Suppose you have just been fired by your PI for lack of progress and productivity*. Suppose you feel this judgment is unfair because your PI did not take into account various unexpected hurdles which were out of your control--e.g., technical difficulties, equipment and reagent problems, etc.--in evaluating your performance. Suppose your PI is allowing you to stay on until you've found a new position, and is leaving the question of whether to inform the rest of the lab up to you.
Would you tell the lab what happened, or would you quietly find a new position and then simply announce that you are leaving? Would you tell the few people you are closest to and ask them to keep it secret?
Telling people would mean that you can have the emotional support of your friends and not have to pretend that everything's okay. And being open about your job search will allow you to network more effectively. But on the other hand, you may not want to have to answer questions or to endure pitying looks. Perhaps it would be easier to get through the day if things were, at least on the surface, relatively normal.
Would you tell a prospective employer about the circumstances under which you are leaving your current position? You have been in your current position for a short enough period of time that your search for a new position would raise questions. Should you address this in a cover letter or wait till the interview?
Telling a prospective employer would at least allow you to present your side of the story, assuming that your PI will tell her side when asked for a reference. But perhaps telling your side of the story would come across as defensive and hostile, or making excuses? Perhaps a prospective employer would automatically dismiss an application from someone who had been fired?
What's the best way to salvage a career out of a situation like this?
*This is not about me. I have not been fired, nor have I fired anyone.
What's left
38 minutes ago
20 comments:
Don't know about the best way to salvage a career but i do know that I personally got a thing thrown in my face like this. It was later taken back when funding/grant was funded and all of a sudden I wasn't "non productive" but good and a wanted person ^^
Therefore, I don't know if I was non productive or if it was a good scapegoat to blame?!!?
If it happened after a short time in the lab (say less than a year) I think I would be open to a degree in my job search. i.e. find a good enough excuse to claim "I want to do something different and in this lab there wasn't the tools I was used to nor was the lab set up for this to run"... and yes, I would tell some of my friends to keep an eye open and be honest about it.
It also depends if you are going to use that person (PI/boss) as a reference or not. You can "lie/embellish" more if you don't and seriously, it does take two to tango. Never mind the reagents problem etc, since people have a tendency to think you blame it on something, but if you explain how you would have solved if (given time) I think it can work without coming across as too "blaming something else".
my two cents.
"Would you tell the lab what happened,"
No.
"Would you tell the few people you are closest to and ask them to keep it secret?"
Yes, but people outside the lab.
In order to explain the short time in th lab, I'd do as Chall suggests: Declare it a bad fit. Noone to blame, just didn't work out.
Does the hupotheitc peson have some good contacts - and potential recommenders - from a previous lab? If yes, I would suggest talking to them.
I think it would be better to keep it quiet within the lab, but I know that I'd have a very hard time doing that myself and would probably tell my one or two closest colleagues.
I think in an interview you could mention technical/equipment/reagent difficulties, and say that your PI found the delays unacceptable, BUT have solid reasoning ready as to why the delays were unavoidable. I think most scientists would understand that these things do sometimes happen. It might be easier to discuss this in person when you can gauge the interviewer's reaction to what you're saying, and give more or less information about it as a result. And then they're prepared for the reference, which in most cases is requested after the interview. (no reference from current employer = big red flag, unless you can get someone other than the direct supervisor to write one).
So... I THINK I would keep this out of the cover letter. But then again I've never been responsible for hiring anyone, and don't know whether "time in current position" would be used to screen out applications rather than be raised at interview.
It sounds like an awful situation and I hope the hypothetical person figures out a way to move on. Hypothetically.
Suppose you have just been fired by your PI for lack of progress and productivity.First, I'd go back and look at my past evaluation(s). Surely you've been evaluated yearly. If you're not, you should insist on it. Anyways, as to the eval(s): If they were stellar, my first call is to a lawyer. ;)
Do I tell the people in the lab? It's not my job to do so. Chances are the PI will bitch about you behind your back once you're gone (I've seen that many a time). In my experiences, it's common to throw people under the bus when they're gone, regardless of whether they were good or not. Sometimes it's deserved, sometimes less so.
I'd tell my family, I'd probably hire and tell a therapist. I doubt I'd confide in anyone at the lab, but it depends on how well I knew them.
Salvaging a career? I don't think there would be much of a need to do damage control. As others have said, you can always chalk it up to a bad fit. I wouldn't put the PI down as a reference. If this happens six or seven times in a row, perhaps it is time to re-examine your personality, but if this is a one-off thing, you can probably just blame the PI and or current funding conditions.
If the perspective employer is astute enough, they may see the time frame and inquire, in which case you can give them your take on the issue. No point in pointing out reasons for them to not hire you. You want to put your best foot forward, and that means glossing over the warts which may exist.
Thomas' first point reminds me of something I'd meant to ask. Is there any written record (incl. email) of this person (or a colleague) notifying the PI of the technical problems, with explanations? Preferably early and often...
Oh, and one last thing ... technical difficulties, equipment and reagent problems ... are excuses, not reasons for a lack of productivity. If said individual did not have things on the back-burner to bring to the forefront when the main experiments tanked, that demonstrates poor planning. It is extremely foolish to put all your eggs into one basket, as that basket may have a hole in the bottom. One must plan in advance: If X fails, what is Y. If Y fails, what is Z.
Here in the government setting, I need to come up with two publications a year. One senior author, one junior. AT A MINIMUM. It's not "one publication and one excuse" or "two excuses". It's two publications. Period.
TJ> really? 2 a year? Do you have a start up year when you transfer or are you expected to publish the first year you are in there?!?!
On the other evaluation record part... I would love* to be included in the official evaluation. However, where I am at, post docs are excluded from the official requests - not techs and other personel, only post docs.
and yeah, my comments in regards to cut my losses probably only works if it is a once/first time... after a few "non fitting" places it must get hard.
*not really since I hate evals but I do think it is good for you and your PI to set the bar and know what you are measured against. Although, I think this should come from the boss rather than the post doc asking to get bashed... see, I have a bad thing about evals since I read them as "bad critism" rather than "good feedback". I blame old expereiences and present gossip about other peoples' evals.
chall, Yep, two a year. (They do not need to be accepted, just submitted ... but they're tracked by the agency until they're published so if you send out crud, you get a backlog really quickly and it'll bite you in the ass). Your first year, you are highly advised to find something to publish from your Ph.D. thesis or Post-Doc. Otherwise you better find a project which will pay you some quick dividends. Our work is largely applied science, so you're typically walking into an already established project, so you can get a junior author publication fairly quickly (especially if your research leader pays attention and is proactive with your career ... and so are you). For me the first year came down to the wire. My senior authorship came from my Ph.D. and went out the door the last week of the year (actually I wrote two publications that last month, one which went out, one which we held back for the next year). My second year was much easier with 4 pubs on the year (1 Sr, 3 Jr), and year three is looking better than that (predicted 3 Sr, 2 Jr). The difference in productivity? I latched onto people who were doing good science, volunteered to work on an angle they hadn't thought of and became collaborators with them. I guess this wouldn't work in every situation, but it is your career and you need to do everything possible to ensure that it is successful.
Based on the quoted paragraph below I would not call this person fired. He is leaving when he finds another job. Period. No need to inform anyone either except close friends outside the lab. And then too say you are leaving as soon as you find another job. Enough said.
How are you Mad Hatter? Its been a while?
"Suppose you feel this judgment is unfair because your PI did not take into account various unexpected hurdles which were out of your control--e.g., technical difficulties, equipment and reagent problems, etc.--in evaluating your performance. Suppose your PI is allowing you to stay on until you've found a new position, and is leaving the question of whether to inform the rest of the lab up to you."
Chall--I'm glad that in your situation everything worked out okay. Funny how one's value as an employee can change so drastically! Honestly, I'm not sure if one can really choose not to use one's PI as a reference if one is applying for another academic position, especially within the same field. I have a suspicion that a prospective new PI would call or email the former PI regardless of whether he/she is listed as an official reference, unless one doesn't divulge who the former PI is.
Schlupp--Talking to former mentors or former colleagues who can provide recommendations is a very good idea.
Cath--I know, it seems to me that not telling anyone at all would make it a very lonely position to be in. I've only been responsible for hiring technicians, in which case "time in previous job" would only be a red flag if the applicant had a string of multiple one-year gigs. But I've heard what people say about applicants who, for example, did one short postdoc and are now looking for another one. The assumption for why the first postdoc was short is usually not favorable toward the applicant. Yeah, it is a pretty horrible situation. I don't know if email records of the problems exist, but I suspect it won't help in this case. :-(
Tom--There are many, many positions in academia in which one does not receive formal evaluations, and there are also many positions in which evaluations are in person and not in writing. I also don't entirely agree that technical difficulties are always just excuses for lack of productivity. In non-applied academic research, a lot of projects start out as "building a new experimental system" or "fishing expeditions", which are very high-risk and have high failure rates. Trainees are not always allowed to have back-up projects, and in any case, what constitutes good productivity can be very subjective when there aren't specific criteria like "two pubs a year." For example, if my project were to generate a knock-out mouse to test hypothesis X, and said KO mice turn out to be embryonic lethal, or the colony gets wiped out by a pinworm infestation at the animal facility, technically I would have not made progress in my project through no real fault of my own.
Science Cog--Hey, good to see you again. How are things going? Any thoughts of reviving your blog??? Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, the real distinction between "leaving when he finds another job" and being fired is that he is now doing an unplanned and somewhat involuntary job search....
In non-applied academic research, a lot of projects start out as "building a new experimental system" or "fishing expeditions", which are very high-risk and have high failure rates. Trainees are not always allowed to have back-up projects ...If the project has very high failure, then it's crazy to not discuss and plan a backup. Otherwise you're left starting from scratch years down the road. If that's not a career killer, I don't know what is. One should always hedge their bets. Besides, don't grants want to see what your backup plans are if "Golden Experiment" comes up a brick of lead?
Sure, but my point is that that doesn't necessarily stop your PI from dinging you for not making the expected progress on your project. In my experience, academic scientists below the PI level are usually hired to work on a particular project, and their productivity on said project, not on random side projects that are cobbled together, is the basis for how they are judged.
Yes, it's smart to discuss and plan a back-up project, but PIs are not always amenable to having their lab members divert effort from a primary project to a back-up project while the primary project is still ongoing. And in some cases, PIs are not willing to discuss a specific back-up project in any detail until they are convinced the lab member has sufficiently flogged the dead horse of a primary project.
Grants are irrelevant in situations in which a new project or new research direction is being developed. New project = insufficient preliminary data = no grant funding. Therefore, for these types of projects, there is pressure to keep trying to get X to work because until that happens, one cannot get funding for the project.
I recently had a situation like this, although not so dire. My PI wasn't happy with my progress thus far on my main project (I'm a grad student), but my backup project had been going marvelously (albeit a bit slow and done in conjunction with a post doc). Again, I wasn't asked to leave the lab or anything, but he wasn't happy. And most of the problems were technical difficulties on my part, or things I had to solve that were previously thought to be fine.
Anyway, just to say that even though a backup project may be going well, a PI still may not be happy.
All I can add to what has already been said is that your friend is right to be worried about the future. PIs consider abbreviated post-docs with no resulting publications to be a very red flag on a candidates CV.
I would say nothing. I would find a job and leave as soon as possible -- if asked I would cite family reason or something else unrelated to the job. PI will be contacted as a reference anyway, sooner or later, so it is best to find quickly someone else who will be able to counter what (s)he will inevitably have to say about me at that time.
"Yes, it's smart to discuss and plan a back-up project, but PIs are not always amenable to having their lab members divert effort from a primary project to a back-up project while the primary project is still ongoing. "
Exactly. I spent the first two years of my postdoc on a risky fishing expedition. After the first year, when things weren't going well, I kept asking my PI if I could start a safer back-up project to go along with the main project. He refused. He kept telling me to focus 100% attention on the main project; he said I was young, that this was the time in my career to do high-risk science, and "safe" projects could wait till later. Guess who got dinged for not making any progress after a second year? Even though screens sometimes just don't pan out (it just happens) and I hadn't been allowed to work on anything else?
Things did eventually (kinda) work out, but Mad Hatter has a definite point about how some PIs do NOT encourage or even allow "back-up" projects until a main project has been run into the ground.
Like Sciencecog (nice to hear from you, btw!), I would not consider this person fired. They are simply looking for another job. I wouldn't address any of this in a cover letter; let it come up in an interview and explain things then. Don't badmouth the PI, whatever you do--chalk it up to changing career interests or just sub-optimal "fit". (Or family reasons, as Massimo says, if that would be a plausible explanation.)
I had somewhat similar experience few month back. I joined my first post doc and it was suppose to be for a year. After 3-4 mnth, I was told by PI that he has crunch financial situation and he has to terminate my position in a month. Obviously, I was shocked but did not talk to other lab mates about this. But then graduate students came asking me that they have heard from PI that I won't be there after some time, so they need to learn the techniques from me asap. It was humiliating.
I openly asked the PI if there is slightest possibility that his decision is based on my performance. But he said that it is not so and he seriously has financial issues and also that he will be more than happy to give me recommendation.
Now, I am in dire situation because employer's are skeptical about my short post doc tenure and people in this university kind of speculate something about me as the PI with whom I worked has very good name. Now under these circumstances I am the person who is all screwed up.
Well, for your hypothetical problem, I think the person will be lucky if he gets an interview call and also gets an opportunity to expalain his/her side of story. Good luck.
Anonymous--Yeah, I love how supposedly "established experimental systems" and "optimized protocols" can be anything but when you actually try it! I hope things are going better for you now and that your PI recognizes the work you've done on your secondary project. Thanks for visiting!
CPP--That's what I thought. I have seen three circumstances in which an abbreviated postdoc does not (severely) harm an applicant: (1) the person had to leave the first postdoc because the lab lost funding, (2) the person had to relocate because of a spouse/significant other's job, or (3) the person managed to get some other PI/mentor to go to bat for him and help him find another position.
Massimo--Good advice, although I think if the person can reasonably expect to get a publication out soon, then it might be worth staying long enough for that (while simultaneously conducting a job search, of course).
Bean-mom--My experience was of the "the horse might not be 100% dead, so you should continue to flog it" variety, so yeah, I'm speaking from personal experience too! And the really crappy thing about screens is that if you don't find anything, there's absolutely nothing you can salvage from all that work. I think not badmouthing the PI is a really important point. Many fields are very inbred and these things will always come back to bite you in the ass.
Bewildered--I'm so sorry to hear about your situation. I think your PI should have better handled the way this was communicated to the lab. If your PI has a good reputation, as you say, and is willing to help you, perhaps he can contact other PIs you would like to work for and set the record straight or put in a good word for you. This could at least get you past the CV-screening hurdle and help you secure an interview. Best of luck and I hope things work out for you.
Does this person know any other PIs that might be able to recommend them for a job? In this case, maybe they could alleviate the situation to some degree.
In my old lab, we interviewed a post-doc who was leaving a lab after relations between them and their mentor went very sour. Another PI in the post-docs department filled my boss in on the issues and we ended up interviewing the post-doc. My PI seemed sympathetic to the post-docs situation.
MXX--I haven't asked, but I agree that having the support/recommendation of other PIs would definitely help.
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