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Career Development : Articles

Tooling Up Index

Next Wave Staff
United States
14 August 1998

The Finer Points of Giving a Job Talk
by Dave Jensen, 20 June 2008
The key to giving a good job talk is realizing what your audience is looking for and giving it to them.

Transitioning to Teamwork
by Dave Jensen, 23 May 2008
The ability to work well in a team is integral to today's company environment.

On Headhunters
by Dave Jensen, 18 April 2008
Recruiters may offer some theoretical advantages, but early-career scientists should try to keep their heads.

Breaking Free of Academia (A Test and a Quiz)
by Dave Jensen, 20 March 2008
Leaving academia means confronting, and overcoming, a knowledge deficit.

Put Some Muscle Into Your Marketing Materials
by Dave Jensen, 15 February 2008
Powerful writing can move your job application to the top of the pile.

Dealing With Men Who Have a Problem With Women
by Dave Jensen, 18 January 2008
No matter where you work, you're likely to encounter men who never learned how to relate to strong, competent women.

Three Categories of Rules
by Dave Jensen, 21 December 2007
The rules for success in industry are different from the ones you learned in grad school.

Overcoming Conflicts in the Lab--and Beyond
by Dave Jensen, 30 November 2007
If you face conflicts squarely and calmly and manage them skillfully and confidently, you can ultimately transform them into a source for improved relationships and personal growth.

Barriers to Decision Making
by Dave Jensen, 26 October 2007
Those who are trained to make highly specialized decisions at the lab bench often make poor decisions in the job search.

The Killer Instinct
by Dave Jensen, 28 September 2007
Industry employers relish the killer instinct, which allows scientists to push their projects and ideas past obstacles.

The Wall
by Dave Jensen, 24 August 2007
For more than a decade we've written about the wall between industry and academia and how to get through it. Has that wall become less--or more--porous? Is there hope these days for scientists who enter graduate school expecting to be trained for employment outside the ivory tower?

Adding Charisma to Your Toolbox
by Dave Jensen, 20 July 2007
What is that ephemeral quality that makes some people stand out in a crowd as others vanish into the background? Can you learn it?

The Slightly Irreverent, Shake 'Em Up Job Search
by Dave Jensen, 22 June 2007
If the usual rules aren't working, you may need to bend or break them to get the juices--and your job search--flowing.

Getting Stuck
by Dave Jensen, 17 May 2007
Of all the possible traps you can fall into, getting stuck in a narrow niche is probably the worst.

'Culturing' Your Marketable Skills
by Dave Jensen, 20 April 2007
Like a culture of microorganisms, some career skills need to be nurtured and cared for before employers can observe and rely on them.

Employment Due Diligence, Part 2
by Dave Jensen, 16 March 2007
After all the work of finding a job, it is tempting to just say "Yes!" and keep your fingers crossed. But that approach has serious risks.

Employment Due Diligence
by Dave Jensen, 16 February 2007
A job offer--any job offer--can seem like such a prize that examining it too critically can seem ungrateful. But anyone who accepts employment without doing a background investigation is taking a serious risk.

Resumé Rocket Science, 2007
by Dave Jensen, 19 January 2007
There's little consensus among experts on what constitutes a good CV or resumé. But it is possible to identify some common threads in their advice.

Be Politically Astute, But Don't Play Politics
by Dave Jensen, 15 December 2006
You can't avoid politics in the workplace--but you can stay above the fray.

For Love--or Money?
by Dave Jensen, 17 November 2006
Some young scientists follow their hearts--the traditional advice--whereas others follow the money. Which approach is better?

Traits of the Key Players
by Dave Jensen, 20 October 2006
What are the qualities that scientists must have to be key players in an industrial setting?

Conducting an Authentic Job Search
by Dave Jensen, 15 September 2006
Many technical professionals don't like the job search because they think they have to be insincere to do well. Not true, says our Tooling Up columnist.

Are You Management Material?
by Dave Jensen, 18 August 2006
If you want to make the transition to management, it is useful to know what makes hiring managers see you as "management material."

Salary Negotiation, Part 2
by Dave Jensen, 21 July 2006
Our Tooling Up columnist provides some nitty-gritty tips and describes some techniques that should be in every scientist's negotiation toolkit.

Salary Negotiation, Part 1
by Dave Jensen, 16 June 2006
Once a company has made you an offer, says our Tooling Up columnist, they've crossed the threshold and they really want to close the deal.

Mutation or Extinction
by Dave Jensen, 19 May 2006
Biotech and pharma are focusing more on products and less on the most promising research, say some experts, requiring industry-bound scientists to adapt.

Guerilla Marketing Yourself
by Dave Jensen, 21 April 2006
"Guerrilla marketing" was developed for resource-poor small businesses, which is why it works so well for scientific job seekers; who's shorter on resources than a postdoc?

The Dreaded Phone Interview
by Dave Jensen, 17 March 2006
The goal of a telephone interview is to reduce the size of the applicant pool. Don't let them screen you out.

Crises and Career Stages, Part 2
by Dave Jensen, 17 February 2006
Whereas Part 1 of this series focused on the patterns of work-life crises, this month's edition takes on the shape--the rhythm--of the typical career, and how career crises fit into its natural stages.

Worklife Crises and Scientific Career Stages
by Dave Jensen, 20 January 2006
Feel like your scientific training is in a perpetual state of crisis? You’re not alone.

Job Talk Jitters
by Dave Jensen, 16 December 2005
When giving a job talk to an industrial employer, remember that you--and not your science--are the product the company is thinking about investing in.

Developing Resilience
by Dave Jensen, 18 November 2005
Resilience can get you through grad school and beyond. Here's how to thicken your skin.

Fifty Seconds with a Million Dollar Impact
by Dave Jensen, 21 October 2005
This is the story of Mark Logomasini, co-founder and VP Business Development for Molecular Medicine Bioservices, and how less than a minute on the podium transformed his professional life and taught him a crucial lesson on the importance of succinct communication in industry.

The Real Deal or Well Oiled?
by Dave Jensen, 16 September 2005
Which approach works best -- rehearsing and memorizing slick and ingratiating responses to likely interview questions or going to the meeting with no one else's words in your mouth? Dave Jensen suggests a combinaton of both.

The Etiquette of the Job Search - Mr. Manners Hits the Interviewing Trail
by Dave Jensen, 19 August 2005
Dave Jensen investigates the often confusing aspects of protocol involving current and prospective employers when looking for a new job.

Negotiation Boot Camp - Tips and Techniques to a Universal Career Skill
by Dave Jensen , 15 July 2005
Few job skills bring as much value to your career as the ability to negotiate. Even if you occupy just a corner of the lab, studying the interpersonal relations in a negotiation can be very rewarding.

Tooling Up - Time for an Attitude Adjustment?
by Dave Jensen, 17 June 2005
If you'll take a chance and adopt a more positive mindset, you'll stand a much better chance of ending up in the ranks of the seriously employed.

Tooling Up - Managing Your Advisor
by Dave Jensen, 20 May 2005
We've all heard horror stories about grad students or postdocs whose careers were damaged by a lack of support from mentors and P.I.s. Dave Jensen discusses a recent book, Managing Up, which offers suggestions for managing the relationship between boss and subordinate.

Tooling Up - Urban Legends of the Job Search
by Dave Jensen, 15 April 2005
There are certain things about the job search that everybody knows. The problem is, many of those things aren't true.

Tooling Up - The Job-Offer Checklist
by Dave Jensen, 18 March 2005
A job in industry has much to recommend it, but it's not always the right answer. The best advice, says Dave Jensen, is to look before you make the leap to industry.

Tooling Up: More Than Just a Job-Seeking Tool
by Dave Jensen, 18 February 2005
Before you relegate networking to the dust bin of job skills that get used five or six times in a lifetime, read my definition: Networking is the process of establishing links between people, with the intent to promote communication of mutual benefit.

Tooling Up: An Ethical Conundrum?
by Dave Jensen, 21 January 2005
Even though ethics may not seem that important for something like a job search, an ethics decision, if you botch it, can have very real consequences.

Big Decision ||Dave Jensen, 17 December 2004

Doing, Knowing, Judging: One Man's Quest to Link Academia and Industry ||Dave Jensen, 19 November 2004

Tooling Up: The Career Contrarian ||Dave Jensen, 15 October 2004

Tooling Up: Career Success Factors, Part 3 ||Dave Jensen, 17 September 2004

Tooling Up: First Impressions--Are Interview Results Preordained? ||Dave Jensen, 20 August 2004

Tooling Up: Career Success Factors Part 2 - Ten Habits of Successful Scientists ||Dave Jensen, 16 July 2004

Tooling Up: Career Success Factors, Part 1--Believability ||Dave Jensen, 18 June 2004

Tooling Up: Pick a Peck of Postdocs ||Dave Jensen, 21 May 2004

US: Startups - Part 2 ||Dave Jensen, 16 Apr 2004

Raising the Start-up: Growing Drug Discovery Careers on the Fast Track ||Dave Jensen, 19 Mar 2004

The Locus of Control: Five Reminders That You Are the Boss ||Dave Jensen, 20 Feb 2004

Having a Life--And a Job Search Too! ||Dave Jensen, 23 Jan 2004