by Chuck Sanders
People are complicated and so it should be no surprise that among the most difficult tasks that you’ll face as a research group leader in science is recruiting and successfully managing talented and collegial students, postdocs, and staff. This may be especially true for assistant professors and their peers in industry or at research institutes.
Building on my previous professional development editorials in this newsletter, I would like to offer my observations and opinions regarding best practices in recruiting and supervising research groups. I emphasize that my thoughts here are only opinions and are often based on my own previous mistakes. Feel free to disagree! Here goes…
Choose your lab members wisely
- Getting one or two of talented and motivated scientists into your lab may well be the difference between achieving tenure and promotion, or not.
- It is better to have no lab members at all that to have an underperforming lab member or someone who does not buy into the ethos of your group.
- Be sure that the objectives of a prospective lab member and your own align. In this regard it can be extremely helpful to have an “expectations” document that you can ask prospective lab member to read. Here is an example from my lab.
- Starting lab directors can sometimes be roughly the same age or even younger than some of the personnel that they recruit into their labs. Be aware that this can sometimes lead to awkward interpersonal dynamics. They need to recognize your authority as the lab director even though they may have more experience than you.
- There usually is a honeymoon period with new recruits where everything is great. What really matters during this time is establishing a productive working relationship that persists when the honeymoon is over.
- In terms of assessing prospective lab members, past performance is the best predictor of future success.
- If an applicant seems to have worked at a surprisingly high number of previous positions before applying to your lab, there may be reasons for that.
- Always do face-to-face interviews, if possible.
- Always check references.
- In my experience, obvious red flags usually really are red flags.
- Even the best mentor cannot coax professional success from some trainees.
Postdocs vs. students vs. techs
- For the first five years, you are likely to be, by far, the best postdoc in your lab, so roll up your sleeves, get in the lab, and take advantage of your talent!
- It can be very difficult to recruit talented postdocs for starting faculty. And often, getting such trainees takes a bit of serendipity, such as an opportunity to hire someone who has moved to town for personal reasons and just happens to have the right skill set and interests for your lab.
- For even the best students, there is often a significant lag between when they start and when they advance to the stage where they are very productive.
- It is especially difficult to predict the success of students. Your mentoring will help determine the trajectory and outcome, but know that there are many factors that a lab director has no control over.
- Being in an geographic area where there are not a lot of industry, pharma, or biotech companies may have disadvantages, but one advantage is that it is often easier to recruit talented techs because you are not competing with such employers for local talent.
- Techs come in a variety of flavors, with especially common varieties being
- People biding their time until they can get into med school or are otherwise in a holding pattern for other reasons,
- Junior scientists who are trying to figure out their what they really want to do with their lives, and
- Career techs of varying talent and motivation.
Remember that your relationship with lab members is first and foremost professional
- Be careful about jumping into friendships and socializing with the members of your lab, especially prior to establishing a productive working relationship. You might one day have to discipline or even terminate their positions.
- You must respect the members of your lab and consistently seek to promote their well-being. They need to know you care. At the same time, however, they must respect you and acknowledge your authority as group leader where appropriate.
- Anything you say or do to an employee that crosses boundaries could eventually come back to haunt you. What appears to be innocent and endearing contact between quasi-friends may be recalled in a very different light after a falling out.
- You are not cool. You are the boss. Don’t expect to get invited to student or postdoc social gatherings.
- Lab should be fun, but it should be so more as a consequence of it being a well-functioning lab than because you’ve tried to make it fun on purpose.
- Despite all the above disclaimers, it is happy fact that some of your trainees will indeed likely turn out to be friends for life and vice versa!
Mentoring
- Aspire to be a mentor and allow yourself to be mentored at all career stages.
- Lead by example.
- Always take the high road.
- It helps to have your office physically proximal to your lab.
- Realize that you are being watched by your trainees.
- Members of your lab need to know that you truly care for them and their careers even if you are not personally close.
- Don’t play favorites.
- The way you mentor will often be very trainee specific. What is effective for one trainee may be completely different for other trainees.
- Never pit members of your lab against each other.
- Never throw a trainee under the bus.
- It is important to establish high-quality group meetings, but they are especially challenging for newer and smaller labs. In these cases, shared meetings with another lab may an effective route to achieving critical mass.
- Conferences, lab retreats, lab hikes, etc., are unique mentoring opportunities, but it is okay if some members of your group don’t want to participate. Don’t take it personally.
- Know where the fire extinguisher and the eyewash station are.
- Your support for your lab members should continue even after they move on from your lab.
Some trainee phenotypes require flexibility or adjustments on the part of the group leader
For example,
- The moonlighter who may have a second job
- The trainee who is interested in everything
- The lab member who loves to write in their lab notebook, but who seems less interested in doing experiments
- The lab slob
- The non-finisher
- The group member who is smarter than you
- The night owl whose work schedule may not overlap well with yours
- The seeker of unauthorized collaborations with other labs
- The trainee who seems to seek advice from everyone else but you
- The self-appointed supervisor
- The hider of lab gear and supplies
- The genius sluggard
- The person who chose to join your group and now you can’t understand why
Note that not all of these phenotypes are negative, it’s just that working with lab members exhibiting these traits may require flexibility and skill on your part as the lab director.
Know also that if you clack around lab leadership long enough, you are also likely to have encounters with mental illness in a lab setting. As with other emergency types, have a plan for what to do if there is a serious episode. Know what the available local resources are so that you can assist people in getting support in non-emergencies.
Finally, remember that you were a trainee once upon a time and use your recollections of that experience to help you live the golden rule towards your own lab members.