Juggling your thesis and job hunting can be stressful. Here are some tips on finding, applying and interviewing for post-doctoral roles when nearing the end of your PhD journey.
Hi, I’m Emma! I have just finished a PhD in Clinical Neuroscience and started my first post-doc role. About a year before I was due to finish my PhD, my supervisor told me I had to start thinking about jobs and consider whether I wanted to apply for a post-doctorate position or go into industry. I knew I wanted to give academia a go, but thought it was pretty far in advance to start thinking about a job. Fast forward and it was only 6 months to go until the end of my PhD, so I thought, “okay, maybe I should start thinking about jobs now” and began to apply to a few post-doctorate roles that I was interested in. All of them came back with the feedback, “we need someone sooner than you can start.” As a result, I found that the sweet spot for applying for job roles was about 3-4 months before finishing a PhD. I know that things can change and sometimes your deadline stretches and stretches, but I found that having a job lined up for afterwards gave me good motivation to finish writing. I also want to acknowledge that it wasn’t easy juggling post-doc applications and finishing a PhD, but hopefully in this article I can give you a few tips to make the process easier!
Finding a post-doc position
When you feel like you are ready and have a bit of time to start applying for post-docs, have a look on websites such as Jobs.ac.uk and findapostdoc.com. Another good place to look is Twitter (or X as it’s now called), as sometimes job adverts will be put on there before being posted on the official job websites. Making a scientific Twitter account, and following lab groups you’re interested in, is a good way to monitor any positions they might have available. An alternative way that I searched for jobs was to directly email principal investigators (PI) explaining that I was interested in their work and asking if they had any potential roles being advertised soon. Often they didn’t have anything ‘in the works’, but occasionally they had a post-doc role coming up and would send it to me once it was live. This is a good way to get your name recognised during the application process too. If you have any questions about a role that is already being advertised, email the PI for a quick video chat. Most of the time they are happy to do this, and again - it’s a good way of introducing yourself before applying for a job. It can also give you a feel for them as a PI and this is just as important as being interested in the research project itself.
Writing your CV and supporting statement
The first job application is always the hardest to do because you have to start from scratch with little idea of what to expect. When writing a CV, the best thing you can do is look at what other people have done; I found relevant CVs online and looked at the post-docs in my current lab to see how scientific CVs were laid out and the information they included. Everyone has their own style, so make it your own, but the most important thing is the content! Also, get your current supervisor to review your first draft, as they have probably seen hundreds of CVs so know what they would look for in a potential candidate.
Supporting statements are a bit tricker as they should be tailored to the job role. Make sure you keep in mind the job specifications when you write the supporting statement! The way I set mine out included:
An introductory paragraph about you, your skills and what you have achieved.
The next paragraph demonstrates why you want the role and why you would be suitable based on the knowledge, skills and personality you have.
The final paragraph summarises everything and reiterates why you think you would be a good addition to the team.
The great thing about writing your supporting statement is that you can re-use this for other jobs you apply for. All you need to change are the technical parts such as the job name (research associate/research fellow etc), the PI/research group name, and the skills that are specified in each of the job specifications. Make sure you’re honest in your statement - you won’t have every skill they are looking for and it’s fine to say you haven’t used a specific method but that you are keen to learn new techniques and develop your skillset.
Application and interview process
Most institutions will have their own job portal. It can be quite a long process filling out all the forms, but I tried to allocate a certain time each week to fill out these applications to ensure I was keeping on top of everything whilst also writing my PhD thesis. Make sure to take note of the closing dates for each application so you don’t forget!
Don’t be disheartened if you get some rejections – this is a common and universal experience. I can personally say that I applied for many, many post-doc positions and got rejected from most of them. I often found that the feedback they gave was generic and it was usually that they had an applicant with more of the skills they wanted, so there wasn’t much I could do about that. If you get an interview, congratulations! This is often the hardest hurdle to overcome so it’s a massive achievement to get to this point. In terms of the interviews I had, each of these was fairly different but I will give you an overview and some general tips. Most interviews will have a presentation section and then a questions section, for which the lengths can vary.
I had one interview where they wanted a 5-minute presentation on “why my skills were suited to the role”. Another interview involved a 10-minute presentation on “your previous research which related to this role”. The final interview I had involved a longer presentation and then Q&A. It can be time-consuming making these interview presentations, but as with the CV and supporting statements, you will be able to re-use these documents and adapt them to the requirements of each job role. In terms of the question section of the interviews, my best advice would be to search for general post-doc interview questions and write bullet point answers down for each example. Most questions I was asked in each of my interviews were based on these, so I had pre-prepared answers which helped with general nerves. A tip would be not to recite word for word; make it seem like you are thinking on the spot!
Interviews can be stressful but give yourself time to prepare as much as possible - I know this can be difficult when writing your thesis, but it will help you perform the best you can!
Final thoughts!
Make a scientific X account (formerly Twitter)
Keep your LinkedIn and ResearchGate up to date
Get feedback from your current supervisor on your CV
Use the job description when writing your supporting statements
Find common post-doctoral interview questions and write bullet point answers
I hope this article has been helpful for anyone that has nearly finished their PhD and is tackling the next stage of applying for post-docs and other job roles. These thoughts were based on my personal experience, but I hope I have given some useful tips and tricks for finding, applying and interviewing for these roles. Best of luck!
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This article was written by Emma Garland and edited by Lauren Wallis. Interested in writing for WiNUK yourself? Contact us through the blog page and the editors will be in touch!