What am I supposed to do with my career?

This question is the reason why I started this blog. I was so confused about what to do after graduation. The only clear career path I knew about was academia, but there is obviously much more you can do with a degree in life sciences. In fact, there is so much out there, that nobody can tell you what you should do, but others can help you find your way. And that's exactly what I'm going to do.

First of all, I’m sorry I didn’t write in 6 months, but I have a good excuse related to answering my own career path questions, for which I went all the way to Africa. Don't worry, there is no need for you to do the same, but I can write about it now and hopefully you will be closer to answering your own questions after reading this.

I found TEDxTalks very inspiring. There are many out there about career choices, paths to success, etc. One element that keeps coming back is passion. I started building from here. One of the talks is given by Scott Dinsmore, who is/was the founder of Live Your Legend. I found out about the sad news of his death today. The advice he gave in his talk consists of 3 simple rules: 1. Become a self-expert; know your strengths, know what you care about, know what different experiences meant for you, 2. Do the impossible, 3. Surround yourself with passionate people. You can watch the video here. Larry Smith talks about the importance of passion when it comes to career paths in this video. How many times have we been told to follow our passion and to live our dreams? Yes, many times. But how often do we actually do it? We come up with excuses all the time; you have to be lucky, you have to be a genius, you have to be crazy, it’s a big risk, I am too old, I have a family.. But you, my dear readers, you don’t have these excuses, do you? You are ‘Lost in Life Science’. Most of you are either students, recent graduates or PhD candidates. You are at the start of your career paths, which could go in any direction. You have the freedom to choose anything you like, but be careful, dear generation Y. We have been described as the ‘worst generation ever’ in this article by Cal Newport. The article was also the inspiration for Eunice Hii’s TEDxTalk  ‘Don’t just follow your passion’. Okay, before it becomes too confusing, it comes down to this: you need passion for your work if you want to love your job. Your career will most likely be a success when you love what you do, and do what you love, but don’t expect to love your work from the first day onwards. A passion can develop slowly and remember that your first job will be a position at an entry level where you mainly build up skills, according to Cal Newport. I have to add that you can be very passionate about learning new skills at an entry level. The big question is then – at least this has always been a big question for me – what kind of job at an entry level suits me?

Let me tell you about my personal career story. After graduation I had it all figured out; I was going to do a PhD. I had already gained a lot of experience in the lab during my bachelors and my masters, so I had to continue that. I didn’t do any internships at companies, so I would not have such good chances in industry. Besides, industry didn’t seem like much fun anyway, but hey, what did I know (exactly, nothing). I didn’t want to become a lab technician, because they were always doing stuff for others and not for themselves and I saw most of my friends going for PhD positions. A dr. title in front of your name is also super awesome of course. I was going to work on an awesome topic and change the world Oh yes, it was very clear, I should start a PhD too. WRONG! Here is a short article with reasons why you should or should not do a PhD. And for those who are interested, this is a graphic explanation of how much impact a PhD actually has.

I was actually a PhD candidate for a few months, but it didn’t work out that well. I felt like a failure, but started looking again. I now know that I was not the only one feeling like this. After I was ready to talk about it I found out that there are many more people who discontinued their PhD, for several reasons. One of them being the high stress levels and anxiety many PhD candidates have to face. According to this article 47% of PhD candidates suffer from depression. I hope I am not discouraging anyone from pursuing or finishing their PhD, but keep this in mind: if you want to do a PhD, you have to be absolutely in love with your topic. Don’t do it for all the wrong reasons, because it will get difficult and you will wonder what the hell you are doing with your life. You need the love for your topic and enormous self-motivation to keep your head above the water.

Okay, back to the story: my search continued and this time I searched for both jobs and PhD positions. When it came to my job search I didn’t really know what to look for. Biology is kind of broad, you know. You can’t just type ‘biology’ in a vacancy database; you will only find biology teacher jobs. And ‘immunology’ in my case doesn’t work that great either, because then you end up with a highly academia-biased list. I wanted to know what else is out there, but I simply didn’t have the keywords. Eventually I got the opportunity to go to Gabon to work as a biomedical scientist for 3 months. I was offered a 2 year position at the institute to work in the lab, and look for a PhD project on the side. Well I can tell you, nobody can just do a PhD ‘on the side’, but anyway, I went there for 3 months to see what the institute, the country and the people were like, and of course to already look around for PhD opportunities. I asked myself questions like, ‘Do I want to do a PhD?’, ‘Do I want to work in academia?’ and ‘Do I actually want to stay here?’. After talking to many people with various backgrounds I answered all of my questions with ‘No’. But then what do I do? – and we are back at the problem with finding the right keywords. I found my way out, and I will tell you how.

First, you need to know what you love to do the most. What are your skills? What are your interests? Then you need to know which jobs match these skills, interests and values. It sounds so easy. And it is. Ask yourself what you are good at, what you love doing, what is important for you. If you keep going in circles, and it’s not helping you, you can ask others. The way other people see you can be a real eye-opener. You can take online tests. For example, I have always loved organizing things. Anything really. I love having a helicopter view, and knowing what needs to happen when and where. I love structure in everything that I do, but I'm not a control freak. I love research, especially clinical research, but I prefer not to zoom in too much on one topic. Friends and family agree that I'm good at organizing and communicating. They also added I am creative and I don't easily give up.

Once you know what is important to you, which skills you want to use, you can narrow down your search. I know this is not an easy task, but try to talk to recruiting agencies. They often have a broad overview of different kind of jobs. There are many agencies in the field of life sciences, and even in more specific areas. What also helps is going to career events, where you try to connect with people, companies, institutes, organizations and also recruiting agencies by talking about what skills you can offer. I found out about the world of clinical operations and various positions I could apply for for the first time at the BCF career event. When I spoke to a recruiter he also mentioned some of these positions, and gave me tips to help me apply for such job openings. When I went to Gabon I spoke to people who actually had jobs I would like to do myself, which gave me a good insiders perspective. Now I am sending out job applications on a daily basis (although just before Christmas Holidays it's becoming less, because there aren't many vacancies), getting calls from interested recruiters weekly, and next week I have my first interviews at the companies themselves. You have to be patient with recruiters, but in the end you will get somewhere.. One very important tip for those who are still studying or working as a PhD candidate: take every chance you get to broaden and improve your skill set. Think about internships, extracurricular activities, etc. This will surely help you in your future job search, especially if you already know which skills and experiences you need for the career path of your choice.

If you have the time I can really recommend to watch Nadia Jaber’s TEDxTalk (above). She was a PhD candidate herself in cell biology when she had a ‘mid PhD crisis’, because she realized that the academia wasn’t where she wanted to stay. She talks about the academic world and the mysterious non-academic universe – exactly how I experienced it. She also mentions a self-assessment test – this one – to find out about what skills, interests and values are important to you, and which jobs match with it. I took the test myself, and it worked pretty well. Even though it says the test is for post PhD candidates, you can also take the test as a master student, just to give you an indication of what you can do. After taking this test I actually added job titles to the list of keywords I use in my online searches. Nadia Jaber also started the PhD career ladder program. You can check out the website here. I realize that this website and the self-assessment test are not a 100% guarantee to finding your perfect career path, but it will surely give you ideas for your future searches. So let’s stop leaning our career ladders up against the wrong wall and start climbing towards our real goals. Good luck!