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What principal investigators taught me about my failure to land tenure

nature.com

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

#61

Post by radus »

musicale wrote: post #52

Wow, lots of harsh comments on this page. Academia is kind of a pyramid scheme and there is a huge mismatch between the number of graduates and academic jobs. Moreover, universities are turning increasingly to adjunct faculty rather than adding tenure track positions. Fortunately in the sciences and engineering you can work in industry or government labs; it's a lot harder for people in the humanities and social scie…

I was also surprised by how harsh the comments are, but I suppose it mirrors the harshness of the academic world.

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

#62

Post by AlunAlun »

Lots of harsh comments here, some seem a little short-sighted. I wonder how many are actually from Tenure Track Lecturers? Every field is very different. Some fields value industry experience highly, some care only for publications. Some value teaching experience more than others.

My experience of getting a tenure-track position is that you’ve got to be the right person in the right place at the right time. My academic record is patchier than the OP’s, but it is offset my several years at fairly senior level in industry, which my university values happens to value. And I entered the picture just at the right moment.

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

#63

Post by gumby »

Good nugget in the middle of the article:

> Of course, “be lucky” is not a very useful piece of advice. But some of their advice might help you to recognize and take advantage of your luck.

Many years ago I was told the new-age aphorism “luck happens to those who let it” and at least this unfortunate writer was able to see this.

My wife and I used to quote the statement to each other quite a bit as it happens. It helped make us seemingly more lucky than most.

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

#64

Post by AlunAlun »

gumby wrote: post #63

Good nugget in the middle of the article: > Of course, “be lucky” is not a very useful piece of advice. But some of their advice might help you to recognize and take advantage of your luck. Many years ago I was told the new-age aphorism “luck happens to those who let it” and at least this unfortunate writer was able to see this. My wife and I used to quote the statement to each other quite a bit as it happens. It hel…

Or as Louis Pasteur put it: “chance favours the prepared mind”.

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

#65

Post by christophilus »

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 find number of papers published to be a questionable metric for measuring qualification. It feels similar to judging a software engineer by number of commits. Is this really a key measurement used to determine tenure track?

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

#66

Post by sokoloff »

christophilus wrote: post #65
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 find number of papers published to be a questionable metric for measuring qualification. It feels similar to judging a software engineer by number of commits. Is this really a key measurement used to determine tenure track?

I think peer-reviewed publications measure something closer to "sprint points closed" or "major releases shipped" than commits (because you can break commits nearly arbitrarily small, where a too insignificant paper will fail peer-review).

A primary purpose of an academic researcher is to contribute to the field via research, largely measured by accepted publications where they are the first (did most of the work and writing) or last (group leader/principal investigator) author.

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

#67

Post by plaidfuji »

Landing a faculty spot is about one thing: how much money will you bring in for the department you’re applying to? All these other metrics (paper count, references) are simply indicators of your potential to do that.

Obtaining funding is a function of your existing publication record, network (read: relationships with program directors), but also your ability to sell new ideas particularly as a member of an interdisciplinary team. You can be the best in your area but if you don’t offer synergy with a dept’s other PIs it’s probably a no go.

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

#68

Post by prepend »

I think it’s really valuable to share more failure stories. Lessons learned are common from successes but I have a hard time seeing earnest, true failure stories that help me learn. I mean true failure as ones that don’t involve a super successful person reflecting on a failure that had a silver lining (eg, Odeo->Twitter years into Twitter’s success; countless TED talks) not because they aren’t valuable, they are, but because they are safe and are musings that all have survivor bias because the really bad failures are weeded out.

That being said, this format is weird because it’s a numbered list of advice that is difficult to know how valuable it is for landing tenure. When I re-read it as life coping advice or how to research well, it helps. But phrased as tips for tenure I don’t find it very helpful. Although I’m not interested in tenure and not in that world, so I may not appreciate some of the content. I am really interested in organizational innovation, culture change management, translation, and research and think this is helpful.

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

#69

Post by mattkrause »

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?

Haha. Not quite but we did wait.

The logistical stuff is difficult as a postdoc. A traditional wedding is fairly expensive and time-consuming to plan, and many postdocs are cash and time poor. People often like to have the ceremony near family—-isn’t the bride’s hometown traditional?—-but people move, often very far, to find good positions. Traveling back and forth is also tricky if you have experimental time points or lab animals to take care of, as we did.

More psychologically, being a postdoc is a weird transitional state. I felt odd promising life-long commitment and support to one person, while not knowing if my own job was still going to support me next year. (I was on one-year renewable contracts).

Finally, we were a little concerned that being married could make things more difficult for my wife. Although they shouldn’t, a surprising number of profs are reluctant to take on a postdoc who might be ‘distracted’ with a spouse or kids. Furthermore, if you have a kid as a professor, you often get an extension in the tenure clock, help with daycare, etc. As a postdoc, you can maybe get a little more time on these time-limited fellowships, but that’s about it.

We eventually did get married though (and it’s been great) but waiting was not totally irrational.

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

#70

Post by taneq »

dnautics wrote: post #49
dragonwriter wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

That's still pretty low. In the us at a top tier, which you'll need for most tenure track positions you're expected to have about 5 first authors in five years as a trainee and moving forward into a postdoc a pace of about 1.5 to 2 would be good. Strategic timing by having a really high profile paper come out from grad school around when you're finishing your postdoc probably also helps. But as I indicate in a direct…

Everyone's talking about publication count. Is the quality (influence, number of citations, any other relevant metric) of those publications really so irrelevant?
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