ºìÌÒÊÓƵ

Congratulations! You have just been offered your first group leader position. It’s a huge moment but you quickly realise that you can’t be a group leader without a group. That’s quite daunting. Here I suggest a few practical actions you can take. They are of course not definitive, but they do reflect my own experience – things that have gone well and my mistakes.

I focus here on recruiting a postdoc, but the principles are relevant to other first hires, for example a graduate research assistant, technician or lab manager.

Why would a good postdoc want to come and work with someone who has not yet established themselves? How do you find the right person? What’s the best way of selecting applicants? And when you have found the right person, how can you maximise the chance that all goes well in your (still small) team? Anxiety about all this is normal: research scientists are not taught this kind of thing and, even if you have seen it, it’s different when you are the boss.

Someone once told me that progress in my lab would be “proportional to the number of good people minus twice the number of bad”. That’s obnoxious, oversimplifying, and ignores the possibility that any ‘bad-ness’ could be my fault. It nevertheless captures the essence of a golden rule: it is better not to hire anyone, than to hire the wrong person. But if the best postdocs choose to go to famous labs, what chance do you have as a new group leader?

Luckily, there are lots of reasons why people choose a particular lab, and even new groups do find excellent postdocs. Maybe they heard you talk and were inspired. Or they are looking for the close research relationship you can have with a new group leader, compared to someone who runs a huge lab and spends much of their time travelling. Sometimes you are just in the right place at the right time.

Searching

Even if great people for your group do exist, how do you find them? If you have a salary to offer, then it is obvious: you advertise. But before that, think hard about what you need the person to do. Don’t assume you are looking for a mini-me, and be careful about taking someone who, while excellent, is not a good fit.

Take ownership and craft the language of the advert as carefully as the last abstract you wrote for a paper. Capture the excitement, who you are looking for, and why you are the right person to work with.  Concisely.

Consult colleagues about where to post your advert. In the UK, jobs.ac.uk is almost universal for academic jobs. But for international exposure, high-profile journals can also be good (at a cost). Encourage people to contact you for informal discussion before they apply and then be prompt to reply. Showing yourself to being friendly and engaged is a positive indicator to applicants.

Maybe even more important than advertising, is actively searching for the right person. Email lists, WhatsApp groups, social media, a slide you drop in at the end of a talk, members of your old and new departments, former supervisors and mentors – don’t passively wait for people to see your ad. You may even find someone who has their own funding or might plausibly apply for it. That’s a bonus.

Shortlisting

The deadline is past, and you must now shortlist your applicants. From here on, subjective judgement becomes inevitable but there are clear principles to follow. Remember the golden rule: it really is better not to hire anyone, than to hire the wrong person. You can always readvertise. Don’t allow feeling flattered that people want to work with you to cloud your judgement. On the other hand, don’t be too dogmatic or inflexible. I can think of cases where the person I appointed (and who turned out to be brilliant) was someone who I almost did not shortlist. Diversity in all aspects is an opportunity to find excellent people who may not fit your preconceptions.

I’d suggest a shortlist of about five applicants. Don’t shortlist anyone you can’t imagine appointing and don’t select a much larger number. It’s a lot of work for you, and them.

Interviewing

You now have your shortlist of realistic candidates, so how do you manage the interviews? Here are four ideas.

First, I recommend finding an experienced colleague to interview with. It’s not just that one gets more confident (and maybe competent) with time but also, it’s amazing how easy it is in an interview to start selling yourself, rather than assessing the applicant. Having someone with no personal stake in the outcome helps with objectivity. 

Second, you may have been advised to ask everyone exactly the same questions. Adapt that advice to your needs. I make sure I cover the same pre-planned areas, but tailor the details of the conversation, to suit the candidate, in real time. Interviews needn’t be mechanical: you are more likely to get insight when the conversation is natural. I’d take that further: split the visit into a formal and an informal phase. As well as the interview proper, spend a bit of time walking each applicant around the lab, let them have coffee with potential colleagues, and perhaps have them give a short talk about their previous work. Ask your colleagues what they thought. The aim is to get to know them in a way that is impossible in a 45-minute structured interview. This is also your chance to make it clear why your lab would be a good choice for them. The team, the department, the facilities, your warmth and individual attention – these can all help differentiate your offer from others.

Third, references. My preference is to have the reference letters before you interview so that you can follow-up any issues that they raise. Written references can be very insightful –what’s not written as well as what is. All that said, letters can be difficult to interpret and, ultimately, favour your own judgement over what others say. A practical tip is to make the effort to speak to referees: you may get a clearer – possibly even more honest – picture.

Finally, a psychological point. Really getting to know people implies warmth, empathy and interest in their story. It can then feel tough to decide that they are not right. But extending the golden rule above, it is not in their interest or yours to select the wrong person and it’s a decision that is REALLY IMPORTANT.

The ongoing relationship

It is beyond the scope of this piece to discuss perhaps the most important issue: once you have appointed your first postdoc, how can you maximise the chance of future success for both you and them? I will therefore finish with a couple of thoughts. It feels unnatural at first to be a boss: your new postdoc may be the same age as you and, until recently, you were probably in their position. Nevertheless, the relationship is intrinsically asymmetric, and you have power to influence their future. I remember finding this quite challenging, but I suspect that acknowledging it, at least to yourself, can be helpful as you build the relationship. My second point is almost the opposite: I prefer a collaborative, non-hierarchical relationship with my team. The best science comes from discussion and even disagreement, the sparks of ideas that emerge from the crucible of debate. I recommend Matthew Cobb’s great biography of Francis Crick for inspiration about the value of having colleagues who challenge your ideas.

In practice, it is not as hard as it sounds to combine these rather contradictory perspectives. There is no reason why unavoidable hierarchy needs to dominate your relationship. If things go well, your new postdoc will be the person who helps launch your independent success just as you launch theirs.

Cite this blogpost:

Acknowledgements

I thank Drs Iqbal Dulloo, Anjali Hinch and Catarina Vicente for helpful feedback.