The Postdoctoral Job Search
By Alana Lerner
Doctoral Candidate – Biomedical Sciences
UC San Francisco
As the job market for PhDs has become more competitive, and more PhDs than ever before are graduating, many of them are taking the next step in the academic ladder- the postdoctoral fellowship. Now, most established and many start-up biotech companies want applicants with postdoc experience as well. Historically the postdoc was an opportunity to pursue a scientific question in a different area from your thesis research, and widen your skill set and experience so that one could develop into an independent investigator.
Over five years ago, when I starting graduate school, everyone advised me to pick a thesis lab that is a good training environment and that the precise research question is not as important since many people change fields in their postdocs. However, speaking with colleagues who are now interviewing for these positions, most academic and industry postdoc position openings ask for applicants with experience in the same area of research, or even in the same signaling pathway. Since there are such a large number of postdoc candidates, employers can choose to be very selective to those only with certain research experience or skill sets. However, many successful faculty at UCSF have made big transitions in the biomedical sciences from their PhDs to postdocs. For example Associate Professor Jeff Cox was a graduate student studying a stress signaling pathway in yeast, and now studies tuberculosis pathogenesis. Choosing candidates in the same research field stifles research and creativity. I think that this is a bad hiring trend and hopefully not here to stay.