Searching for Postdocs: Advice from Dr. Elliott Weinstein

I didn’t realize it was time to start looking for postdocs until my friends told me they were already searching. And even then, none of us had a strategy for how to search.

Hoping to save you or your students from some of this grief, I interviewed Dr. Elliott Weinstein about his advice for finding postdocs. Elliott is a T32 postdoctoral scholar at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School.

~~~Part II of an Interview with Dr. Elliott Weinstein: Advice on Searching for Postdocs~~~

How did you search for postdocs? I was a clinical intern at Rush University Medical Center. [Betty’s note: In the U.S., psychology PhD students complete a residency year (i.e., a clinical internship) in the final year of their Ph.D. Internships usually start in the summer or end of summer.] I started the process for finding a postdoc early, probably in June or July. I decided I would start sending emails to faculty I was interested in working with. Although the summer is super early, and I knew people would likely be traveling, I thought to myself, if faculty want to hire a postdoc, they’re going to be looking at their emails. Similar to when I applied for graduate school, my search was faculty/mentor driven.

How did you find your current postdoc position? Connections really help. My postdoc mentor at MGH is someone I had interviewed with during the clinical internship interview process. I contacted him about postdocs, and he said, ‘I’m so glad you reached out. I’m traveling, but let’s talk when I get back.’ I said great, but I didn’t have any expectations. I was applying and talking to other programs as well. When we were able to connect, he offered me a postdoc. He had the funding to cover my postdoc, but he also said I should apply for the T32 postdoc. That was how I knew about the T32 - which I am now on. I’m not sure I would have known about this opportunity if he had not mentioned it to me on our call.

How has your postdoc been? This postdoc is a blend of 75% research and 25% clinical hours. The program priority has been for me to build work in HIV-related research. I’m not tethered to a specific grant, so it has allowed me to prioritize building my own independent research program.

What advice do you have for people who are looking for postdocs (or who will be looking for postdocs)?

1. Start early. Look at faculty members and programs that are doing research you're interested in. Reach out. Sometimes, the people that get opportunities are the ones who are proactive. Even if someone says, ‘I'm so glad you reached out. I don't know if I'm going to have funding’ - you’ve primed them. They will remember you. If you’re one of the first people to make contact, they’re more likely to remember you.
2. Most people, from my understanding, don't want a “mini-me” in a trainee. You have to be doing work in their wheelhouse because they want to provide you with enough support. But they also want to have you do something a little bit different so they can get their foot in the door there. You’re not just a replica of them. So in my postdoc emails, I would say: I really love the work that you're doing. This is work that I've been doing. This is where I see that we can converge. I think that converge sentence is what really helped me the most.
3. Ask a lot of questions and do a lot of listening. You’ll pick up good nuggets of information - that others may not even realize is helpful, but you also learn what to stay away from. You get the chance to say, ‘Oh, that’s clearly not something I think is going to work for me.’

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Thank you to Elliott for sharing his expertise. In case you missed it, check out Part I of my interview with Elliott, where he talked about how he’s navigating grant writing now.

If you know someone who might be interested in finding a postdoc, would you mind forwarding it to them? Thank you for reading and believing that scholars deserve support for incredible ideas.

Betty

Stay in touch: The Newsletter, Bluesky, and The Grant Writing Guide book.

P.S. I got to visit Miami not too long ago to give a talk at the University of Miami (where I did my PhD training). Here’s the view - you can see why this was such a happy time in my life.