In the final episode of this six-part podcast series about hiring in science, Julie Gould asks what it takes to be the perfect candidate for a science job vacancy.

Lauren Celano, a careers coach who co-founded Propel Careers, based in Boston, Massachusetts, in 2009, defines a high-calibre candidate as someone who hits up to 70% of the technical things being asked for in a job spec, plus being a strong team player with good communication skills.

David Perlmutter, a communications researcher at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, says recruiters today are seeking what he terms Renaisance people who are able to demonstrate eight or nine qualities and qualifications. Thirty years ago, there might have been just two requirements listed on a job ad. “We’re asking too much of them, so of course they’re coming up short,” he says.

Julie Gould tests Perlmutter’s hypothesis by comparing a 1995 job ad in Nature for a postdoctoral researcher with one posted this year, at the same organisation. The results are revealing.

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In the penultimate episode of this six-part podcast series about hiring and getting hired in science, Julie Gould investigates how artificial intelligence (AI) is being used by recruiters to draft job ads, process applications and shortlist candidates. She also asks how recruiters feel about jobseekers using it in their applications, and whether or not they can even tell.

Jen Heemstra, a chemistry researcher and lab leader at Washington University in St. Louis, warns of a mismatch when a candidate submits a thoughtful and reflective application, but these qualities aren’t evident at interview. Fatimah Williams, an executive careers coach at Professional Pathways, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, recommends using it as a “thinking partner” by giving it appropriate prompts to help with documentation and identify career goals. Holly Prescott, a careers transition specialist based in Birmingham, UK, suggests that candidates who are looking to move, say, from academia to industry, could use AI to explain jargon in a job ad.

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Three researchers and a career coach discuss if there as much scope to negotiate salaries in academia as there is in industry.

In either setting, they say, negotiation should not be a battleground. Hiring managers should not take advantage of a beloved future colleague who may have zero experience of negotiating anything, says David Perlmutter, a communications researcher at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, who writes about hiring and salary negotiations.

Nor is it like a car sale, adds Jen Heemstra, a chemistry researcher at Washington University in St. Louis, after which the two sides part company forever. “In an academic negotiation if there’s a winner and a loser, then you’ve really both lost,” she says.

Perlmutter advises early career researchers to build confidence by practicing salary negotiation with a colleague before doing it for real. “No matter what’s going on, try to be respectful, friendly and positive,” he says.

Margot Smit, a plant molecular biologist at Tübingen University, Germany, and Lauren Celano, a careers coach who co-founded Propel Careers, based in Boston, Massachusetts, in 2009, lists non-pay elements to work into a negotiation.

This is the fourth episode in a six-part podcast series about hiring in science.

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Should you tailor your job interview style based on the age, gender and cultural background of the person asking the questions?

Margot Smit and Dietmar Hutmacher compare their approaches to hiring and how generational influences might shape how they respond to candidates.

Smit, a plant molecular biologist who became a group leader at Tübingen University Germany, in late 2023, and Hutmacher, a regenerative medicine researcher at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, list what they look for at interview. Coming from different generations, one with a background in industry, do they differ?

This is the third episode in a six-part podcast series about hiring in science.

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Julie Gould compares hiring practices across industry and academia by seeking perspectives from Tina Persson, an organic chemist-turned-careers coach based in Malmö, Sweden, and Lauren Celano, a recruitment consultant who founded Propel Careers, based in Boston, Massachusetts, in 2009.

Persson, whose coaching business is called passage2pro, tells Gould why it typically takes longer to hire scientists in academia. Margot Smit, a plant molecular biologist who now recruits scientists for her lab at Tübingen University in Germany, reflects on her own experiences as an academic jobseeker in 2022. It involved panel interviews, lab tours, team dinners, and, in one case, a symposium where all candidates gave a talk. Now, as someone who recruits scientists to her lab, she involves junior colleagues in hiring decisions.

Jen Heemstra tells a similar tale. Her search for a department chair position in 2022 meant moving not only herself but also her entire chemistry research group to Washington University in St. Louis. She explains how she updated her colleagues and addressed their questions and concerns about the impending move.

Finally, Rachel Howard describes how she hopes to make the process quicker and easier for hiring managers at the Francis Crick Institute in London, where she is head of talent acquisition.

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Successful job candidates aren’t necessarily the smartest or most confident people in the room, Ilana Wisby tells Julie Gould in the first episode of a six-part weekly podcast series about hiring in science.

Wisby, a physicist and former chief executive of Oxford Quantum Circuits, which builds quantum computers from its base in Reading, UK, says recruiters use interviews to gauge a candidate’s values, their emotional intelligence, and their growth potential. Asking someone how they received difficult feedback, she adds, is a test of their humility and willingness to admit mistakes, and what they learned from them.

The episode begins with Linda Nordling, a freelance science writer who led coverage of Nature’s 2024 global hiring in science survey, talking about some of the surprising things that caught her eye in the data.

Future episodes include insights from a careers coach about industry hiring trends, and how an academic research institute based in London is centralizing its postdoc hiring process.

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Academia’s focus on individual achievement can be a breeding ground for poor mental health, says astrophysicist Kelly Korreck.

Korreck, who experienced pandemic-related burnout while working on NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, describes a competitive and ultimately damaging ‘lone wolf’ culture. She is joined by psychologist Desiree Dickerson to discuss how a stronger focus on group success can better protect researchers.

Dickerson also calls for improved onboarding processes for early career researchers. They should involve clear conversations about looming challenges, including first person accounts from people who faced work-related stress, anger, anxiety and depression, she argues.

“If we only value papers and funding, then of course, we protect those who have great papers and bring in lots of funding. We don’t look after the well-being of the people who actually need to be looked after,” she says.

Social and clinical psychologist Ciro De Vincenzo reflects on the positive emotions he felt and witnessed during a fieldwork project as part of his research into migration patterns in the European Union.

In contract, his experience of academic life at the University of Padua, Italy, was often less positive, pervaded by a strong sense of imposter syndrome and professional isolation. But being elected to the university senate enabled him to explore the systemic changes needed to improve researcher mental health, he says.

And finally, Tammy Steeves, a conservation genomicist at the University of Canterbury in Chistchurch, New Zealand, describes her involvement in the Kindness in Science initiative, a movement to counter many of the perverse incentives that pervade academia, and its achievements to date.

This is the final episode of this eight-part podcast series Mind matters: academia’s mental health crisis.

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A relentless pursuit of perfection in science can mean that researchers are in perpetual and self-critical ‘survival mode,’ forever questioning their behaviours and actions in the workplace, says clinical psychologist Desiree Dickerson.

“We are not very good at taking the spotlight off ourselves, a pressure that can lead to burnout other mental health problems, adds Dickerson, who is based in Valencia, Spain.

To boost workplace well-being, Ellen Wehrens describes the impact of a happiness programme that was introduced in 2019 to her lab at the Princess Máxima paediatric oncology centre in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The programme includes both a buddying system and a colour-coded index that enables individuals to signal to colleagues how they are feeling. “So green, you are doing great, yellow, not so much, and red, you are not doing well,” explains Wehrens.

Ana Pineda, an ecologist who now runs I focus and write, an education and coaching business, says she began practicing yoga and meditation after feeling stressed at work. At the same time she also actively enlisted the support of friends and colleagues, describing them as “angels.” Meditation, she adds, enables her to find joy, even when faced with daunting tasks.

This episode is the penultimate one in Mind Matters, an eight-part podcast series on mental health and wellbeing in academia.

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