Monday, December 30, 2013

Waiting and silence this time of year

It's probably safe to assume I won't be getting any calls right now.  Everyone's on vacation, and I'm saving vacation time for interviews I'll (hopefully) get.  As I've said before: I'm very impatient.  Waiting for grants and papers to get reviewed were pretty much the only thing I've had patience for.  I don't know why I accepted the delays on these things, but that's what happened.

I would love to post a pic of my empty lab, but it's a little personal.  But, trust me, it's empty and quiet.  I kind of like the quiet.  I never get it since I live in a major city, and the team-based environment of my lab and household mean I rarely get alone time.  I prefer human interaction, but I get so little alone time that I cherish it.  I love it for a few specific reason:

1.  Meditation.  I don't mean monk-style with chanting.  Just sitting alone and clearing my mind.  I feel fantastic after a good meditation.  It's so relaxing.  I do this when I fish, too.

2.  Getting stuff done.  When I'm not being bothered I get a crazy amount of stuff done.  I can get a week's worth of work done in a day if I'm left alone.  My academia sisters and brothers would agree, I'm sure.

3.  Reading.  Reading is one of my favorite things.  I don't really get a lot of time to do this at home or the office.

4.  Being loud.  I try to be as considerate as possible, so I don't get to be loud.  Blast music, watch YouTube videos without headphones.

5.  Thinking.  In meditation I clear my thoughts, but I get my absolute best ideas when left alone.  I sit there and think about what plagues the current research community and come up with crazy ideas that materialize into awesome things.

Overall, I know I'd get tired of the quiet and turn into Jack Torrance (The Shining), but for this week, I'm going to have the time of my life.

Friday, December 27, 2013

Rejected!


I really do appreciate the schools that email me early on saying they don't want me.  Although the rejection email I got today was weird because this school requested letters from my references.  Does this mean my references wrote bad ones?  My guess would be 'no', but I'll never know.  GMP from The Academic Jungle commented on a previous post of mine writing that I shouldn't read too much into the letters.  I didn't fit in their department, whether because of pedigree, research background, research interest, teaching interests, or all of the above.  Here's what's interesting: I have an 'in' at the university, and they've let me in on some details:

The people they're bringing in are all in a specific field that I'm not in.  I applied to the position because it was a broad posting.  If you're looking for a specific type of candidate, why waste your time on a broad posting and reviewing applications that aren't tied into what you're looking for?  You're wasting your's and all the applicants' time.  Secondly, all the finalists are in an underrepresented demographic.  My demographic is underrepresented, but these are in the stratosphere of underrepresentation (I've never typed underrepresented so much!).  The university wants to diversify, so that's their deal, but I've never once hired with sex, race, tattoos in mind.  I find the best candidate.  I'm sure there are other factors at play, this is just what my 'inside person' told me.

This particular school is an R1 with a department that I'm not a fan of.  However, I adore the city.  I could see myself settling down in that college town.  I guess it's not meant to be.  I still have other opportunities, and I’m going to nail those interviews!

I decided to add an extra category to the job count: Outright Rejections.  Though it'd be a fun addition.  The slash shows how many schools I applied for so far.

Outright Rejections (their loss): 3/29
Phone/Skype interviews offered: 10
Phone/Skype interviews accepted: 3
1st campus visits offered: 0
1st campus visits accepted: 0
2nd campus visits offered: 0
2nd campus visits accepted: 0
Offers: 0

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Family chaos and boredom

I don't know why, but I really don't care about seeing family. I know I should, and I have fun, but part of me (the biggest part) just doesn't care. I love socializing, but every year I'm reminded how little I have in common with my direct and extended family. Maybe because I've been off on my own since I was 17 I didn't develop mutual interests with my family. I'm also the only STEMer from my liberal arts family on my side, and my blue-collar hands-on working family on my spouse's side. But I'm not sure that's it, because most of my friends are non-STEM.  I kind of have this same issue professionally, I'm pretty quick to make friends (I usually develop a set of dependable friends within a month of living somewhere), but they end up being the more detached-from-their-work personalities. We never talk about work when we're together (which makes meetings very difficult) and despise talking work when it's not necessary. I love the work, although not as much as I love open-ended research.

My spouse thinks it's because everyone around us having kids so their interests and conversational direction tends to lean towards kids. Since I don't have them and I'm not yet interested, it's tough to get involved. To me, family just makes it loud and overcrowded. Loud commotion, tons of competing mini-conversations, lots of drinking. It's like a bar...if bars had kids with new toys running chaotically all over the place. I also think I get bored when I visit because there's not much to do in the small cities my spouse and I grew up in. I'm sitting on my phone while everyone is just watching TV or napping.  I'll be heading back to Major City, USA tomorrow and probably end up missing family. This whole situation is very difficult to comprehend how I feel, and I can't wait for the next holiday season. 

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Merry Christmas!

Dear blogosphere,

Those of you that have read, commented, and emailed: thank you so much!  I started blogging because I thought there were a few folks out there that wanted to hear about industry, leaving industry, finding an academic job, (hopefully moving into the academic position), and random other musings.  Writing is cathartic to me, and interacting through comments and emails are super-cathartic.  I honestly didn't think that I would have any readers, and I wasn't sure how long I would want to do this for.  I really love writing and interacting with random people.  The email interactions are fun.  I wish I could post these in my blog since these would mix well with the awesome comments I get.

As I strike the keyboard close to the midnight strike for Christmas day at my parents' house all I want for Christmas is the health and happiness for everyone I know (and, of course, everyone I don't...unless you're a douche...in which case, screw you!).  My spouse says the only thing I probably want is a faculty job.  If it doesn't work out this year, then I'll keep trying, no need wasting Christmas wishes on something so selfish.  And I'm having so much fun writing about everything that, regardless of what happens this cycle, I'll at least keep on typing away.

Here's to hoping that you all get everything you want and need!  Merry Christmas to you all!

cheers!
Phindustry

PS-I know some of you don't celebrate Christmas.  In which case, I advise you spend the day watching this entire YouTube playlist since all the stores are closed:

PPS @ 8am - Being the only early riser in my entire extended family is weird. I went to bed later than everyone and I'm sitting by the Christmas tree drinking coffee and glad I'm on vacation. Maybe I should open everyone's gifts...

Sunday, December 22, 2013

My Christmas amp-mix

The trip home for Christmas gets me in the Christmas spirit. Every year during travel I watch a lot of Christmas specials and movies and play a ton of music and watch YouTube vids. I don't have a lot of time for this with all the decorating, shopping, and incredibly busy work. Christmas this year, more so than normal, really snuck up on me. Maybe because there's less time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, maybe because I've had a lot of stuff going on with work and the search for an academic job. Regardless, here's a few of my favorites that I'm using to get me in the spirit:

The Roots, Jimmy Fallon, Mariah Carey
All I want for Christmas is you 

Stephen Colbert, Audra McDonald
Baby it's cold outside 

The Temptations
Silent night

South Park
Have yourself a merry little Christmas 

Celtic Women/Chloe Agnew
Oh holy night

Michael Buble
White Christmas

Earth Kitt
Santa baby

Jackson 5
Santa Claus is coming to town

Jose Feliciano
Felix Navidad

The last song is especially important because it really reminds me I my childhood. We had a janitor at my school that started the day early and left before lunch every day. During Christmas season he would bust out a guitar and sing at lunch for all of is kids. It was the first time I can remember someone really caring about the holiday and wanting to spread joy. 

Those are just a few. If I get a chance I'll post some more. These combined with Chatlie Brown, National Lampoon, Trading Places, etc gets me ready to tolerate family. Now remember to be good, or Krumpus will get you!




Thursday, December 19, 2013

Lofty PhD expectations

My boss's boss's boss came through my lab and asked me what I was working on. I told him, and he mentioned that he didn't think the direction could work. I explained initial results and he blew them off and said, "Academics have gotten similar results, and those will never be viable products."  There's a real disdain/disbelief in industry of academic results. Well, most industry. I've seen a few situations where they have faith in academic R&D.

This encounter resulted in a lot of arguing. I maintained my cool the whole time. He yelled. And a lot. And a lot more. I sat there and continued to argue, and at the end of the argument he said, "We need to start reevaluating your priorities." Then he left. Now, I'm used to this kind of arguing, and actually I secretly enjoy it since I'm correct most of the time, and learn stuff when I'm wrong.  What happened afterward was interesting...

There's a guy with a master's in engineering on our team that was in the room with us during the argument. He said, "I'm glad I don't have a PhD and don't have to constantly justify my work as much." He doesn't come up with general ideas, he comes up with methods to implement our ideas. He's a great engineer. So his comment got me thinking about expectations. 

As PhDs we have expectations that we are all-knowing, brilliant human beings, that can answer any question in our field. My company has an invisible ceiling in promotion in science and engineering unless you hold a PhD. We are expected to be able to have very productive input in every team meeting for every product line we have. In fact, the person I replaced had a BS, and every time I'm introduced to someone new, they say, this is Phindustry, they replaced Previousperson, but Phindustry has a PhD. It changes the expectations because of the PhD culture. 

But having PhDs, and knowing other people with them, we know how full of shit this is. We know a lot about a few specialized things, and more-than-the-average-Joe about other things, but we're not God. We have holes in our knowledge and abilities.  I don't know how to combat this stigma (which is good, I guess), or if it should be combatted. But I realize that I'm on the offensive/defensive more frequently that our 'lesser' degree counterparts, and I prefer a more casual discussion type of atmosphere. 

Monday, December 16, 2013

I'm impatient

I'm doing an animal study for a new device of mine today. It will be myself, a tech, and one PhD student in a hospital lab. As I'm sitting in the waiting room (I finished my setup rather early, so I'm drinking coffee and eating yogurt) I realized again how much I hate waiting. As humans, we wait. We are social creatures that need interactions to survive. Whether this interaction is meeting up with a friend for lunch, or waiting for a doctor's appointment to look at a mole, timing never works out and someone is always left waiting. I'm sure some statistics guru out there has published something on the probability that two people given a specific meetup time will be there at the exact same time. My guess is it's less than 5% of the time you arrive within 10 seconds of one another. 

This particular study is an interesting one because I am the sole person responsible for this product. I was allowed to deviate from the industry-team concept and pursue this myself. If I had no idea how to cut-down an animal then I would probably even do the animal part of this myself. It's an interesting project because it reminded me more of grad school in terms of how solo I've been. The solo nature of the project is why I'm doing the study right now when no one is back at the home-lab.  I've gotten this project done very quickly because of the solo-nature, as well. This animal study is the only waiting I've had to do other than parts from vendors. And waiting for these hospital personnel to get here is so damn frustrating.

Waiting right now also reminds me of waiting for faculty search committees to get back to me. And because I'm an impatient butt, I can't bear the waiting!  I've been told my impatience is my biggest personality flaw, but have been told that it's also an asset because it allows me to get things done quickly. Unfortunately, there are so many things out of my control. So I'm stuck waiting. And I definitely don't have the patience to learn patience. And as the holiday season approaches fewer things will get done. The one thing I've learned to do is occupy myself. If I didn't have a smartphone, laptop, book, etc, waiting would destroy me. With the holidays coming up, my mind will also be occupied with tidings of joy, and relatives I can't stand talking to. 

Now if I had some annoying relatives to talk to in this damn hospital lobby. 

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Collegiate student-athlete

In my undergraduate years I was given the opportunity to play college sports in the NCAA. Hardly anyone showed up to our games because it's not a popular NCAA sport and some of the college was upset because they feel the team was created only to satisfy certain NCAA regulations. Even though that's true, we were good!

That's beside the point. I reached out to a former teammate (we'll call this person FT). FT has a FT TT AP position at an R1 (sorry, I couldn't resist). FT gave me advice that I should quit my job and get a post-doc. What?!?! FT's reasoning is that academics look at industrial folks as sell-outs. We get paid more, have practically unlimited budgets, and no longer work on understanding the world better. Most of that is true, but I know I chose this position explicitly to get real-world experience I could bring to academia since I noticed a lack of real applicability to most engineering research. Most researchers do crazy things then reach pretty far to demonstrate relevance. That's fine (and arguably more fun and useful), but I like making stuff. Especially considering I want to join engineering departments, and engineers build. So I argued that I would bring something different to the lucky department that takes a chance on me. 

FT argued that I have to show that I can be independent, and that industry work is more team-based with unlimited budget. The post-doc would supposedly prove that I can do effective independent research on a smaller budget. Isn't this what my PhD was? I was self-funded and guided. And my former advisor would back me up. 

My current position melds people of different disciplines into a team. And taking one person away from the team results in a sharp decrease in the team's effectiveness. Academia is more like golf: you're on your own. Plus, it can be a little slow (which I really enjoy).  Maybe it's the former-athlete in me, but I don't feel like I have to go solo to prove that I can work well away from my team. As a solo-player, I was good enough to make this team, why not look at my past experience combined with my team experience to prove I can get things done, instead of treating my team experience like a negative?

Friday, December 13, 2013

What gets done this time of year?

In industry nothing happens right now.  I'm not doing too much since I can't run studies because my techs and clinical collaborators are all taking breaks.  I can't work on new designs since my vendors won't be getting anything done until the new year.  I can't take time off because I need to save vacation time for interviews.  So I'm stuck.  I've been doing some brainstorming and coming up with some new project ideas, but I get tired of brainstorming after a while.

So begins my yearly ritual of reading a ton of articles.  I get to catch up on the newest science.  I remember being busy all of the time in grad school, and with finals, I'm sure professors are busy.  I know that they aren't busy with reviewing faculty apps.  I've gotten several emails saying that things will not happen until the new year.  At this point, is it safe to assume that if the school hasn't queried my references, that they're not interested in me? 

This is also a great time to blast Christmas music and sing along to get in the spirit!  No one's here!  I could run around naked and sing this music if I wanted to!!!

Working on next year's app

I'm working on my job talk right now, and I'm deciding to take a break to write about creating next year's app if this talk doesn't land me a solid TT job. 

I've always played things cautiously, occasionally making the big bet. While I have gotten interest from schools (none from my top 10 schools yet), I've been spending time on my app for next year. As I've said in a previous post, I didn't have enough time to create the application package I wanted to submit. Working full-time in a higher-level position left me with little free time for the research and teaching statements. 

In the situation where I can't find the best combination of city and school, I wanted to make sure that I can submit the best possible application next year. I'm even considering creating a home-lab to get some prelim data. I think this is my cautious nature. Will I have time? Probably not. Will I just accept any random R1 TT job? Probably. 

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Getting a job in the medical device industry PART DUECE

This is part two of my experience of finding an industry job. 

Now that you have a resume tuned to specific job posting, start writing your letter.  The letter is a weird thing. In my current role, I use it as stage two after the resume, after the recruiter/software has filtered the first round of candidates.  The only thing I look for here is whether the letter is generic.  If it's generic, I figure they're lazy, and throw the application away.  Some people actually look in detail.  Either way, write it very focused on what you can provide to the employer. This is generic advice, and I don't have any other tips here other than making sure it flows and keywords and phrases appear here, too. One other small tip: you'll be applying for a ton of jobs; make sure the correct company name and job title appear. I've gotten a lot of letters addressed to the wrong company.

Next up, you go online.  Even if you know someone, you usually have to go online and apply for legal reasons.  Your insider can bypass the recruiter though, which helps a lot.  I had no insiders, except at one company.  So for the other jobs, I submitted online and waited.  About half of them called me without any further work on my end.  For the other half, I went into stalker mode.  Look up everything you can about the company and try to find someone in the group where you think you're applying.  Someone said to use LinkedIn. I didn't use it for personal reasons (bing! Idea for a later post).  What worked for me was random searches.  For example, I found one job posted on a board of some obscure society, and the hiring manager actually put her email in the posting.  So I emailed her.  It look a lot of time to find these contacts, and I seriously felt like a stalker, but it worked out in the end.  In the emails, you have two sentences to explain how you found their contact info and why you deserve an interview.  Hiring is something I don't have a lot of time for, so it needs to be optimized...and short.

After this, comes the first talk with HR.  Strike up conversations about the city and employer (don't ask about the work, salary, travel, etc.).  You just want to show that you have general social skills.  The recruiter will ask questions about your availability, expected salary, and talk-up the company.  Only talk about the availability.

If this goes well, you have your first phone interview.  This was usually with just the hiring manager, they'll ask you an assortment of questions, and are getting a feel for what kind of skills you bring to the table and whether you have a compatible personality.  When they ask you if you have questions for them, don't be generic.  Generic questions encompass: "What's your day like" "Describe your company's leadership structure", etc.  I hate answering these because everyone asks them.  Be clever and find unique questions like: "I've been reading about this medical device tax, how is your company handling it" "What's the hiking like around your area", etc.  This is YOUR chance to determine whether you fit into the group.  You're trying to spark up a conversation.  Remember, you're going to be working with this person A LOT.  The second interview often involved the hiring manager and the team over a conference call with me.  Be sure to get names and recognize voices.  Take notes on what they're saying, and again, look for unique questions.  Your goal is to turn this into a group discussion.  Remember this whole time to be taking notes on whether you are compatible with their personalities.

If all has gone well, then you schedule the on-site interview.  Try to get as much out-of-interview time as possible.  This gives you a chance to check out the city, since you'll be spending more time out-of-work then in-work.  When you meet with the first representatives, be sure to be very appreciative.  For me, I flew out first-class and they gave me a limo.  It was pretty awesome.  You'll meet with between 5-20 people over the course of 1-2 days.  Be professional, but most importantly, keep the small talk and typical conversations out and replace it with unique, interesting conversation. Research the company and all the people you're meeting with.  And again, I can't stress this enough, MAKE THESE CONVERSATIONS.  It might seem like you're being interviewed, but it needs to be two-way.  In this process, there will also be meals.  Take cues from the people you're eating with.  If they drink, then you drink, if they are very formal, you be formal.  You want to relate.  And if you're too stuck up or too sloppy at the table, they'll assume it translates to the work.  Send thank you emails. Short emails.

Some companies had 2nd interviews, some stopped at one.  Treat the 2nd like the first, that's all the advice I have on that.

Now comes the fun part: the offers.  The recruiter will call and make an initial offer and go over bonuses, perks, etc.  Take notes here since you won't be getting a paper (or digital) offer for another day, and the hiring managers will want to talk to you that day.  The hiring managers will ask if you have any questions.  Now's the time to start asking for stuff: salary, bonus, relo, vacation, etc.  You were sucking up this whole time, now the employer has to.  This will be the only time they're really sucking up to you.  After this talk, be sure to be extremely grateful, and tell them you'll let them know in 2 weeks, max.

Talk with those important in your life, maybe make a trip to the city again to see things, explore real estate, etc, then make the call to the one you want to work for.  The hiring manager will work with the recruiter on the details after this.  So what do you do with the offers you turned down (other than cry since you may have taken the wrong job)?  You call each and every person you talked to to thank them and let them know why you didn't take the job.  Be honest, but tactful.  If you didn't mesh with their personalities, mention that you seemed a better fit at X company even though you know you'd have a fun time at Y (that you turned down).  You may be calling these people again when you're hunting.

Overall timeline after applying for a position: 2 days to 1 month for first call; 2 weeks for first phone interview; 1-2 weeks for second phone interview; 2 weeks to 2 months for first on-site; 1 month for second on-site; 1-2 weeks for offer; 2 weeks for decision/negotiation.

So, that's all I can remember, I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but if I think of it, I'll add the edits.  Happy hunting!

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Your research is too applicable?

I got my first official rejection letter.  From my top school.

In my company, when I hire one candidate over another, I can only tell the rejected candidate that we had to go with someone else.  A very generic statement since legal says we can't give reasons (I'll never understand this legal shit).  My rejection letter today was interesting.  It said a bunch of generic crap then, "The search committee determined your research was is too clinically applicable."  The job posting was for a bioengineering faculty member that could work directly with the local medical school to develop new therapies.  This is perfect for me since I've already launched medical products that are saving, on average, 200 lives per hour (according to statistics I got last week).

I have very strong opinions about the difference between science and engineering.  My views might be misguided but I consider scientists as those that search for a better understanding of the universe.  Engineers apply this understand with existing technologies, and scigineers perform some combination of understanding the universe and building things outside of just research devices.  PhDs in bioengineering usually fall into either science or scigineering.  The ones that fell into bioscience may have well just majored in biology.  These bioengineers piss me off because I feel like it should be a requirement that if you have a PhD in ANY type of engineering, that you should be able to solve a first-order differential equation.  Those that do only core biology research for their PhD in bioengineering don't deserve it.  Sorry, you should switch majors.  I've met far too many that can't solve dy/dx=x.  And that really pisses me off if you have a PhD in engineering.  It's a personal opinion that a lot of people hate, but good math skills and engineering are supposed to go hand-in-hand.

My application packet had a lot of scigineering: using new experimental techniques and the data from the novel techniques to drive new types of medical device design.  A strong marriage (non-Hollywood) of science and engineering.  Shit, my official job title is Senior Principal Bioengineering Scientist.  I work in hospitals, develop new therapies, pitch them to the board, do science to understand the problem, and create therapies and save lives.  This is what I'm great at.  So why does the search committee think my research is too applied for a position that works with hospitals to create new therapies?  I understand the search for knowledge, and I have a shitload of fun doing those types of projects, but as engineers, aren't we supposed to have applied research?  Isn't the current biomedical funding landscape better built for applied research?  I was certain this school would be interested given the clinical collaboration they're looking for!  Oh well...

Monday, December 9, 2013

Getting a job in the medical device industry PART 1

If I'm qualified to speak on anything, it's how to get a job in industry.  I've had more success in finding industry work than anything I've ever done, and I've been invited to 12 separate talks at universities and conferences to disseminate this information in two years.  For the record, I applied for 12 positions, got 10 interviews, and 9 offers.  These were all senior level positions as either an engineer, scientist, or engineering scientist, and all with medical device companies, large and small. This is my experience, and I'm sure some HR people might not agree. This worked for me though, and I was sure to talk this over with HR people.  But each company, recruiter, and hiring manager will be a little different.  The job hunt process is a long process, so I'll split this up into a couple posts.

First up, find jobs.  Look at your favorite companies and peruse the postings, and look for consolidated sites.  I used indeed.com.  It's pretty solid, but I'm sure there are others out there.  Do the search for what kind of position you want, and bookmark the jobs that YOU FIT.  Some people say to take a shotgun approach and apply for positions that they're definitely unqualified for, however, you're wasting everyone's time - including your's.  So find the jobs that you think you're a good fit for and begin taking notes on what's important and what's not important.  Try and get a feel for exactly what they're looking for.

Next up, spend at least 80 hours of your life on your resume. Give it to at least 10 people in different roles in the industry you want to enter. Or cycle it amongst students, faculty, and staff. The ideal resume is at max, two pages, is written in a combination of functional and chronological, and has a flow with distinctive sections. The key here is to have a resume that will woo a computer. 

Why a computer, you ask? Each posting has key words and phrases that the hiring manager most cares about. And without someone on the inside to bypass the computer for you, your resume needs to have these keywords to get to the recruiter. Now, there's two aspects to tuning your resume: direct and hidden key phrases. 

Direct ones are directly from the posting. For example, "utilize direct knowledge of cardiovascular principles to design new medical devices and evaluate devices with statistical principles."  In this case, your resume needs to have that you know a) the CV system, b) device design, and c) statistics (or sadistics, as a friend calls it).  The resume will most likely run through an automated search routine looking for these terms before a human even looks at it. Before I continue, a little rant:

What the fuck are we paying recruiters to do?  From what I've seen, some program does all the hard work for them. A candidate uploads her resume to the company's career site, then an automated program decides whether the recruiter sees it. Now the recruiter has a significantly reduced pile that he just has to skim to determine if the recruit is called. The recruiter calls the candidates with decent looking resumes (decent looking being the symmetry, distinct sections, fonts, flow, some content) then passes on those that talk semi-competently on the phone to the hiring manager. The hiring manager does the rest of the interviewing with the recruiter only stepping in to place offers and schedule on-site interviews. Can't all the recruiters be replaced with a travel agent and the hiring manager just take care after the computer? I understand there are some legal issues. But recruiters need to start actually looking at resumes again. Get off your asses, and out the software creators out of business!  Your missing great scientists that can't necessarily play the recruiting game!

But I digress. 

Hidden phrases and words are the key phrases that you think they're looking for. Recruiters know exactly what the hiring manager is hunting for, and having hidden phrases prevents tailoring the resume based on the posting since everyone worthwhile will be tailoring based on the direct words in the posting. The key here is to read the posting a couple times, look at the company and direction, and try to figure out exactly what they're looking for. There are key phrases in the search algorithm or recruiter's head that they don't post online. This makes filtering applications even easier for recruiters since those that are not truly fit for the work will not have the hidden words. Now, you might have these hidden phrases embedded in your resume already since you have the proper experience, however, chances are that you don't. You will get through the filter if you can figure this out. For example, the posting is a generic scientist posting in a medical device company that does GI. You cover the things that are listed up-front in the posting, but you don't have GI experience. You need to look at the company direction, say they're working on new proton-pump inhibitors, or you saw recent patents or conference abstracts on a new stomach stapling procedure.  You also need to figure out if this is a position where you will be in the lab, clinic, working on a computer or on animal models, etc. You can gleam this from words like "hands-on" "hospital", etc.  But you have to figure out what you think they're looking for to insert these key words and phrases in the resume. Or, if you have an insider, have them find out.

For example, one offer I got with a mid-sized major medical device company was pretty generic: drug-delivery scientist. From the posting they wanted a generic scientist: polymer experience, simulation experience, material science, etc. I went deep into the company online and made a conclusion that they're shifting company focus to loading drugs onto existing devices since none of their current products have drug-elution. I also noticed the use of a particular drug, paclitaxel, in one of their European studies. Simple detective work. So I tailored my resume to say less of the stuff they wouldn't find useful, and put in more of the polymer, drug delivery, and paclitaxel language. I got a call in two days. The offer didn't come until a couple months later (I'll talk about timeline in a little).

Work on that resume! I'll post part two later on. 

Friday, December 6, 2013

Being humble/turning into an asshole


I convinced my company to let me attend a conference this week that's mainly attended by academics. I think it can help me in my current work, although I'm also trying to socialize with people from specific schools. It's funny, they're talking to me like I can be their bridge to more funding for their labs, while I'm trying to get out of my current lab. It's weird.

At two talks a few question-askers were kind of rude: challenging the speaker, interrupting, mentioning things that aren't helpful. Grad students are giving these talks. And they're very nervous. The dudes asking the questions have been known for doing this in the past. Talking with a couple other students today we realized that there's a direct correlation of age with asshole-ery as we've come to call it. What about age causes these professors to become dicks?  The plot shows the average dickishness (or asshole-ery) over time. The dashed lines show the standard deviation. I added these because someone was going to say, "I know some guy, Dr. Idontcare, and he's so nice."  Obviously, there are nice ones, and these nice ones know that the impossible, asshole-ey questions can wait until after the talk to ask. 

So, what happens that causes profs to come in at some level of asshole-ery that most the public has and drastically increase over the years?  Why do they suddenly drop off as they near retirement? This is not a trend I observe in industry, it's a flat line in my company and it's subsidiaries. The plot was made after drawing this on a napkin with a couple people I went drinking with after scientific sessions were done. I miss this kind of conference socialization!  All of my industry comrades go back to their rooms and don't leave after sessions.

EDIT: I got an email saying this post was a little difficult to read.  Glancing through this, I agree.  But, I originally posted this in my hotel after a long day and night full of drinking.  I'm not going to edit it, but just wanted to acknowledge: you're correct, it's not that great.  No apologies from me for posting this after having a ton of fun.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

First faculty interview calls!

I was certain no one but a couple R2 schools would call. I've been getting a fair share of emails from R1s!  They're wanting to schedule Skype and phone interviews!  

I feel excited, but I figured the faculty job was such a long-shot, that I kind of applied without any hope. I've even been making next year's application in the meantime. I guess I should be creating a seminar talk instead. 

What's great about this situation compared to my industry search is that I'm already in a great situation; so I'm not as stressed out. In grad school I had a defense date and knew I didn't want to hang around afterwards. This was for monetary reasons, and I hated my advisor. Because of wanting to get out, I spent every waking moment I could spare thinking about job hunting, and doing all sorts of things online. At interviews I felt quite anxious, even though it didn't show. This time around, I feel confident and excited partially because I'm not as desperate, partially because I'm already in a good place career-wise, and partially because I'm anxious about leaving my cushy industry post. 


Funny Researcher had a count on his/her blog, so I thought I'd do the same:

Phone/Skype interviews offered: 9
Phone/Skype interviews accepted: 0
1st campus visits offered: 0
1st campus visits accepted: 0
2nd campus visits offered: 0
2nd campus visits accepted: 0
Offers: 0

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

I love to argue

The title says everything I need. 

I looooooooove to argue. Arguing science, politics, superheroes, anything really. I love it because I've learned so much by arguing with people. I don't have to be correct, I just want to be heard and hear other peoples' opinions.

This brings me to arguments that suck.

When I'm arguing with a boss, they often do not work in my favor. The boss is in a position where they got there by sucking up, being good at their past work, and, did I mention, sucking up.  This gives them the sense that they're always correct. My old advisor (and many other advisors) had the same personality trait. My advisor once said, "I'm the one with a PhD, so I'm correct."  In this particular situation, he was, but countless other times, he was very wrong, and not willing to discuss the experiments that proved it so. In these situations I learned that it's not a fun argument since I won't learn anything AND the other party isn't willing to listen. So I usually just say 'yes, you're right', finish their task, then do what I wanted behind their back. This has worked out quite well. 

But that's bad arguments, what about good ones?  In a good argument, each person comes in with their opinion, then they listen to the other person intently in order to craft their counter argument. This repeats with each person listening and absorbing where the other person is coming from. Each person willing to admit when the other person has a good point. Another trait I like in good arguments is when each person will admit they're wrong. Arguments I have with coworkers at my level, and friends, occur mostly in good ways. I have one friend who take very immature tactics like speaking really loudly or interrupting, but I still learn things and this friend still relents when I've made a good point. 

After a nice argument I get all fuzzy inside, especially when it involves science. But this got me thinking, would I end up being like my advisor, pulling the "I'm your superior, so I'm correct"?  I haven't done that in my current work, and I manage several people. I hope not, because this would also mean people won't want to argue with me anymore. 

This also brings me to a third breed of people (1. Good arguers, 2. Bad arguers): the people that avoid confrontation. I hate these people. Although, I think I hate them because I want to argue, they want to stay quiet, so I end up arguing with myself. Which just makes me look like a fool. This nonconfrontational personality is horrible. And so freaking prominent in America and Asia. This will definitely be something I ask about in interviews: the way the department handles disputes. If they say they wait it out instead of talking, then I will say "goodbye". Actually, I'll probably still accept the job since it's a TT job.  I'm so weak.  

Speaking of arguing, I'm typing this while in a meeting, arguing with people. And I can notice people that fall in each of these categories. But then there's a fourth category: the person who hates the meeting and spends the whole argument on their phone typing in their blog. :)

Monday, December 2, 2013

Holiday visits, small talk, and family

This is an incoherent post of thoughts going through my mind throughout the recent holiday weekend. 

With traveling for the holiday and visiting family and friends, the most common question that pops up is, "How's work?".  

I love talking science, but hate talking work. I always say, "work's awesome", then change the subject. A lot of this is because work stories are usually boring when I hear them, so I figure my work stories are boring. When I talk science or fun things at work (i.e., screwing off, travel, etc), then it's interesting. I prefer to talk about funny stuff, and external activities are more fun to talk about. 

I do this at work, too, which gets on peoples' nerves. We get into science because we love it (I hope), and so we love talking about it. But, do people want to know you got rejected from a journal or just obtained a big grant? Unless the rejection comes with a funny comment (my favorite rejection comment was: "This manuscript is unfit for this journal and any other one").  

This brings me to small-talk.  I don't despise small-talk since people can make it funny and small-talk is a great way to get into more in-depth conversation. My only beef with meeting up with extended family during the holidays is that family is forced and the small talk is even smaller. You choose your friends, not your family, and therefore you don't always have as much in common. So the work talk is inevitable since my family doesn't know enough to converse science. So, I steer conversations elsewhere: stories I heard on NPR, cool facts I discovered, etc. This is where the problems occur.  I'm pretty immature, and bringing up things I find interesting results in immature, but usually funny, discussions. Some extended family did not find this amusing this past weekend. My spouse says they're jealous of my success, car, etc. But why hang out with us then?  This brings me to my final point: I'm going to try to spend Christmas away from my family (except my spouse and dog, of course).  Maybe a mountain excursion. I have a limited amount of vacation time to spend away from the lab since I'm saving vacation time for interviews, and do I want to spend it avoiding work talk?

Part of my want to spend it away, too, is that I really don't like the city I live in. It's a major city with a lot to offer and lot close by, but the weather, personalities, traffic, lack of community, and the high and mighty attitude make me miss my old college town. 

Now starts a huge rant. If you don't like rants, stop reading. Part of why I started a blog was to chronicle PhD life and the faculty search. Writing is also something I find cathartic, and I write in order to rant and get things off my chest. Another part of the holidays is visiting my parents and the in-laws. My parents are incredibly high-strung. There's chaos and questions and hectic everything. But it's nice because I don't have to do anything. No responsibility at all. We get to watch some movies, relax, nap, hike. It's nice for the most part. Their house is reasonably big if we want a little solo time, and my mom cleans religiously and keeps the house well-stocked with provisions. Usually pretty relaxed minus the often chaotic nature, and since they're pretty smart the conversations are decent. Going to the in-laws is a little crazier. My parent-in-laws are lazy as fuck. They are only active when it comes to cooking. Most of the time they're sitting on their asses. And they're pretty unhealthy because of it. This is added on top of being in a very crowded small house: both small and packed full of absolute crap. And all members of the family other than my spouse have aggressive personalities. It's also tough to have the best conversations since current events, science, factoids, jokes, most things are not topics they're familiar with. I run out of neurons to come up with things to talk about though. A lot of TV watching goes on.  Because they have a little land, there is a lot of stuff to do outside at least. On top of all of this, the house always have some kind of issue. And guess who gets asked to fix things: me or my spouse. So it ends up seeming like work. Even my doggie doesn't relax as much. This is all coupled with the existence of kids whose parents aren't here because of neglect on the parents' part and CPS taking the kids away-and depositing them to the in-laws. I feel bad for these kids, but I sure as shit don't want to deal with them. I love kids, but only specific types. And I really don't have the patience to deal with most. Well, I'm about to head on a plane to my relaxing life of waiting for calls from search committees...

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Misperceptions of academia

So I got a comment from someone thinking about making the academia to industry move, and two other people emailed me a couple weeks ago asking about industry. So, since I have free time because spending time with extended family gets tiresome, I thought I'd write about my decision. I was planning on writing about my industry job search later on, too, since I started this blog about my academia search. 

Science_seeker posted a comment with a link on someone else's experience with the academia-industry-academia lifestyles. The link is here if you're interested: http://www.the-aps.org/mm/Careers/Mentor/Career-Choices-and-Planning/Early-Career-Professional/Considering-a-change-in-career-/Transitions-Between-Academia-and-Industry

At the end of the article the author had a set of questions related to the article to get you thinking about which path you'd like more. I thought I'd write the article around the questions to explain my thought process on jumping to academia; then add a little tidbit at the end:

  1. What type of environment do you thrive in?
    I thrive in a fun environment.  And, trust me, I have fun in every environment, but I have far more fun when given freedom.  The freedom is the biggest part.  I have a lot of freedom in my current work, but ultimately, the projects I propose and am put in charge of must be aligned with the company goals.  I decided to work for my particular company because they work on the physiologic system I specialized in, although a completely different part of it.  So I'm still intellectually constipated because I can't branch as much.  My company is a very large one, so I can move to different divisions, but again, I'd be stuck in the types of products that will make money right now and focused on one type of pathology.
      1. Do you like to work independently or as part of a team?
        Why do these have to be mutually exclusive?  As an advisor, aren't you just the captain of a team of very 'green' scientists/engineers?  In industry, I'm surrounded with people more on my level.  This seems like a good point to go off topic: I started off in a standard R&D job, and moved up every 6-12 months 1-2 levels per promotion.  I am currently, the lead engineering scientist for two project of the six of my company's medical product pipeline.  We do a lot of clinically directed science and use clinical need to guide medical device design.  My budget is ~$2 million per year, nonsalary...so just supplies, since salary comes out of a different cost structure.  The products my group come out with are estimated to be responsible for 80% of the company's billion dollar earnings. This is nice because while there's no grant writing, I still have to go to customers, shareholders, and leadership to pitch ideas and get money. And pitching ideas and arguing is something I get off on.  Similar to grants, just less competition, but still a ton of politics.  My experience differs from the article's experience in that I don't only see a small part of the project.  I primarily focus on specialized parts, but I see everything, and reap the benefits or consequences of substandard work (which there isn't much of, but it's still there).  The team approach is definitely there, but I had it in grad school...just different.  Talking to academics, they seemed to agree, in that it's up to your advising strategy whether to instigate a team-based problem-solving environment.  Even in grad school, I worked primarily on my stuff, with some team input from collaborators, undergrads, and even other grad students.  I'll throw in tidbits from my current position throughout the post.
        1. Do you want to run your own lab and be the decision maker or would you prefer to have a boss who directs the research?
          I want to make the calls.  I get to make a lot of calls currently, then pitch said decisions to different internal boards, but they're still my decisions.  The difference is in the freedom of what I can explore.  I have ideas outside of the core specialty of my company (we're a market leader) that I want to pursue.  When other people are directing the research, I often disagree with direction, and because I'm in a position of semi-leadership, a mis-step by management and subsequent medical device market failure will hurt me immensely.  If I fail, I want to own it.  But moreso, I have a ton of ideas and would love to work on them. 
        2. Do you want to work on a particular biological system or question? If you could no longer work on this system, would you be happy?
          I'm sure I could be happy.  I got into my field because I love the work.  But I have waaaaaay more fun when I get to work on what I want. I'm sure our non-biology brother and sister scientists have corollaries to their specializations, as well, that they'd prefer to keep focus on. 
          1. Do you want to write grants?
            My lab in grad school was dirt-poor at first.  I wrote fellowship grant applications to several agencies and luckily was able to self-fund myself AND my research throughout my 4.5 years.  For these fellowships, they went through typical grant cycles: 8-12 pages with tons of supporting documents, submitted through sponsored projects, multiple reviewers, scored or streamlined, managed budgets, etc.  Simultaneous to all of this, my advisor had me doing all kinds of experiments and writing sections of grants he submitted.  We had good and bad success, but when I left the lab he had more money than he knew what to do with (4 NIH grants, 2 NSF, 3 private sources): polar opposite of how it was when I joined the lab (1 expiring NSF grant).  I learned early on not to take comments personally, and how to hob-nob with those that score the grants, and how to modify grants to get the funding you want.  Writing the grants was actually fun, too, because it forced us to organize thoughts on experiment and direction.  It's a skill that I was pissed about picking up at first, but I'm glad I learned it.  Especially since I USE IT NOW (GASP!).  I still have to get money, I just have a different target audience.  As you move up in industry, the blinders are pulled away and even I, an engineering scientist, have to focus on getting money to do my work.  Again, the key difference is I would rather write about my passions, not 'random' industrial work.  I actually had fun working on my Research Statement for my faculty apps.  And that was very similar to a grant, with aims, experiments, and outcomes.
            1. How much importance do you place on publications?
              A ton.  I published into the double digits as a first author in grad school.  I have thrice that in first-author abstracts for conferences.  Publications define the furthest extent of the cumulative amount of human knowledge (see http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/), and this is where one should go if they want to see ground-breaking science.  My current products go into publication (with me as a 2nd-8th author) in the form of a physician publishing their success with the products.  When I do any science or R&D, we keep it on the DL so another company can't scoop us and make their shareholders rich instead of ours'.  I'm far more proud of my publications than patents (8 patents issued, 4 in review).  The application and translational research is something I'll miss, however, my proposed research has a strong translational focus, and I'm only applying to schools with a great relationship with start-ups and the medical school.  There's room for publication and profit. And I want to find it. Although it's a little more difficult when most of your work is device, rather than core-science, focused. 
              1. Do you enjoy teaching and interacting with students?
                This is one of the things I miss the most.  Some student suck, but the amount of joy I would get from watching a student mature into a semi-competant researcher, or understand a concept they previously didn't, far outweighs all the other students that suck. My industrial mentor tells me that being around younger, vibrant people all the time, keeps you young, but I think it also keeps you smarter since you have to keep reiterating the topics.

                Regarding free time: this is part of what turned me off of academia originally, the other parts were grants and pubs, but I've come to not mind these...although I experienced these in a different type of role.  My advisor would tell me that he works 80 hours, but whenever he wants.  This includes service, teaching, and research.  A co-advisor said he works 50 hours a week, and a prof at a separate university said he puts in 20-80 depending on what's going on.  What every single one of them said was, "to be given the ability to teach and do your own research, the service is a small sacrifice."  They all said it was worth the crap.  The latter professor has a very similar background (and personality) to me.  He worked for two years at a separate division of my company before turning to academia, and he said, "if you're a workaholic in academia, you're probably going to be one in industry, and vice versa".  If you love your work it doesn't seem like work, and then you find ways to fit in your time off.  My advisor took about 6 weeks of vacation, and regularly skipped out to spend time with family.  Currently, I put in between 30-80 hours a week depending on what's happening.  And then I have to travel once a month all over the world.  My boss consistently works 60-80 hours/week, and his boss puts in 80-100 not including travel.

                All of this depends on how you are as a person, how fast you work, what type of position you're in, how your boss is, and the growth of your company, or how many grants or pubs you need.  I find the average is that industry people have more free time that the average academic.  But the academics seem to have more job satisfaction on average.  It's an interesting phenomenon.  I have a spouse and dog, and there are no plans to start a family.  And since I only sleep 4-6 hours a night, I have plenty of free time, as I did in grad school.  Most companies encourage the work-life balance, but I know plenty of people that don't take advantage.

                Regarding stress, my friends in academia say that the first 5 years in academia are unbelievably more stressful that the first 5 in industry, but they tell me there's a switch after tenure.  But each person will be different.  I don't usually get stressed from anything.  My spouse says I'm a robot. During my qualifying exams my committee said I seemed too relaxed, and they would try to make me stress. They didn't. 

                One final point is about money.  Professor salaries are mostly public, so you can look those up on your own. My industry offers ranged from $130k to $190k.  My current salary is more than that, but I'm beginning to hit the ceiling for science/engineering pay grades, and I'm not about to move into strict-managerial role.  The benefits are crazy good.  I'm still surprised about the benefits, discounts, and bonuses (from $10k-$40k), but working on problems that I am passionate about is very important, and academic salaries are still good.  

                I think from my answers and the questions and interviews with people I know in academics, I'm currently better suited for academia, but each person is different, and I won't know until I try! If only future Phindustry could tell me if I'm doing the correct thing. 

                Tuesday, November 26, 2013

                Letter solicitation

                "Solicitation isn't good because it will land you in jail"

                That's the quote I got from a friend when mentioning that my referrers (referees?) have been getting solicited for letters of recommendation. 

                I applied to a crapload of schools. I mean, a lot, a shitton...a bunch. I did this to hedge my bets.  In industry (and probably other places) we call it 'minimizing risk'.  I figured a small portion would be contacting me, so I needed to apply to a ton to maximize my chances. It turns out that when several schools are interested in you, they will all email those on your List of References. And those references have to tailor the letter to each school. I'd imagine it's time-consuming so I feel kind of bad. Should I feel bad? My spouse says no because these people want to see me succeed. But I know I would be peeved if I was getting new requests every week to put out letters of recommendation.  When I write letters for people it is time-consuming, and getting ten requests from different schools would tax every last bit of patience have.  And I'm not sure if they're going to get more.  The applications were due three weeks ago, and I thought letter requests wouldn't go out until December at the earliest.  I have no idea about timescale for these things.

                I'm not 100% sure of whether asking for letters is a good thing or just a formality, or what percentage of applicants get pushed to the letter stage, but I'm feeling optimistic. I don't want to get all bundled in a warm blanket of hope only to get it ripped away, leaving me exposed to the elements, but dang-it, I'm going to get excited!  Or maybe I won't. There's nothing I can do about this but sit on my butt, since my advisor said it's bad practice to email the committee just to check up on things. This is really different than the industry job search, where I cyber-stalked my way to multiple job offers.

                The only thing now, is what's the best way to show my appreciation to my references for writing all these letters?

                Sunday, November 24, 2013

                Working your own hours

                I remember reading a quote once from a professor who said, "I love that I can make my own schedule in academics. I can work 80 hours a week, any time that I want."

                I agree with this principle tremendously. Who cares when or how long you work as long as you get your work done?  Some cultures have a work-til-you drop mentality, where I'm supposed to spend 100 hours a week working, and you're put on a pedestal if you do so. Most medical device companies are like this. And I am not. 

                When I'm on my death bed I'm 100% certain that I won't be wishing I spent more time at work. Or reminiscing about what I did while in the lab (except for the fun conversations and screwing around). Untimately, for most us, our impact will be mostly nothing: our work to sit in the Annals of Crazyfield or Society of Upturned Noses Letters getting cited every once in a while. My current work is sitting in patents and products that are actually saving peoples' lives, and making stockholders rich. The products will go down in history, but my name will be forgotten. Now, some scientists and engineers reach great heights, but to reach great heights in specialized fields causes great personal sacrifice. I can't imagine the sacrifice for the rock-stars like Bob Langer at MIT. However, as he's stated, it's a labor of love. A hobbie. I really really love spending all my time with friends and family and hobbies. And even though my work is awesomely fun, it's still not as fun as the things I do outside of work. 

                My mentality might be grim, but life is way too short to spend all of it working. If that's what's fun for you, then fine, but I choose to be reminiscing with family and friends, instead of spending Thankgivukkah alone. When I accepted my industry position, my old advisor said something like, "you only get 10 days of vacation?!?".  The minimal vacation time is alright, but making my own hours is the thing I miss the most. If I feel like taking a long lunch to recharge my batteries before the afternoon then I should be able to. And for some reason, every single person that's overworked seems like a total douchebag, and not someone I strive to be. Even if they are leading the company. 

                I brought this up with my former advisor and he said not to mention that in any interviews (haha, ME getting interviews), or it'll look like I'm lazy. I don't think it's possible, but there must be a way to prove that you don't have to be addicted to work to be successful. 

                Thursday, November 21, 2013

                Writing style

                Putting together my application documents, running them through some faculty member's edits, and working on next year's app if this year doesn't pan out has reminded me how academic writing is different. In my current industrial job I have to do writing. I write to my coworkers, bosses, doctors, and to the FDA.  No one ever has clarification questions, and I've never gotten complaints about my writing. 

                The very first manuscript I produced went though 18 edits with my old advisor. 18!  That's crazy, considering the amount of time it took to go through each one. Although the time got less with each consecutive edit. The amount of edits went down to just a single edit by the time I got my final paper out. My advisor really helped me write more gooder :).  One comment I still got from him and reviewers was that my writing is "too simplified, and should be written more scientifically".

                I have a dear friend that teaches technical writing for the government, companies, and various universities. He's written a book on how to best perform technical writing, and I have him regularly edit my documents. He reorganizes my sentences and changes word usage (English wasn't my first language), but has never said my writing isn't understandable. In fact, he says he understands most of the core concepts of my papers after reading them. This is something I take great pride in. I read scientific articles in my own field that regularly confuse me because they're too scientific. 

                My bud always says his philosophy is that the point of writing is to let other people know your thoughts, results, etc. If you're not writing for clarity, then you're doing it wrong. Period. I mostly agree but with one caveat for scientific journals and presentations: the public is paying for you to do your work. You are lucky enough to be the recipient of tax funds, and as such, have an obligation to let the public know how you're spending their money. Just like in a company, I have a personal responsibility to let my employer know how I'm spending their money. When I was in academia, I tried my best to make sure everyone could understand my talks and papers. This was not just for reviewers and scientific writers, but to make sure that the public could at least understand the basics. It got on my nerves when a presenter at public forums my old university used to put on would present in a way where only the scientists in the room could understand. It is our duty and responsibility to the people who fund our research. And I'll keep writing and presenting in so-called "unprofessional" ways if the most important people, the tax-payers, understand it. 

                Tuesday, November 19, 2013

                Visiting the old lab

                I had to perform a study at a hospital in the quaint city that houses my old run-of-the-mill R1 grad school. So I got to check out the old lab and see what they've been up to. Turns out: not so much. They've published once since I left. Once! 

                I'd understand one pub if the lab was full of first- or second- year grad students and if there wasn't as much money rolling around. But there are several active big grants in their 2nd-4th years. A couple 2nd year grad students, a few 3rd year, a couple 5th year ready to defend, a masters student, a couple techs, and a couple post-docs. To be fair, one of the 5th years was writing a manuscript. So I was wondering what the problem was. Was it that my former advisor got tenure, so he slowed down? We're the kids in the program slow workers? Was it just a slump?

                Then my old advisor asked me to talk with one of his students. The student (let's call him Second Year, or SY) has been stuck for 5 months. He's been building a device to make some crazy measurements but has not been able to get each subsystem working to 100%. Best he's been able to do is 50% on one of them. The rest hover around 10% operational. So I look at this, and begin to explain what I feel is going wrong.  He is unfamiliar with any of the concepts I'm referring to. These are very simple concepts that I know the average undergrad could pick up. It blew my mind. After I got SY's project back on the correct track, and helped a couple other students along the way, my old advisor wanted to go up to his office to chat.

                He had miscellaneous papers piled up all over the place, and looked as though he's been stressed in trying to get the army of researchers he has to do the right things. So I found the answer: the researchers working for him suck. I don't want to toot my own horn, but I was part of a cohort of 3 PhD students that came in at the same time that as he says: "Changed the course of the lab."  The 3 of us implemented proper protocols, changed improper reagents, built new devices, etc.  My old advisor came straight out of grad school and did not have the breadth of experience required if you're going to start new types of projects. We added this experience and the lab started pulling in a crazy amount of money because of it. Since we came at the same time, we left at the same time. And we all thought the lab would have a couple issues, but it appears they're having major issues. So, who's to blame here? I polled my two former cohorts:

                Cohort 1: Old advisor is at fault, he's recruiting the wrong students

                Cohort 2: We did fine with little oversight. The students need to step it up

                I took a different tactic: we didn't leave the lab in a good enough place where 'green' students couldn't keep up the pace. Part of this has to do with the fact that my old school isn't the most highly regarded (even though it is R1), so the students aren't as good. But we knew this, and should have helped the lab more instead of getting our letters and getting the fudge out of there. 

                I'm certain my old advisor will be able to recover, but the core deficiencies are worrying me. I suspect he'll just have to do more babysitting. I hope he's not too attached to his hair...

                Monday, November 18, 2013

                Industrial perks

                This is the last repost from my posts that were deleted.  Sorry for the reposts, but this should be it!  Everything from here-on-out will be fresh.

                The medical device industry is booming. With an aging population and tons of people that don't take care of themselves, we're doing very well. Also, with the heavy lobbying in congress on behalf of the medical-industrial complex (more than oil and defense COMBINED), we've got more money than we know what to do with.

                Because of this there are great perks in the form of compensation (healthcare, pension, retirement, discounts on everything, bonuses, salary, etc).  But I didn't really get into scingeering (scientific engineering) for the money. I like discovering new things, building stuff to help the world (research devices, medical devices), and playing with cool shit. 

                I got reminded why I like industry today. I watched a show where they covered emerging tech, and they highlighted a very cool toy from a start-up in Canada. I immediately recognized the novelty of the product for its potential use in the medical device industry (something that none of the start-up's documentation would point to).  I brought this up my boss, and explained the potential novelty. He was on-board then told me to use my corporate card to pre-order 10 developer units, 10 completed units, and 5 developer kits. Total cost was $6000 on a whim for something that may not even pan out. My corporate card hovers around $100k each month with random things that usually don't pan out. And these are just purchases I make through my corporate card, there are many more purchases made through our PO system. This is, by far, the only thing I will miss when I make the jump to academia (I WILL MAKE THE JUMP). I get to do crazy stuff and play with the coolest toys, albeit in a field I'm not as interested in. Perks are nice, but the technology, science, education, and freedom are where it's at. 

                Sunday, November 17, 2013

                A drunken conversation with an old labmate

                I asked an old labmate to look over my application documents a little while back.  This person graduated a few months before I did and also accepted an industry position.  He/she isn't intending on heading into academia though.  When he/she called me about the docs we started to reminisce about grad school.  We had an unbelievable time.  And we still talk once a week.  For this conversation we decided to talk over a glass (or 9) or wine.  He/she isn't in the same city; this was done over the phone.  And I recorded and transcribed it.  This is not meant to offend anyone.  If you're not a fan of bad language or rude comments then stop reading right meow!  I have replaced the names to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent, and put my own current thoughts about the comments in parens.

                And open curtain!
                *I am sitting at my dining room table, computer in front of me, in my male/female underwear since it's really hot*
                *Ring-ring*
                *Ring-ring*
                *I look at my phone and see my dog, ahhhhhhhhhh*

                Me: What's happening, Lady?
                Lady: Hey Person, what's going on?
                Me: Nothing really, just really hot, and about to pour some wine.
                Lady: I looked at your docs.
                Me: How'd they look?
                Lady: Horrible, but I'm sure you'll get a job.
                Me: Awesome, can you send me it with track changes?
                Lady: No worries.  What's been in your life lately?
                Me: I went to a beach this morning, and you're not going to believe this, but Tina emailed me for a job reference

                (Tina is an old labmate of ours.  One year behind us, and one of the personal, not professional, favorites of our old advisor.  He let her get away with anything: ditching work, not getting anything done, etc)

                Lady: Really? How's she been?
                Me: Meh, she's getting ready for graduation.  I like her, so I'm helping her out.
                Lady: Our lab was the craziest! And she wasn't part of it at all.  She was too stuck up, along with John.  Then never wanted to play around or drink in the office.
                Me: It's not like she's mean though.
                Lady: Remember when I went into their office and tossed confetti everywhere?  Then you switched all of their computers.  She was so mad!
                Me: Yeah, why did we do that?
                Lady: Because her and John (Tina's office mate) never showed up and never got in trouble.  We always got busted!
                Me: Do you think we were secretly jealous?
                Lady: Yeah, I'm jealous that they're still stuck in grad school while we are inundated with awesome. (sarcasm)
                Me: Do you wish that you could have gotten a PhD without really trying, like they do?
                Lady: Oh! Would you rather spend 1 year in a men's federal penitentiary or 10 years in the mountains of Korea with a bunch of monks, living a they do: pure, no entertainment, no sex, etc.
                Me: 10 years in the mountains!  I've heard guy prisons are rough!
                Lady: I would do the prison, that's a lot of life lost!
                Me: But the rape, stabbings, sodomy!
                Lady: It's not that bad, let me Google.

                *click-clacking of a keyboard*

                Lady: Holy shit! This guy was raped every day for a year, and when he told the guards about it, they said, "you liked it," and never addressed the issue.  He was...
                Me: I don't want to hear that stuff!
                Lady: Too bad!

                (He proceeds to give me absolutely horrible details, which I will not type here.)

                Me: That's disgusting!
                Lady: Man, I'm not going to attack my enemies when it's time for justice.  I'm just going to frame them for a federal crime.
                Me: Here's the thing: 10 years in the mountains as a monk, you'll be brilliant and have the best body you've ever had.  And you'll still have all of your body parts.
                Lady: You've never been more correct.
                Me: Well, I have to get going, will be you playing video games later?
                Lady: Yeah, remember how dumb Tina and John were?
                Me: Oh gosh, remember when someone asked you if you helped John out?
                Lady: No...
                Me: You yelled, "What the fuck am I supposed to be doing? Cup his nuts while taking his notes!"  The whole lab was there!
                Lady: Oh yeah, that was hilarious!
                Me: Seriously, I have to go.
                Lady: Next time we get together, we have to drink 50 beers!
                Me: YES!  I love you!  And I will pay!
                Lady: You better, because I fucking love you!  I'm going to glue my pubes to your face!
                Me: Suddenly, I'm glad I moved away.
                Lady: Hugs and kisses!
                Me: Love you, I'll talk to you later!
                Lady: BBBBYYYYYYEEEEEE!!!!!!

                *hanging up the phone, and taking a sip of wine*

                This got me thinking about these two students we were talking about.  Our old advisor clearly allowed these two to do anything.  They did inferior work, and were practically useless for the entire lab.  We were definitely jealous of their freedom.  We had a ton of projects with tight deadlines and lofty expectations.  Our research was self-funded, John and Tina were allowed to syphon off of other projects.

                This got me thinking that we shouldn't be jealous.  We should be grateful we worked like dogs.  We got a breadth of knowledge, learned how to be independent, and we're both in great jobs now.  Is an advisor being selfish and hurting his students when he places all of his responsibility on a few select students, while the others are led to the thought that they may be good students, but are actually quite horrible.  I talked to Tina about this and she said she's not going to have problems finding a job because she's a woman (that comment REALLY pissed me off), but John will have issues because he's not as talented, plus he's a white guy.  I really feel like our advisor should have realized this and evened out the treatment.  I ask anyone that reads this: as an advisor, do you believe in birth-order sociological research?  Are these younger students expected to do less, and therefore are less prepared for the professional world, as is what sometimes happens with siblings?  What should our advisor have done different?

                Regarding the comment that pissed me off: I think there should be initiatives to get women and minorities into STEM fields.  And that's where it should stop.  Job searches should not have any relevance to age, sex, creed, religion, favorite Harry Potter movie.  That's just my personal thought, since it provides a crutch to students, and the system produces potentially inferior science if the best candidate is not getting the job.  My gender is ____________, and my race is ____________.  The only thing I'll say is that I'm not the typical scientist/engineer/attractive human being.  The most qualified person deserves the job.  End of story.  If that means I don't get the job, then that's fine.  I think it's the sportsperson in me: if I lost, I deserve it.  I just have to try harder next time!

                Finding an industrial mentor

                I work in a very small team. Just a few (<5) engineers and scientists, and we're the best darn team in the world of medical devices. Not an understatement if you look at what we've come up with and patents, profits, and lives saved from the products that just a few people came up with. 

                There's one other PhD on the team.  He worked in an academic-type field for a decade before selling his soul to industry, and I've decided that he would be my mentor. I feel very strongly that everyone in every field needs to have a mentor. My old academic advisor even had a senior faculty advisor. My mentor (let's call him old mentor, OM) is a very vocal person. If something doesn't jive with OM, OM will let everyone know about. OM will yell, and never let up whether it's related to work or not. We were talking about academia (OM's the only person that can relate to academia in my group) and OM mentioned how the freedom is the thing most missed. The freedoms to run around campus to catch any random seminar, try crazy things in the lab, and OM is convinced that teaching at a university keeps you young and vibrant since you're around younger people all day (I'm the youngest on my team, and I just turned 30).  OM regularly tells me that he/she missed the academic boat as it was leaving port as OM was getting older. OM's biggest regret is not pursuing the academic route earlier, and constantly tells me that I should get out and do it.  

                I haven't told OM about my current academic pursuit, but I feel OM could potentially help me out by offering sage advice (as OM has been doing throughout my industrial work) and looking over documents and presentations. I don't want to show him for secrecy reasons. After all, he sold his soul. Is it normal to keep stuff from your mentors?  I feel like I'm not utilizing the proper personnel around me given that there is an experienced professional one office down. OM is pretty open with me, and I think would keep my secrets safe, but I'm a little nervous. I know OM would be ecstatic for me if I get a faculty post, but I really don't know. 

                Saturday, November 16, 2013

                The price of freedom

                For some reason some of my old posts got relegated. I'm reposting the ones I find in the next few days. Sorry if you already read these...

                I was conversing with my spouse about the places to which I applied. One thing that came up was cost-of-living. Right now I make significantly more than my spouse (6x). My salary will most likely be halved if I manage the make the switch. I hope it will still be worth it. A lot of academics I talk to tell me I've made the correct call in going to industry (they don't know that I took this job to get experience to bring to academia). They say the money is worth not working on exactly what you want to, also they say having a boss (and the other crappy things that come with industry) is a minor inconvenience given the higher cashflow. But here's the thing: they don't know since most of them have been in academia their whole lives. Just like I can't speak to academia other than from a grad student's perspective. They think that grant writing and teaching will stop in industry. It doesn't. I write to a different audience begging for money and I play politics all the time. Except I get screamed at when something goes wrong

                This brings me to my point: what's the price of (research) freedom?  For me, it will be a cut in my salary by 50%. Moving from a high-level position for a major medical device company is a big move. So I made a pros and cons list. I won't share it unless you want it, but industry won just in pure amount of things on the list. But, when I weighed things (1-10) scale on importance, academia won big-time. The people in academia telling me that I should stay see the $$$, but I'm certain they would get tired of the grind very quickly. But when some douche is monitoring their hours, and telling them not to pursue something interesting because there really isn't a market for it, they'll realize how lucky they are. 

                I suspect this is a "grass is greener..." situation since academics have their own crappy stuff to deal with, but the things I hold most dear (not money and patents) are not in industry, so maybe I'm correct.  And should invest in a lawn mower.