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 careerāthe search for a job following graduate workāhe 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 authorsāwho collectively have for decades mentored students and served on hiring committeesāhave 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 biologyāfrom cell biology and molecular genetics to evolution and ecologyāand 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 searchāfrom the first year of a graduate program to the final negotiations of a job offer.