updated 27 January 2014
Strategies for Success:
From Dissertation (to Post-Doc) to Job
Virginia Valian
Deputy Executive Offer, PhD Program in Psychology
Distinguished Professor
Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center
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Strategy 1 – develop a circle of advisors (see handout)
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Your aims
 Figure out how to do your best work
 Enjoy yourself – as much as possible – in the process
Instead of a single mentor, rely on a range of people from each of whom you ask a modest
amount; put yourself in the driver's seat
 In the ideal case the thesis or post-doc supervisor will be actively helpful in many
aspects of your career
Choose people who will provide constructive comments and encouragement, who will bring
out your best
 Avoid or neutralize people who make you feel bad
Get professional advice from professional colleagues
Get psychosocial advice and support from people who aren't evaluating you
Strategy 2 – learn what types of needs are common (not exhaustive)
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setting goals and tracking progress
information about how higher education works
constructive criticism of written work
information about prizes, awards, fellowships, and other benefits you might be eligible for
information about career trajectories
suggestions for and information about further training
tips on speaking in public
strategies for attending conferences
training in building and working with a team
sympathetic critiques of self-presentational style
help with time-management and procrastination problems
recommendation of specific courses of action for various problems
challenges to do better
reassurance that you can be successful when you doubt yourself
information about how different people integrate work and personal lives
help with personal problems (family, friends, money, love, substance abuse)
advocacy
Valian, Strategies for success: From dissertation to job, November 2011
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Strategy 3 – develop a flexible psychological plan for writing (dissertation,
grant proposals, papers, other work)
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There's no single right method or right way to write a dissertation or paper
 Figure out what works for you, even if it's embarrassing
 If the "wrong" method gets results, it's the right method
There's no single right personality to have
 Maybe work comes easily to you, maybe it doesn't; either way, you can be productive
 Maybe you're extremely self-confident, maybe you're plagued by self-doubt; either
way, you can be productive
Methods to consider – one or more, depending on whether you are happy with your progress
or not
 Dissertation group or writing group
 Regular meetings – or not – with supervisor
 Workshops
 Work ally
 Decide on parameters
 work every day?
 work at particular time of day?
 work for set time or set amount of work completed?
VVV’s dissertation method: 15 minutes/day
 Worked every day to ensure continuity
 Decided on time rather than amount of pages because I knew I could last out a fixed
period of time
 Decided on 15 min initially
 Did nothing but work during the 15 min
 Accelerated gradually, in 15-min chunks
Like the doing, like the doer
 Writing is hard work, but rewarding
Enjoy the rest of your life
Revise your plan as necessary
Strategy 4 – think experimentally
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Treat your situation as one where you need to figure out the right combination of efforts
 You are simultaneously the experimenter and the participant
 As the participant, you, like every participant, are never wrong
 As the experimenter, you, like every experimenter, will analyze the experiment if
something doesn't work and modify the procedure until it does
Strategy 5 – develop an incremental approach: everything can be learned
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Two basic ways of perceiving psychological traits, delineated by Carol Dweck
 Trait as fixed entity that can't be changed or trait as malleable and responsive to
learning
 Dweck finds people persist through setbacks more when they have a malleable view
of a trait than when they have a fixed view
 Effort is not a sign of weakness or lack of ability but a sign of understanding how
skills develop
Success in academia is a skill that one can acquire
Valian, Strategies for success: From dissertation to job, November 2011
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Learn what a professional product is: analyze successful models and copy them; try
them out; get feedback
 grant proposals
 vita – be sure it's perfect
 job talks of different lengths
 Practice, practice, practice
 Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite
 Organize a workshop on a topic
 Consult your circle of advisors
Don't focus on how smart or talented you are or are not, but on learning and enjoying learning
Strategy 6 – know what experienced people say about how to become
successful (it's a lot; take it one step at a time)
Skills to develop
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Communication via writing and presentations
 Many scientists don’t develop those skills
Emotional resilience to failure
 Ability not to take failure personally and persevere is a key element
Time-management
People-management and impression-management
 Women may be less willing to bluff than men
 Acknowledging difficulty can lead to perceptions that person is struggling – thus, be
careful who you talk to
Learn how the system works via a circle of advisors, not just one person
 Publishing (e.g., revise-and-resubmit is standard)
 Grants (e.g., talk to program officer)
 Teaching (e.g., be efficient and effective)
 Requirements for promotion and tenure (e.g., ask)
 How much service is required (e.g., observe)
Choice of research topics
As graduate student
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Get a post-doc if you want to become a faculty member at a research institution
 if you want to be a faculty member at teaching-intensive regional state universities, a
post-doc may not be essential but is becoming more and more a thing that’s done
 pick a field you are interested in
Pick a post-doc by reviewing people you’ve encountered at professional meetings or that your
thesis advisor may know or know of
Big lab or small? Advantages and disadvantages for each
 Big lab (> 8 post-docs) – well-funded, well-known scientist, lots of opportunities, but
relatively little contact with PI and hard to distinguish oneself
 Smaller lab – some funding, scientist who's eager to become successful, spends time
with post-docs and students; but less established and therefore perhaps less helpful
for getting jobs later
 Whichever, it has to have good resources – equipment, staff
Go to meetings – one national and one regional per year
Publish
Valian, Strategies for success: From dissertation to job, November 2011
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 Have at least one publication where senior author and one where junior author
 Think in terms of manageable, publishable projects
 Aim for top-tier journal
Become as independent as possible
 Apply for NSF and NIH support
 Develop own ideas
As post-doc
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Many of same things as with grad student, but more so
more independent
more publications – 2-4 per year, depending on the institution
As a job hunter
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Consider what kind of institution you want to be part of: research-intensive or teachingintensive
 Research-intensive: well-prepared students, colleagues in one's area, more credibility
when submitting grant proposals and papers; impersonal, competitive, demanding
 Teaching-intensive: at least some well-prepared students, teaching can be rewarding,
closer connections among colleagues, easier to get tenure; teaching load is very
demanding, less time and fewer resources for research
As beginning assistant professor, to-do list for first 4 years
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Come with a grant in your head even before you get to the school
Obtain an external grant
 Apply as soon as possible so that you can reapply
Set up your lab and get research going
 Populate your lab with effective personnel
 Learn how to evaluate prospective students and post-docs
 Get the best students you can: they will challenge you
 Do not hire someone just to hire them; no one is preferable to someone who will not
work well
Focus on research projects that are achievable by a new assistant professor
 Don’t take on a large gorilla field
Attend one to three conferences per year, not more (one large one and one to two small ones
(such as the Gordon conferences in biology: 4-5 days for 150 people)
 Very good opportunity to meet people, network, find out where the field is; meet the
people who are the players
 Some fields are so competitive that some people only publicly present work that is
very close to being published
 Presenting your work at a conference makes it more likely that people will read it
when it's published because they can tie you to it
Have a personal relationship with people in your field
 Humanizes the whole experience
 If the people are reviewing a paper or grant, you’re not anonymous or abstract
 Having someone on a grant panel who will advocate for you is a big plus
 In informal conversation you can find out what people are doing in a way that’s
impossible via reading the literature
Valian, Strategies for success: From dissertation to job, November 2011
References
Alon, U. (2009). How to choose a good scientific problem. Molecular Cell, 35, 726-728.
Alon, U. (2009). How to give a good talk. Molecular Cell, 36, 165-167.
Alon, U. (2010). How to build a motivated research group. Molecular Cell, 37, 151-152.
Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset. New York: Random House.
Gender Equity Project, Hunter College. See short documents and references on many topics.
http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/genderequity/searchBySubject.html
Regents of the University of Michigan. (2013). How to get the mentoring you want: A guide
for graduate students. Rackham Graduate School, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan.
Valian, V. (1977). Learning to work. In S. Ruddick & P. Daniels (Eds.), Working it out (pp
163-178). New York: Pantheon. Retrieved on 27 January 2014 from
http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/psych/faculty/valian/docs/1977workingItOut.pdf
Valian, V. (1985). Solving a work problem. In M. F. Fox (Ed.), Scholarly writing and
publishing: Issues, problems, and solutions (pp 99-110). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Retrieved on 27 January 2014 from
http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/psych/faculty/valian/docs/1985solvingAWorkProb.pdf
Valian, V. (2010). Effectiveness and power. Retrieved on 16 November 2011 from
http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/genderequity/equityMaterials/Dec2010/ureffectiveness.pdf
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