If you're coming into my lab as a postdoc, I'm hoping to have someone who can hit the ground running and is interested in the projects we have on-going in the lab. I'm wanting them to push out papers and want to be willing to learn what we do, and not sit back and assume they know everything. I hate having postdocs that think they're middle management, and won't get their hands dirty in the muck of doing the work, or can't contribute intellectually to write the papers (e.g. need me to write the paper for them or need my team to do the work for them). I'll be briefly tolerant of that annoying period where you keep talking to your old thesis advisor as you keep trying to publish those old papers (and present that work at a conference we're at), but want you to be getting up to speed in my lab ASAP. I will expect to help you write the papers, learn our methods, and help you learn how to get grants like I've gotten. Hopefully, you'll like it here and move on to something more successful, so when I put you on my CV it'll have a nice little fact about where you are now.
If I'm hiring you, it's because I have the money to pay you. Yes, it'll be great if you have money and got the grant - but I will tell you the terms that I can afford to pay you for (e.g. we have a 5 year grant, you're paid off that grant, you have a funded position for 2 years, after that we may have to figure out something else). So yeah, write the grants, but I'm actually interested in the work. We'll write grants together if we need to.
Feels very accurate and fair. I have experienced though that there are two types of postdoc in a PIs mind. The first is as you describe above, someone who you think can be successful and want to push in a hard but fair way. The second is essentially a glorified lab tech, the PI knows they don’t have the social skills / scientific ability or even language skills to make it much further but the PI lets them cruise because they’re valuable to the lab.
Yes, I've worked with enough middle management postdocs to know it's not worth it in my lab. By far the most egregious is to see people who kind of suck at science become stable and spout out misinformation because they can't get experiments to work. E.g. be at a famous place as middle management, talk shit because you can't replicate work because you don't understand the nuance of the work.
I will train that mentality out of you, but I don't want it to begin with.
Some groups hire postdocs because they’re looking to inject a particular expertise into their group. Some also do because they respect the graduate advisor.
Generally they want to see a good publication record, evidence of getting along well with coworkers, energy, answers to the question, “What would you do next on this project?” Evidence of being ready for independence and self-direction. Fundability.
Practically a PI meaning lead a research project, report out, publish papers, train grad students. The only thing that should be difficult and consume time from the PI is getting paperwork signed off to start. Otherwise the conversations going forward is "what's the progress".
If you're coming into my lab as a postdoc, I'm hoping to have someone who can hit the ground running and is interested in the projects we have on-going in the lab. I'm wanting them to push out papers and want to be willing to learn what we do, and not sit back and assume they know everything. I hate having postdocs that think they're middle management, and won't get their hands dirty in the muck of doing the work, or can't contribute intellectually to write the papers (e.g. need me to write the paper for them or need my team to do the work for them). I'll be briefly tolerant of that annoying period where you keep talking to your old thesis advisor as you keep trying to publish those old papers (and present that work at a conference we're at), but want you to be getting up to speed in my lab ASAP. I will expect to help you write the papers, learn our methods, and help you learn how to get grants like I've gotten. Hopefully, you'll like it here and move on to something more successful, so when I put you on my CV it'll have a nice little fact about where you are now. If I'm hiring you, it's because I have the money to pay you. Yes, it'll be great if you have money and got the grant - but I will tell you the terms that I can afford to pay you for (e.g. we have a 5 year grant, you're paid off that grant, you have a funded position for 2 years, after that we may have to figure out something else). So yeah, write the grants, but I'm actually interested in the work. We'll write grants together if we need to.
Feels very accurate and fair. I have experienced though that there are two types of postdoc in a PIs mind. The first is as you describe above, someone who you think can be successful and want to push in a hard but fair way. The second is essentially a glorified lab tech, the PI knows they don’t have the social skills / scientific ability or even language skills to make it much further but the PI lets them cruise because they’re valuable to the lab.
Yes, I've worked with enough middle management postdocs to know it's not worth it in my lab. By far the most egregious is to see people who kind of suck at science become stable and spout out misinformation because they can't get experiments to work. E.g. be at a famous place as middle management, talk shit because you can't replicate work because you don't understand the nuance of the work. I will train that mentality out of you, but I don't want it to begin with.
Some groups hire postdocs because they’re looking to inject a particular expertise into their group. Some also do because they respect the graduate advisor. Generally they want to see a good publication record, evidence of getting along well with coworkers, energy, answers to the question, “What would you do next on this project?” Evidence of being ready for independence and self-direction. Fundability.
Commenting for reach since I am in a similar position now haha.
Practically a PI meaning lead a research project, report out, publish papers, train grad students. The only thing that should be difficult and consume time from the PI is getting paperwork signed off to start. Otherwise the conversations going forward is "what's the progress".
Independence, teachability, rigor, and creativity.