Selection Process

Selection Process 

How to find the right postdoc fit for you.

Each issue, we ask a trainee member to pose their career questions to an established investigator and mentor. Here, Jessica L. Faulkner, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Physiology at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, asks William F. Jackson, PhD, FAPS, professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Michigan State University, questions about interviewing for a postdoc and developing programming through the APS Trainee Advisory Committee.

Q: When hiring a graduate student/postdoc, what qualities have you learned to look for? 
A: Excitement with research, a strong research pedigree, strong letters of recommendation and good communication skills. I also like to have other people interview candidates as I always see potential where other people might see potential problems.

Q: What factors did you consider when selecting the academic institution for your first faculty appointment?
A: For me, there was not much choice. There were few open positions, and I took the position that was available and offered to me. In retrospect, I may have been better off taking a second postdoc, which was not typical back in the day. Today, I would look for a supportive environment where there is a consistent history of development of early-career faculty, where there is a tradition of collaboration among the faculty and where there is a vibrant graduate program.

Q: What is your advice for someone’s first three months starting up their own lab? Looking back on that time for you, what would you have done differently?
A: This is a great question for which I do not think that there is a single answer. First, unless your postdoctoral mentor was an early-career faculty member who was still active in the lab, don’t try and recreate your mentor’s lab. Get in the lab, get experiments going that will drive your research forward, and, if you have the resources, hire a good lab technician—they are worth their weight in gold! In retrospect, I spent too much time getting all aspects of my lab set up and not enough time actually gathering data. This delayed the appearance of my first independent publication.

Q: As a member of the APS Trainee Advisory Committee, I am curious what you think the committee could do to improve the career interests of your trainees?
A: I think that the committee-sponsored programs at the APS annual meeting have been great and should continue. Keep getting the word out and recruiting more students and postdocs to your group and stay in contact with former members who have transitioned to independent careers, whatever those may be. 

Got a career question you'd like to submit? Email it to tphysmag@physiology.org. We may use it in an upcoming Mentoring Q&A.

This article was originally published in the November 2021 issue of The Physiologist Magazine.