Career Paths
Nick
Folger
Intro to Founder Blog
While my background is in corporate management, strategy, sales and marketing (and entrepreneurship!), I have spent the last five years of my life focused on one thing—trying to be helpful to life science postgraduates in their search for meaningful work. While Bio Careers was officially founded ...
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Lisa
Sproul Hoverman
Reinvention
“I am still making order out of chaos by reinvention”. - John Le Carre, MI6 Spy-turned-Novelist
Nick
Folger
Find your Passion
Having talked with many life science employers and many scientist candidates for their jobs over the past five years, one overarching theme for successful candidates has come to mind. The most attractive candidates are those who have done the deep search to figure out what their “second passion”...
Jennifer
Reineke Pohlhaus
Science Policy: What is it?
Science policy is one of those “alternative” careers for scientists, but what is it really? In its most simplistic sense, it is the policy around science, much the same way we think of business policy, education policy, or housing policy. But there are also complex meanings to...
Ex Lab
Junkie
How to Sabotage Your Promotion in Ten Easy Steps
After two-and-a-half years in my current government position, I have been offered and accepted higher-level acting positions, filled in temporary departmental gaps, and received the accompanying higher-level pay. Others at work, with similar or more job experience, have not been given the same...
Todd
Pihl
The Great Wall of Experience
As a number of the bloggers here have noticed, one of the biggest obstacles that postdocs face in moving into the commercial world is the dreaded “3-5 years of business experience” requirement seen in so many ads. Many times, it seems as if there are no entry-level positions at all!&nb...
Wenny
Lin
Political activities as a post-doc in the government
With the November elections coming up, I began thinking about how “political” you can get while doing a post-doc in the government. In grad school, I was surrounded by classmates who carpooled to New Hampshire on the weekends to do door-to-door campaigning for Obama. I have many friends who ...
Christie
Canaria
Help Me Help You on the Job Hunt
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be taking on another little “project” at work. This one won’t involve pipettes, chemicals, or the lab bench. Instead, it’ll be me, my reading glasses, a few labmates, and piles of resumes (and CVs). A great co-worker recently left the lab for greener pastu...
Marielena
Mata
Who is the Boss? Part 2
Last time I wrote about the boss and how to be a great one. This time, I’d like to write about the qualities to look for in a boss based on my previous experiences. Sometimes I think I’m too subjective about these things but, interestingly enough, when I read articles about great ...
Wenny
Lin
Five cons for doing a post-doc in the government
My previous post included five good reasons for doing a post-doc in the government. It seems only fair that I now list five “cons”: