need guidance to find new job - dunno what to do - (Mar/06/2014 )
Though his attitude is negative now and surely shows up in interviews etc, hopefully it was not his initial attitude but developed from negative experience...which is of course not a good idea but understandable...
PhD and postdoc jobs are kind of exploitation jobs in academia that keep the nasty system running...therefore in my opinion the best strategy is to leave academia as soon as possible and to find a position e.g. in industry, the younger the better chance to find something.
People who continue being postdoc and switch from one project to the next either need a good network and a sufficiently number of papers and experience helping them to easily can find new projects, or a place were they can write proposals and stay longer. And later perhaps even find a permanent position even if not professor (but this is like a lottery win and not possible in every academic system). Therefore it's a risky strategy that produces losers too (I also know several postdocs with European origin that are now cab drivers or work in other underpaid positions and are not happy at all). So very few stay in academia but have positions everywhere, from governmental institutes, companies, private labs, publishers, consultants etc etc...(for this it's good to have additional qualifications that help you to find an entry and leave postdoc world).
BTW technicians in Europe and US/Canada seem to be quite different, in Europe it's usually a job that requires a training as technician and then you stay tech until retirement, they're not paid well but have relatively often a permanent position. Anyway usually they do not study and then become a PhD etc, but if, they would have to start as an undergraduate.
Edit: a late additional comment for goggi: Your situation is surely not nice, but please avoid comparisons with nazi labour camps; they were very very different compared with your situation, as they were deathly places build to do genocide.
Dear Goggi,
I can understand your frustration at not being able to find a job and having to do physical labour to make ends meet, when you have a specialization in a very good field. Your frustration comes from the fact that you spent a good period of your life to make a career in science and now when you really want your hard work to bear fruit, you have to spend more time and effort to just make a simple living. I could not agree more that getting a job in science is next to impossible for a outsider in Europe at this point in time and the promise that PhD once held is nowhere near what it was supposed to be.
I was in a similar position a few years ago and that was when I decided to move back to my home country. First and foremost, you do not have to pay over the top for house rent and heating bills and that drastically reduces the pressure on you. You will have the support of your family and friends through this tough time. Yes, you will not be a part of ground breaking research in your home country but you are not doing that in Europe either. So, why stay there and spend the best years of your life doing something a forklift can do. If you look carefully, there should still be a fair number of institutes that must be looking for PhD candidates to fill positions in say academia/ marketing/ consulting etc. It is just about you looking for the right type of job that will suit you. I know a few people who have PhD's and are working as technical consultants/ marketing heads for multinational companies wishing to sell their life sciences products and services in India.
Do not lose hope and surrender to some job that you do not like. Yes, sometimes, you have to do it, it makes you humble (a little too frustrated) and can really help you pay your bills. But when it frustrates you so much that you start questioning your previous decisions you have break free. And if you are scared about going back to your home country without the security of a job, you should not really worry. If you have survived a PhD, then you can survive it all.
a couple of points:
1) I wish I could back home, but the country from wich I am originally has GDP per capita which is similar to Albania, El Salvador, Mongolia. There are no positions in academia, consulting etc. No international company wants to sell anything (except cell phones) to the country because there is no money in the country. There is no jobs, no prospectives, nothing. If I only could, I would rather go to India, Brazil or South Africa, because the life level is much higher there. Generally, the offered wages do not allow you to make ends meet. For instance, a single working individual cannot afford to rent a flat!
2) I receive 2 000 dollars after taxes per month in North America as a postdoc. I do not know if this is a decent payment accordingly to american standards. Please, take into account also the 60-70 hours working week. No wonder, we do not have any native citizen in our group. I would go immidiately in any other place on this planet , if I was offered better conditions or at least 40-hours working week.
3) This part was removed.
I am not glorifying nazism. I equally disguised by any kind of anti-human ideology. But it is terrible that having 10 years of education in biology, I got trapped in the same conditions as prisoner in gulag or labor camp without any hope for better future.
Actually, academia destroyed my life. I engaged in something that doesn't make any sence. While I was doing research, the situation in my country of origin became much-much worth. Those who have already jobs struggle to maintain those despite wages cut. it is nearly impossible to get a job for fresh graduates.
4) I do not know how to stay positive if it took me several months to find even this slave job !
5) I engaged in one of these "3 years" PhD in Europe. I believe that it is impossible to publish anything if you start project from absolute scratch, do not have support or mentoring from supervisor etc etc. I see growing number of such offers (3 year funded PhD position somewhere in Europe). Stay away from these! They are generally rubbish !
6) I do not understand why in industry they do not want accept people with PhD because they are overqualified even if I ready to work for whatever money. On the other hand, in academia now they require phd degree for even technician job! It does not make any sence to me.
in response to:
5) if you started your phd research from scratch then you should have publishable results. if you presented a thesis then you should have publishable results. you just have to write them up.
6) industry refrains from hiring "overqualified" individuals because they expect them to continue their job hunt, even after being hired, until they find a job that fits their qualifications (happened to people i know).
2) depending on where in the states you are will determine whether $2k/month after taxes is acceptable. some places are less expensive than others.
i find your comparison with nazi labor (aka death) camps neither appropriate, amusing nor accurate and would hope you refrain from such comparisons in future posts.
@ goggi: After a discussion with other moderatos, we all agreed that some parts of your post (i.e. the comparison of your postdoc training with nazi labour camp) are inappropriate and unacceptable. Therefore I deleted it.
Please avoid posting such inflammatory and unwarranted comments in the future or you will receive an official warning.
Oh, I see.
May I ask you to delete my other postings in this thread ? You can also purge my account.
I'm not very keen on continuing any discussion further on this forum. I do not expect to get any meaningful advice here.
it took a whole discussion of moderators to delete a piece of my postings. Wow ! Did anybody actualy considered 60-hour working week to be inappropriate ? Or this is normal practice ?
You "editing" says to me much more that you think. From my side, I also find your "editing" inflammatory and unwarranted. Nobody cares about my actual troubles and suffering, but a comparison of postdoc to prison led to moderator discussion?
I do not want to neither to discuss anything on this forum, nor participate in it by any other means. Therefore I ask moderators to delete all my postings, as well as my account on this forum.
It is your forum, not my. I do not wish to support it by my presence or my postings.
Thank you.
Rage quitting won't help you at all... a waste of your time and ours, so no, we won't delete your accounts/postings. I wasn't involved in the discussion and I didn't see what you posted so I can't judge for myself.
It is obvious from your posts that you are dissatisfied in general with science, so my advice is to do something else - find something that makes you happy and do that. Training as a scientist and with a PhD opens more doors that you might think - it shows that you can work hard at something, and have the intelligence to carry it through - just because it isn't science doesn't mean that your PhD is wasted!
Regarding wages/post-docs - pay depends on where you are in the US/Canada and the job you are doing. Post-docs are almost never permanent as they are still considered training, so it is expected that you will move on and expand your knowledge/skills/networks during your post-docs. 60 hour weeks are not unusual for these sorts of jobs either - if you want to get ahead you need to compete and this is the driver for these things. Medical doctors in training do similar things during their residencies as well. I do about a 60 hour week myself as a PhD student. Most senior academics will be working similar hours too!
Goggi on Tue Apr 1 03:22:58 2014 said:
Oh, I see.
May I ask you to delete my other postings in this thread ? You can also purge my account.
I'm not very keen on continuing any discussion further on this forum. I do not expect to get any meaningful advice here.
it took a whole discussion of moderators to delete a piece of my postings. Wow ! Did anybody actualy considered 60-hour working week to be inappropriate ? Or this is normal practice ?
You "editing" says to me much more that you think. From my side, I also find your "editing" inflammatory and unwarranted. Nobody cares about my actual troubles and suffering, but a comparison of postdoc to prison led to moderator discussion?
I do not want to neither to discuss anything on this forum, nor participate in it by any other means. Therefore I ask moderators to delete all my postings, as well as my account on this forum.
It is your forum, not my. I do not wish to support it by my presence or my postings.
Thank you.
....
60 hours a week, yes, I think it should not happen...
But compare it the way you did it... (it was not even "prison")