So what should you focus on to increase your career chances?
My main advice is to consider everything you do as worthwhile rather than just focusing on abstract endproducts such as publications. There is a long lists of personal skills you are likely developing which are crucial for a career in academia, including:
- Stamina: ability to learn from failures
- Completion of projects: sticking with projects through difficult times
- Social skills: interaction with a range of people, establishing connections
- Presentation skills: presenting information to a diversity of audiences
- Public outreach: realizing what matters and how to convey the importance of it
- Writing: preparing grants and papers differs from talking about something
- Manage a team: you are likely to be part of a team and have to manage your role
Focusing on seeing your progress on a personal level can help to see you through harder times during your PhD, identify areas where you would like to develop more, and lets you see what you can bring to a new position - and all these skills tend to be valued as much inside of academia as in any other career.
Thinking about these skills, and where you personally want to set your focus, can also help you to identify your path through academia and the positions that might be best suited for you (see part 1). In addition, there are many good reasons to think about pursuing a career outside of academia. There are lots of other opportunities in industry and the public sector (in Germany, unemployment rates for PhD holders are very low). The abilities listed above all are transferable skills: for an alternative career the papers you published might not matter, but that you can bring skills to your new position. While it might be difficult to find out about these alternatives since everyone you engage with on a daily basis has chosen an academic career as their path, there are usually professionals around whose job it is to help you get a better view of career options. Such a decision should reflect your personal preference, balancing the pros and cons of the various options.
Lots of other people also provide helpful academic career advice:
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute provides a book with helpful tips
The Human Frontier Science Program has advice on fellowship applications
A list of useful resources for the academic job market at the profhacker blog
Blog post by Dr Becca with diverse advice for the job search
Joan Strassmann runs a blog with lots of useful information including her experience chairing a hiring committee
Information from the hiring side of the job search from Dynamic Ecology
Advice on how to write grant proposals:
Research Funding Toolkit
Adventures with grant proposals
Essential elements of a good application
Tilting the odds in your favour
Survival strategies for scientists
Funding your research career
Common mistakes in writing applications Mentoring reading materials
Interview advice:
Interviewing for tenure track positions
Resources for the academic job market
Dynamic Ecology advice
Sociobiology job advice
Link lists put together by other researchers:
http://lewenstein.comm.cornell.edu/science-communication-resources/
http://www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/baskett/links/academia.html
http://www.kiyokogotanda.com/resources.html
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/onepage/
http://www.aerinjacob.ca/resources.html
http://brunalab.org/resources/
https://manon-schweinfurth.jimdo.com/links/
https://naegle.wustl.edu/resources/