Biophysical Society Bulletin | May 2020

Career Development

Careers Outside of Academia: A Recap The Membership Committee sponsors a Q&A panel at the Annual Meeting where attendees have a chance to ask their career questions to those who have pursued careers in indus- try or other non-academic settings.

Question: Are there non-traditional careers in operations, strategic planning, customer service, that hire fresh PhDs? Answer: There are opportunities for those fields. Show you have those skills. Other skills to emphasize include leading groups, presentation skills, and customer support. Taking a course to boost your resume was one recommendation. Another was to, “find out who in your lab is the safety officer, who does the procurement. If those duties are not filled, volunteer! Those are great skills to have and look good in a recommendation from your supervisor.” Question: Are business and communication skills valued for research scientist positions? What specific skills are needed? Answer: Those are essential. Communicating “on the fly” and in a concise way are skills that will be called on constantly. At- tendees were advised to develop an elevator pitch. A screener would be paying attention to communication skills in a phone interview. You will need to be able to communicate about yourself concisely and effectively. Be prepared to answer questions: If you can’t communicate, you won’t get a second interview. Question: What career development areas should you focus on for an R&D position, besides communication and technical skills? Answer: Learning to speak and network were cited as key career skills to develop. One panelist recommended joining a graduate student organization and getting involved. Another suggestion: “Pay attention to how much it costs to do sci- ence. No matter where you go in science and as you move up, you’ll need to be responsible for how much money is spent.”

The panelists for this event were Ariel Lewis-Ballester of Gilead Sciences, Shanti Amagasu of Amgen, Angela Ballesteros Mor- cillo , a postdoc at National Institutes of Health, Akash Bhat- tacharya of Beckman Coulter Life Sciences, and Jeanne Small , a program officer at National Science Foundation. Several of these panelists shared that they did not have a direct path to their current position, rather they went through many differ- ent transitions. Below are some highlights from the Q&A Panel. Question: What were some of the factors and events that steered you [away from academia]? Answer: One panelist explained pharma was a way to apply their expertise after realizing that there weren’t enough pro- fessor positions. Another was a tenured professor who found the job depressing and resigned to pursue something else. Another panelist loved biophysics and started in industry at a startup company. It propelled his career to be on top of a popular technology. Question: Is transitioning from academia to industry irreversible? Answer: It’s not impossible, said one panelist who has seen people leave industry and go into academia. Industry has to be involved in academia in one way or another these days. Another panelist agreed, saying that that “it happens, es- pecially in the context of coming back to academia; not as a tenure track professor but as a director for a research center as that kind of position would require skills that a career aca- demic may not have.” Question: How do you convince a hiring manager that you can do something you haven’t done in academia? Answer: Provide examples of other skills learned on the fly, suggested one panelist. Another indicated that when inter- viewing candidates, they look for those who have demon- strated that they have learned something. Advised one panelist, “In the first conversation with the company, if you’ve indicated that you know how to do something, but you really don’t, it would come out in a technical interview and you may be blacklisted.”

Be an inspiration to your community and help change the lives of those interested in or studying science. Sign up to be a mentor, K-12 classroom visitor, speaker, science fair judge, or student chapter sponsor. The FaB (Find a Biophysicist) Network is free and accessible by members and nonmem- bers, but only BPS members may join the network. For more information, visit biophysics.org/get-involved.

May 2020

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