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What principal investigators taught me about my failure to land tenure

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Re: What principal investigators taught me about my failure to land tenure

#21

Post by fabian2k »

jurassic wrote: post #16
Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #12

23 years of post-doc with 5 first-authors? That's really all you need to know: that's a terrible publication record for someone looking at tenure-track. A decent target is an average of one first/last author paper a year. Two one year and zero the next isn't a problem, but one every five years certainly is. This doesn't even get into the 'careerism' of picking safe but dependable projects; anyone making reasonable ch…

I don’t know the norm of the author’s specific field but I had the same reaction: His publication record is not even in the ballpark of where it probably should be for tenure. I feel so sad that the scientific industry is set up such that guys like this can plod on two decades or more past the point they should have realized they weren’t on a tenure trajectory. Now he’s 40-something and has to start over in something…

I might be a bit too cynical about this topic, but it really should be obvious to anyone in the field that you're not on track to become a PI this way.

If you want to pursue the academic career, you need to focus on that from the start of your PhD. And you really need to be on some position on a track towards full professor after one or at most two PostDocs.

I'm quite confused by the timeline here, though. A PostDoc is usually something around 2 years, maybe 3. Four PostDocs in 23 years is unusual, and indicates positions that are closer to something like a staff scientists usually done by people with permanent positions.

Re: What principal investigators taught me about my failure to land tenure

#23

Post by paultopia »

jurassic wrote: post #16
Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #12

23 years of post-doc with 5 first-authors? That's really all you need to know: that's a terrible publication record for someone looking at tenure-track. A decent target is an average of one first/last author paper a year. Two one year and zero the next isn't a problem, but one every five years certainly is. This doesn't even get into the 'careerism' of picking safe but dependable projects; anyone making reasonable ch…

I don’t know the norm of the author’s specific field but I had the same reaction: His publication record is not even in the ballpark of where it probably should be for tenure. I feel so sad that the scientific industry is set up such that guys like this can plod on two decades or more past the point they should have realized they weren’t on a tenure trajectory. Now he’s 40-something and has to start over in something…

The really bizarre thing about this article is that the headline is about failing to get tenure, but the content is about failing to get a tenure-track job. These are really different things. I would think the author's publication record would maybe put them in the ballpark for a tenure-track job (though maybe not over 12 years, and certainty in a lower-ranked department), but absolutely not for tenure in the sciences.

Re: What principal investigators taught me about my failure to land tenure

#24

Post by aaavl2821 »

From my interactions with students and postdocs in biology (im not a scientist myself but work in biotech), there is a culture in many research institutions that views working in industry as "inferior" and glorifies the tenure track as the only respectable option. Though the odds are terrible of getting tenure even for scientists with top notch publication records, many scientists pursue that path, just as many entrepreneurs think they will start a billion dollar company even when the odds nearly guarantee they wont

I know scientists with PhDs from top-5 universities doing postdocs in highly regarded labs who have only seen a handful of job postings in their 15 years in academia. Many scientists focus solely on the tenure track, and only reconsider after a few years in a postdoc shows them how hard it is

Re: What principal investigators taught me about my failure to land tenure

#25

Post by chrisseaton »

jurassic wrote: post #16
Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #12

23 years of post-doc with 5 first-authors? That's really all you need to know: that's a terrible publication record for someone looking at tenure-track. A decent target is an average of one first/last author paper a year. Two one year and zero the next isn't a problem, but one every five years certainly is. This doesn't even get into the 'careerism' of picking safe but dependable projects; anyone making reasonable ch…

I don’t know the norm of the author’s specific field but I had the same reaction: His publication record is not even in the ballpark of where it probably should be for tenure. I feel so sad that the scientific industry is set up such that guys like this can plod on two decades or more past the point they should have realized they weren’t on a tenure trajectory. Now he’s 40-something and has to start over in something…

Why would it delay marriage? Are people holding out for partners with tenure?

Re: What principal investigators taught me about my failure to land tenure

#26

Post by dragonwriter »

Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #12

23 years of post-doc with 5 first-authors? That's really all you need to know: that's a terrible publication record for someone looking at tenure-track. A decent target is an average of one first/last author paper a year. Two one year and zero the next isn't a problem, but one every five years certainly is. This doesn't even get into the 'careerism' of picking safe but dependable projects; anyone making reasonable ch…

> 23 years of post-doc with 5 first-authors?

No, 12 years of post-doc with 5 first authors: “after working in several postdoctoral positions over the course of 12 years, I started applying for tenure-track and other permanent positions. At this point, I had 19 peer-reviewed publications, including 5 as first author”

> Why didn’t anybody tell this guy to start his career in private industry 15 years ago?

He did start trying that no later than 11 years before you seem to think, since at the same 12 years point referenced is when “[i]n the next 3 years, I sent out more than 100 applications to academic institutions, to the private sector and to government agencies (predominantly in the United States, where I was living at the time).” [emphasis added]

Re: What principal investigators taught me about my failure to land tenure

#27

Post by aaavl2821 »

shmageggy wrote: post #4

Coming from another field, 23 years as a post-doc seems insane to me. Is this common in some fields? I never thought of post-docs as (semi-) permanent positions or something one would spend a major chunk of a career doing. I always thought of it as a transitional position, something people did while they worked on getting their own funding or transition to industry. Am I wrong or are there different standards in diff…

There's a huge glut of PhDs and postdocs in the life sciences compared to the number of jobs available. 8K new biology PhDs each year compared to maybe 2K in CS in the US; probably 25-30K biology postdocs today compared to 1-1.5K CS postdocs.

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=37

Big pharma is cutting R&D left and right, and there aren't enough small companies to provide jobs for all these scientists. There are very few tenure-track positions available, so a career in academia isn't really an option either. Compare this to CS where by the sounds of it there are far more open positions than qualified candidates (not my field, but i hear this all the time)

If you are a smart software engineer who just wants to write good code and have good work / life balance, you can make low to mid six figures at a big company. If you are a smart biologist who just wants to do good science and have a good work / life balance....you don't really have many options. You can be an eternal postdoc, but the work life balance isn't that great, and you're making $40-60K, even in your 30s

Re: What principal investigators taught me about my failure to land tenure

#28

Post by sdenton4 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #25
jurassic wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know the norm of the author’s specific field but I had the same reaction: His publication record is not even in the ballpark of where it probably should be for tenure. I feel so sad that the scientific industry is set up such that guys like this can plod on two decades or more past the point they should have realized they weren’t on a tenure trajectory. Now he’s 40-something and has to start over in something…

Why would it delay marriage? Are people holding out for partners with tenure?

Because you get paid peanuts while working long hours.

Re: What principal investigators taught me about my failure to land tenure

#30

Post by jurassic »

chrisseaton wrote: post #25
jurassic wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know the norm of the author’s specific field but I had the same reaction: His publication record is not even in the ballpark of where it probably should be for tenure. I feel so sad that the scientific industry is set up such that guys like this can plod on two decades or more past the point they should have realized they weren’t on a tenure trajectory. Now he’s 40-something and has to start over in something…

Why would it delay marriage? Are people holding out for partners with tenure?

Dating takes time, weddings cost money, and its hard to drag partner/spouse/family around the globe for each new short-term position. I once worked in a lab that joked about a “celibate for science” lifestyle. I think the PI really actually wanted that for his grad students.
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