Great Recession? What Great Recession?

UPDATE: Linda Wang e-mails to note that Bruce Roth's response was indeed noted:

Bruce Roth did say this in our interview: “I understand the difficulty. If you can’t get a full-time position, then you may have to settle for a postdoc, but it’s a red flag.”

-----------

The excellent Linda Wang talks to a variety of hiring managers, recruiters and high-powered folks (including Bruce Roth, a co-inventor of Lipitor, an involuntary Pfizer alumnus and a VP of medchem at Genentech), asking them frequently asked questions on jobs and hiring, including this little gem:

Q: If you see a candidate who has done multiple postdocs, what impression does that give you?

Roth: (SEE UPDATE) It’s often a red flag, because nobody wants to do multiple postdocs. The worry is that you’re doing it because you’re unable to get a full-time position. It makes a hiring manager wonder whether you’re not as good as others who are getting those positions. If you stay in a place for a longer period of time, or if you’re able to get a non-tenure-track position as a researcher, in some respects that’s actually better than doing multiple postdocs.
(SEE UPDATE)

Frishberg: You’re talking to somebody who you know is going to have trouble because for industry, you don’t necessarily need the postdoc. And for academic jobs, you probably do, but not five of them. One or two of them is fine, otherwise it looks like you’re unemployable or do not know what you want to do.

I think that it is possible that both these gentlemen answered, "Well, we know that because of the recession, hiring has been slow and so candidates have had to resort to multiple postdocs, blah, blah..." and their answers were cut out for space. Yeah, that's the ticket. You gotta really love Dr. Frishberg's response of industry positions not necessarily needing postdocs -- you gotta be kidding me, right?

Personally, I know that I was biased against doing a 2nd postdoc because of exactly this concern when I was looking for a job in 2008. I had a choice between the job that I took or another postdoc and thought to myself, "I don't want to do another postdoc!" But a lot of people were not fortunate enough to get a job at that time; in that case, another postdoc was/is better than starving.

As I have asserted a number of times, quite often a postdoc is the modern employment equivalent of an "inferior good", i.e. a choice that people make because they do not have better choices.* (Multiple postdocs have got to be an "inferior good.") How often do you hear of people leaving their postdocs as soon as they get an industrial job? That's how you know it's not a choice that people want to make, it's a choice they have to make. I am disappointed with Drs. Roth and Frishberg that they did not acknowledge this in their answer.

Once again, I am impressed at Linda Wang's ability to get people to answer in the most frank manner possible about hiring. As much as I might be irritated by some of these answers, it's important for job candidates to read them and for them to be on the record. Go and read (and stew, if you're like me.)


*I should note that I am stretching the definition of "inferior good" quite a bit, in that inferior goods are purchased items that are purchased less as the purchaser's income increases (like ramen noodles, for example). A postdoc is not a purchase; therefore, it's probably not an inferior good. 


UPDATE: Linda Wang e-mails to note that Bruce Roth's response was indeed noted:

Bruce Roth did say this in our interview: “I understand the difficulty. If you can’t get a full-time position, then you may have to settle for a postdoc, but it’s a red flag.”