First Person

The Search That Wasn't

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By Hannah Goodwin

When I first agreed to write a diary of my job search, I thought I would have a lot to say. I had a Ph.D. in chemical engineering and a postdoctoral appointment at a research university, but I had pretty much decided that an academic career was not in my future. Instead I planned to chronicle my nonacademic search.

Then life intervened.

The past six months have been an interesting walk along the path of life as part of a dual-career couple. The entire process of looking for a job, deciding where to relocate, and discussing the details ad infinitum (and sometimes ad nauseam) with my husband have helped clarify my priorities in a way that I hadn't expected.

Although I have the training and personality to be the type of person who puts her career above all else, I've discovered that, to my surprised relief, there are other things I value more. My decision not to pursue a faculty position was the first step along that path of self-discovery.

My husband, who graduated with his M.B.A. this spring, spent much of the year going through the recruiting and interviewing process. While I made some efforts to pursue job leads in different locations, the reality is that most of my time was spent lamenting the fact that I didn't have time to look for a job because I was too busy working at my current one.

I just didn't feel right talking to potential employers on the phone while sitting in the office that I shared with six other people. Or scheduling interviews while I was in the lab and could barely hear above the roar of the chemical fume hood.

Deep down, I knew that if I were truly excited about the prospect of starting a fantastic job, I would have been out there trying a lot harder to find that fantastic job. In essence, I took the role of "trailing" spouse, preferring that my husband nail down his job first.

The feminist in me was unhappy with that state of affairs, but not unhappy enough to make me get off my duff and go find a job. After thinking long and hard, I realized that although it is absolutely important to me to have a challenging job that I enjoy, my partner values the overall importance of his job much more than I do mine.

Subconsciously I think I knew that. So I didn't feel justified in going out there and banging my drum, demanding that we move to a certain location so I could have my dream job and insisting that my husband follow.

In the midst of all that soul-searching, I spent time thinking about which large pharmaceutical companies I would be interested in working for, and whether I should also consider jobs at small start-ups in the biotech industry. One of the reasons that I didn't want a tenure-track job in academe was because of the long hours involved at a time in my life when I was starting to think about having children. I feared the same would be true of work at a small start-up.

I was on the verge of deciding against applying to start-ups when, out of the blue, I heard about a small biotech company that was looking to hire people. Even better, it was located in a warm and tropical place. I played phone tag with the CEO for several months and was just about ready to write off the opportunity when he finally called. A few members of his scientific team were going to be traveling to the East Coast, he said; he wanted me to interview with them.

A week after that interview, the CEO called again. He wanted to fly me to the company's facility in the tropical location for a second interview to meet him and the rest of the team. That was about a week before my husband was going to accept a great job offer in Boston.

After a few excited minutes of envisioning myself living in paradise and working at an extremely cool job, I started to consider all the reasons why this might not be a perfect opportunity for me at this point in my life. Besides my reservations about start-ups, the CEO had been a tough person to get in touch with. Did I want to work for someone I would hardly ever see? I also thought that while the scientific team was extremely capable, the company seemed a little unfocused.

Additionally, there were many unknown factors: What if I interviewed on site and didn't get an offer? What if I got an offer but it wasn't competitive with what I could earn in Boston? What if my husband turned down his offer in Boston, but then couldn't find a job in the warm and tropical location? The kicker was that the biotech start-up couldn't fly me down for an interview until after my husband had to accept or decline his offer in Boston.

Ultimately, I told the CEO that I would consider consulting for him this summer for eight weeks, but that our opportunities in Boston were just too good to turn down. He came back with a counteroffer: I could work on a project in the warm and tropical location for eight to nine months, with the potential to stay on as a consultant from Boston afterward.

It's amazing how just when you feel completely confused, something happens that makes everything crystal clear. For me, that event was finding out that I am pregnant.

Suddenly, it became clear that my best option was to move to Boston. Spending eight to nine months at a start-up thousands of miles away from my partner and family didn't make sense anymore. Moving to Boston so we could be close to my family and so that my husband could accept a job that would make him extremely happy did make sense.

The variety of job opportunities available to me in Boston in both the pharmacy and biotech fields makes me feel much more confident that I'll be able to find a job that I love when I'm ready to start looking.

While legally my pregnancy shouldn't affect a company's decision to hire me, the reality is that it could be an issue. To be honest, I'm not really comfortable with the idea of showing up for my first day of work six months pregnant anyway, and possibly not being eligible for maternity benefits. I'm content at the thought of having some time off from work to prepare for our first child, and being able to spend as much time as I want with the baby without having to worry about when my maternity leave would end.

And just like that, I learned what my priorities are: my husband and our child. My job search certainly didn't turn out the way I thought it would, but that's all right. It's good to make plans, but sometimes plans change.

For now, this Ph.D. is going off the job market.