Nature News: it's hard to find postdoc applicants

Via Nature's news service: 

Peter Coveney, a chemist and computational scientist at University College London, is ready to hire a postdoctoral researcher with experience in high-level computing. The problem: he’s struggling to attract a single qualified applicant. Earlier this year, he had to re-advertise for the position after two previous rounds of recruiting failed to produce any qualified candidates. He’s worried that if he can’t bring in someone soon, projects will be left undone and his long personal history of grants and publications could see a slowdown. “I’m extremely concerned about the long run,” he says. “At the moment I’m not running on empty, but I might be before long.”

Madeline Lancaster, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge, UK, can relate to that. In July, she received a total of 36 applications for a postdoctoral position in her laboratory, many fewer than the couple of hundred that she originally expected. “I had been nervous that I wouldn’t be able to go through all of the applications,” she says. Those 36 didn’t lead to a single appointment. “I still have not filled the position,” she says. “There seems to be lots of competition for strong candidates.”

I don't really know what to say about this situation*, other than I am sympathetic towards assistant professors who struggle to find postdocs to get their programs off the ground. That said, I still feel the way I did a while back - this isn't a bad thing for PhD graduates, especially life scientists. If private industry is making the market more competitive for PhD scientists, this will do a lot to increase the lot of all working scientists. 

*Also, good economic times won't last forever. We'll see where we are in 5 years. 

Science: Professors report difficulty in recruiting postdoctoral fellows

Via Twitter, this article: 

When Jennifer Mason posted an ad for a postdoc position in early March, she was eager to have someone on board by April or May to tackle recently funded projects. Instead, it took 2 months to receive a single application. Since then, only two more have come in. “Money is just sitting there that isn’t being used … and there’s these projects that aren’t moving anywhere as a result,” says Mason, an assistant professor in genetics at Clemson University.

She isn’t alone. On social media, many U.S. academics have been pointing to widespread challenges in recruiting postdocs. An investigation by Science Careers bears this out: More than 100 U.S.-based researchers were contacted because they advertised for postdoc positions this year on scientific society job boards, and of the 37 who responded with information about their hiring experiences, three-quarters reported challenges recruiting. “This year is hard for me to wrestle with: … we received absolutely zero response from our posting,” one wrote. “The number of applications is 10 times less than 2018-2019,” another wrote.

I'm somewhat sympathetic to professors (especially early-career professors) who rely on postdocs for their work. At the same time, what we are hearing right now (i.e. professors offering lower wages not being able to compete with industry) is the ideal situation. I hope this is the new normal. 

We'll get a chance to find out if it is. I have not been shy in predicting a relative slowdown in hiring this year, and I imagine that within a year, professors will once again have no problem in selling inferior goods filling their postdoctoral positions. We shall see. 

(I suspect this situation has to do with Trump-era tightening of immigration, i.e. it has been more difficult to get international students and Ph.D. graduates to get visas. I haven't articles contrasting the Biden Administration's positions on this - anyone have relevant knowledge to share?) 

AstraZeneca postdoc program is open until May 26

Via FierceBiotech, AstraZeneca is running a global postdoc program: 

AstraZeneca is throwing open its doors to ideas from scientists near the start of their careers. Through its global R&D Postdoctoral Challenge, the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker will equip researchers to pursue novel approaches to treating diseases.

Like other large drug developers, AstraZeneca runs a postdoc program. The challenge opens up a new way for AstraZeneca to engage with postdoc researchers and students in the final year of their M.D. or Ph.D. by enabling them to receive funding to study their own ideas. David Goldstein, Ph.D., director of the Institute for Genomic Medicine at the Columbia University Medical Center and one of the members of the judging panel, set out his thoughts on the challenge during a media briefing call. 

“It really couldn't be a more exciting time to actually allow the postdocs to define their projects. I think we really are at a transition point where we're moving from using animal models to get guidance about targets and their relevance to diseases, to actually using human biology itself to get guidance about targets. But figuring out how to use human biology to get guidance about targets is tough. There's going to be a lot of big data challenges and other kinds of challenges, and we clearly need new, fresh, exciting ideas. This initiative, I think, is perfectly designed to help identify those ideas,” Goldstein said. 

AstraZeneca is accepting applications until May 26, after which it will whittle the submissions down to a shortlist of applicants who will pitch their ideas to the judging panel in October. The aim is to select the finalists later in the year. AstraZeneca will decide how many positions to fund—numbers from five to 20 were discussed on the call—once it sees how many good ideas it receives.

I presume the vast majority of pharma company postdocs are biologists, not chemists, but as a former large pharma postdoc, I can tell you that we do exist. Like all postdoctoral programs that are not strictly academic postdocs, my thought process is the same: to determine what new training you will be provided, whether or not your work product will be publishable, and what the fate of former postdocs are (i.e. is this a long job interview, or not?) It speaks well of AstraZeneca's current financial outlook at they might be willing to take ~20 folks - I imagine that number is close to the all-time peak, although that's a pure guess. Best wishes to those interested. 

Columbia lawyers argue that postdocs are not employees, they're trainees

Via Gary McDowell, (amidst Columbia University's recent postdoctoral unionization drive), a rather shocking and candid statement from their legal team and research administration:

If provided an opportunity to present evidence to show that postdoctoral trainees at Columbia are not employees under Section 2(3) of the Act, the University will present witnesses including, but not limited to Michael Purdy, Executive Vice President for Research. Dr. Purdy will testify to the following facts to show that postdoctoral trainees are not employees under Columbia University:  

(1) Postdoctoral trainees are merely "trainees" who, despite having a PhD degree, still require significant education, mentoring, and training in order to learn how to successfully conduct independent research....
...(5) Unlike other employees of the University, postdoctoral trainees are not "hired" based on their skills and ability to perform specific job tasks. Instead, the University appoints postdoctoral trainees to research positions based on their fit within a particular lab or with a particular principal investigator and their prior experience conducting mentored research....
(6) The tasks performed by postdoctoral trainees are fundamentally educational and are part of their training.... 

...Similarly, here, postdoctoral trainees seek such positions not to earn a living but to learn - for a temporary period of time - how to conduct independent research under the educations instruction and mentorship of a principal investigator. The trainees conduct research and perform tasks as part of the learning process. Their compensation is also generally fixed and does not vary based on the extent of services rendered. 

As I said on Twitter, I'm sure that the likeliest response is "well, this is language cooked up by our lawyers and we greatly value our important postdoctoral employees trainees..." Also, what does (1) mean for Columbia Ph.D.s and their ability to perform independent research without postdoctoral training? Surely some PUIs expect a research component and are willing to try out a freshly-graduated Ph.D? (not many, granted.)

The median starting postdoctoral salary for 2016 chemistry Ph.D.s was $43,000

Adapted from table 48 of the 2016 Survey of Earned Doctorates

Always little gems tucked away in the Survey of Earned Doctorates, and I am ecstatic to discover for the first time that it tracks median starting postdoctoral salaries for chemistry Ph.D.s, which are around $43,000.

It will be interesting to see if this changes up with the advent of the (discarded by the Trump Department of Labor, still kept by many universities) NIH minimum/post-FLSA overtime threshold of $47,476.

But still, now we know - the most common definite outcome of a chemistry Ph.D. (according to the data that we have) is a postdoctoral position, and the median salary for that position is $43,000. 

A very passionate letter

I'd be remiss if I didn't note this passionate letter from a professor about the "postdoctoral students" vs. "postdoctoral fellow" debate: 

I read with disdain and a shaking head the letter from the editor of the Feb. 27 issue of C&EN. I wish to write in response to your request for feedback. 

Maybe I’m a rare bird, but I viewed every stage within my education as an opportunity, not as an entitlement. In the field of science, as in the trades, one must pay his/her dues and learn as an apprentice before earning journeyman status. For most U.S. postdocs, that means a minimum training period of five years for the Ph.D. and two years as a postdoctoral fellow of an established tenured or tenure-track faculty member. 

As a postdoctoral student, I was happy to earn my < $30,000 salary (mid-2000s), because it represented more than a 50% raise over what I earned as a graduate student at a top-10-ranked chemistry department. Tongue in cheek, I’ll admit that seeing the astronomical salaries U.S. postdocs earn now, I’m a bit jealous. 

Although I could claim to be an expert in one diminutive subfield of chemistry as a Ph.D. graduate, I was still a student, not yet a scholar. This maturation process did not occur the moment my thesis committee shook my hand and said, “Congratulations, Dr. Chamberland.” The work I did as a postdoc, such as mentoring younger students, taking on a leadership role, reviewing manuscripts and grant proposals, and working insane hours were all part of the gig. It was the last training period for the career I had worked toward for 25 years. I understood that. 

Do today’s postdocs expect more? Do they need to be called a scholar too? Who cares. Just put your head down and get to work. If you do something of value, people will recognize you. 

Stephen Chamberland
Orem, Utah

FLSA overtime rule: Federal judge issues injunction, Illinois suspends its FLSA increases

In the news this week, you may have heard that a federal judge suspended implementation of the new Department of Labor FLSA rule regarding overtime thresholds, the one that would have made academic institutions either 1) pay their postdoctoral fellows at or above $47,456 or 2) track their hours and pay overtime for any hours more than 40 hours a week.

In my opinion, this best place to look for up-to-date information on this is Gary McDowell's Twitter feed. He's the head of Future of Research, a non-profit working on scientific labor issues. They are tracking the wildly divergent responses from academia on this issue; decisions are being made on day-by-day (if not hour-by-hour) basis. 

Most relevant to readers of this blog is the announcement that the University of Illinois system is suspending the planned salary increases to postdoctoral fellows. 

As far as what may come, I believe all this legal wrangling is moot. The House of Representatives had already made some noises about suspending the FLSA rule, and it is my strong presumption that, on inauguration, President Trump will cancel this rule on the first day in office. That said, we have no real sense as to President Trump's policies on the overtime issue. 

I also believe that academic institutions have already figured out how they will deal with this for the coming calendar year, and that the more financially stable institutions (read: private universities) will keep those planned increases, and public universities will choose not to increase their postdoc salaries, or will require tracking of hours worked above 40 hours a week. But who really knows? 

2013 SDR: 13% of postdocs in the physical sciences are 6 years or longer

Around these parts, I tend to focus on the Survey of Earned Doctorates, just because it's an annual survey and it's considered to be quite accurate. The National Science Foundation also administers the Survey of Doctoral Recipients, which is a longitudinal study which surveys the same group of Ph.D.-holders year-after-year, with a new batch of Ph.D. holders every year. It surveys about 40,000 Ph.D.s a year. 

I am happy to find that the SDR collects data on postdocs, and appears to track how long postdoctoral appointments last in this table, with the title of "Table 76. Status of postdoctoral appointments among doctoral scientists and engineers, by years since doctorate and broad field of doctorate: 2013." From this, I was able to extract that there were 5400 postdocs in the physical sciences in 2013. Here's their respective years since their doctorates: 

Physical sciences postdocs: 

≤ 5 years since doctorate: 87.0% (4700 postdocs)

6–10 years since doctorate: 9.3% (500 postdocs) 

11–15 years since doctorate: 3.7% (200 postdocs) 

And for the comparison that everyone is wondering about: 

Biological/agricultural/environmental life sciences

Total: 15,100 postdocs

≤ 5 years since doctorate: 80.1% (12,100 postdocs)

6–10 years since doctorate: 17.2% (2,600 postdocs) 

11–15 years since doctorate: 2.0% (300 postdocs) 

You can check my work here. Worth noting a couple of things: 

• Chemistry accounts for the plurality of physical science postdocs, with most of the rest being physicists.
• If you asked me what percentage of chemistry postdocs do more than 6 years, I would have said 5% - looks like I would have been low by a significant amount. 
• Considering that there are about 800-900 Ph.D.s in chemistry that become postdocs every year and we (the United States) get a fair number of postdocs from overseas, it looks like (in 2013) that the clearance rate (rate at which people stop being postdocs) is okay? Hard to say. 

Readers, this is relatively new data to me, so I invite you to offer your interpretations. 

A priceless quote from Chad Mirkin

At the bottom of a Science article about the new overtime rule, a fascinating quote from Northwestern professor Chad Mirkin:

Chemist Chad Mirkin of Northwesthern University in Evanston, Illinois, who sits on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, worries that not only will positions dry up, but perceptions of the postdoc as an “all-out work commitment” that prepares young scientists for a faculty position will change. “When I did a postdoc, money was not my prime motivator—the experience for me (and most who I know) was priceless,” he says.

It's hard to know what to say to such a comment. "Tone-deaf" is a good start - I'll supply my own quote, which is "out of touch with the likely reality of the median postdoc."

I suspect (although I don't have a lot of data) that the median postdoc is a life scientist, who is somewhere slightly older than 30 years old, and has family commitments, or is looking to start some. Could that person use some overtime, a raise (if the PI chooses the exempt status route) or some free time? Yeah, I'm going to guess they could. 

Do I wish that the overtime, the raise or the free time came on my dime (putting my taxpayer hat on), rather than the PI's dime? Yeah, I wish that were true. One more time: I'm in very strong sympathy with PIs who have had this new federal (as of yet, unfunded) mandate foisted upon them. If I were the Emperor of the American scientific research enterprise, I would have phased this rule in over 3 or 4 years. But, I'm not. 

Will postdocs get overtime, if they are under $47,476? Looks like it

As people can tell, I was busy today, but I did want to comment on something that has been brewing quite a while, but was announced today. From the New York Times (article by Noam Scheiber):

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, in a far-reaching effort to improve the lot of workers that has ignited criticism from business groups, announced on Tuesday that it was making millions more employees eligible for overtime pay. 

Under the new regulation to be issued by the Labor Department on Wednesday, most salaried workers earning up to $47,476 a year must receive time-and-a-half overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours during a week. The previous cutoff for overtime pay, set in 2004, was $23,660. 

“This is a big deal to be able to help that many working people without Congress having to pass a new law,” said Ross Eisenbrey of the Economic Policy Institute, an early voice in urging the administration to take up the issue. “It’s really restoring rights that people had for decades and lost.” 

The change is expected to play out in a variety of ways. Once the rule goes into effect on Dec. 1, many workers will receive more pay when they work overtime, but others may end up working fewer hours if employers move to limit their time at work. In other cases, employers may decide to increase the salaries of some workers to push them over the cutoff so that the employers will not have to pay overtime or hire additional workers after limiting hours for existing employees...

Just in case you were wondering, Mr. Scheiber directly addresses the point that most of you are thinking (emphasis mine):

Certain categories of workers, like teachers, doctors and outside sales representatives, continue to be exempt from the regulation, though academics primarily engaged in research are not. 

Over at the Huffington Post, Francis Collins (director of the NIH) and Thomas Perez (the Secretary of Labor) co-wrote a piece, with the final concluding policy announcement (emphasis mine):

In response to the proposed FLSA revisions, NIH will increase the awards for postdoctoral NRSA recipients to levels above the threshold. At the same time, we recognize that research institutions that employ postdocs will need to readjust the salaries they pay to postdocs that are supported through other means, including other types of NIH research grants. While supporting the increased salaries will no doubt present financial challenges to NIH and the rest of the U.S. biomedical research enterprise, we plan to work closely with leaders in the postdoc and research communities to find creative solutions to ensure a smooth transition.

This is a pretty darn big deal, in my opinion. It sure sounds like there are many, many universities who are lobbying the White House very, very hard to make sure that this policy gets delayed (and who knows if a President Trump or a President Clinton would change President Obama's rule?). It is also unclear to me how this set of policies gets enforced. However, if it does, here's my set of predicted policy ramifications:

• If you're a postdoc who is making less than $47,476, you will be eligible for time-and-a-half for any hours that you work over 40 hours a week. 
• If you're a PI that is paying your postdocs less than $47,476, you will have to track your employees time and either 1) pay them overtime, or 2) bar them from working more than 40 hours a week (which, yes, includes checking work e-mail from home.) 
• Postdocs will either get paid more, or work less. 
• Hard to say that getting paid more is bad, but...
• I cannot take 100% pleasure in this, because this is the problem with regulation - there will always be someone stuck with a terrible dilemma, assuming actual compliance: postdocs (who may have limited time to do their work) will be forced to work only 40 hours a week, or PIs who had budgeted for postdoc salaries of (hypothetically speaking) $39,000 a year will be forced to either cough up an extra eight thousand bucks, or cut back the hours of their direct reports. This is a non-ideal way to implement a regulation, I feel. 

It will be interesting to see how this will affect the ~4000 postdocs in chemistry (will it? I presume that most make under $47,476, but I dunno), but I suspect that it's the US biomedical research enterprise that just got a very unpleasant (for employers) shock. Readers, what do you think? 

Whither teaching postdocs?

Over the years, people have asked me about the various programs that bring in new Ph.D.s for "teaching" postdoctoral positions. I've had another such conversation recently, so I'm bringing the issue up again.

I'll be completely up front and say that I'm quite skeptical of them, but I don't have any strong data to back up my skepticism. Here are my qualms:

• Why is the institution hiring postdocs as opposed to full-time lecturers? Isn't this just a money play? 
• What kind of career development program is available to the selected postdocs outside of "here, teach these classes"? 
• If there's a research component, how much support does the PI offer the postdoc? No one likes dual mandates, and I can't imagine PIs are enthusiastic about postdocs that come with outside commitments. 
• What is the track record of the program? 

One of the oldest such programs is Boston University chemistry Postdoctoral Faculty Fellowship program. They note the track record of their alumni; it seems to me that most of those graduates have been hired as assistant professors, so there's that. But a real analysis of their value would ask this: 

• Do the BU PFF alumni get hired as PUI faculty at a higher rate than research postdocs? 
• Do the BU PFF alumni get promoted to tenure at a higher rate than other assistant professors? 
• Do they show better track records in teaching or gaining outside funding? 
• Does the BU program demonstrate "added value"?, i.e. do their alumni outcomes show that they have actually improved participants' chances of getting assistant professor positions? 

We don't actually have any of the background statistics, so I am not sure an analysis of BU's alumni would actually be demonstrative of anything.* 

Now for the other side: I mentioned my skepticism about these programs to a friend of mine who is a retired PUI chemistry professor; to my surprise, he was actually quite positive about such programs. He felt these programs actually offered some level of predictive power to hiring committees, i.e. they demonstrate to hiring committees that they can, at the very least, teach college students something about chemistry. He felt that traditional research postdoctoral fellows could not offer that same data point. He did agree more prestigious PUIs would probably still select research postdocs as assistant professors over teaching postdocs. So to counter my skepticism, I have one data point that was in favor of such programs. 

Readers, as you know, I'm not an academic, so I am undoubtedly wrong somewhere here. I invite you to correct me. 

*What percentage of newly-hired assistant professors in chemistry are actually promoted to tenure? I don't think anyone actually knows. 

Was Peak Chemistry Postdoc in 2011?

Busy day, but I want to follow up on a very old post. This morning, Monya Baker of Nature's news group reports that the number of biomedical postdocs is beginning to fall: 

A decades-long surge in the numbers of US biomedical postdocs may finally have ended. 

From 1979 to 2010 the number of US postdocs in the biomedical sciences has risen steadily, from just over 10,000 to more than 40,000. But in the past three years, the tide has turned, according to official statistics. 

The population of US biomedical postdocs fell 5.5% between 2010 and 2013, to just under 38,000, with losses getting bigger each year, notes a study published on 6 October — although the number of new graduates with science PhDs continues to rise...

From the same NSF survey that the paper is based on (the NSF's Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates), here's the data for chemistry postdocs. I'll try to modify this over today to get something better up:

2001: 3,854
2002: 3,973
2003: 4,135
2004: 4,330
2005: 4,190
2006: 4,045
2007*: 3,952
2008: 3,943
2009: 4,219
2010: 4,179
2011: 4,005
2012: 4,016
2013: 3,850

Looks to me that there has been a steeper drop for chemistry postdocs between 2010 and 2013, with an 8% from between the two years.

It looks like I pseudo-predicted that Peak Chemistry Postdoc would be 2011 (that post was from 2012), but it looks like it was more like 2009. (In this sense, were new chemistry PhDs going to postdocs a leading indicator of problems in the #chemjobs market? I doubt it? Employment tends to be a lagging indicator of issues, although I could be wrong.)

I sincerely hope that the number of postdocs continues to fall, for the right reasons, i.e. only universities who sincerely want TT-level assistant professors to have them will be wanting them. Everyone else who wants their new entry-level PhD hires to have an extra 2 years of experience will should be required to pay for it. It seems to me that the "right" number of postdocs is in the 500-1000 range, but that's a personal preference, really.

* For this number, I chose the "2007 'new'" number. From the NSF: "In 2007, GSS-eligible fields were reclassified, newly eligible fields were added, and survey was redesigned to improve coverage and coding of GSS-eligible units. "2007new" presents data as collected in 2007; "2007old" reflects data as they would have been collected under 2006 methodology. Science fields "communication" and "family and consumer sciences/human sciences" are newly eligible. Data for these two fields are only in 2007new. Science field "multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary studies" is also newly eligible; these data may have been reported under other fields before 2007. "Neuroscience" is reported as a separate field of science in 2007new; these data were reported under health field "neurology" in 2007old and previous years. "Architecture" is reported as a separate field of engineering in 2007new; these data were reported under "civil engineering" in 2007old and previous years. See appendix A, "Technical Notes," for more detail."

Kazakhstan needs to catch up to the Western world

Via @fxcoudert, can you believe these people out on the steppes of Central Asia?!?:

Whitby has made progress in other areas: writing a PhD programme in materials science and engineering, which has recruited students, and developing a master’s course too. Yet without the necessary research tools, life is far from straightforward. ‘It’s a case of how do we deliver the research projects,’ he says. ‘They don’t even understand the concept of post-docs here,’ he adds. Instead students tend to enter industry straight after a master’s or PhD. ‘As an ex-pat faculty this is what we’re trying to overcome,’ he continues.

 For shame! They need to get themselves a STEM glut and fast! 

Ask CJ: anyone else get random applications from postdocs?

A very interesting question from the inbox, written by IFB (lightly redacted for privacy, edited for formatting)

I am an assistant professor at a primarily undergraduate institution (PUI), starting [recently].
We have undergraduates and masters students at my institution, and we focus mainly on teaching, but we do have a strong research component and involve our undergraduates and masters students in cutting edge research. Our department does not have a PhD program. Postdocs and other hired/non-student researchers are pretty much non-existent (our university encourages writing grants to hire them if we get funding through large grants, and I will consider it in the future, but it looks like a relatively uncommon practice).  

Over my short time here, I have received many emails asking to do a postdoc in my lab, or to do research in my laboratory (from undergraduates/masters students who were never enrolled in my institution). Some of the people emailing me have CVs and experience that is quite extensive (and in some cases h-indexes and publication lists much larger than mine), and I am surprised that they do not already have a more permanent position. Talking to other faculty, they also get these requests. In the postdoc cases, the postdocs are often applying for a 2nd or 3rd postdoctoral position. In my responses to them (I would feel bad just to ignore them), I explain the type of institution I work at, wish them luck in their job search and offer suggestions to look at more permanent positions. 

I think this possibly speaks to a few things:

1. These researchers may not be aware of the type of institution that they are applying to, 
2. Perhaps they were not well mentored in their previous postdoctoral positions (In my opinion, your graduate and postdoctoral advisers should help mentor students during their jobs searches and help you think about your future) 
3. The economy is bad enough that these individuals are so desperate they are emailing anyone whose name pops up in their area, and finally 
4. Some of these researchers could be frantic due to the need to secure visa status (at least one has expressed that to me).

Is this a common experience (both from their end as a research and my end as a professor at a PUI) based on what you have heard from the chemical community? What do you think about it?

I've heard about this sort of thing, but I don't really know what it is about. I think it's a combination of Factor 1 (not knowing enough about the positions you can apply for, the institutions that supply those positions) and Factor 3 (they cannot find other work.) (As I have asserted in the past, I suspect that for a large majority of Ph.D.s in chemistry, postdoctoral positions are inferior goods, i.e. they're positions that you take, for lack of a better position.)

I think there's a significant (60+%?) percentage of these applications are immigration-related, i.e. it's a foot in the door to coming to/staying in the United States. But I'm just guessing. Folks, is this your experience? What have you found? 

Retired industrial scientists as postdocs?

From this week's C&EN, a very interesting letter: 

Some students might enjoy doing postdoctoral work, but the majority would like to find a rewarding career. I worked as a postdoc back in the early 1970s when my salary was $10,000 per year. Compared with that, today’s postdocs are lucky in terms of pay.... 

...I strongly support the idea of hiring retired industrial scientists as postdoctoral researchers in academe. With their years of exposure to industrial problem solving and product development, many retired scientists and engineers could contribute a lot to the research programs of principal investigators at universities. And the presence of a retired industrial scientist in a research group would benefit graduate students. Retired industry scientists could nurture grad students by, for example, holding informal sessions on industrial problem solving, thinking in terms of improving a company’s bottom line, addressing applied research problems, and so on. I am interested in contributing as a postdoc. 

Sitaram Rampalli
Orland Park, Ill.

First, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' inflation calculator, $10,000 between the years of 1970 and 1975 ranges between $41,000 and $60,000 in 2013 dollars. Seems to me to be fairly comparable to modern postdoc salaries, if not higher.

Second, I would love to hear about postdoctoral fellowships and why more older/retired scientists aren't hired into said groups. My answer would probably be that 1) older scientists are typically not interested in the $30-50,000 (with no benefits) that postdocs are offered and that 2) principal investigators aren't interested in dealing with direct reports that are 20 years older than they are. Maybe I'm wrong.

(Honestly, wouldn't an adjunct position be a better fit?)

Podcast: Beth Halford on the plight (and joys) of being a postdoc

Beth Halford and I sat down to have a quick chat about the life of postdocs, based on her really interesting article in this week's C&EN. It was really fun and the edited recording is below:

Timepoints:

0:00 - 2:00: What's been the background of postdocs?
4:30: The happiness of postdocs
6:30: The postdocs that Beth knew
7:00: Crowdfunding a postdoc (CJ grossly underestimates the cost of a FTE)
8:55: PIs and their postdocs
9:50: Should we pay postdocs more? Beth on Paula Stephan
11:00: $16/hour
12:00: Why do a postdoc?
13:30: The finances of postdocs
15:11: Jessica Breen's cogent comments on delaying life milestones?
17:15: Are postdocs really broader?
19:45: The postdoc arms race
22:17: The longest postdoc you've heard of
23:55: When will the arms race be over?
27:55: What should postdocs do about getting a job?

Thanks to Beth for a great conversation!

C&EN: Is it wise to do multiple postdocs?

My short answer: no. 

3 true things in that Beth Halford article, and one awesome industrial inconsistency

3 true things and one awesome inconsistency that I was glad to see in Beth Halford's article on the current state of the chemistry postdoctoral fellow in this week's C&EN:

It's the job market: From Kelly O. Sullivan, a very, very good point:

“The challenge that postdocs are facing is probably the same that everyone is facing: a weak job market,” says Kelly O. Sullivan, who manages the Linus Pauling Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowships at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and is the current president of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society.

I wonder if the senior industrial executives quoted in the article would be willing to admit that they were (or at least "the industry" or "the economy" was) part of the problem.

Hey, these salaries aren't so great: It's great to see a look at how inflation affects postdoc salaries:

Salaries reflect another disturbing development: Postdoc chemists seem to be making less money than they used to. According to the ACS survey, in 2005 the median salary for postdocs was $36,000. In 2012 it was $40,000. 

Although those numbers suggest that salaries are edging upward, they’re not when adjusted for inflation, says Gareth S. Edwards, senior research associate with the Department of Research & Member Insights at ACS. “Unfortunately, real dollar value—what that salary will buy you—is slowly decreasing, meaning that postdocs are earning less each year,” he says. From 2005 to 2012, salaries increased 11.1%, while the Consumer Price Index rose 16.1%.

I'll put my cards on the table and say that I am not one of the people who really buys into the "inflation is killing us!!!" theory of the post-recession economy and the Federal Reserve's activities. That said, inflation is still there, and it is interesting to note that like senior citizens, postdocs and other folks who rely on a stipend (that's not tied to merit, or subject to regular raises) are basically on a fixed income. Huh.

Life milestone opportunity costs: I found Jessica Breen's comments about her twin very interesting and true:

Because of the transient nature of the position, many postdocs end up putting off major life decisions, such as getting married and having children, until after they’ve finished their studies. “I have a twin sister, who I think is a good example of a normal person my age who is exactly like me but who isn’t a postdoc,” says Jessica Breen, a second-year postdoc at the University of Leeds, in England. “My sister is married. She’s got a mortgage and a house. She’s just had her first baby. I haven’t even thought about buying a house. I can’t even think about getting married because I don’t have money to do so.”

I wonder what would happen if people said, "if you do this postdoc, you're going to delay getting married or buying a house for another couple of years?" (For the most part, the answer would be, "beats starving, or continuing to be a graduate student.")

Check out this massive disagreement between Dow's Banholzer, DuPont and Vertex: Remember the Banholzer Award, where Dow's William Banholzer said this?:

But you'll notice that a history of postdocing is not among the characteristics that appear in Banholzer's description. "I don't think I need to hire postdocs," he told PCAST. A Ph.D. earned under an excellent professor is sufficient education, he says, because Dow provides newly hired scientists its own training for the work that they will be doing. "They sort of get their postdoc on the job," he notes. 

Here's what other industrial executives think:

Industrial employers’ opinions are more variable, but they still give postdocs an edge. “It is a slight positive but by no means necessary for our jobs,” says Gary S. Calabrese, senior vice president at Corning. “If there is a particular technical need we have and someone has the right skills, it does not matter if it came through their Ph.D. or a postdoc. Having said this, of course those with postdoctoral experience are by definition broader and have a greater chance of being a technical match for us.” 

Pat N. Confalone, vice president of DuPont Crop Protection, tells C&EN that although a postdoc isn’t a requirement to get a job at DuPont, it is a definite plus. “All things being equal, someone who has a postdoc is going to be more attractive to industry than someone without a postdoc,” he says. 

“The majority of applicants that we see have postdoctoral experience,” adds Mark Namchuk, senior vice president of research for North America with Vertex Pharmaceuticals. “A postdoc is not essential, but it is becoming the norm. Aside from the additional experience, it often provides diversification of a scientist’s skill set.”

First, I think "those with postdoctoral experience are by definition broader" is a potential stretch. What is the evidence of this? I think that graduate students and their doctoral and postdoctoral advisers are well-served to make sure that's true.

I think the true test is this: are chemists with postdocs paid more in industry or hired faster than those who do not? I think I have made the case before that there is a potential opportunity cost in salary to taking a postdoc; as I said then, if it helps you get you hired, then it's worth it.

Readers, what do you think? 

Resolved: Applying to Advertised Postdoctoral Positions May Be Unwise. Discuss.

I would like to hear people's opinions about advertised academic (i.e. non-industrial) postdoctoral positions. Isn't it a truism to say that most of the desirable postdoctoral employers do not advertise, yet still manage to fill their labs with armies of fellows?

Aren't advertised academic positions basically saying, "We can't find anyone who wants to work for me unbidden?" Is there anything wrong with that? Assistant professors and such gotta start somewhere, right?

So it might be good for the professor to get experienced hands in the lab. Is it good for the postdoc? I'm not so sure. Even if they manage to do awesome science (and of course, they will), will their employer have the influence to get their postdoc a good next position?

Readers, what say you? 

The postdoctoral labor market in chemistry: opaque?

OneSleepyNerd asks some good questions on Twitter:

I've heard professors complain that they don't get good postdoc applications. I wonder what would happen if they offered more money? 

Lots of synthetic postdocs, but some profs, even in good dpts, can't get applicants.

University of Minnesota professor Chris Cramer observed in reply:

Skeptical. NRC offers HUGE salary, and I've heard sponsors complain of poor applicant pools. $ not primary factor for most. 

& I guess I'd argue that they should compare their reputations against competitors. Its a buyers' market for the "best" PhDs.

I assume that people do not make their decisions based on postdoc salaries, but based on things like the field they wish to study, the reputation of the adviser, the likelihood of the adviser to help them get to where they they want to go (career-wise), geography, their personal 2-body problem, etc. Most of these issues are a balance of quality of life and long-term monetary issues -- increasing someone's pay for 2 years (or so) just is not a enough of a lever to make a difference, I would think. (Of course, graduate students seem to occasionally choose schools based on the stipend, so maybe they do -- who knows?)

[I should note here that I took an industrial postdoc with a large pharma, so my experience was much more like an industrial position than anything else, except that the HR person told me what my salary would be. It was an advertised opening, even. (I love you, back of C&EN.) It was a relatively desirable geographical area, my wife wouldn't have trouble with her career, it was pretty much a done deal. It was nice.]

The postdoctoral fellowship labor market in chemistry seems to be a fairly opaque market on all sides. Students and their advisers don't really know when they're going to graduate and may be loathe to even broach the subject (I know I was a little nervous about it, and I considered my relationship with my PI to be better than average.) Not everyone wants to do a postdoc, and I suspect that given the option, most would not. Salaries aren't really discussed (they're all crummy!) and it is not commonly known who has an opening and who does not. (Professor Cramer noted that he's never advertised, yet gets multiple applications a week.) While the "rumor mill" probably has a fairly decent bead on what is going on, it's not exactly the height of transparency.

I wonder if there's room for someone (ACS, whomever) to facilitate a smoother process of applying for postdoctoral fellowships and for younger professors to get attention?

Readers, what do you think?