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[greyscale]

So, life threw me a bit of a curveball. I know I overthink things, but this one might actually need it.

I'm a 3rd-year postdoc in molecular biology working with a well-known and generally very well-funded professor. My stipend is paid by a fellowship that will run out in June.

My advisor just told us that he might take a leave of absence for a year to get his side project off the ground. He's already chosen not to renew his NIH grant, and his other, generous funding source goes away permanently if he leaves. I don't know what happens, bureaucratically, if he leaves and any of us want to stay; he thinks he can find ways to make it work. But, this is not worth speculating about here, because the specifics are so... specific. I'm sorry that I can't present a clearer picture yet. Instead, I'm brainstorming my options, and if you have creative ideas I haven't thought of, please do suggest them.

My SO has a faculty position on the other coast. I really miss him though I love my current city. I am hoping to apply for jobs this fall, and he will also, to try to end up in the same place. (We would rather that place be somewhere other than where he is now.) My cv kicks butt, with the massive caveat that I don't yet have a first-author paper from my postdoc lab, and it's not clear when I will, so applying for jobs this early is a bit dubious.

The other postdocs and I are all feeling a lack of mentoring, since my advisor's focus hasn't been on the lab. He writes great letters and his name carries a lot of weight, but he never goes to conferences or talks up our work and has a very laissez-faire attitude about publishing. I've been meeting with other PIs here to get some extra feedback on my work, but I don't know how much I can ask from that.

Options:

1. Do a second postdoc. This doesn't seem like a brilliant career move, but it is an option. If I found someone who'd be a good mentor to have on my side for my job search, it might be really beneficial. Honestly, my postdoc hasn't been great, in a lot of ways, much as I like & respect my advisor. It just seems too late to start again, either in a totally new direction or with the same project in a different lab. I can definitely take my project with me, by the way, which is nice.

2. My SO's department might be able to create a visiting research position for me, I suppose. (Or I could be his postdoc, but that is really not a good career or relationship move. Absolutely last resort.) They might wonder why I didn't apply for the faculty job there this year.

3. I applied for one career award from a private foundation. I could apply for a K99 this cycle (I was going to wait). There may be other grants I can apply for without PI status. I'll make an appointment with our sponsored research office to see what's out there.

4. I could stay here, perhaps in someone else's lab officially, and maybe ask my grad advisor to pay for some of the research since he'll be a senior author on the eventual paper. Or I suppose I could officially go back to my grad lab.

Ideas? I guess first, I should work my butt off. And, I should start trying to give more talks to make sure people remember I exist. I have a pretty good network of connections - how can I take advantage of that?

[greyscale]

(Oh, and when I say "apply for jobs" in this case I mean apply for tenure-track positions at R1s.)

[anon99]

If you know your funding will run out in June, what did you orginally plan to do?  Doing a second postdoc is not that uncommon, so option 1 is not as bad as you make it sound.

Why would you stay where you are if your SO is on the other coast and you wouldn't have any funding?

Yes work your butt off to get a first author paper done before your supervisor leaves.  Asking your own question, why didn't you apply for a job at your SO's university?

[greyscale]

Oh, good questions.

I was planning to stay and be funded by my advisor for a few years. Most people here do postdocs that are more like 5 years than 3. Some of us have fellowships for 3 years of that; others are paid out of the lab's funding.

I'd stay because I'm in the middle of a good project in a good lab, trying to get the project to the point where I publish the first paper from it and then move it to my own lab. But if I can find somewhere else to do it that it would be ok too. And I didn't apply because I didn't feel ready, though perhaps I should have - and the short list has already been chosen, my labmate is on the list, and my boyfriend is on the search committee. So throwing an application in late would be dicey but it is at least nominally possible (he would have removed himself from the committee if I'd applied). But it would tie him to a place he'd rather not stay, which is a whole 'nother can of worms.

[kron3007]

I was told by my current advisor that I should try not to postdoc for more than 3 years.  He told me that the chances of getting a permanent position after that tend to drop, but this could be different in the molecular world (I am in plant bio). 

Regardless, I think you should be applying for everything, postdocs, TT positions, Grants, etc.  In fact, I think you should have been doing this for the last couple years.  It sounds like you assume you can selectively apply for positions you would prefer and get what you want.  Even if you have a good cv, it is a tough job market and you are not the only one with the credentials.  I dont mean to criticize, but if you havn't published any first author papers in a three year postdoc, I question if you are as competitive as you think you are.  I was told that I should be aiming for 3/year, and based on the recent hires that I have seen in my field this would be about right (on the high end, but that is the goal).

Any way, I guess what I am saying is that you should stop being so selective and start sending out applications.  You can always decline positions if they are offered, and applying is good practice.

[greyscale]

Ah, no, I'm definitely not going to be selective, but that's a good reminder. Add an assumed "in my field" to all of this: My advisors, and others who've been on search committees, have said that it's unusual for people to go on the market more than once, so their advice was to wait til the right time. Possibly that is less true than they thought, and knowing my current position might disappear, I wish I'd applied this year anyway, or even straight out of grad school. There's the standard path, if it even exists, and then there's what actually happens.

Just as an example of something fairly standard here, my friend who ended up at Harvard this year had four first author papers (one from her postdoc, three from grad school), applied in the 4th year of her postdoc, and she was a hotshot applying on the early side. On paper everything lines up similarly, but I am definitely not in her league; it's the little differences that matter.

Any ideas of end-of-postdoc grants that I don't need PI status for? But grants are obviously as field-specific as any of the rest of this. K99 and a few other K grants are possible, and I'm going to talk to the grants office. I'm meeting with my advisor in an hour to find out more about the situation.

[onthefringe]

I'm an R1 faculty in molecular biology, started on the TT in the early 2000's. I've served on a bunch of search committees, so I'm reasonably current with the market in molecular biology.

1) You are almost certainly not competitive for any R1 faculty position (at least at a mid to upper tier R1) with no papers from your postdoc. The current search I'm on we only had one person make the short list who onnly had one paper from their postdoc, and all the people who got interviews had 2 or more.

2) 3 years is a short postdoc in my area of molecular biology. Our search committees would look at your CV and say "hmm, not ripe yet".

3) Lots of people go on the market for more than one year. I can't imagine that being a problem.

Now the advice. When this exact thing happened to me, I managed to move myself and my project into a neighboring lab at the same university and be co-mentored by my absent professor and the professor housing me. This had good points (I became extremely independent very quickly, and I was able to take everything I did with me to my faculty position) and bad points (I was working alone, so I didn't have any co-author papers on my CV< since there were no other lab projects for me to contribute to. I would suggest that you look into what it would take to finish up your postdoc where you are now (+/- a grant or fellowship of your own).

Your second option would be a second postdoc, which really doesn't look bad. If you do go the second postdoc route, however, do whatever it takes to get something published from your current postdoc, even if it means writing up some little paper with what you have now.

[greyscale]

Thanks for the advice, especially the observation about people going on the market more than once.

If I can swing it bureaucratically and financially, finding a co-mentor in my department like you describe sounds like the best bet. I've been really independent so far (my major publication last year, as a second author, was a collaboration with another lab that my advisor's name isn't on at all) but I think I'll be happier if I find someone who cares about my project.

For what it's worth, I'm working on a project here that I intend to ask to be a joint first author on, since my part in it was much bigger than expected. I was going to ask my labmate about joint authorship last week and then all this stuff came up. We're still analyzing the data, not writing yet, and unless I find something really unexpected, it's not going to be in a top journal. But I have nothing ready to go from my main project.

[greyscale]

If it's helpful to anyone else, I just found the NIH's "career award wizard" (...That's what I need! A wizard!) describing various grant options for postdocs at different stages.
http://grants.nih.gov/training/kwizard/index.htm

Aside from K99, I don't know anyone who's applied for these, but there do seem to be more options. People have also suggested I apply for small R grants (R03, R21) in my advisor's name (with his approval of course) since even if he stays, our funding situation is tight.

[francisyip]

Option 1 going for the postdoc sounds good.. it's a common thing and many people do that so it's the 'safe' route so to speak.

[aysecik]

I hope you find something that works out in the end! If you can find a co-adviser to "adopt" you, it would be best probably. Especially since you have so much done already, and I am sure you know what you are doing so you are independent. My adviser got very ill and had to retire and move away a bit over half way into my Ph.D., and thankfully I and another student were adopted by another faculty member (who was on our committees as well). I have my fingers crossed for you!

If not, I am sure people go on the market more than once. I asked this to people before sending only a few applications a year and a half ago, and I had mixed responses. In the end, the opinion was: If you were a direct "no" the first try, unless you were exceptionally bad, you will probably not be remembered. If you were close - next year you may have an even better chance maybe (mixed opinions on that, as I said. Maybe search committee members have better advice). So probably no problem. In fact, this year, my application to a school I applied to the year before as well and not heard back that time, this time went very well (still looks promising for that matter). 

Good luck, and patience to you!