Dr. Shellie

My networking efforts are starting to pay off, and I knew a lot of people at a recent conference. My group mate asked me if I knew any networking tips. My basic advice was this: look at each talk, and each speaker, in terms of how they might be connected to you and your work. When you find a possible connection, introduce yourself to the person and ask questions about their work in the area you overlap, and mention the work you’ve done that relates.

What I wanted to tell him is, it helps if you actually like talking to people!

I heard an inspiring talk this week from a college football coach. I hate football. I wouldn’t have thought that his experience would resonate with me. But it did. This guy was brought into University X to turn around a failing team, one that had been losing games and support for years. Within a season, he had totally turned things around– not only improved the team’s record, but brought out lots of fans to the games and raised lots of money.

So here’s what he said that really struck me: It’s all too easy to fall into the fellowship of the miserable. And once you do, you’re going to lose.

I think I’ve fallen into the fellowship of the miserable many a time, having conversations with other grad students and postdocs that went like this: grad school’s really hard, the problem sets are too long, everyone else is smarter than me, I might fail the exams, I’ll never get a faculty job, if I get a job it’ll be in the middle of nowhere in a place I don’t want to live… and on, and on. This kind of attitude never helps.

So what saved me from the fellowship of the miserable? Well, partly that I worked hard to get myself out of it at the times when I fell in. But what really helped was other people– people who said, "Hey, you’re really good, and you’re going to do well, and you’re going to have a lot of options, and don’t settle for options you’re not happy with– imagine where you want to be and what you want to do. Don’t let yourself think of the reasons you can’t do it– just go for it."

Yesterday I did this for someone else. It felt pretty good.

I am doing more travelling this week, visiting several universities and hunting for faculty positions. By now, I have been to a number of different places, either as an official seminar speaker, or to "drop by" and visit someone I know on the faculty. The most confusing part of these visits is that I never know in advance how I will be treated. If the person I am visiting has decided in their mind that I am a "Postdoc/Grad Student type person," I generally get treated pretty badly. That is: they sometimes keep me waiting before talking to me, tell me they are too busy to meet with me that day and pass me off to one of their grad students, and fail to offer lunch or dinner. On the other hand, if the person I am visiting has mentally filed me under "Promising young person who is a potential Assistant Professor, possibly right here at this University," I get treated exceptionally well. They ask me about my opinion of the field, where it’s going, what I want to do next, trade gossip, and offer to reimburse my expenses.

At any given university, I generally talk to a number of people. So sometimes the way I get treated varies quite a lot from person to person. And often, someone who starts out treating me like a unimportant Postdoc/Grad Student will change their tune when I demonstrate that I know not only what I am talking about, but know all the same people they know. (And presumably review their papers!)

All this is much better on official job interviews. There the general assumption is that I should be treated as a potential professor, not a grad student. Moreover, the university knows in advance that it is paying for my time, in the form of travel expenses, hotel reimbursements, etc. People value what they pay for.

When I sleep, eat, and exercise regularly, I am a pretty happy, cheerful, and outgoing person. But you should see me when I try to skip a few hours of sleep or eat dinner a few hours too late. Then, I am cranky and mean. Unfortunately, going to conferences often involves changes of time zone, unusual meal times, and no chance to exercise.

Meanwhile… at the airport today, I paused just a little too long while looking for the Avis shuttle, and an obnoxiously cheerful guy swooped in to explain where to find it. Then he asked for a donation for his Christian children’s charity, all the while flashing various documents to show that he was legit. I tried out my new line for such situations, which is a smiling, cheerful, "No, thanks"– which (I like to think) tends to leave the other party a little confused, wondering whether they were in fact offering me something, rather than asking.

If you find yourself at a conference banquet trying to network with senior, male, Russian scientists and are not yourself one, I recommend the subject of Russian literature. Perhaps you read Anna Karenina in high school?