News & Views: A Foot in the Door: A Guide to the Postdoctoral Application Process

A recent report in Nature (1) provides some helpful advice on the postdoctoral application process. The author interviews a number of successful postdoctoral fellows on how they secured their positions. The report was divided into 3 categories: “narrowing the field,” “beyond publication record,” and “what not to do.” No strict formula guaranteed success, but as the title indicates, there are some key steps candidates can take to improve their chances. A recurring theme in the report was to identify a laboratory that does work of genuine interest to the candidate. One interviewee described how she wrote down the names of laboratories that published reports she found interesting to narrow the field. Another interviewee wrote from the perspective of someone already in that laboratory, describing in detail the follow-up experiments this applicant would do if accepted. This effort and creativity are typically reflected in cover letters and applications, where candidates may mention specific aspects of the research of the principal investigator (PI).3 Because PIs are acutely concerned with what the applicant has to offer the laboratory, candidates can pique their potential employer's interest by providing details as to what they did previously and how their target laboratory will get them to their destination. This part of the …