Its interview season!  This time of year we seem to see an increase in the number of institutions hiring people.  Before they hire someone, they are going to interview at least a few people for each position.  This is why we set September on our Calendar for Career Success to be the month that you

• The importance of teamwork and time management: In order to work well with your team it is crucial communicate clearly to avoid duplication of effort.  My time management s

It’s June!  That means we are half way through the year and half way through our career development calendar that we posted in January.  If you have been following the calendar, you have met with your PI to discuss you career aspirations, talked with a career counselor, created a networking map, learned

Post written by a guest blogger Anne Kirchgessner, Career Counselor in OITE. In my role as a career counselor in the OITE Career Services Center, I often hear postdocs say something like “My mentor hasn’t done anything to help me get to the next step.” The sentiment is understandable.  Your PhD advisor may have taken a more active role in your search for a postdoc position.  Maybe your advisor made a call to get you your current position, or may have referred you to a colleague or collaborator.  This sense of security using your PhD mentor’s contacts may fail when yo

Post written by a guest blogger Lillian Kuo, Postdoc at NCI. It’s time for the 5^th Annual NIH Career Symposium on Friday May 18^th, 2012!  This is an action-packed day of panel speakers and skills blitzes to provide insights into the myriad of professional career options for biomedical scientists.  Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of the event.  Before the Symposium:

Interviews are often essential stepping-stones to the next career stage. You know you are qualified, yet you may worry that you will be too nervous to perform well enough to get the position. If even the thought of the interview makes your palms sweaty and your heart race, believe it or not, that’s normal.  According to some estimates, as many as 40 million Americans suffer from situational anxiety. 

In the beginning of January, we posted a calendar with monthly steps to move your career forward.  The February task was to meet with a career counselor.  Here at OITE, we have two career counselors on staff.  Anne and Elaine&nbs

Happy New Year!  It is time for the annual tradition of making New Year’s resolutions.  Often the theme of resolutions is to better oneself through eating better, exercising more or changing a habit that drives us crazy (this will be the year that I paste every gel into my notebook and stop using paper towels for my calculations!).  While healthy bodies and well organized notebooks are great things, we encourage you to resolve to prioritize advancing your career.  Do you need to make a decision about what to do after your training?  Do you need to network more and/o

It is the holiday season and we here at OITE are in a giving mood!  To show our appreciation to our readers, we have compiled some of the best job search advice we have been given.  We have wrapped them up neatly below and are regifting them to you!  Yes, we are proud regifters!  So, grab your holiday drink of choice (unless you are in the lab…no food or drink allowed), settle down in a cozy chair (or lab stool) and prepare to unwrap your gifts from us this holiday season!  Enjoy and see you in 2012!    

One of the more intimidating parts of building your network is contacting people you have little or no connection to.  Before E-mail became the standard form of communication in science and business, this was even more daunting.  Making a “cold call” to a person you had never met was a scary prospect.  You never were certain how they would respond.  However, e-mail is a little less personal and thus, less of a risk.  Still, a poorly planned and constructed “cold e-mail” can get you nowhere, or worse, may actually work against you.  To make sure that your e-mail