Print Email Font A A

Essential Skills

Up to Postdoctoral Life
The skills you need to make the most of your career in science.
Choosing an Advisor / PI / Boss
Mentoring Skills
Communication Skills
Negotiation Skills
Computer Skills
Networking
Grant Writing Skills
Professional Ethics
Management Skills
Teaching
Marketing Yourself
Time Management

The Real Science Crisis: Bleak Prospects for Young Researchers
in NIH Funding Crisis
Chronicle of Higher Education , September 2007. "[F]or many of today's graduate students, the future could not look much bleaker. They see long periods of training, a shortage of academic jobs, and intense competition for research grants looming ahead of them. 'They get a sense that this is a really frustrating career path,' says Thomas R. Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. So although the operating assumption among many academic leaders is that the nation needs more scientists, some of brightest students in the country are demoralized and bypassing scientific careers."
After the Offer, Before the Deal: Negotiating A First Academic Job
in Negotiating Your Salary And Position
By Chris M. Golde, Academe, January-February 1999. "What is a fair salary? Can I ask for moving expenses? When can faculty members negotiate reductions in their teaching loads? These are the kinds of questions graduate faculty often hear from their students who have just been offered academic jobs. Besides training young scholars as teachers and researchers, we also mentor them in their search for jobs. As a result, we're expected to know the answers to such questions. In this article, I offer suggestions to the just-appointed faculty member who seeks to be a savvy participant in negotiating the terms of a first job."
Negotiating Offers for Faculty Positions
in Negotiating Your Salary And Position
A guide from the UNC Office of Postdoctoral Affairs.
The Noel Smith-Wenkle Salary Negotiation Method
in Negotiating Your Salary And Position
"Salary negotiation is something at which hiring managers are usually a lot more proficient than the people they hire. In the interest of leveling the playing field, here is a method for salary negotiation that has worked for me and many others."
Negotiating Your First Academic Job Offer
in Negotiating Your Salary And Position
by Margaret L. Newhouse. "Many first-time academic job candidates assume that, once they receive a job offer, their arduous search is over. In fact, no matter how delighted you are with an offer, it is wise to view it as part of the last stage of the process -- the negotiation stage -- even if you ultimately decide not to negotiate anything. This pamphlet offers some general principles and advice on negotiating academic job offers, particularly initial ones."
Negotiating: Please Sir, Can I Have Some More?
in Negotiating Your Salary And Position
ScienceCareers.org "Whether you're a fresh Ph.D. searching for a lab in which to do a postdoc, or you're trying to land a junior faculty position and create your own lab, negotiations are crucial in developing your scientific career. Reaching satisfying compromises with the head of a lab or the department chair requires first-rate communication and social skills. Professional bargaining, for example, could win you promises of more start-up funds, additional space, or extra equipment. At the postdoctoral level, good negotiating may mean you wind up taking away part (or all!) of your project when it's time to leave. But negotiating doesn't start and end at interviews: Interacting with an employer, department chair, or lab director takes place throughout your research career."
Academic Scientists at Work: Negotiating a Faculty Position
in Negotiating Your Salary And Position
ScienceCareers.org "Negotiating a job is similar to playing a hand of poker: the stronger your hand - your credentials - the more you can demand. The trick is to know what aspects of the position are negotiable and what the limits are; otherwise, you may find that the offer has folded. This article will discuss the issues at stake in academic science research positions and offer some suggestions on how you could approach your own negotiations so that you get the job you want and the start-up package you need."