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There鈥檚 only one secret to landing your dream postdoc: preparation.
The ease of email means that senior scientists get scores of casual inquiries from potential postdocs. To stand out from the crowd, you should spend hours polishing your CV and crafting personalized cover letters. Investing the time shows that you are driven and dedicated.
鈥淏eing a postdoc is not just a job, it really is the road to your career,鈥� says Peter Hitchcock, director of the University of Michigan Medical School鈥檚 Office of Postdoctoral Studies.
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His first stop on any applicant鈥檚 CV is the publication list. 鈥淧rincipal investigators who train postdocs are looking for someone who is efficient, focused and productive,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hose qualities all lead to lots of data, which leads to lots of papers.鈥�
But it is not the end of the world if you have no first-author papers in press. You can show leadership and responsibility in creative ways, says Giselle Sandi-Tapia, postdoctoral programs coordinator at Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Illinois. Did you write grant proposals with your advisor or teach undergraduate courses? Do your extracurricular activities demonstrate that you can think independently, are good at problem-solving or have other coveted career skills?
鈥淚t has to be a compelling story so that potential employers can speculate what you can do for a place,鈥� Sandi-Tapia says. 鈥淭hey are not looking for a perfect fit; they are looking for someone who can contribute to a program.鈥�
Importantly, comb through your CV for typos, misspellings and grammatical errors, says Claude Maina, a senior scientist at New England Biolabs in Ipswich, Massachusetts. 鈥淔or me, that鈥檚 a big demerit,鈥� he says. Asking two people, one preferably a faculty member, to proofread the text is a good idea, and you should also take advantage of any CV-writing workshops your university offers.
While a CV rarely needs to be customized for each application, the cover letter should reflect knowledge of a lab鈥檚 current projects. How will your experience complement ongoing research? Can you suggest new experiments?
And although not every lab requires a face-to-face interview before accepting a postdoc, be prepared to elaborate on anything you mention in your cover letter if you do get an interview. Everything you say should answer the question: 鈥淲hy should I hire you?鈥�
鈥淚n terms of the postdocs I train, if they have a clear plan in mind and can articulate how working in my lab fits into their plan, that鈥檚 an attractive candidate,鈥� says Hitchcock.
Researching the lab鈥檚 website and publications helps, but you should also ask around and quiz your scientific network to get an up-to-date status report. This will not only improve your application, it will ensure that your dream postdoc truly is the best fit for you.
Stacey Gilk, a postdoc at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana says it鈥檚 important for applicants to do their homework.
鈥淲hen choosing my first postdoc, I wish that I had asked more questions from former members of the lab and other members of the department,鈥� she says. 鈥淚n retrospect, there were a lot of red flags that I either did not pick up on or ignored because I was convinced that it was the right move for me.鈥�
The right mentor, she says, 鈥渧iews your development as an independent scientist as one of the most important parts of their job.鈥�