• Question: How tough is the competition in your domain? I'm talking both about getting a job and becoming an important name in your field of work

    Asked by underscoredash to Chris, Dave, David, Fiona, Jack on 18 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Chris Mansell

      Chris Mansell answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      That’s a good question. My opinion is the following.

      I read that in the 1990’s and the first years of the 2000’s, lots of money was put into science. However, most of the funding went to young scientists: people doing their PhDs and people called “post-docs” who had just finished their PhDs. So the number of PhD positions went up and the number of post-doc positions went up. Somewhat unfortunately, not much funding went to the higher-up stages of the academic career ladder: lecturers and professors. So the number of lecturer positions and professor positions stayed the same.

      I read that this lead to a bottle-neck in the profession. University students who want to do PhDs never seem to have too much trouble finding a PhD position. PhD students who want to get a post-doc position can usually achieve this. However, when a post-doc wants to get a lectureship position, the competition is extremely, extremely tough.

      However, if you are guys are still at school at the moment, it will take a good few years before you reach this bottle-neck stage of the career and, importantly, it may have changed by then. So please don’t worry about this or let it put you off.

      I am not an important name in my field. However, I would say that I am a name in my field. I have collaborators in the UK, Russia and the US and my supervisor has been having discussions with a really good researcher in Australia. When I go to conferences, I see some familiar faces and they say hello and ask how my work is going.

      To become an important name, you have to publish the type of research that gets into the best scientific journals. This is competitive but there is some luck involved. I just sent a paper to quite a good journal and they didn’t like it, so I made some changes and am sending it back. If they say the changes weren’t good enough, then I will have to send it to a less prestigous journal. It’s fairly hard work but the challenge is fairly enjoyable.

      I hope this has answered all the different aspects of your question. I’ve given honest, personal examples. I can’t speak for everyone, so I hope the other scientists say what their feelings are.

    • Photo: Fiona Coomer

      Fiona Coomer answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      The competition in all fields of academia (doing research at university) is very strong, but probably not as tough in science as in other disciplines (such as arts and humanities subjects). One of the problems is that the triangle is very flat – there are loads of jobs at the bottom (PhD students and postdocs – researchers working on short term contracts), but very few jobs at the top (university lecturers and professors). This means that there are loads of people applying for every job. If you want to do research in industry, things are a lot less competitive.

      Becoming an important name in your field of work takes years of hard work, and definitely some luck along the way. I would like to think that people all over the world would recognise my name from some of the research papers I’ve published, but I am definitely a very long way off being an important name.

    • Photo: David Freeborn

      David Freeborn answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      Hi underscoredash,

      Good question, and I agree with what Chris and Fiona wrote. There’s a real squeeze on places right now in PhD places, and even more in post-docs, and it’s even harder to get a position as a Professor or lecturer right now.

      I think it varies from field to field. My area has some very tough competition for places, I think other areas of research maybe a bit less so. That being said, I think people who are really committed, enthusiastic and work hard can normally manage to get a place.

      Becoming an important name is actually easier in some ways. The work is so specialised, that only a few people work on any particular topic. That means that you will quickly become one of the few leading experts in the world on whatever you work on. That’s a really great feeling- being one of the very best in the world, and right at the forefront of human knowledge!

    • Photo: Dave Farmer

      Dave Farmer answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      Hello,

      I feel the others have described very accurately the problems of getting jobs in science as you go further and further up the ladder, so I don’t really need to add anything there.

      I possibly have a slightly different experience to the others when it comes to competition in my field though, as there are not really any other groups in the world competing directly with us and what we do. This is both a positive and a negative. On the plus side, it means that most of the results we get are ‘new’ in some way, so in theory are worth publication, although maybe not in the best scientific journals, which as Chris mentioned is very important for your reputation. However, the fact that we are the only ones doing these specific types of measurements means that there is a danger of us being considered a bit of a niche area.

      We don’t believe this obviously, but the onus is very much on us to prove to people that what we study is worthwhile and that they should all be doing it! This means we have to be our own worst critics about the importance of our results.

      As David said, by the end of a PhD, you are, in theory, the world expert in a very specific area. The challenge though is making sure that you’re not too specialised in something that no-one cares about to get a job. I’m working quite hard to try and make sure that that’s not the case, but I guess I’ll find out in a year or so when I start looking for jobs!

      If you’re considering a career in science, please don’t let our answers put you off. I think we’re all just trying to be honest. Besides, as Chris points out, you’ve got a lot of time before you need to worry about this so you can enjoy learning for the pleasure of it for a fair while yet.

      Best wishes,

      Dave

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