David Jensen, a career specialist in the science industry, offering advice to postdocs on how to succeed in academia.
For the past four years, postdocs and the postdoc offices at Weill Cornell Medical College, the Rockefeller University and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have organized a one-day symposium to expose trainees to the range of opportunities for biomedical science Ph.D.s.
This year's symposium, hosted by Memorial Sloan-Kettering on March 25, featured panelists from the worlds of academia, industry and alternative careers. A reception held later in the day gave the postdocs additional opportunities to network with the speakers.
Department of Biochemistry chairman Dr. Frederick Maxfield discussing the importance of networking.
As a bonus, David Jensen, a longtime talent recruiter for the science industry and regular contributor to ScienceCareers, spoke at a special pre-symposium seminar on March 24 entitled "Career Management 101: Moving from Collaboration to Competition." Mr. Jensen also kicked off the symposium with a primer on job search strategies.
A record 350 postdocs attended this year's symposium, where everyone from a faculty member at a small liberal arts college and a principal investigator at the National Institutes of Health, to science writers, consultants and Dr. Frederick Maxfield, a professor of neuroscience and chairman of the Department of Biochemistry at Weill Cornell, shared their professional experiences and emphasized the critical role of networking in identifying and securing jobs both inside and out of academic institutions.