Short pieces I publish on LinkedIn — on research visibility, the web, and the gap between doing the work and being seen doing it.
In academia money talks — but what matters is whose name is on the grant. Winning your own funding signals independent thinking, fundable ideas and delivery: it hits science, marketing and network at once. One of the highest-leverage moves a PhD or postdoc can make.
Your papers, grants and lab signal your worth automatically. The two years you spent cracking a hard problem stay invisible. Without being cocky, don’t play humble — make sure the world knows the skills that never make it onto a CV.
You can’t buy ads for a scientific career. Your talk is your campaign, your commercial and your business card all at once — one of the few moments the people who can change your career get to see you shine. So make it flawless, and beat the fear with practice.
The exact opposite of the last post. Good PhD students are scarce, so a precise, well-aimed cold email lands — if it earns it. What your email has to make a group leader think, and the four moves that get you there.
Cold outreach converts at 2–3% — fine with a million prospects, fatal when your list is a few dozen directors, and a cold “no” never resets. For group-leader roles, turn the contact warm instead. Three ways to do it.
The selection is done by humans, so bias decides as much as merit — country, age, gender, pedigree, committee agendas. Be skeptical of the official reasons and work your own game. My breakdown: 30% science, 30% network, 30% marketing, 10% luck.
I published well and worked hard — and never became a group leader, while others with similar CVs did. It took two years outside academia to see the game: hard work and papers are maybe 30% of it. This series unpacks the other 70% no one teaches.
