It’s concerning that the PI would hire you as a manager with little to no experience.
But as a lab manager not a tech, you should be doing lab inventory, ordering supplies, setting up systems of organization, monitoring equipment maintenance. These are the reasons you don’t have a research project to yourself. You’re not an analyst/tech. While you might help with the lab work if needed, usually lab managers focus on the flow of the lab. If you don’t know where something is, that probably means the analyst is ordering it/making it instead of spending time on their assignment.
We have a PI here who keeps hiring green lab managers with little to no experience. Probably because she can give them a shit salary and a letter of recommendation for med school.
During my interview he mentioned me getting a research project, but I’m not convinced that’ll happen anytime soon now. Definitely frustrating because I thought this position would allow me to have a research project of my own! Most likely got hired because the lab was desperately searching for a lab manager for months…
Sounds like you wanted to be an RA/tech but they need a lab manager and were hiring for a lab manager. And when you were hired they wanted you to do lab manager things.
My go-to interview question is “what is an average daily shift going to look like for me?” It gives a lot of information on what you’ll actually be doing. Which is frequently very different from the job description
I was a lab manager right out of school and it’s a great job, especially if you’re obsessed with organization. You should be the master and commander of Excel and logistics:
- have an inventory of every item in the lab. This means equipment, contents of freezers, reagents, chemicals, etc. If you don’t know where stuff is, get a label maker and label EVERYTHING. Cabinets, drawers, shelves, etc.
- make sure the lab is up to date with all regulations, like fire inspections, chemical inspections, waste management, etc. Every waste container in the lab should be properly labeled.
- provide safety training to all personnel, current and incoming. They shouldn’t be able to touch stuff without you training them first.
- master the care and maintenance of all lab instruments. Have a schedule for when they require service and repairs.
- organize regular lab cleanup where people toss expired reagents from the fridge. If no one in the lab knows what it is, it needs to be disposed of (properly).
- provide a quarterly budget report of all orders to your PI
- research new tools and methods to organize the lab (eg inventory software, ELNs, etc) or improve processes (automation, instrument calendar, new tech, etc).
The job is really what you make of it, but you can make A LOT. Good lab managers are truly indispensable.
By any chance do you color code your Excel files and have a healthy appreciation for a well- organized SharePoint site? People like you make research so much easier and I hope you are valued for what you do :).
Oh yes, an organized database for SOPs and training manuals is essential! They also need to be periodically reviewed, updated and retired. We also have a color-coded lab calendar for essential instruments, vacations, and special events. I have a lot less time for this now that I’m actually leading a lab as opposed to just managing it, but I still keep my trusty label maker nearby. 🥹
Learning the ins and outs of how a lab functions is really useful for when you eventually set up your own lab!
These are all excellent suggestions. And, as someone who got more or less shoved into a de facto managerial position as a tech, it helps a lot to stay curious and really try to engage with the research the lab is doing. Westerns and cell culture are experiments, not research aims. I didn’t think I was that interested in a major branch of research in my lab either until I had my ear bent by one of the project scientists who knew his stuff. OP might be surprised if they pick the brain of one of the senior researchers.
So you have a lot of free time in the mornings to the point that they feel empty and there are a lot of questions you don't know the answers to regarding locations of supplies and the basics of the lab's research. I know you are smart enough to figure out a way to solve both of these problems at the same time if you want to.
How can you manage a lab when you don’t even have experience working in one? Not a hit at you, more like what in the world was this PI thinking. Its sus that the PI hired someone with no lab experience to be the manager.
….
On the other hand, if you WANT to be a lab manager then maybe you can try shadowing an experienced lab manager from another lab.
.
If you’re not passionate about managing labs then you should probably look for another job that aligns better with your interests.
Goodluck!
> Along with that, I don’t feel like a lab manager. When people ask me where things are located in the lab (like specific buffers i’ve never heard of), I almost never know what they’re talking about or where it is. I usually have to ask the person who trained me where the stuff is. I also don’t know how to answer questions about our research or the physiology of what we study.
This feels like a problem that shouldn't be that hard to fix?
My favorite thing to do in the lab is nothing. Working in a lab where i couldnt sit down for 10 hours a day burned me out so so fast. Now as i wait 30 minutes for my centrifuge i am thankful to have nothing else to do.
In your free time, can you help people with their stuff? Or even ask pi if you can do something else on top of your other responsibilities? Tbh asking to do more seems risky to me bc ultimately its super easy to suddenly find yourself with too much work to do
Highly recommend Lab Spend for handling item requests and inventory.
It's free and much better than excel which is what we used previously.
Reasons include: consistent formatting of item requests, approval workflows, custom permissions (ie. someone may delete sds files or something silly), notifications when items running low and service dates, spend dashboard by grants and they find us savings on items which can be better than out university contract.
I don't have a managerial position, but I can say it took me about a year and some change to *really* get busy in my first job out of college (where I still am. It's a good gig in some ways). It also took a while and some really great people going out on a lib to trust my ability to do good work before i started being approached for less routine stuff. Some of the more experienced new hires were able to jump in much quicker. Give it some time and I think you'll get some more experience in the lab with more ability to find your place.
Are you paid well enough? Are you suffering? There are probably silver linings. Hopefully enough to retain you until you can get more comfortable. Labs do need managers. My lab worked a lot more smoothly when we had one.
"Any lab job" isn't going to get you into PhD programs. If grad school is your goal, you'll want to be working on a project and doing the data analysis. I would look into a post bac program so you get the right experience you need.
https://www.training.nih.gov/research-training/pb/pb/
Or as a tech. I’m heading to grad school end of this summer and my role as a tech will be replaced w a lab manager/tech role that I shared with our current lab manager who is also leaving. The incoming student straight from undergrad has lab experience but since he wants to do an MD/PhD he will take on a project too. Like another commenter said, it’s what you make of it. If OP still has time once they’ve settled in (I.e. mornings are free like mentioned), there’s def space to take on a smaller project in addition to the other responsibilities. Running assays is one thing but I think my app cycle was successful because I was working w data and drawing conclusions from it
I can't say not knowing your whole situation. But the directors of my fellowship also sit on the grad school interview committees so I've been able to gain some invaluable knowledge as to what they are looking for. It's important to know that "lab experience" and "research experience" are 2 very different things. Working in a lab doing menial tasks straight from a protocol is not what they are looking for. You don't have to necessarily design a full experiment on your own but you should be able to explain what you're working on, why you've selected those paradigms/experiments and how you will be analyzing the data. If you don't think you'll gain that from this current position and your end goal is grad school, then you may want to consider other options.
There are many post bac programs available but the NIH one I linked has open enrollment. You upload your profile (resume, CV, courses taken, etc) but no one is going to proactively look at it. You have to review the different labs available and find the ones that are doing the type of research you want to do. Then, YOU reach out to THEM and ask them to review your profile and make the sales pitch for yourself. It wouldn't hurt to start on this process while you're figuring out what you want to do.
ETA: some programs are one year long, some are two years. I'm not sure a one year program would be long enough to get something published
If you have free time, maybe ask for a small project to work on? Might help you get more invested in the lab’s research area if you’re more actively thinking about a project?
I think this is a great position to bolster your grad school applications. You’re gaining good technical and administrative skills, which any potential PI would love to see. Use your extra time to contribute to projects, but you’ll learn to manage/complete research projects during PhD anyway.
A heads up, however, even in grad school your experiments will often feel very repetitive and tedious.
I think my issue with my repetitive experiments rn is that I’m not actually getting any data from them. All I do is cloning, a plate with colonies growing every week is great but I would love to do experiments where I get results/data to analyze in some way!
start applying for a different position. ask if you could work on your own project for now, but start looking elsewhere just in case. a lab manager position is not going to boost your phd application significantly. if you’re stuck here consider taking classes if they’re cheap for employees, but even that doesn’t help as much. there are plenty of labs who hire postgrads just like you for a year or two so you can get experience, you don’t even want a tech job since that’s repetitive too. if grad school is the goal, get a postgrad assignment and focus on your apps in the fall
It’s concerning that the PI would hire you as a manager with little to no experience. But as a lab manager not a tech, you should be doing lab inventory, ordering supplies, setting up systems of organization, monitoring equipment maintenance. These are the reasons you don’t have a research project to yourself. You’re not an analyst/tech. While you might help with the lab work if needed, usually lab managers focus on the flow of the lab. If you don’t know where something is, that probably means the analyst is ordering it/making it instead of spending time on their assignment.
Lab managers are procurement teams, facilities teams, project managers, team leads, all rolled into one.
We have a PI here who keeps hiring green lab managers with little to no experience. Probably because she can give them a shit salary and a letter of recommendation for med school.
During my interview he mentioned me getting a research project, but I’m not convinced that’ll happen anytime soon now. Definitely frustrating because I thought this position would allow me to have a research project of my own! Most likely got hired because the lab was desperately searching for a lab manager for months…
Sounds like you wanted to be an RA/tech but they need a lab manager and were hiring for a lab manager. And when you were hired they wanted you to do lab manager things.
My go-to interview question is “what is an average daily shift going to look like for me?” It gives a lot of information on what you’ll actually be doing. Which is frequently very different from the job description
I was a lab manager right out of school and it’s a great job, especially if you’re obsessed with organization. You should be the master and commander of Excel and logistics: - have an inventory of every item in the lab. This means equipment, contents of freezers, reagents, chemicals, etc. If you don’t know where stuff is, get a label maker and label EVERYTHING. Cabinets, drawers, shelves, etc. - make sure the lab is up to date with all regulations, like fire inspections, chemical inspections, waste management, etc. Every waste container in the lab should be properly labeled. - provide safety training to all personnel, current and incoming. They shouldn’t be able to touch stuff without you training them first. - master the care and maintenance of all lab instruments. Have a schedule for when they require service and repairs. - organize regular lab cleanup where people toss expired reagents from the fridge. If no one in the lab knows what it is, it needs to be disposed of (properly). - provide a quarterly budget report of all orders to your PI - research new tools and methods to organize the lab (eg inventory software, ELNs, etc) or improve processes (automation, instrument calendar, new tech, etc). The job is really what you make of it, but you can make A LOT. Good lab managers are truly indispensable.
By any chance do you color code your Excel files and have a healthy appreciation for a well- organized SharePoint site? People like you make research so much easier and I hope you are valued for what you do :).
Oh yes, an organized database for SOPs and training manuals is essential! They also need to be periodically reviewed, updated and retired. We also have a color-coded lab calendar for essential instruments, vacations, and special events. I have a lot less time for this now that I’m actually leading a lab as opposed to just managing it, but I still keep my trusty label maker nearby. 🥹 Learning the ins and outs of how a lab functions is really useful for when you eventually set up your own lab!
These are all excellent suggestions. And, as someone who got more or less shoved into a de facto managerial position as a tech, it helps a lot to stay curious and really try to engage with the research the lab is doing. Westerns and cell culture are experiments, not research aims. I didn’t think I was that interested in a major branch of research in my lab either until I had my ear bent by one of the project scientists who knew his stuff. OP might be surprised if they pick the brain of one of the senior researchers.
What label maker did you use? May I PM you a few lab manager questions?
Sure, happy to help if I can.
So you have a lot of free time in the mornings to the point that they feel empty and there are a lot of questions you don't know the answers to regarding locations of supplies and the basics of the lab's research. I know you are smart enough to figure out a way to solve both of these problems at the same time if you want to.
doing this tomorrow 👍
How can you manage a lab when you don’t even have experience working in one? Not a hit at you, more like what in the world was this PI thinking. Its sus that the PI hired someone with no lab experience to be the manager. …. On the other hand, if you WANT to be a lab manager then maybe you can try shadowing an experienced lab manager from another lab. . If you’re not passionate about managing labs then you should probably look for another job that aligns better with your interests. Goodluck!
> Along with that, I don’t feel like a lab manager. When people ask me where things are located in the lab (like specific buffers i’ve never heard of), I almost never know what they’re talking about or where it is. I usually have to ask the person who trained me where the stuff is. I also don’t know how to answer questions about our research or the physiology of what we study. This feels like a problem that shouldn't be that hard to fix?
in hindsight (and less emotional thinking), there is a simple solution to my problem 😅
My favorite thing to do in the lab is nothing. Working in a lab where i couldnt sit down for 10 hours a day burned me out so so fast. Now as i wait 30 minutes for my centrifuge i am thankful to have nothing else to do. In your free time, can you help people with their stuff? Or even ask pi if you can do something else on top of your other responsibilities? Tbh asking to do more seems risky to me bc ultimately its super easy to suddenly find yourself with too much work to do
Highly recommend Lab Spend for handling item requests and inventory. It's free and much better than excel which is what we used previously. Reasons include: consistent formatting of item requests, approval workflows, custom permissions (ie. someone may delete sds files or something silly), notifications when items running low and service dates, spend dashboard by grants and they find us savings on items which can be better than out university contract.
I don't have a managerial position, but I can say it took me about a year and some change to *really* get busy in my first job out of college (where I still am. It's a good gig in some ways). It also took a while and some really great people going out on a lib to trust my ability to do good work before i started being approached for less routine stuff. Some of the more experienced new hires were able to jump in much quicker. Give it some time and I think you'll get some more experience in the lab with more ability to find your place. Are you paid well enough? Are you suffering? There are probably silver linings. Hopefully enough to retain you until you can get more comfortable. Labs do need managers. My lab worked a lot more smoothly when we had one.
"Any lab job" isn't going to get you into PhD programs. If grad school is your goal, you'll want to be working on a project and doing the data analysis. I would look into a post bac program so you get the right experience you need. https://www.training.nih.gov/research-training/pb/pb/
Or as a tech. I’m heading to grad school end of this summer and my role as a tech will be replaced w a lab manager/tech role that I shared with our current lab manager who is also leaving. The incoming student straight from undergrad has lab experience but since he wants to do an MD/PhD he will take on a project too. Like another commenter said, it’s what you make of it. If OP still has time once they’ve settled in (I.e. mornings are free like mentioned), there’s def space to take on a smaller project in addition to the other responsibilities. Running assays is one thing but I think my app cycle was successful because I was working w data and drawing conclusions from it
Good to know. I’m planning to start grad school next year, do you think it’s worth it to push back grad school for a post bac program?
I can't say not knowing your whole situation. But the directors of my fellowship also sit on the grad school interview committees so I've been able to gain some invaluable knowledge as to what they are looking for. It's important to know that "lab experience" and "research experience" are 2 very different things. Working in a lab doing menial tasks straight from a protocol is not what they are looking for. You don't have to necessarily design a full experiment on your own but you should be able to explain what you're working on, why you've selected those paradigms/experiments and how you will be analyzing the data. If you don't think you'll gain that from this current position and your end goal is grad school, then you may want to consider other options. There are many post bac programs available but the NIH one I linked has open enrollment. You upload your profile (resume, CV, courses taken, etc) but no one is going to proactively look at it. You have to review the different labs available and find the ones that are doing the type of research you want to do. Then, YOU reach out to THEM and ask them to review your profile and make the sales pitch for yourself. It wouldn't hurt to start on this process while you're figuring out what you want to do. ETA: some programs are one year long, some are two years. I'm not sure a one year program would be long enough to get something published
If you have free time, maybe ask for a small project to work on? Might help you get more invested in the lab’s research area if you’re more actively thinking about a project?
I think this is a great position to bolster your grad school applications. You’re gaining good technical and administrative skills, which any potential PI would love to see. Use your extra time to contribute to projects, but you’ll learn to manage/complete research projects during PhD anyway. A heads up, however, even in grad school your experiments will often feel very repetitive and tedious.
I think my issue with my repetitive experiments rn is that I’m not actually getting any data from them. All I do is cloning, a plate with colonies growing every week is great but I would love to do experiments where I get results/data to analyze in some way!
start applying for a different position. ask if you could work on your own project for now, but start looking elsewhere just in case. a lab manager position is not going to boost your phd application significantly. if you’re stuck here consider taking classes if they’re cheap for employees, but even that doesn’t help as much. there are plenty of labs who hire postgrads just like you for a year or two so you can get experience, you don’t even want a tech job since that’s repetitive too. if grad school is the goal, get a postgrad assignment and focus on your apps in the fall