Skill Building

Andrea
Habura

What's Your Side Hustle?

There are two kinds of people in the world: people who think the world can be divided into two kinds of people, and those who don't. However, I rather like the metaphor of "foxes" versus "hedgehogs." It was coined by the ancient Greek playwright Archilochus, but it's famous thanks to an essay by Isa...


Nathan
Vanderford

The Skills Great Leaders use to Successfully Navigate Change

Leaders are constantly navigating decisions and actions that are critical to the well-being of a project, situation, and/or organization. The importance of these decisions and actions becomes even greater when significant change is occurring, or must occur. In addition, the way in which leaders navi...


Lauren
Celano

Building your “soft skills”

I often advise PhD students on career planning and the many options available to them in and out of academia.  When I ask about specific skills, a lot of them focus only on their research/technical skills, i.e. “hard skills” such as genetics, cell biology, computer science, chemistry or pha...


Scott
Jeffers

Lessons in Entrepreneurship: Never stop learning

In my last post, I told you to buy the experience you need by hiring experts. In this post, I’m going to tell you, even if you have the experts, you still need to know the basics. What does this mean? As scientists, we are not trained in business. We don’t think about the daily operations of ...


Shraddha
Desai

Career transition? Or is it just the next step in LIFE?

Hello Bio Careers® Readers!I am grateful for being invited to write blog posts for this community. I have been following the blogs on Bio Careers® for quite some time and now, so getting an opportunity to share my experiences with others on Bio Careers® is quite amazing. 


Gaia
Vasiliver-Shamis

Lean Mean Science Machine

When I decided to pursue the idea I had for a better way to keep up with science, aka Scizzle (check it out, I’d love to get your feedback), I really didn’t know where to start. And so, like a good researcher….I went on Google. This is how I came by the lean startup approach – a methodology ...


Lauren
Celano

Building your Professional Network through Involvement

A well developed network is one of your most important assets.  The quality and strength of your network significantly impacts career opportunities, your career trajectory, and overall success.  It can take years, sometimes decades, to develop a robust professional network, and it often do...


Kate
Sleeth

Taking Responsibility

When you saw the title of my post, did you immediately think of negative connotations? Taking responsibility for mistakes is what usually comes to mind.  However, I like to think of all the positive outcomes instead.  If you become the lead on a project, it is natural to then take on the r...


Virginie
Adam

Creativity

There is one ability that, over the years as a PhD and postdoc, I have come to realize is often undervalued in science (and probably other professions), and yet is crucial for success: creativity. While creativity is a trait typically recognized in painters, authors, musicians and other artists, ima...


Kate
Sleeth

Getting a Professional Opinion

Today I want to focus on something that I believe a lot of scientists should consider getting – getting a professional opinion.  We are all familiar with the idea of being trained by an expert in our field of interest, after all that is what we did with our doctoral degrees, but we don’t se...