Grad students and postdocs, ACS wants you!

From this week's Chemical and Engineering News, a comment from Valerie Kuck and Joel Shulman to grad students and postdocs. It's more or less a laundry list of things ACS can do for you, but here's some of the interesting bits:

“Preparing for Life After Graduate School” (PfLAGS) is a two-day workshop that compares careers in government, academe, and industry and provides information on résumé preparation and interviewing. The on-campus workshop explores how and why to obtain a postdoc, how to conduct a successful job search, how to respond to common interview questions, and what to expect during the first y ear on the job. Attendees can have their résumé reviewed and receive feedback on their answers to interview questions. For details on hosting a PfLAGS workshop on y our campus, contact the society ’s Graduate & Postdoctoral Scholars Office at GradEd@acs.org.

Looking for an academic position? The “Postdoc-to-Faculty ” workshop is offered every year in conjunction with the fall ACS national meeting. Participants learn the nuts and bolts of the academic search process and the roles and responsibilities of faculty members at different ty pes of institutions. Postdocs are also introduced to interactive teaching pedagogies so they can become familiar with some of the research-based approaches to teaching. Academic job seekers are encouraged to participate in the Academic Employment Initiative, a poster session that is held during Sci-Mix at the fall national meeting. This event gives job seekers for academic positions the opportunity to present their research findings and interact with faculty recruiters in an informal setting. [snip]

...ACS offers a wealth of information about and advice on careers in the chemical sciences. By going to www.acs.org/careers y ou can learn about those career activities. They include ACS Short Courses that are offered on-site, online, and on demand; recent articles in C&EN relating to employment; and the recorded series of ACS Webinars. An ACS member can request that a v olunteer career consultant provide free advice on résumé writing, interviewing techniques, and job search strategies. The website also has information on on-site and virtual career fairs that bring together job seekers with prospective employers. 

Later this fall, ACS will survey graduate students in the chemical sciences to learn more about the graduate experience from the student perspective. We urge you to complete this survey , which will help guide both chemistry departments and ACS in better serving the needs of graduate students. ACS welcomes your input as to how the society can best serve the graduate student and postdoctoral scholar communities, and we encourage y ou to submit y our ideas to GradEd@acs.org

Not a word about the employment crisis for young chemists, I guess. Oh, okay.

*Hey, isn't PfLAGs already taken as an acronym?