Chicago Guide to Landing a Job in Academic Biology

Chandler C. Ray, Wolfe Lorne M., Promislow Daniel E. L.

"The Chicago Guide to Landing a Job in Academic Biology" is an indispensable guide for graduate students and post-docs as they enter that domain red in tooth and claw: the job market.

An academic career in the biological sciences typically demands well over a decade of technical training. So it's ironic that when a scholar reaches the most critical stage in that career – the search for a job following graduate work – he or she receives little or no formal preparation. Instead, students are thrown into the job market with only cursory guidance on how to search for and land a position. Now there's help. Carefully, clearly, and with a welcome sense of humor, "The Chicago Guide to Landing a Job in Academic Biology" leads graduate students and postdoctoral fellows through the perils and rewards of their first job search. The authors – who collectively have for decades mentored students and served on hiring committees – have honed their advice in workshops at biology meetings across the country. The resulting guide covers everything from how to pack an overnight bag without wrinkling a suit to selecting the right job to apply for in the first place. The authors have taken care to make their advice useful to all areas of academic biology – from cell biology and molecular genetics to evolution and ecology – and they give tips on how applicants can tailor their approaches to different institutions from major research universities to small private colleges.

With jobs in the sciences ever more difficult to come by, "The Chicago Guide to Landing a Job in Academic Biology" is designed to help students and post-docs navigate the tricky terrain of an academic job search – from the first year of a graduate program to the final negotiations of a job offer.

Contents:

Preface
Acknowledgments

1: The Academic Job Market
2: Choosing a Graduate Program
3: Prepare Early for Your Job Search
4: Target Your Job Search
5: The Application
6: Preparing for the Interview
7: The Interview
8: The Seminar
9: Social Time
10: The Negotiations
11: All in the Family

Afterword
References

About the Author

C. Ray Chandler is professor of biology at Georgia Southern University.

Lorne M. Wolfe is professor of biology at Georgia Southern University.

Daniel E. L. Promislow is professor of genetics at the University of Georgia.

Reviews

"'The Chicago Guide to Landing a Job in Academic Biology' is a nuts-and-bolts book, full of practical advice such as how to construct an application that won't be thrown out, how to give a seminar, and how to complete the interview process successfully... The advice is sensible, being based on years of reading flawed job applications and watching candidates make fatal errors" – Pamela A. Silver, Nature

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