Post-doctoral positions at Universities are one of the most popular first jobs for Michigan Math PhD students. A research-focused post-doc is essential if your long term goal is a professorship at a PhD granting institution. But more generally, a post-doc can be a great experience, allowing you to spend a few more years doing self-directed research, usually with some interesting teaching work as well. From a post-doc, you will be a competitive candidate for virtually any career path for mathematicians.
When you are approaching your final year of graduate school, if you intend to apply for post-doctoral positions at academic institutions, be aware that you generally should start putting together your application a year or more before the position starts. Letters of recommendation are the most important part of the package! You will need to think carefully about this and get lots of advice.
Paul Kessenich put together some information on how to approach your letter writers, which you can see here if you missed his presentation Monday. You’ll need letter writers to address your research, as well as one dedicated letter from some faculty member who can comment in depth about your teaching experience and ideally about our teaching program at Michigan–this is typically one of the Intro Program Coordinators. [This mix is quite different if and when you are applying for tenure track positions and positions at more teaching-focused departments as opposed to post-doctoral positions.] Because Paul is one of the main people writing tens of teaching letters for Math PhD students every year, you should listen carefully to his advice on this topic!
Insider-advice from Dick Canary, who is often in charge of hiring post-docs in our department, is often freely flowing, as it was at Monday’s workshop on applying to post-doc positions. Don’t hesitate to flag down Dick at tea or after colloquium sometime to ask him more!
Michigan math post-docs are generally happy to share their own experiences applying for jobs, as a panel of them did Monday. Here at Michigan, our graduate program is dramatically enhanced by the presence of so many smart, engaged post-docs. Get to know them! Befriend one after a seminar in your field or while grading calculus exams! Don’t miss out on one of Michigan Math’s greatest resources for our graduate students!
A few more reasonable pieces of advice from around the internet on the topic of Applying for Post-docs:
Michigan faculty Paul Kessenich’s presentation on approaching your letter writers and other advice
No BS Advice from Harvard Professor Lauren Williams (written during her Berkeley days)
Detailed and Informational Advice from LSU’s graduate student handbook [Caveat: the word “job” here is used to mean “academic job.” In truth the job market for Math PhDs has never been stronger, but in the old days, the culture in most math departments was to promote academics as the only good option for PhDs.]
Amusing and Useful Advice from Kimball Martin at Oklahoma State University
Stanford’s Ravi Vakil on what you should provide him, or people like him, when asking for a research letter.
More Advice from Andrea Bertozzi at UCLA
An important Note: Post-docs are only one kind of “first job” after your “doc” and definitely not for everyone. If you hate teaching but love research, consider applying to government labs and industry jobs. If teaching energizes you but you have trouble getting motivated to focus on research or don’t enjoy seminars, consider a career in college teaching. Even in this case, a post-doc could be useful but you should use it to boost your capacity to be an excellent professor at a teaching-focused place by getting involved in curriculum development, outreach or supervising undergraduate research. If you want the luxury of choosing where you live or want to interact more with non-math people, consider industry. Pay attention to this blog-site for more opportunities to learn about all these routes!
Michigan post-docs: Shoot me an email or comment below with your advice or comments, and I will gather them into a resource page on this blog site. As always, anyone else with an opinion or favorite resource to share should do the same! Thanks!
