Best practice for Employers
From Scratchpad
[edit] Best Practice
A bit more from the UK HERD conference the week before last...
One of the problems which kept coming up was how to 'embed' a skill. Human Resource departments are supposed to make sure that postdocs receive a certain amount of training each year, but that often translates as 'making sure that postdocs listen to a few irrelevant lectures'. This is self-defeating all round: postdocs are (usually) bright enough to realize that the lecture is simple form-filling on the part of the Human Resource Dept. and will fall asleep in the back seats, wasting everybody's time. Instead, what's needed is training which allows postdocs to practice what's been preached.
[edit] Postdocs as mentors
Now, one of the supposed selling points of a postdoc position is that it gives you a chance to take responsibility for the other people's research, not just your own. That's the sort of skill which a PhD doesn't teach, but which you'll need if you go on to run your own group or if you want to impress potential employers that a postdoc isn't a poorly-paid waste of time.
So...
...with thanks to George Radda, from whom I got this idea, here's one way to do this:
Offer every postdoc in your department the chance to part-mentor a PhD student in ANOTHER group in the Dept. Pay them a nominal fee (£5 a month, say, which is enough for the postdoc to buy their student a drink every 4 weeks). Here's why this idea is so good:
- The postdoc gets paid responsibility and is forced to broaden their scientific knowledge because the student is in another group, both of which look good on their CV,
- The PhD student gets a second opinion when their PI is busy,
- The PhD's PI gets a hand in looking after their student,
- The Dept. gets a bit more interaction between groups, which makes for a happier social life all round,
- The Human Resource people get to tick their 'taught my postdocs leadership' box.
Everybody wins!
