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The second installment of my summer-time #AcademicChatter
1) I have some suggestions for young researchers who are wondering what kind of supervisor they should try to find. The (academic) age and seniority of your PI might influence the kind of supervision you are going to get.
1) I have some suggestions for young researchers who are wondering what kind of supervisor they should try to find. The (academic) age and seniority of your PI might influence the kind of supervision you are going to get.
2) Although not always true, more junior PIs tend to be more involved in your research. Have a more hands-on approach (i.e., contribute to experiments, coding, etc). They usually have a smaller group, which probably means more time per Ph.D. student/Postdoc.
3) On the other hand, they might be less known in the community, have not established collaborations, have limited budgets, and have a lesser-equipped lab. Unfortunately, the weight of the name of the PI could open doors that are more difficult to open for a young PI.
4) More senior supervisors usually have a good view of the field, their name carries a lot of weight, they have established collaborations that could make it possible for you to do experiments that are otherwise impossible, have a lot of funding, and their labs are well-equipped.
5) However, they are usually less hands-on, are much busier (due to traveling, administrative duties, a large number of group members, etc), have less time available for you, and might be stuck in a field that is outdated.
6) It is my experience that, for good supervisors, the two sides of the story more or less balance each other out. So, the benefits/disadvantages of one side of the spectrum are more or less in balance with the those of the other side of the spectrum.
7) It may not, thus, matter how junior/senior your supervisor is unless you know that you would benefit more from one type of supervisor than another. In some European countries, often a junior and a senior researcher jointly supervise PhD students.
8) Joint supervision by a junior and a senior researcher allows our PhD students to benefit from the best of both worlds.
9) Postdocs should be more careful about the seniority of their PI. In some cases, a more senior researcher may be better positioned to help you advance your career and land a faculty position. In some rare cases, a rivalry may form between very junior PIs and their postdocs.
10) Although not everybody agrees, I think it is better for junior PIs to start their group by working with graduate students. Graduate students have more time than a postdoc who would like to quickly transition to their next job. There is also more experience/age difference.
11) Establishing a lab, honing your supervision skills, and developing collaborations (among other things that need to be organized) take time. If you hire a postdoc who wants to transition into a faculty position within 1-3 years, you may not be able to collaborate optimally.
12) Contrary to what you might have heard that pedigree does not play an important role in your future, unfortunately, it does!
13) The name of the institute where you do your PhD/postdoc and the name of your supervisor will (partially) determine where your papers will be published and whether you will get a position. It doesn't mean that other factors are not important. But pedigree is important too.
14) Make sure you realize the difference between the ideal world and the real world. In an ideal world, the impact factor of the journals you publish your papers in, the name of your supervisor, and the prestige of your school should not matter. In the real world, it does!
15) Most people agree that the factors I mentioned above are not relevant and you really have to evaluate the research quality by actually reading and understanding the underlying research. In practice, however, most people use those proxies to filter out candidates.
16) Either way, before choosing a supervisor, go to their Google Scholar page and read their latest papers, see how often they publish, where they publish, and with whom they publish. That is a great place to start.
