IUBio

To Laura Abriola. Was about PhDs trying to find relevant jobs

Arthur E. Sowers arthures at access5.digex.net
Tue Mar 17 03:05:27 EST 1998



Date: Sat, 14 Mar 1998 23:00:57 -0500
From: Laura Abriola <abriola at earthlink.net>
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
Subject: Re:  PhD Careers

I'm not sure if anyone else here saw this, but there was an interesting
article in last weekend's NY Times about a PhD in English or Literature
(front page of Metro section, "After Her PhD, the Scavenger's Life:
Trying to Turn a Patchwork of Part-Time Jobs Into an Academic Career").
Ultimately, all these adjunct positions added up to a very meager living
and certainly less pay and respect than an entry-level position teaching
at an elementary school or high school.  From what I have seen, this
situation is not limited to the humanities, and I am wondering if
anyone here knows whether it is something new or has just developed over
the years.  Seems to speak volumes about our commitment to higher
education.
     Anyway, as I was reading this article, I kept thinking it just goes
to show what people will put up with sometimes just to be doing what
they really want to be doing in their lives.  This happens over and over
in science research just as it does in these other fields, and by the
time this person featured in the article decides she's had enough, there
will be 20 fresh new grads ready to fill her shoes.  And so it goes.

========== Above was forwarded to me ===== below is my response====

The above situation is not new. Back around 1960 science PhDs could walk
into almost any department and get a job easily. Since then the situation
has gotten slowly and about linearly worse (today it is common to have
300-500 applicants per job and sometimes on up to 800-1000). It has only
been in the last five years that this situation has spilled over into the
topic of newsmedia attention. I put up a website (see below), and I post
from time to time a "resource list" (see below) about the very
low probabilty of getting a career in science (unless you are in the top,
say 5-10% of all quality factors in a Curriculum Vitae) in academia, and
even in non academic science jobs you still need to be in about the top
20-30%. See the NSF and NIH sponsored studies on their websites that I
have listed.

Art Sowers
-------------------------------------------------------
Written in the public interest, the essays on 
"Contemporary Problems in Science Jobs" are located at:
http://www.access.digex.net/~arthures/homepage.htm
hit stats: http://www.access.digex.net/~arthures/.stats
Snail mail adr to me: P.O.Box 489, Georgetown, DE 19947    
Email:  arthures at access.digex.net  
My "home" newsgroup: sci.research.careers
-------------------------------------------------------

Sci Job/Career Internet Resource and Book Title List

by Arthur E. Sowers, PhD

This is a resource list relating to jobs/careers in science and in
general. As of Feb 24, 1998, I will not give notice at the beginning of
this file of all updates below. The reader will have to look all
throughout the list where the most recent dates are entered. 

Part A is internet based (primarily WWW sites)
Part B is a book list of titles I've seen, and some of which I have
       read and reviewed (text included). 


PART A: INTERNET SCI JOB/CAREER RESOURCES

Internet Science Job/Career Resource List:
========================================================================
disclaimer: Many of the sites in this list, especially in Part V, are
commercial and are not likely to mention certain facts of commercial
policies, practices, and preferences which are not in business interests.
At least many do not carry disclaimers or warranties of their own.
Inclusion of such URLs should not be taken as an specific endorsement.
Some sites are mixed in content; commercial (for fee) and gratis (for
free) information. They are listed as a source of information and if you
can benefit in some way, then this list will have served its purpose. I
have no financial or other connection with any of the websites or their
personnel other than some of them have external links to my pages and I
have referenced some of them in this list and on my website. I am not a
recruiter and I receive no money or favors from disseminating this list or
from listing a given URL or other source. I am responsible for my website
material but not the material on other websites. This list, which will be
updated from time to time, is being posted in the public interest. It is
not intended to be an all inclusive list. Revisions will be at irregular
intervals and given not necessarily with notice (disclaimer: copyright by
Arthur E. Sowers, PhD).
========================================================================
Part I: About the CPSJ essays
Part II: Net resources, other essays, info on the sci job market
Part III: Usenet Newsgroups as sources of job info, ideas, and leads. 
Part IV: Unions (faculty, grad student, and post doc)
Part V: Misc web sites, often with CV, job lists, essays, &
         other helpful external links. 
________________________________________________________________________
Part I-
  rev Jan 29, 1997   "Contemporary Problems in Sci Jobs" (=CPSJ) essays: 
  a 2nd Edition of CPSJ is available by e-mail from the author, 
  <arthures at access.digex.net>, or at any of the following web sites, with
  conditional unrestricted royalty-free reproduction rights. Earlier 
  versions of the "Contemporary Problems in Science Jobs" essays may be
  found at:   
  http://www.mbb.yale.edu/acb/                                          
  http://chemistry.com/ (dig around)                                    
  http://his.com/~graeme/cpsj.html    and ***/cpsj2.html                
  http://www.access.digex.net/~arthures/homepage.htm     (my WWW site)  
  cited at: http://www.netcom.com/~stantony/biojobs.html
            http://www.freenet.hamilton.on.ca/~ae047/employ7.html
I APPRECIATE E-MAIL & NOTIFICATION OF OTHER RELEVANT INTERNET RESOURCES
My prefered email address is: arthures at access.digex.net 
        secondary address is: arthures at dmv.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part II-
(rev May 06,97) Net resources on PhD careers, job market and problems:      
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
  Nat Acad study on where PhDs eventually go:                           
       http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/grad/                       
        "          "     /     "     /  "  / "  /appendixc.html         
  Goodstein Report: http://www.caltech.edu/~goodstein                   

  Reports on nasty politics, situations on jobs (IMPORTANT):  
      http://his.com/~graeme/pandp.html                    
      http://www.k9ape.com/c96/candor.html
      http://www.disgruntled.com

  The problem when "non-compete" clauses can seriously hurt your career:
      http://www.flash.net/~cmiller/ctgweb.htm

  Other analyses of the poor job market and its causes:        
  
  http://www.mit.edu:8001/afs/athena.mit.edu/user/e/r/erw/Public/Pandora.html
  http://www.waite.adelaide.edu.au/~pclarke/scientist/   
  http://www.freenet.hamilton.on.ca/~ae047/employ7.html  
  http://physics.ucsc.edu/users/noc/Links/policy.html   (excellent)
  http://www.math.uiuc.edu/~lerman/sci_pol/points.html
  http://www.metronet.com/~jbmoore/pdblues/PDblues.html
  http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/seind96/ch3_sele.htm

 Bad situation for Mathematics PhDs:
  http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~gdavis/policy/papers.html
  http://math.dartmouth.edu/~gdavis/policy/papers.html

 Less bad situation for Chem. PhDs:
  http://pubs.acs.org/hotartcl/cenear/970728/sal.html

 Statistics on Physics job situation:
  http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/trends.htm

 Some comments on economics, PhDs, and immigration:
  http://www.dismal.com/thoughts/immigration.stm

 Excellent sources on some realities in the computer job market:
  http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.real.html
  http://www.ieee.org/usab/FORUM/POLICY/98feb25.html

 "The Scientist"- newspaper about scientist careers:                   
      http://www.the-scientist.library.upenn.edu                       
      gopher://ds.internic.net/11/pub/the-scientist (txt, partials)    
 AAAS (the situation of postdocs):                                     
      http://www.edoc.com/nextwave/forums_postdoc/                     
 AAUP Listserver: majordomo at igc.apc.org - leave sub=blank  -           
      put in text of message:  subscribe aaup-general                  
 AAUP email address: aaup at igc.apc.org                                  
 AAUP website: http://www.igc.apc.org/aaup/
 PhDs website: http://www.phds.org/
 Grad Student Advice Websites:
      http://dogwood.botany.uga.edu/~jwest/bgsa/bgsa.html
      http://asz.berkeley.edu/IB/grad/modestadvice.html
 Postdocing in Japan:
      http://www.twics.com/~nsftokyo/home.html
      http://fuji.stanford.edu:80/JGUIDE/jguide.html

 Other scientist employment resource info can be found at:             
      http://his.com/~graeme/employ.html (best I've seen yet)           
      http://saa49.ucsf.edu/psa/                       
      http://www.freenet.hamilton.on.ca/~ae047/employ7.html                
      http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/4317/
      http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/4707/

 YSN website is at: http://www.physics.uiuc.edu/     (hunt around)     

 Congressional Liason Committee (if you want to write letters to your
      congressperson in support of budget increases for science), then
      get on the CLC email list by emailing to: tleshan at ascb.org
      or pfarnham at asbmb.org
_________________________________________________________________________
Part III- Usenet Newsgroups as source of information, hints, ideas:
     The internet carries hundreds of newsgroups dealing with jobs, 
     period. All of them have the word "jobs" somewhere after the 
     first dot. For example <dc.jobs> is a real newsgroup dealing with
     jobs in the Washington, DC area. Most are computer jobs. A lot
     are spam/scam/schemes that you should actually avoid. Some
     resumes are posted. If you would like to see what resumes look like,
     this is a place to look. There are also newsgroups more specialized.
     For example, some have "jobs.wanted" or "jobs.offered" in their
     name. Some have the word "resumes" in their name. PINE is a UNIX
     newsreader/email client which has a search function for all 
     versions above 3.91. Ask your provider, if you don't know if
     it is available. All you have to do is put in the word "jobs" and
     all of the newsgroups which have that word in them will be listed.
     Some ISPs also carry "proprietary" newsgroups. One has feeds for
     all of the America On Line jobs newsgroups, which seem to be located
     around almost every big city and some suburbs. Some NGs can be empty,
     and some can have hundreds of listings. Try these too for your job
     search.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| the following list of website URIs need the "http://" URL prefix      |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part IV-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| (as of June 27, 1997) Faculty and Grad Student unions:                |
| United Uni Prfs SUNY:  www.uup.info.org                               |
| TA Assn UWM:           www.taa-madison.org                            |
| Grad Emp Org UMich:    www.umich.edu/~taunion                         |
| Assn Penna SCU Fac:    www.apscuf.com   (Feb, '97 or after)           |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Nat Grad Prof Stu      www.nagps.org                                  |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Part V-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| From Wall St. Journal (Sept 20,1996, p.B1) article on Net job hunting |
| America's Job Bank:    www.ajd.dni.us                                 |
| CareerPath:            www.careerpath.com                             |
| Online Career Center:  www.occ.com                                    |
| CareerMosaic:          www.careermosaic.com                           |
| Help Wanted USA:       iccweb.com     (not a typo)                    |
| Monster Board:         www.monster.com                                |
| E-Span:                www.espan.com                                  |
| Career Magazine:       www.careermag.com                              |
| Career City:           www.careercity.com                             |
| NationJob Net:         www.nationjob.com                              |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| (revised Sep 21,1997)  OTHER RELATED Website URIs:                    |
| FSG (biotech)          www.chemistry.com                              |
| Medzilla               www.medzilla.com                               |
| Virt. Job Fair         www.vjf.com                                    |
| NES (very mild)        pegasus.uthct.edu/nes.html                     |
| Top Job                www.topjobusa.com                              |
| Fisk Book              www.agu.org/careerguide  (go for links)        |
| Career CD-ROM          www.careertoolbox.com    (sponsor: ChavisRegal)|
| KellyScientific        www.kellyservices.com                          |
| Space Jobs             www.spacejobs.com                              |
| Chemistry Jobs         chemistry.mond.org/jobs/jobguide.html          |
| Chem & Industry        ci.mond.org                                    |
| Cell Press             www.cellpress.com                              | 
| SciWeb                 www.sciweb.com                                 |
| Mainly for MDs         www.medbulletin.com                            |
| TipTop (physics)       www.tp.umu.se/TIPTOP/forum/jobs/               |
| GradLink               www.gradlink.com                               |
| Bio-Online             cns.bio.com                                    |
| Bio-Online(alternate)  www.bio.com                                    |
| BiotechIndustryOrg     www.bio.org                                    |
| BioSci(science only)   www.bio.net                                    | 
| Wall St Journal        careers.wsj.com                                |
| AGI, but also others   www.agiweb.org/agi/careers.html                |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| (added Oct 27, 1997)                                                  |
| UMD Career Center      www.inform.umd.edu/Student/Career_and_Employ   |
|                              ment_Service/                            |
| UVa Career Center      minerva.acc.virginia.edu/~career/              |
| Getting past Go        www.mongen.com/getgo                           |
| Catapult               www.jobweb.org                                 |
| Cool Works             www.coolworks.com/showme/                      |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| (added Feb 26, 1998)                                                  |
| for PhDs               www.phds.org/                                  |
| careerbuilder          www.careerbuilder.com/                         |
| jobs 4 eng.            www.ajob4engineers.com/                        |
| jobs 4 scientists      www.ajob4scientists.com/                       |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


Part VI: misc.(Mar 9, 1998)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Amateur Scientists     www.thesphere.com/SAS/                         |
| Various resources      www.myboss.com/                                |
| Seniors/40+            www.fp.org/                                    |
| Nat Council Aging      www.ncoa.org/                                  |
| FAQ finder             ps.superb.net/FAQ/                             |
| Chronicle of high ed.  chronicle.merit.edu/                           |
| Bioportfolio           www.bioportfolio.com/                          |
| FASEB article          www.faseb.org/fj/Feb1998/garrison.htm          |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------



PART B: Books that may help you...


For all of you that know me, both for the warnings about getting into the
grad school-postdoc pipeline and suggestions for alternative jobs, I have
been writing down book titles in bookstores that I enjoy visiting from
time to time. Remember, you should not feel obligated to buy these books.
Rather, try to get your local library to buy them for you, or if you are
in a hurry, then get them to get the book on interlibrary loan. 

I will be upgrading this booklist from time to time as I see titles and
decide, from perusing the pages, that they might be useful. Also, I have
appended my Sci Job/Career Internet Resource List at the end.

Oct 25, 1997 update:

One alternative career is writing.  Here is a book that, more
than any other I've seen in my life, will, I think, help you.

"How to Get Happily Published - A Complete and Candid Guide"

(4th Edition)

by Judith Appelbaum

recent copyrights (1988, 1992), and earlier ones, too, by the
author.

HarperPerennial (A division of HarperCollinsPublishers)
New York

Its 317 pages long and a bit wordy. But, there is soooo much
there. Among the topics covered are: literary agents (pros &
cons), how to submit, where to submit, marketing, fights that
break out between agents and authors, publishers and authors,
self-publishing (vanity presses: pros & cons), how books are
funded, and last but maybe the most important, about 80 pages
of "resources." The Resources section lists about 5-6 other
book titles, associations, organizations, contacts,
references, catalogs, lists, etc., that go way beyond anything
I've seen before. Under each entry are a few sentences to
evaluate what each item is, what it is good for, and what it
is not good for. 

The book is honest and credible. On page 224, I found:

"Worse still, and more important, bestseller lists don't
generally rank anything right. The bookstore managers who
supply data to compilers have learned over the years that the
bestseller label stimulates demand, and they're not above
reporting inflated sales figures for a specific book simply
because -- having been persuaded to order large quantities of
it -- they want it hyped."

"On at least one memorable occasion, booksellers cited a book
that hadn't been written yet, let alone published and sold, as
a current bestseller...it is clear enough on the whole that
bookstore managers (and publishers too) can and do regularly
skew bestseller standings, so that nobody knows just what they
may mean."

Another couple of items I enjoyed reading about are"

"Rotten Rejections"... and "Rotten Rejections II." These are
books that "...show[s] you what editors said as they spurned
'The Clan of the Cave Bear,' 'The Spy Who Came in from the
Cold' and a host of other titles they must have gone on to
kick themselves about."

Indeed, the author mentions several times, many titles which
were repeatedly rejected by publishers before they were
accepted and went on to become notable, successful, famous,
etc. So, its really like grant proposal writing. Rejections
outnumber awards. And the ones who make the decisions often
can't recognize good work when they are looking at it.

The book got many endorsements from people from newspaper,
magazine, and journal backgrounds and has sold, to date,
250,000 copies.

October 4, 1997 update:

"Firing back - power strategies for cutting the best deal when you're
about to lose your job" by Jodie-Beth Galos and Sandy McIntosh, PhD, John
Wiley & Sons, Inc. c: 1997, $15.95 (USA), and they have a web site:
http://www.firingback.com/
(this is an excellent book which not only helps you "fight back" but also
to understand some of the politics of workplaces in general).

August 9 update:


Over the last few days I read, cover-to-cover, two books
that are very relevant to this newsgroup:

First book-

"The New Rules [NR] of the Job Search Game"
subtitle: "Why todays managers hire...and why they don't"
by Jackie Larson and Cheri Comstock
Publisher: Bob Adams, Inc. c: 1994
List price: $10.00 but I got mine as a mark-down for
$3.99

Second book-

"Executive Blues [EB]"
subtitle: "Down and out in corporate America"
by: G.J. Meyer
Publisher Dell Publishing. c: 1995
List price: $12.95.

EB is more significant than NR, but I'll save it for
second.

On "NR"

As I perused NR off the rack, I was initially impressed
with the apparent depth of detail, profuse presentation
of examples, and, even more so, the provision of model
scripts for telephone calls!!!!  We have all the buzzwords 
(the term "hiring manager" is used at least 20 times on each page,
"networking" is proposed as an answer to all job-hunting,
etc.) and the emphasis on using the telephone to develope
contacts "inside" target companies (and bypass HR) for
the purpose of "tailoring" CVs to the target job. And,
don't forget... be positive, enthusiastic, know about the
company, etc.

I have both good and bad impressions of this book. On the
good side, it has much more detail and gives "model"
telephone scripts. It also helps coach you in the gentle
art of interviewing (also with model scripts). I was also
impressed with the author's imperitive that the reader
NOT pursue poor job markets to begin with, but rather
pursue jobs in good job markets. The author's strategy,
which I agree with, is to target rapidly growing
companies (which are often small to medium in size) and
completely forget companies which are already large
(because their hiring pattern is most likely to be flat
if not downsizing [I have counter arguments to these
assumptions, however]). They spend quite a bit of space
in the book helping the reader get started in researching
backgrounds (with the help of more phone calls and trips
to the library). This is probably the strength of the
book. There is also some help in writing cover letters
and resumes (However, I would rather see you folks get
complete books with examples of high powered resumes and
cover letters. They do exist and I've seen larger
libraries carry many volumes of these books).

On the bad side is the fact that they hardly mention the
fact that you really do need relevant experience more
than the "schmooze" methodology that they advocate. Thier
methodology might get you to the interview step, but at
that point, if you don't have the "material & content",
then you are dead anyway. There are many other issues in
the corporate culture that are not discussed, but that is
outside the scope of the book. Another area, which we
have discussed on the NG, is lying. On at least ten
occassions throughout the book the authors very openly
urge actions and statements which, to me, represent
either lying or, at least, something akin to not telling
the truth. Another area is "manipulation." They go into
substantial detail about control of conversations and
while the ideas are good, and sometimes successful (read
any book at the library on "hard sell" closure of sales
deals and you'll understand what I'm talking about), its
still a matter of "manipulation" of people. I know people
who are very sensitive to this (including me) and it can
backfire on you. Personally, I find these kinds of
"necessary evils" degrading. You have to become something
totally artificial, mechanical, and phoney. Also, a part
of many commercial environments is the "high pressure"
atmosphere; you do have to be a "type A" personality in
a lot of these boiler-room atmospheres and definitely be
"bottom line" orriented, and as far as I am concerned
this isn't for me. I want a life more than money. Lastly,
the book seems to serve as much as a promotional device
for the authors than a mentoring function for the reader.
You can see on the inside of the back cover a chance for
the reader to fork over $29.95 for a companion workbook,
information on "live seminar" programs, tapes for
interviewing practice, and a free brochure listing their
other products and services. Yes, you guessed it, the
authors are headhunters. And, they do promotional things
like get endorsements from big name commercial people
like Stephen Covy (author of "The Seven Habits of Highly
Sucessful People"), and then you notice on page 181 of
the book that the authors "bragged on" Stephen Covey for
his book. Isn't it interesting how "you scratch my back,
I scratch yours?" Overall, I had very mixed feelings.

EB

Meyer, the author of Executive Blues, was an executive at
McDonnell Douglas until he got fired and most newspaper
articles and book reviews I saw talked about this book in
connection with downsizing in general and one could say
that its a long diatribe composed of whining and moaning.
But, actually its much more than that. Its an antithesis
to books like NR (see above) and provides practically all
the missing answers to the missing questions I usually
have in such comparisons. Meyer had a horrible time
finding new work (a situation not unlike that experienced
by most PhDs). He talked about all of his feelings,
experiences with headhunters, interview committees, and
their actions and nonactions. He was born in 1940, three
years before me, making him a member of the
"unemployable" population which suffers from age
discrimination as much as overqualification (which he
talked about, too). If you have been on the job market
yourself, you will empathize with Meyer's experience.  EB
is much more than a personal diary of failure (there must
be a hundred examples of headhunters that never called
back, several hundred examples of resumes submitted that
were never answered or acknowledged, etc.), it goes into
the politics of corporations and upper executives. He
describes in an interesting way all of his experiences.
I quote from chapter 20 (page 76):

"Networking is everything they say. Call everyone you
know and build your network. Recruit people to be your
scouts, to let you know as soon as they hear of an
opening. Get your scouts to give you the names of other
possible scouts. Keep reaching, connecting, building."
"Two of the prized pieces of my network were [he names
them and his highly developed and historical relationship
with them and that he counted on them]."
"Today I happened to hear that a very senior p.r.
position is vacant at GE. And that [his two people were
involved in recruiting for it]."
"Neither has said a word about this to me."
"So much for my network."

This is the reality.

He names names, both of corporate entities and the people
he's interacted with. He also exposes utter stupidity
that is common in executive ranks and rigid corporate
cultures. The vast majority of his associates, he
relates, also had very serious problems finding new work.
After quite some time, he got a job at J.I. Case, another
major corporation, and was fired from them, too, along
with a whole stream of other executives, in a purge,
after almost scandalous mismanagement, resembling what we
used to read about happening in the Kremlin. He even gave
at least one example where an executive (not Meyer) was
hired to fire half the people in a division and then he
went away on vacation and when he came back, he found out
he was fired. Meyer talks about where many of his
corporate executive associates go: into buying franchises
with their golden parachute money and life savings. For
those he knows, they are not doing well. An example is
(on page 186) with a guy who bought a Mail Boxes
franchise. Meyer says:

"I tell him that if I buy a Mail Boxes franchise it
absolutely _must_ do well enough to support me after two
years. I ask him [a Mail Box owner] if that sounds
realistic."
"The man bursts into tears, actually begins to sob. He
pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and starts mopping
at his eyes."
"'I'm sorry,' he says. 'I'm sorry. I'll be all right in
a minute.'"
Meyer's next sentence was "How very encouraging."

Meyer is employed still again in a third corporation, we
learn from the "epilogue," but he also says that the
industry his corporation is part of is now being
deregulated and that he knows that that means downsizing
is around the corner. Personally, I think there would be
more food for thought for a young person trying to decide
what to spend their life doing from reading EB than NR
(And, I would not put a lot of stock in NR even for the
short run). Meyer is very pessimistic about the future.
How about the endorsements? Well, they include
significant comments from Studs Terkel, the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, and Fortune.
Oh, yes, there was no offer of further services for fee,
etc. 

July 1, 1997 list:

"Consulting Success" 3rd Edition, by Howard Shenson and Ted Nicholas with
Paul Franklin as consulting editor.  Upstart Publishing Company c 1993,
1997, 1987, 1991. ISBN 1-57410-055-6   pp. 243, $29.95

"How to get interviews from classified job ads" by Kenton W. Elderkin,
Wings Books (distributed by Randome House Value Publishing, Inc., 40
Engelhard Avenue, Avenel, New Jersey 07001). ISBN 0-517-12365-7, 232 pages
and illustrated. Parts are elementary, but other parts are excellent.

"96 great interview questions to ask before you hire" by Paul Falcone,
distributed by AMACOM, a division of American Management Association, 1601
Broadway, New York, NY 10019. ISBN 0-8144-7909-X. The book is copyright by
the author. List price: $17.95. The subtitles on the cover are: "Identify
high performance job candidates, Probe beyond superficial answers, Spot
'red flags' indicating evasions or untruths, Get references to provide
real information, Negotiate job offers to attract winners" MY COMMENT:
This is a dismaying book. Its incredible how much "psychiatry" is flowing
through the minds of interviewers and how many hoops a candidate is now 
being asked to jump through. Indeed, maybe after you get your MBA, you
also need a MA degree in Drama, Theater, and Communications (but don't put
it on your resume) and substantial rehersal, practice acting, and
performance before you go into these kinds of interviews. HOWEVER, for
those of you that are headed in that direction, maybe you better have a
look at this book to see what kinds of questions they are going to be
throwing at you. To be sure, its a horserace, and anyone coming in "2nd"
or lower is going to go to the glue factory. FOR MY SCIENTIST BRETHERN:
One thing that came accross to me in this book (considering the parts that
I did read) is that it does fit in with the "Dilbert Principal" line of
thinking. But, if you are tired of "fighting them," then maybe you have to
"join them." 

"How to make use of a useless degree"  (so help me that is the exact
title) by Andres Frothingham [Berkely Books, New York].

"Careering and re-careering for the 1990s" by Ronald L. Krannich, PhD.
[Impact Publications, Va]

"Guide to internet job searching" by Margaret Riley, Francis Roehm, and
Steve Oserman, ISBN 0-8442-8197-2, [VGM Career Horizons, 4255 West Touhy
Ave, Lincolnwood, Ill 60646-1975].

"Bouncing Back-How to stay the course when your career is on the rocks" by
Andrew J. Durbin, McGrw Hill.

"Getting Out"
Lawrence W. Tuller
Liberty Hill (Hall?) Press

"In transition"
Mary Lindley Burton & Richard A. Wedemeyer
[Harper Business, a division of Harper Collins]

"Career Crash"
Barry Glassner
[Simon & Shuster]

by the way, I have absolutely no connection with any of the authors,
publishers in any way. I post all of this in the public interest.

==== end of file ======






More information about the Bioforum mailing list

Send comments to us at biosci-help [At] net.bio.net