How do I kick start my career?

How to kick start your career while you’re still at university?!

A guide to kick-starting your career while at university...

How do I kick start my career?

Knock on doors...

• I went from graduate school in Australia to postdoctoral positions in France and Germany before getting this job in Austria.

• Whenever I start somewhere new, I always make sure to go around and introduce myself. At the very least, it makes you known.

• You find out who has what instrument — information that is not always readily available on the institution’s website.

• Introducing yourself can lead to collaborations.

• If you’re really curious about what other people are doing and what excites them about their research, you’ll naturally find the people you can collaborate with.

Learn the power of yes...

• Learning how to say “no” effectively is a common piece of advice in academia, and I understand why.

• A lot of academics are overcommitted, and that’s a huge source of stress.

• But it’s just as important to learn when to say “yes”.

• If you never say yes, you’re never going to find the things you care about or have the impact you want to have.

• Think regularly and clearly about your long-term goals, and you’ll know when to jump at an opportunity.

• One of my goals is to improve the climate of academia.

• Recognizing that made me rethink whether I should work on so many editorial boards.

• That sort of commitment takes me away from promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. When I was offered a chance to blog for Dynamic Ecology the timing was terrible, but I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t take it.

• Blogging fits with my goals.

• I can’t magically make more time, but I can make the most of the time I have.

How do I kick start my career?

Put yourself first..

• Don’t sacrifice your health and well-being for your career.

• Especially early in your career, it’s easy to say: “I shouldn’t do this long-term, but if I work really long hours now, I can make up for it in the future.”

• That’s a very common mindset, but it’s dangerous.

• I know people who had to leave academia after getting tenure because they didn’t address their mental-health issues during training.

• On Twitter, people will say: “Things are pretty bad but I’ll deal with it later.” They should deal with it now.

• That means: keep working hours under control, make time to exercise, spend time with friends and family and generally enjoy life. And if they need professional help, they shouldn’t wait.

Listen to your lab members...

• A lot of people who start their own labs are afraid to admit how clueless they really are.

• They distance themselves from their students and postdocs because they want to assert control and act like they know what they are doing.

• But that distance can be very damaging. Most trainees have a lot to contribute.

• If you’re willing to listen to them, you could learn from their experience.

• They know whether a lab is functional or dysfunctional, and they might even have great ideas for making it better.

• Supporting your lab members and listening to their concerns could have a big pay-off.

• A lot of trainees waste huge amounts of time dealing with setbacks and self-doubt.

• If you are receptive to their worries and give them encouragement, you can have happier, more energized, more productive lab members. You can’t do this alone.

• Don’t sweat the small details.

• I was stressed out during my postdoc at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, Germany because I wasn’t publishing as many papers as my colleagues were.

How do I kick start my career?

Focus on the fundamentals...

• Interdisciplinary skills are more important than ever.

• Many people try to prepare for an interdisciplinary career by taking a lot of different courses during their Ph.D., but that should be a time to focus on the fundamentals and build a strong technical background.

• After you get a Ph.D., you can take your bag of tools and do a postdoc in a different field.

• You’ll learn things from your new adviser, but you might be able to teach that adviser something as well.

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