotiating with will not necessarily know about these policies, so it’s worth doing research and asking around.
- Look for dual-career couples at the institution to talk to and the culture and policies around these topics

Strategies for engaging with institutions

Presenting options for multiple acceptable solutions that reflect trade offs can may be more likely to elicit problem-solving than specifying a single required outcome.
Get the perspective of folks with experience with peer institutions to gauge what you can reasonably expect. For example, very small SLACs may be less flexible and more compressed in their timelines, smaller state research universities may have smaller startup packages, etc. Talking to someone with experience at the type of institution your negotiating with can help you make realistic asks that are more likely to be provided.
Getting an inside perspective can be really helpful during negotiation, so if you met someone during your interview who offered to talk more or who you think might be open to it we recommend reaching out. The institutions may not want you to talk to faculty other than the person you are negotiating with. This helps the institution by limiting your access to information. We recommend reaching out anyway.
Get as much of what you negotiate in writing as possible. Ideally this is in your offer letter (the closest thing you’ll get to a contract), but the institution may not be willing to do this. If try to get it in an email and then save that email (you’ll almost certainly need it later).
Negotiating over email is also useful for clarity, but sometimes the person negotiating will prefer to call you. This can be either to discuss inside information they don’t feel comfortable putting in an email (generally useful) because they think you’ll be more likely to agree to things over the phone (generally bad for you). Use your judgement, but often it is useful to follow-up phone calls with an email summarizing the call and confirming that everyone is on the same page about what was said and agreed on.

Other things to pay attention to

What is the teaching load and division of effort (what % teaching/research/service? What counts as service? How many course credit hours)?
Ask for a teaching release in your first year. Depending on the institution type that could mean zero teaching or a reduced teaching load. This is pretty standard and necessary to give you the time to develop new classes.
What space (lab space, office space) will you be provided. Are there funds for needed renovations/repairs? Do those costs come from your startup package or from a separate source.
What is the process for evaluating/retaining faculty?
Is the institution financially stable: look up their financials and enrollment?
What is the relationship between the institution and the state it is located in?
How happy do the faculty seem? Do they reach out to you after your interview?

Celebrate!

You have unlocked another level of navigating science! Enjoy the confetti and sense of invincibility.

Example Job Advertisements

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This is a collection of example job ads to give an idea of the positions possible for Weecologists, and guide the development of training/mentor plans accordingly.

title	Employer Type	primary duties
Assistant Research Data Scientist	University	research
Senior Data Analyst	Corporation	data analysis
Data Services Librarian	University	service / research support
Ecologist	Federal Government	research

Networking

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000