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Expert Commentary
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| By Jane Chin, Ph.D. of Jane Chin Associates on Oct 10 2007 12:39PM |
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| Your Scientific Career Beyond the Bench - Lesson I |
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Today's young PhD scientists face tremendous career challenges that may be attributed to at least two main factors:
Limited research funding. NIH research funding had been flat for the past two years, and when you factor in the rate of inflation, it appears that funding has been cut. Whatever research funding remains usually goes to seasoned investigators with a track record of publication, making it extremely difficult for young investigators to compete.
Limited opportunities. Newly graduated PhDs realize that the bottleneck for tenure-level positions at universities is not going to improve soon. This trend has seen more PhDs rotating through multiple postdocs while they wait for an opportunity to open up. When you consider how much a postdoc earns (often less than $40,000 annually) at the stage in that postdoc's life (there may be a family to support and a mortgage to pay), this makes being a "career postdoc" hazardous to that postdoc's personal and professional life.
Therefore it is no surprise that more PhD scientists are prospecting alternative careers beyond the bench and even beyond science. For those of you who find yourself in this position, I've written a guide specifically aimed to train you to prepare for a career transition beyond the bench. The guide is organized into 5 lessons, which I will summarizing in a series of articles.
Lesson 1 is Know Your Strengths. Before you consider any career transition, you must know what you are good at, talented in, and love doing.
There are many different ways to uncover your strengths, including self-directed introspection, assessment tests, and working with a coach or mentor to uncover your strengths. There are pros and cons for each approach, and I recommend you employ multiple approaches when undertaking a task as important as knowing yourself.
However you choose to uncover your strengths, the important thing is to make this a priority.
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