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So you have a Ph.D.! Now what? Some tips on how to choose a Postdoc lab.

It requires more work and careful thought than you think to land a ‘good’ postdoc. In general, it is advisable to start thinking of what you would like to do after your Ph.D. at least one year ahead of graduation, especially if you wish to pursue opportunities abroad. A number of academic labs do like to interview a candidate or at least meet the candidate informally before offering a postdoc position. You have to be prepared to visit the lab and give a formal presentation before the lab members in such cases. An important activity during the course of a Ph.D., especially, during the last one or two years, when you have standardized your experimental system and protocols and are finally getting the results that you have worked so hard for, is to attend scientific meetings and present your research findings. This exercise fulfils a number of important goals – you get to meet and interact with a number of leading researchers in your field of specialization, you get a chance to air your thoughts and get some critical feedback on your work (especially if you are presenting a poster) and finally, it gives you a chance to make some informal inquiries with attending faculty for openings in their labs.

Scientific symposia and meetings are a good venue to make contacts because abstract books and program details enable you to easily identify attendees and also provide addresses and emails, in most cases, which you can utilize to establish an initial contact with the person you are interested in speaking to. Meetings are also a place where principal investigators (PIs) or lab representatives actively seek to recruit people for available positions and are therefore open to speaking with a prospective candidate. Most meetings also have bulletin boards where you can see advertisements for job openings and post messages. In addition, the meeting organizers or sponsors often provide computer services with internet connection free of cost to the attendees for the entire duration of the meeting. This is a great resource to do some quick research on someone - for example, looking up PubMed for publications from a particular PI or the group, visiting a lab’s home-page to find more about the research focus of a lab or to find information on its current members and so on.

For you, the candidate, the scientific symposium is an ideal environment for a first interview –you have your best scientific findings to show off, you have already practiced your speech and you already have answers to some of the tough issues about your work (that you probably hadn’t thought of before) that viewers may have brought up during your poster session. From that vantage, making a favorable impression and exchanging your resume for a formal interview appointment should not be very difficult. It is advisable however, that you do your research and make sure that you would really and truly like to join a lab that you have picked before you accept an offer. There are many small facets of life and work as a postdoc that you tend to overlook either because of inexperience or because of euphoria that follows your acceptance into a lab. Some of the important factors to consider before making a decision are related both to the lab and to factors outside of the lab. [more]