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How to Rock the Hustle: 8 Pro Tips for Making the Most of Your Job Search

By Elizabeth Mahood

We’re all about the hustle here at Blogging Beyond Academia. I’ve read, written, and edited posts about everything from honing your communication skills to what it’s like at a startup. However, for all our posts about career exploration and skill-building resources, we’ve left out one key element of getting a job: the job search itself. COVID-19 has put job searching on the forefront of the minds of many,
especially those of us finishing at our current positions. In response to this, I’ve gathered advice from researchers recently awarded positions in industry as well as in academia. Although this advice is coming from researchers in my field (plant biology), their advice is applicable across broad sciences and humanities. Additionally, the tips below are important to consider even if your current appointment isn’t ending soon – being a strong candidate takes lots of prep, and searching for the perfect job can take longer than you might think!

General Tips:

Start “Early”: This first tip is probably the piece of advice I heard most often. People in industry commented that it took them 9-12 months to land their current position, and it sometimes took longer than that for people in academia. Part of “starting” is letting your network know that you are looking for positions, and doing this early means you are less likely to miss out on opportunities advertised only through your network.
Prep Yourself: To get your dream job, you have to be a great fit. While a big part of this is aligning your materials to the job position (more on this later), an equally big part is making sure your skills and experiences turn you into the ideal candidate (read: do your prep work). One pro tip is to copy / paste job applications into a text editor (such as jobscan), and determine which words are coming up the most –these are likely to be the skills recruiters or committees want you to have. Another newly-minted-pro’s tip is to follow people on Twitter or LinkedIn whose careers you want to mirror, as their posts could be highly relevant to your job search and they may even drop openings of interest to you. Bottom line: having a Career Development Plan and sticking to it through your current position is key to landing your next one.
Keep Communicating with your PI: Seriously applying to jobs can (and probably will) mean increased attention to managing your research timeline. It’s super important to keep your advisor informed through this process so they can support you through it.
Use Twitter to Your Advantage: tweet about your papers or accomplishments to publicize them and tweet about other people’s research to show that you are involved and knowledgeable about your field.

Tips for Industry Positions:

Don’t be Intimidated by Postings: Industry job postings will describe the qualifications of their dream-come-true candidate. Oftentimes, their applicants won’t have every box ticked – so it’s ok if you don’t either. In these scenarios, it is really important to highlight your ability and interest to learn the skills you don’t have. As a side note, this can depend on what type of industry position you apply to – startups are less likely to hire someone who pitches themselves as “eager to learn” than they are to hire “an expert”.
But Definitely Take Postings Seriously: As we highlighted above, job postings will state key qualities that employers need or want their candidates to have. These qualities should be first and foremost in your application materials – and they can change from one company to the next. A pro tip is to have a “backbone” resume handy that you can tailor to fit each company you apply to. Read the company’s website to see what terminology and values they put front and center, and incorporate those into your application materials.

Tips for Academic Positions:

Distinguish Yourself in the Interview: This came up often when talking to people recently awarded faculty positions. The key area you have to do this in is your talk – you must present research that is exciting, aligned well with the position, and appears easily fundable. Additionally, to make a lasting impression on the search committee, you should familiarize yourself with their research. This will show them that you are curious, involved and collaborative – traits they want in their future coworker.
Distinguish your Application Materials: With many positions getting a slew of applications, it’s critical to make yours stand out. The search committee will spend a lot of time looking at your papers, but if your papers don’t encompass all of your work – i.e. let’s say you’re also good at programming – make sure you have Googleable evidence of this, as it can set you apart from other candidates. Additionally, if the position description has a clear picture of their ideal candidate, make sure to include their key criteria in your application materials. If the position is less clear or more broad, however, feel free to shape your application materials in whatever way that puts your best foot forward.

I’ll end this post with a few resources for anyone thinking about getting their next position. The first is particularly related to COVID-19: a live list of companies actively hiring, freezing, or firing employees in response to the pandemic. For others that are still shaping their current position, Cornell has a multitude of resources to check out. Cornell Career Services has templates for cover letters and resumes. The Graduate School has several institutional memberships that are free for students and postdocs. The Office of Postdoctoral Studies, Future Faculty and Academic Preparation, and Careers Beyond Academia are always available for individual consultations and questions. Additionally, for those interested in academic positions, check out HigherEdJobs for listings. For anyone wondering how to start concretizing their research interests into a written document – a good place to start is with your “personal brand”.

Finally, a couple resources: for researchers in the life sciences PlantPostdocSlack is a great resource (for job postings and resource sharing) for any postdoc whose research is broadly associated with plants. Consult fellowship listings like ProFellow for professional development (and additional ways to fund your graduate research) or JHU Funding Opportunities databases that list early career and postdoc opportunities. I hope this post has been helpful for you – and always remember to reach out to Careers Beyond Academia if you have any job search strategy questions, or want more resources and advice!

The why and how of outreach: why you should do it, and how you can turn it into a career

By Liz Mahood

Featuring Free Science Workshop co-founder Claire Fox

In all probability, most Cornell graduate students don’t spend any of their Friday evenings cleaning up chocolate sauce that had been exploded out of a concrete volcano. Over my years here at Cornell, however, I’ve found that this happens to me on a fairly regular basis.

Fortunately, this exploding-chocolate-sauce phenomenon isn’t something associated with my thesis research, or any class I’m taking. Instead, it’s the highlight of the evening at Ithaca’s Free Science Workshop – a non-profit organization that brings exciting, exploratory science and maker activities to the afternoons of Ithaca’s children, for free. Although weekly volunteers like me are essential to keep these activities running (and to keep all the children’s fingers attached), one of the powerhouses who co-founded the program is Claire Fox: STEM outreach extraordinaire, mother, snake whisperer, drill whisperer, and Ph.D. candidate in the College of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology (check out some of her research here).

An adult and child creating a maker project — Claire, right, with a Free Science Workshop participant. Image courtesy of the Ithaca Free Science Workshop

Claire’s path to graduate school can be summarized as, unsurprisingly, “nontraditional”. As a self-described “latchkey kid”, Claire grew up spending countless hours exploring the natural world. She was unimpressed with the traditional science courses she took in school, however, and she didn’t pursue STEM education any further than she needed – until she found that she wanted to become a STEM educator. Claire has extensive experience in a field of non-academic STEM careers that is often overlooked: outreach. It’s because of this experience, and because of her inspiring path to Ph.D. candidacy, that I decided to sit down with her, and tell her story.

Claire’s inspiring story, and insight into STEM outreach careers, is below. However, I also wanted to highlight several reasons why anyone, no matter what their career paths are, should engage in STEM outreach (and although I’ve refrained from using the clappy-hands emoji here, you should be forewarned that I’m currently stepping onto a soapbox). These reasons were partially conceived through talking with Claire, but also come from my own experiences volunteering, and giving and receiving STEM education. The first reason: you will impact the lives of other people. Taking education as an example – much research has been conducted about how public-school students underperform in STEM fields, especially if they are from a low-income or under-represented minority background^1,2. As I received my primary education from the St. Louis City Public School District, my experience is that this underperformance might stem from a general disinterest. My schools did not have the funds for science materials, and no scientists ever visited our classrooms. For my classmates and me, science was just something to read from a textbook. Thus, in my view, there’s an urgent need to connect with underserved children so that they may “appreciate, enjoy, and identify with science,” said Claire. Second, engaging in STEM outreach activities can introduce you to people with similar interests but different career trajectories. This can be especially helpful for anyone who is unsure about what career paths to take, as outreach environments can attract STEM professionals from many fields. Additionally, you might find yourself filling leadership, communication, or other non-traditional roles for STEM graduate students, which can give you an opportunity to test-drive anything you are interested in for a career. Third, for anyone firmly-rooted in academia, pursuing STEM outreach gives you avenues to create and implement the Broader Impacts statements required in grant proposals. Finally, in almost any STEM outreach setting, you will be required to communicate your science, or the science of others’, to a lay audience. This will force you to hone-in on why your science matters, so that others may understand the value of your work.

Below are Claire’s answers – read on if you are interested in a career in outreach, and/or you want some STEM outreach organizations to participate in.

Liz: How did your career in outreach begin?

Children making a maker project — Participants at the Free Science Workshop. Image courtesy of the Ithaca Free Science Workshop

Claire: Before I was doing science outreach, I was actually doing art and cultural outreach with regional schools for the education department of the Johnson Museum of Art. My undergraduate degree from Cornell is an independent major in Visual Studies. It’s funny in retrospect because I was always working science into my discussions with students, even in the art museum – geeking out about chemical compounds discovered in ancient China, or wondering about the morphology of a bird’s beak used in an African mask… In 2012, I got involved in the maker movement which was a wonderful confluence of art, science and engineering in an atmosphere that was very welcoming to beginners. It was great to be in an environment where my different interests could come out and play together. It reinforced my conviction that people learn best hands-on, in ways that engage their curiosity and personal interests. Learning is not confined to school. It can be life-long and community-based. I ran a STEM-focused Teen program in Ovid, NY and taught STEM classes at the local makerspace for underserved youth. Eventually I met like-minded folks, including Erik Herman, who at the time was a science outreach specialist at CLASSE. We collaborated on the Physics Bus outreach program, and a few years later, were co-founders of the Free Science Workshop program in Ithaca.

Liz: What motivated you to pursue a PhD?

Claire: I think a lot about what gets scientists interested in being scientists in the first place. For me, it was direct early childhood experiences with nature. I was a latchkey kid in a rural town without a TV or a computer, just running around in the woods and streams catching all kinds of creatures, collecting specimens, and reading any book I could get my hands on. Science in school failed to capture that feeling of discovery and I lost interest in pursuing it academically. It was a decade later when I started teaching science in afterschool and enrichment programs that my enthusiasm was rekindled. There is nothing I love more than sharing the joys and fascination of science with kids. In order to advance professionally as an informal science educator, I needed a degree in a science field. I started taking classes at Cornell in EEB, found a lab I liked, and just got sucked in! Honestly, I don’t need a PhD or even a Masters to have a rewarding career in community science engagement. I ended up in grad school because I love learning and don’t do things by halves. The opportunity to contribute to a science field that I find fascinating, and be challenged intellectually, was too great to pass up.

Liz: If someone wants to do a career in outreach, are there any skills/experiences they should work on getting?

Claire: It depends on what types of jobs you are interested in. “Science outreach” is part of the broader fields of Informal Science Education, Public Science Engagement, and Science Communication. From what I have seen, science outreach jobs through universities and research institutions are relatively few and far between. They are often specific to a particular science field and are sometimes dependent on grant funding. Informal Science Education more broadly encompasses any science engagement opportunities that occur outside of a formal classroom. In addition to outreach programs at universities and research institutions, this includes science museums, nature centers, aquariums and zoos, after school and enrichment programs, summer programs, and any type of science media produced for lay audiences. People hiring for museum educator jobs and school or afterschool enrichment programs will be looking at how many years of experience you have working with children/families/the general public, with what age groups, and in what context. If you haven’t already done so, seek out opportunities for science engagement with early childhood, pre-teen and teen, and adult audiences – preferably from diverse backgrounds – to broaden your experience and discover what age group is the best fit for you. Many employers will expect you to have experience designing and implementing activities that are aligned with current K-12 science standards. A bachelor’s degree in a science field and experience working with youth is often all that is needed to meet minimum requirements for an entry-level informal STEM education or outreach job. For more advanced positions you will likely be competing with people who have multiple years of relevant full-time work experience or graduate degrees specifically in STEM Education, Museum Education, Science Communication, and related fields. In my opinion experience is more important than degrees or certificates. Get in at whatever level you can and work your way up.

If this post has at all inspired you to check out STEM outreach opportunities, then you are in the good place! Cornell, and the Greater Ithaca area, have many organizations to join, or you could make your own outreach program or event. For starters in STEM education, check out the Cornell-led programs EYH and GRASSHOPR. If you’re instead looking for opportunities in communication, Cornell departments host a variety of podcasts (a couple: Science Blender, Speaking of Language). To conclude, there are many opportunities available for careers in STEM outreach, and – whether you’re considering a career in this field or not – outreach can be a wonderful way to get new skills, and de-stress from the trials of graduate or postdoc research.

1. Bohrnstedt, G., Kitmitto, S., Ogut, B., Sherman, D. & Chan, D. School Composition and the Black-White Achievement Gap. NCES 2015-018. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2015).

2. Knopf, J. A. et al. Out-of-School-Time Academic Programs to Improve School Achievement: A Community Guide Health Equity Systematic Review. J Public Health Manag Pract 21, 594–608 (2015).

Setting your sights on startups: advice from Ivan Liachko, cofounder of Phase Genomics

By Elizabeth Mahood

For a biosciences grad student like me, the idea of working at a startup can seem downright exotic. Many aspects of the startup world are in stark contrast to academia. The biggest difference is probably this: where academia can hire professors for the entirety of their career, many startups only “live” for less than a year. While the uncertainty inherent in the startup world is definitely a downside, the upside to it is salaries and other benefits that are usually not found in academia. Many other characteristics distinguish startups from academia, and even from larger businesses, such as the intimate work environment, overall job market, and general business models. Due to all these differences, if your training thus far has come from academic environments, working at a startup can seem like a completely different lifestyle.

This post is designed to give students and postdocs that are, like me, well-rooted in academia, a glimpse into what applying to a startup may be like. This glimpse was provided by Ivan Liachko, a graduate of Cornell’s GGD program, who is now the co-owner and chief scientist of a successful, 5-year old biotech startup called Phase Genomics. Dr. Liachko, through BTI’s Post-Graduate Association and Careers Beyond Academia, recently visited the Cornell campus to speak about his company’s research and his experiences starting and running his Seattle-based startup. He shared personal experiences, and offered insight on how employment works at a startup. For the grad students and postdocs who are exploring careers outside of academia, or are just beginning to look at what is beyond the university, here are some major takeaways on applying to a startup.

1) The application process is unique. When Phase Genomics has a position to fill, they have a clear picture of the skills that an applicant needs in order to fit well. If they do not already know of someone who fits the position, they will make the application public, and review the skills of the applicants. This reveals two important considerations for those thinking about working at a startup: have a big network, and make your experiences and skills easy to find. The first one is a no-brainer, and is important for any type of job search. The second one, however, can set apart a startup’s application processes from those in academia. For instance, when applying to an academic position, having demonstrable eagerness to learn new information or skills may be as important as prior experience. This is often not the case when applying to a startup, as they want to quickly know your expertise—skills and prior experience should go front and center on your resume. Having an informative business card, a LinkedIn or ResearchGate profile, and just “making yourself Googleable” is essential.

The next phase of the application process—the interview—really differs between startups and academia. According to Dr. Liachko, for startups, “it’s like dating”. The majority of startups have a small staff, so appraising how your personality will fit with everyone else’s in the company is important. The interviewers also want to know how you will fit in with the business. Unfortunately, it is often the case that startups go under, or get close to it, and the interviewers may want to assess how you will act in those scenarios. The intimacy of this process differs from academia, where positions are generally more stable and work forces are typically larger.

People standing and conversing with Dr. Liachko. — Cornell grad students and postdocs network with Dr. Liachko, left. Photo courtesy of Susi Varvayanis.

2) Hustling can get you places—if you are willing to move quickly. Dr. Liachko shared the story of how he hired his head of marketing. It started at a conference, where both Dr. Liachko and the Future Head of Marketing (FHM) were presenting posters. FHM had heard Dr. Liachko explain his poster so many times that when he stepped away, she explained his poster to interested passers-by. When he returned, they spoke and he mentioned the open marketing position at his company. FHM gave Dr. Liachko her business card, emailed him after the conference, and stressed her interest in the position. Impressed with FHM’s credentials and personality, Dr. Liachko offered FHM the position, on the condition that she move across the country to Seattle. FHM took the position, filled her car with her belongings, and moved to Seattle. This story is an example of how important skills and personality are for startups, and reinforces how the hiring process for startups differs from academia. Many academic jobs require recommendations from established members of the field, but those may be less required for startup positions.

3) Tidbits. Other tips were shared at the meeting. Here are several about startup funding and Cornell resources.

Business cards: Cornell print services offers 100 business cards for $25 for students, faculty, and staff. On your business card, it is more informative to put your field of expertise down as your profession, rather than “Graduate Student” or “Postdoctoral Researcher”. Extra points for putting your picture on the card.
Startup funding: For those interested in creating a startup, the first round of funding often comes from the “Three F’s”, friends, family, and fools. After that, there are several grants available for startups, some from large, academia-associated foundations like the NIH (check out their SBIR and STTR programs).
Internship opportunities: Cornell’s Careers Beyond Academia program offers internships at many small to mid-sized companies, which give program participants a chance to see firsthand what working at a startup is like. Head here for more info on internships.