Q: I’m offered a second, named post-doctoral fellowship at one renowned university, and a professorship at another.
As: If your goal is an independent career, it’s beneficial, on the whole, to launch it as soon as you can, at a workplace that will enable and encourage it. If students there are knowledgeable, well trained, and imaginative; and if resources suffice, you will be fortunate. Regrettably these three contributors to success do not always or automatically coexist, necessitating a weighted choice.

Q: Should I try for university funding supporting a postdoctoral research group? As: As a postdoc, your attention will be directed to learning novel techniques and technologies, writing an article or two, drafting job proposals, applying/interviewing for positions, and equipping/staffing your future lab, to name a few concerns. If, amid these, you are also able to prove yourself as the head of a small group, more power to you. This funding is typically limited to one, possibly two, students, making the group small and more or less manageable.

Q:Is my salary negotiable? As: University salary levels are usually preset, but if the issue is urgent and must be raised there’s no reason not to inquire politely (vs. demanding). Fellowships and prizes can make up a shortfall, but be aware many dictate stringent totals that can complicate salaried compensation.

Q: I have two postdoctoral opportunities, one in a star group whose atmosphere is cutthroat competitive; another collegial and well known but in a super-expensive city.
As: It was wise to pay a visit to both labs. Unless your budget can’t be boosted, and/or payments delayed or discharged in small installments, choose the lab where you will be happy to go to work in the morning. 

Q: Can I accept a simultaneous internship?
As: Most PIs will nix an external internship unless skills to be acquired directly benefit your project or another in the group, and then only if it is brief, e.g., one-two weeks.

Q: A second academic postdoc, or a senior scientist position at a prominent institute?
As: Lengthy or multiple postdoc positions are usually taken as signaling slow starters. If short and productive, the second can probably be explained, but you have a good alternative. When institute positions offer at least some independence and resources for success, they can lead to academic professorships, should you wish one.

Q: Staff scientist position at my current university, or an assistant professorship cross-country?
As: Naturally you’re comparing these positions on factors such as proximity to family and friends, departmental supportiveness, professional autonomy, resource availability, and so on. Bottom line, the career clock is ticking. If an academic career is your goal, we advise you to start it.

Q: Though just starting my postdoc at a highly ranked university, I’m offered an assistant professorship at a local community college.
As: This choice depends on your personal and career goals. Which do you value more: teaching and encouraging often-first generation students; or conducting state of the art research? If you choose the former only to rethink your decision later, you will find it difficult, if not impossible, as time passes, to rejoin a university research track. In contrast, the opposite directionality is almost always attainable.

Q: How do I assess the quality of a journal?
As Summary: We’re sure you gained familiarity, as a doctoral student, with the premier peer-reviewed and open-source journals in your field. If you haven’t heard of a journal and its journal impact factor (JIF), or have any other reason to doubt its bona fides, check with your advisor or university resource librarian.

Q: What are job interviewers looking for?
As: Interviewers will winnow out applications that are misspelled, sloppy, unintelligible, unrelated to the job call, and uninformed about the host university, e.g., its location or key characteristics. If invited to an interview, you will chiefly be asked various forms of the question, “How is your research influenced by your training?” This probes to what degree your proposals, as well as current and past work, are attributable to you as versus your advisor.

Q: Can an academic be happy and successful in the outside world?
As: Yes, of course. It takes time to become accustomed to the differences, but your training has imparted innumerable transferable attributes and skills to you. These include curiosity, preparedness, thoroughness, quickness to learn, care, competence, neat-handedness, organization, planning and multi-tasking, literacy, numeracy, computer skills, collaboration, and excellent communication both verbal and written. 

Competing Demands
Q: I supervise a small group. What tips should I follow?
As: Use Anatomy of a Research Report in an initial orienting conversation with each student, as a guide and roadmap to what lies ahead. If you delegate supervision to older students in the group, remain very watchful. Ultimately your supervisees’ learning, satisfaction, and productivity mirror your care. Their dedication and outcomes reflect yours.

Q: A colleague is making unwanted advances.
As: We are very sorry. Nobody needs this. Immediately try to ensure a third person is always present, or leave the room if you can. Next, document each inappropriate contact from first to last, citing date, time, location, and circumstances, for your advisor. S/he may meet with this person and his/her advisor toward an agreement ending the bad behavior. Otherwise, your advisor and you have no choice but to refer harassment to the Department Chair.

Q: Do I own source code I wrote for software patented by my PI outside our university?
As: Often, even seemingly external companies or patents are university spinoffs whose ownership accords with laws in the country where services are contracted, conducted, financed, and/or patented. Reread your employment contract and university’s Intellectual Property declaration. If questions remain, consult your ombudsperson or a campus Legal Counsel.

Q: Midway through writing an article, I’m asked by competitors to forward my data and text.
As: A bold request. Interested parties should contact your PI, who will surely reply by explaining that the article is as yet (and, until accepted for publication, will remain) too incomplete for viewing.

Q: I strongly disagree with a referee report.
Q: My manuscript is rejected because it is too similar to another.
Q: I have reason to suspect that a referee who rejected my paper is plagiarizing it.
Q: My research supervisor asked me to write a lengthy grant proposal drawn on my doctoral dissertation for a research project new to his lab. I later learned that he submitted the proposal under his name alone, and that only he was credited when it was granted.
As: We are very sorry this is happening to you. Many of us have had this dark experience. A formal rebuttal is the crux of your response. Dispute, and provide proofs, point by point. If you aren’t heeded, your only recourse is to submit the documentation to an ethics committee.

Q: An anonymous reviewer of my article wrongly assumes I’m male.
As: Fortunately it’s easy to remedy this error. Mention the correction in a brief note thanking the reviewer for taking time to read your work. Ask your journal editor to forward the note.

Q: I’m so overwhelmed.
As: We sympathize. It often helps to ask a knowledgeable colleague to prioritize realistic estimates of task and life demands with you, and for you in turn to do the same for that colleague. The sense of drowning lifts a lot when one feels less isolated. It is equally liberating to accept that there will always be more to do than one possibly can. Why not, therefore, refresh yourself with a daily walk, swim, coffee with friends, or nap? Every campus has centers available to you that address virtually every concern or need that may arise: counseling, coaching, tutoring, study skills, health, illness, disability, recreation and relaxation, studying as a parent, finances, harassment, bullying, discrimination, lack of gender and ethnic diversity. Avail yourself of one or many.

Q: My advisor is highly secretive, not at all collaborative.
As: What misfortune, we wonder, gave rise to this behavior. On one side of your ledger, you’re not being taught as much as you could be, and the group atmosphere too is disadvantageous. What are the benefits of working with this advisor? Are you learning more than how not to conduct yourself in your future? Ask your colleagues or lab manager for an explanation of the PI’s taciturnity, and weigh the pros and cons of continuing on.

Q: I train and supervise an excellent student on a PI-originated project. The student and I share bench work, analysis, and writing 50-50. How will this distribution influence our article authorship?
As: As lab heads responsible for investigations’ caliber and correctness, PIs generally serve as corresponding author. This distinction is sometimes given to postdocs who propose and design a project, with the consequence of transferring not only plaudits but also liability for errors or fraud. Here we would make you first author, and the student either co-first author, given your praise for her/his contribution, or not.

Q: Is it counterproductive to express full honesty on grant proposals?
As: Proposals straddle a fine line. Your goal is to promote yourself and your ideas, yet never at the expense of accuracy. Hampering outside reproducibility by staying silent about open questions or competing factors will call into question your awareness and grasp of the subject, your ethics, or both. Slant toward (your) solutions when expressing necessary reservations. Anatomy of a Research Report gives many examples of how to do this.

Q: Our PI is always touching us on the arms, shoulders, or back. We step away politely but he isn’t getting the message and I have no time to get into a big legal hassle.
As Summary: You can start with a polite unsigned message in his mailbox: “Dear Professor X, We your supervisees ask that you refrain from touching us. This breach of advisor-advisee etiquette is causing us anxiety and inquietude. We thank you for considering our request.” In this way the group remains protected against retribution while informing him of the issue and its impacts. If such a note has no effect, re-send it marked “Copy 2;” and if that second note is disregarded a delegation should speak to your department chair.