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  • CAREER COLUMN

Why postdocs need entrepreneurship training

Landing tenure is a pipe dream for most postdoctoral researchers. They need business skills to help them thrive outside academia.
By
  1. Muhammad Shehryar Khan

    1. Muhammad Shehryar Khan is a materials science and mechanical engineering postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. He tweets at @SKhanistan.

  2. Jeffrey Casello

    1. Jeffrey Casello is a transportation and planning researcher and the associate vice-president of graduate studies and postdoctoral affairs at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He tweets at @JeffCasello.

In 2022, during the final year of his PhD, one of us (M.S.K.) applied for at least ten faculty positions. He had more than ten first-author publications, along with patents, several major awards and scholarships, numerous conference presentations and significant teaching experience. Just one application led to an official interview, and that did not turn out to be the right fit. The experience taught M.S.K. that finding a tenure-track faculty position as a newly minted PhD holder is almost impossible1; applicants must have at least one high-impact postdoc position on their CV. There is an oversupply of PhD holders, and the laws of supply and demand dictate that the postdoc journey will become even more challenging as the competition for tenured positions becomes fiercer. The global coronavirus pandemic has further damaged postdocs’ career prospects, with the path to principal investigator constantly narrowing and permanent lab-leadership roles becoming increasingly scarce.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03411-w

This is an article from the Nature Careers Community, a place for Nature readers to share their professional experiences and advice. Guest posts are encouraged.

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Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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