In this episode, Jim and Lauren follow up from the last podcast, episode 51, which focused on developing and delivering an effective job talk and in this episode, will give few tips, such as these below, to develop and show confidence as you are giving your talk.  These tips could also apply to other situations also.  We hope you find this information helpful and we hope you enjoy listening. 

We talk briefly about the recent National Postdoctoral Association meeting in Boston and insights on some of the presentations we heard

We shared thoughts on what stands out positively about presentations

We shared a few thoughts on what could hinder presentations

We talked about a few phrases that people say that might undermine audience confidence along with a few ways to reword these statements to showcase more confidence to the audience

Lauren Celano, CEO of Propel Careers and Jim Gould, the Director for Postdoctoral Affairs at Harvard Medical School, launched this podcast as a way for us to share our advice, insights, and reflections to help others navigate their careers.

As we develop new episodes, this podcast will provide insights regarding career advice to help listeners navigate career choices and become more confident in their decisions. We look forward to busting myths and providing real life, timely, and accurate advice. Jim and Lauren work heavily with Ph.D. trained scientists, but the advice we provide can be applicable to other audiences. We hope you enjoy listening!

In this episode, Jim and Lauren focus on how to develop and deliver an effective job talk. We will provide advice for academic as well as industry job talks. How you communicate in your job talk, is such an important part of the interview process. We cover points including these below. We hope you find this information helpful and we hope you enjoy listening. 

Why organizations ask for a job talk 

When in the interview process is a job talk

Understanding your audience 

Types of job talks (there are many…)

What do interviewers look for in the job talk

Tips to structure your job talk

Do’s and don’ts for job talks

Lauren Celano, CEO of Propel Careers and Jim Gould, the Director for Postdoctoral Affairs at Harvard Medical School, launched this podcast as a way for us to share our advice, insights, and reflections to help others navigate their careers.

As we develop new episodes, this podcast will provide insights regarding career advice to help listeners navigate career choices and become more confident in their decisions. We look forward to busting myths and providing real life, timely, and accurate advice. Jim and Lauren work heavily with Ph.D. trained scientists, but the advice we provide can be applicable to other audiences. We hope you enjoy listening!

In this episode, Jim and Lauren build upon our previous episode, episode 49, to talk more about why it’s important to communicate your value. In this episode, we cover advice related to communicating your value on LinkedIn and your application materials including these below. We hope you enjoy listening.  

Why clearly communicating your value on your LinkedIn and application materials is important

This is useful even if you are not actively looking for a new role

How communication of your value may be different on LinkedIn and Resumes   

A few ways to show your value on LinkedIn in your Summary, experience and title

Leveraging the post feature on LinkedIn

A few tips to highlight value on your resume 

Can you include things in your resume or LinkedIn that did not result in something like a paper or a novel research finding

Lauren Celano, CEO of Propel Careers and Jim Gould, the Director for Postdoctoral Affairs at Harvard Medical School, launched this podcast as a way for us to share our advice, insights, and reflections to help others navigate their careers.

As we develop new episodes, this podcast will provide insights regarding career advice to help listeners navigate career choices and become more confident in their decisions. We look forward to busting myths and providing real life, timely, and accurate advice. Jim and Lauren work heavily with Ph.D. trained scientists, but the advice we provide can be applicable to other audiences. We hope you enjoy listening!

In this episode, Jim and Lauren focus on why it’s important to communicate your value along with a few ways to do this.  Right now, It is especially important for scientists to communicate effectively so that others know the value and impact of the work that you do. This episode will focus more generally on why this topic focusing on these points below.  A few future episodes will dive deeper into different scenarios such as networking, your resume, LinkedIn, and Interviewing. We hope you enjoy listening. 

Why effective communication of your value is important

Before you can effectively communicate your value and impact, you first need to understand Your Unique ValueProposition

Self reflection is important in order to understand this

Jim and Lauren highlight a few of their strengths, skills and unique qualities  

We talk about elevator pitches and storytelling

We provide a few tips to overcome imposter syndrome.

Lauren Celano, CEO of Propel Careers and Jim Gould, the Director for Postdoctoral Affairs at Harvard Medical School, launched this podcast as a way for us to share our advice, insights, and reflections to help others navigate their careers.

As we develop new episodes, this podcast will provide insights regarding career advice to help listeners navigate career choices and become more confident in their decisions. We look forward to busting myths and providing real life, timely, and accurate advice. Jim and Lauren work heavily with Ph.D. trained scientists, but the advice we provide can be applicable to other audiences. We hope you enjoy listening!

In this episode, Jim and Lauren continue from our last episode, episode 47 to cover a few more career truths to help our listeners plan for and navigate their careers including these below.  We saw a number of LinkedIn posts about these topics that we will talk about so we are hoping you find this compilation of information helpful.  We hope you enjoy listening.  

Burnout is real and is not healthy - it is not a Badge of Honor

You cannot fire on all cylinders all the time – it’s not sustainable

Burnout happens for different reasons, too much work, not the right resources, economic uncertainty, and others

Spreading responsibility, delegating where you can, building teams, trusting others can help with this

Be on the lookout for signs of burnout so that you can try to address this

How do you get back from the path to burnout

Don’t just settle in a comfort zone for the rest of your career - embrace opportunities to learn and grow.

You need stability to learn and grow though so keep this in mind

Look out for stretch opportunities to allow you to grow and develop. Be comfortable being uncomfortable…

We should all be thinking about what skills, experiences, settings, etc that we would like to get more exposure to in order to expand our toolkit.

Do your best to focus on impact rather than being irreplaceable

Money does not buy happiness – it should not be  your sole driver in decisions around career

Look at the entirety of the offer package – comp and benefits as well as intangibles  – such as career growth, relationship with your boss, entrance to an emerging field, etc  

You are not your job – your job does not define you

Lauren Celano, CEO of Propel Careers and Jim Gould, the Director for Postdoctoral Affairs at Harvard Medical School, launched this podcast as a way for us to share our advice, insights, and reflections to help others navigate their careers.

As we develop new episodes, this podcast will provide insights regarding career advice to help listeners navigate career choices and become more confident in their decisions. We look forward to busting myths and providing real life, timely, and accurate advice. Jim and Lauren work heavily with Ph.D. trained scientists, but the advice we provide can be applicable to other audiences. We hope you enjoy listening!

In this episode, Jim and Lauren discuss a few career truths that we thought would be helpful to hear as our listeners plan for and navigate their careers including these below.  We saw a number of LinkedIn posts about these so we have assembled some key ones that we think are important.  We hope you enjoy listening.  

It’s not enough to just work hard and be good at what you do, you need to advocate for yourself, increase your visibility and build your community (at work and beyond)

Don’t focus just on job title, focus on developing your experiences, building skills, and expanding your exposure across the organization – this means so much more than just what title you have (had)

Strive for excellence, quality and progress, instead of perfection

Your career path is not linear – embrace pivots and side steps - often these can lead to amazing opportunities as you look back on your career

Many new roles are created as the industry evolves so embrace new opportunities  

People who are career changers later in life, should lean into this – often there is a very compelling reason why they are making a pivot  

Networking is extremely important – building your network is something you should actively do, and not just when you need a new job

Lauren Celano, CEO of Propel Careers and Jim Gould, the Director for Postdoctoral Affairs at Harvard Medical School, launched this podcast as a way for us to share our advice, insights, and reflections to help others navigate their careers.

As we develop new episodes, this podcast will provide insights regarding career advice to help listeners navigate career choices and become more confident in their decisions. We look forward to busting myths and providing real life, timely, and accurate advice. Jim and Lauren work heavily with Ph.D. trained scientists, but the advice we provide can be applicable to other audiences. We hope you enjoy listening!

In this episode, Jim Gould and Lauren Celano follow up to the last episode, episode 45 and share a few more pieces of advice for giving and receiving feedback. We will then provide a few tips for giving and receiving feedback. We cover points including these below. We hope you enjoy listening.  

When giving and receiving feedback, it is important to be aware of the difference between venting, complaining andgiving or requesting feedback

When you give feedback, it is helpful to frame it in a way that is not confrontational; frame this in a way for how youlike to work or what you need

A few tips for giving feedback up (managing up)  

Managing up takes courage

Having a sense of humility is important

A few tips for how toenter into and navigate difficult conversations

Let the person know how you are feeling before you just dive in

Remember, avoiding difficult conversations might just ruin relationships.  Having these can help deepen relationships and build trust.

Lauren Celano, CEO of Propel Careers and Jim Gould, the Director for Postdoctoral Affairs at Harvard Medical School, launched this podcast as a way for us to share our advice, insights, and reflections to help others navigate their careers.

As we develop new episodes, this podcast will provide insights regarding career advice to help listeners navigate career choices and become more confident in their decisions. We look forward to busting myths and providing real life, timely, and accurate advice. Jim and Lauren work heavily with Ph.D. trained scientists, but the advice we provide can be applicable to other audiences. We hope you enjoy listening!

In this episode, Jim and Lauren focus on giving and receiving feedback.  Many people could probably improve/enhance their processes around this, so we thought this could be helpful.  We cover points including these below. We hope you enjoy listening.  

There are multiple types of feedback including positive feedback and constructive feedback. Also this could be given in individual or and group settings.

Feedback varies from feedback that Jim and Lauren often give, such as feedback on resumes, job search, etc and also feedback that a manager may give to their direct report.  

Feedback is a gift

Points to keep in mind when giving and receiving feedback

Benefits of giving and receiving feedback

Ways to give feedback

In what setting to give feedback

Tips when receiving feedback

The importance of active listening

Lauren Celano, CEO of Propel Careers and Jim Gould, the Director for Postdoctoral Affairs at Harvard Medical School, launched this podcast as a way for us to share our advice, insights, and reflections to help others navigate their careers.

As we develop new episodes, this podcast will provide insights regarding career advice to help listeners navigate career choices and become more confident in their decisions. We look forward to busting myths and providing real life, timely, and accurate advice. Jim and Lauren work heavily with Ph.D. trained scientists, but the advice we provide can be applicable to other audiences. We hope you enjoy listening!

In this episode, Jim and Lauren focus on advice related to helping people navigate their career journey / search (or

To advance in your career, you need to work on yourself first

Consider how you are interacting with your colleagues / team / group – are you positively contributing to the energy of the group? Are you enjoyable to work with? Do you meet your commitments?

You can lead, even if you are not the boss

Consider that sometimes a setback or failure, may actually be a blessing in disguise and a valuable learning opportunity  

Recognize the value of self reflection

Highlight your value – recruiters cannot read your mind… make your information approachable

Lauren Celano, CEO of Propel Careers and Jim Gould, the Director for Postdoctoral Affairs at Harvard Medical School, launched this podcast as a way for us to share our advice, insights, and reflections to help others navigate their careers.

As we develop new episodes, this podcast will provide insights regarding career advice to help listeners navigate career choices and become more confident in their decisions. We look forward to busting myths and providing real life, timely, and accurate advice. Jim and Lauren work heavily with Ph.D. trained scientists, but the advice we provide can be applicable to other audiences. We hope you enjoy listening!

In this episode, Jim and Lauren share perspective about how to find silver linings in change. We both know change can be hard. but sometimes change opens up opportunities that you were not aware of.  Many people I know have been able to find a better culture, a better work life balance, more fulfillment in their career, and other things after the initial change of role. We hope you enjoy listening.  

- How to find lessons learned in these challenges and changes we face

- How to maintain positivity during challenges and changes we face

- We can work and what might not work to find the silver lining in change

- How to get into the right mindset and nourish it

- Oftentimes change provides a time of reflection 

- What are your lessons learned

- What is your motivation moving forward

- Importance of a growth mindset

- Tip for what is helpful and not helpful to do when you are looking for silver linings

Lauren Celano, CEO of Propel Careers and Jim Gould, the Director for Postdoctoral Affairs at Harvard Medical School, launched this podcast as a way for us to share our advice, insights, and reflections to help others navigate their careers.

As we develop new episodes, this podcast will provide insights regarding career advice to help listeners navigate career choices and become more confident in their decisions. We look forward to busting myths and providing real life, timely, and accurate advice. Jim and Lauren work heavily with Ph.D. trained scientists, but the advice we provide can be applicable to other audiences. We hope you enjoy listening!