Resolution of the postdoc application

Well, I heard back from Postdoc Guy. He said all my stuff looks good but the timing as he is hiring immediately. He also told me that the position may open again next year since it is rushed this year and to get back in touch when I am defending.

Stuff looked good! He was interested! Yay*!

I knew it was a long shot but sounds good to have gotten my name out there (at least to one person). Who knows, maybe it will still work out later on. I'm not really bummed because I want to finish the school year here at my university and it is quite a motivating experience. Nothing like thinking about a next step to get your butt in gear to finish what you are currently doing!










*Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay!

More on my postdoc application

The application I sent for the postdoc was pretty informal- a CV, cover letter and reprints. It was sort of fun to write the cover letter. I am in the thick of wrapping up data collection, analysis and writing up projects so bringing the focus back to the big picture was refreshing. It was the first time I have been able to come up with that 3 sentence sound bite of my work. I'll take that as a good sign that everything is coming together! Writing the description of myself was enlightening as well. Like many others, I am not good at 'selling myself' but it will be a key skill in this postdoc hunt, and someday- job search. The declaration of "I am a something something-ologist interested in big idea one and big idea two" and sending it to someone else is pretty powerful. It is like I really am that description for the first time. I always thought of it as what I do, not what I AM. That was the only common advice from everyone I asked as well. Over and over, I heard "Give yourself a label." My involvement in job searches in my department supports this as well. We always talk about candidates as 'that tiger lady' or 'the caddis fly guy**'. Now I have one too!

Of course, there was major anxiety in sending the whole thing- just like submitting a paper. I heard back by the time I got home from dinner and will hear if I'm a finalist in a few weeks. That terminology makes it much more competitive than I had thought of.* Or like a raffle. You've been selected as a finalist!


It was pretty anticlimactic, really. We'll see how it goes and what I hear back. That will be the exciting stuff.

*combined with watching Olympic trials last weekend
**To explain the randomness of this label, I asked V to name an animal for this example. This was his response.

Ok

I just sent a postdoc application.

Going for beer.

more later....

To apply now or later

Some really awesome people in my field are taking applications for postdocs right now. There are about 5 that I would be ok doing and 3 that I would looooovvveeeee to do. The problem is that they are all hiring rightnow and I don't actually have the 'doc' required for the postdoc. Much advice I have been given is to just apply anyway, explain my time frame and hope for the best. Get the name out there.
But do I really want to rush my dissertation to go off and start something- even if it is awesome?
Won't there be awesome people advertising in Dec/Jan or even next year at this time? Why rush it when I could have time to write my diss and get everything submitted and all my other papers out as well. And also enjoy my house/husband/life before moving away again.

I think the very best advice I have gotten is to stop worrying. Anxiety about taking positions I haven't been offered is rather unnecessary. The back and forth, apply or wait argument has kept me up the past few nights and it isn't worth the worry. I am going to try my best to take this advice, but we'll have to see how that goes...

What comes next?

Apparently, I am supposed to be arranging a postdoc. My doing a postdoc has never been much of a question. Just an assumed part of the plan. I am within two years of graduating though and this little nugget of information opens the door for 'What's next?' questions. Unfortunately, I have no answers. My MS advisor told me that I should be starting to look at people to work with and talking to possible postdoc advisors now. Actually she said I should have done this at the meeting in July...This was re-iterated by my current advisor and a postdoc at my 2nd seminar school who started arranging for a writing funding grants 2 years before he started his current position.
It just seems so early!

But it seeming too early isn't reason enough to not take action. So I have started looking at people I would work with. There is one major issue with this- V and I have not yet decided on a geographic range in which I am looking. Driving distance would be nice but does that mean 3 hours? 8 hours? Forget driving and try for close proximity to airports (DO was 4 hours from the nearest airport and that didn't work out well for us seeing each other)?

Besides that, I am not sure what exactly I want to do. I know I need to take this opportunity to branch out- new systems, new questions, it is all so exciting! Some people have suggested finding a lab that needs what I do added to it so I will continue working in my expertise while others have said to go for a lab that is totally different to learn new things and get away from what I usually do. I am sure there is a compromise in there somewhere but I am not too sure how to find it yet.

Finally, there is the dreaded funding issue. In my field, as I understand it, most postdocs are for projects that you and a potential advisor write. If it gets funded, Yay! If not, hello book store job! Already funded positions do exist but they are rare and hard to get. The third option (which I just learned about recently) is to find a new faculty who, by position of being new faculty should be highly motivated and have start up funds (!) for a postdoc.

So far, I am not too worried about this whole thing. There are people I need to talk to and more folks to look up but overall- I am pretty excited about this. Probably because it gives me something else to do while procrastinating and not finishing next weeks lectures. hee

I am sure I will get into all these issues in more depth but if anyone has any thoughts on my -pre-postdoc search stage, please let me know!!!!