In this episode, Jim and Lauren thought we would address a few questions that have come up often in the last few weeks from people reaching out to us. These questions have been focused mostly on applying to roles and process for organizations reviewing resumes.  Points we cover include these below. Perhaps some of you listening also have wondered about these questions too.   We hope you enjoy listening!    

• Can I apply to a job if so many people have already applied on LinkedIn
• Should I apply to a job on LinkedIn or on the company website
• Timeframes / process for reviewing applications
• Importance of being patient
• Should I message the person who posted the role on LinkedIn?
• If a role is up for a long time, is it still active and should I still apply?      
• Importance of tailor your applications
• If you apply first to a role, does this give you an advantage?
• Thoughts on how many people apply who are actually a fit for roles?
• Organizations sometimes proactively engage with talent for roles  

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 the last few weeks, Jim and I have received a number of questions from graduate students about whether or not to do a postdoc, so we thought we would devote an episode to this important topic. It’s not a simple yes/no answer - there is a lot to consider including these points below, when you are making this choice.  We hope you enjoylistening!    

• Why would someone do a postdoc? 
• What skills you are looking/need to build (hard and soft skills)
• What type of institution
• Choice of Mentor 
• Type of postdoc, Academic research, academic administrative, Teaching, Industry research, Industry non-research, AAAS, etc
• How long should someone do a postdoc? 

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 our last episode, episode 29, we talked a bit about considerations people have as they evaluate career options. In this episode, we continue on this topic and talk about a few others including these below.  We also cover a few points on how to stay motivated in your search knowing all the decision points/considerations involvedin career choices. There can be roadblocks and barriers as you explore options and as you evaluate decisions and sometimes this leads people to have a fear of missing out which could paralyze their decision making.  Job searching can be mentally challenging - it is hard not hearing back, it is hard not getting an offer after going through interviews.  We hope this episode helps and that you enjoy listening!  

Also, we hit a milestone, we now have >1,000 episode listens. We thank you all for taking time to engage with this podcast!     

• Evaluating a larger company vs a new startup – what is the right choice?
• Other considerations besides just size of company as you consider career opportunities
• Importance of a supportive boss and culture match
• Culture can change over time – a few thoughts to think about
• Balancing innovation vs working in an established field / area
• A few thoughts on getting comfortable leavingthe known for the unknown
• A few tips on how to stay motivated in your search
   

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!

Welcome to Propelling Careers podcast episode 29. In our last episode, we talked a bit about trends we are paying attention to in our sectors and in this episode we thought we would follow up to talk about what we are hearing from talent who are exploring career options and trying to navigate this environment.  Jim is hearing a lot from people about questions regarding the academic search - how to be prepared, identify opportunities, identify application materials, funding, how to be successful once you are a PI, etc. Lauren is hearing a lot from people who have been recently laid off and are trying to navigate their career search. She is also hearing from grad students and postdocs who feel nervous since they hear about their friends in industry being laid off and wonder about their prospects. She is also hearing a lot of questions from people in industry and also in academia who apply and never hear back – they are wondering why and what can they do to stand out. We will share some concerns and questions such as these below. Many of you listening might have similar questions / concerns as younavigate your future. We hope you enjoy listening!    

• How to prepare for the academic job search / interview / evaluation process  
• If you are new to the job market, how do you start the job application process
• What do you say/how do you state things, if you have been laid off
• How can you stand out?
• Positives thoughts about prospects for grad students / postdocs
• Importance of emphasizing your passion/enthusiasmfor roles you are interested in to help them stand out
• Focus on transferrable skills  
• Tailor your application materials
• Empower people to help you in the search
• A few thoughts on how to compare offers to make sure you are comparing apples to apples ?
• How to evaluate risk of choosing one career option vs another – are doors really closed if you choose one area over another?  
• What are considerations for joining different sizes or stages of companies
• Importance of documenting what you are looking in a role to help you with the fear of missing out
• What are considerations around choosing to accept offers including culture match, programs you would work on, compensation, growth opportunities, manager style and support, perks, etc
• Stability of career areas
• Ensure your materials are always ready to be prepared for opportunities

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!

Since Labor Day just happened, Jim and Lauren thought we would do a check in episode as we get ready for the remainder of the year to check in on this year and what’s in store for the next few months for both of us. We also cover a few trends/data we are paying attention to relevant to our work such as the Inflation reduction act’s (IRA’s) impact on life sciences, Immigration, and the NIH’ work on revisioning the postdoc.   Labor day seems to be the official end of summer, so now things kick into high gear as we finish off 2024.  We hope you enjoy 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 discuss cover letters, since so many people have questions on these.  Are they useful, does anyone read them, how do I tailor them, what if there is no space to include them, then how do I include it in the application, and so on and so on.  A few people have reached out to us with questions about this topic recently, including these below, so we decided to record a podcast to cover our thoughts.  We hope you enjoy listening!  

• Why have a cover letter  - what is the purpose? 
• Do people actually read cover letters?
• What to include in a cover letter?
• How long should a cover letter be?
• How do you tailor a cover letter?   
• Is there anything you should not include in a cover letter 
• Who do i address it to? 
• Are cover letters more important for certain types of roles 
• How do I include one, if there is no place in the application to include one
• What are some common or unforced errors?
• Effective strategies to develop your cover letter

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 I bust a few myths that we have seen online, or that people have mentioned to us directly regarding career advice. One of the reasons why we started this podcast is to have a reliable and good source of truth regarding career advice.  There is so much advice out there that is not good…. that people seem to follow. Through this podcast we want to be a trusted resource for people to access. We know we may have our own biases when it comes to advice, but we are using our collective almost 30 years of experience providing career focused advice to thousands of people.  In this episode, we explain why the advice, including these topics below, is not good advice to provide context to help all of you.  We hope you enjoy listening!    

• Changing your actual title name to match what industry is looking for in titles
• Removing your Ph.D. from your resume so you don’t look overqualified
• Having a max character limit for your resume such as 250-600 words
• Sending a vague resume when you apply for a role since the recruiter will ask for the detailed one if they are interested
• Focusing on developing too specific of a network as you job search

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 talk about how to engage with people like Jim who run postdoc office and the officein general. We have received a number of questions about this topic, so we decided to record a podcast to help others make the most of their interactions at their respective institutions. Jim has a lot of experience, more than 13 years in his role, so he has a lot of insights to share!  We talk about a few items such as these below.  We hope you enjoy listening!    

• Types of services that offices like Jim’s offers
• When should talent engage with offices like his 
• How can someone engage with offices like his 
• Do people need to prepare anything to interact with offices like Jim’s
• What are best practices to make the most of engagement with offices like Jim’s   
• Does Jim create new offerings as needed to serve additional needs that he sees?
• How postdocs can be empowered through interaction with offices like Jim’s   
• What should you not do when interacting with people like Jim and their office?

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 talk about how to engage with recruiters.  We have received a number of questions about this topic, so we decided to record a podcast to help others make the most of their interactions with recruiters.  Lauren leverages her recruiting experience (about 15 years) to demystify the world of recruiting. We talk about a few items such as these below.  We hopeyou enjoy listening!    

• What types of recruiters exist
• What are the differences between internalrecruiters who work for an organization and external recruiters who work for a recruiting firm that works with organizations to hire
• Are external recruiters the same as Headhunters
• Who do recruiters work closely with in organizations they are hiring for
• Are external recruiters like sports agents – how do they engage with candidates
• Who do external recruiters work on behalf of
• How to find relevant recruiters
• How can you tell if a recruiter is legit
• Should you engage with multiple external recruiters
• Responding to internal recruiter or external recruiter reachout
• What kind of insights can recruiters provide

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!

Welcome to Propelling Careers podcast episode 23. In this episode, Jim and Lauren continue the theme of flags similar to episodes 19, 20, 21, and 22.  Will talk about a few more scenarios relating to networking, resumes, job searching, and interviewing. We have been enjoying putting these together, so we thought we would have one last one to wrap up the flags theme for right now.

For context, in case you have not listened to episodes 19, 20, 21, or 22 a Red Flag could refer to something that means stop, leave immediately - really not a good thing.  A Yellow Flag could mean warning, slow down, you may want to investigate further; a Green Flag means proceed and a Beige flag could refers to a strange or odd behavior or item that catches someone off guard but typically don't hurt anything. A beige flag is neither good nor bad, but it does draw attention. We hope you find our insights helpful as you navigate these different scenarios. We hope you enjoy listening   

Scenario: Only having 1 resume.  (To dive deeper intoresumes, Episodes 12, 13, 14 focus on this)

Scenario - not having a google doc or word version of your resume

Scenario: How you list dates on your resume

Scenario: Applying only to roles where you know someone at the organization. 

Scenario: only using one source to search for roles   

Scenario: Not aligning your responses to what the interviewer is asking about 

Scenario: Interview questions not to ask first

Scenario: How to respond when you hear you are not being offered the job

Scenario: being short with people when networking   

Scenario: not having a LinkedIn profile that accurately reflects your interests and experiences 

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!