Seeking a job in science? How hiring practices across industry and academia compare

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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