I’ve been interviewing post-docs over Skype and most are the usual international students with the occasional okay PhD student sprinkled in. There are always so many more open post-doc positions out there than there are good post-docs. So it’s not too easy for me to compete with the biggest names, but I’ve done okay. However, I did find one good one who’s well experienced, mature, and would make a good fit. He’s been a post-doc on seven years now and I’m iffy. Not because he’s been in post-doc positions for so long and not because he might get an academic position and be gone. His large amount of time in the post-doc is great because he brings great experience, and if he goes to an academic position I’d be happy for him. I’m iffy because I feel wrong giving him another post-doc. He should be at the point in his training where he should be running more of a program. And if I saddle him here I feel I’m doing him a disservice. I know it’s not my place to tell this person what to do, but I think it’s time to take a research prof (non-tenure track) position or skip off to industry. He’s very smart, mature, and hard-working so he’ll do well where ever he goes. He said he just hasn’t gotten bites on his application, which I agreed to look over, and it does seem a little run-of-the-mill. Which usually is great if you have an Ivy league school on your CV, which he does not. I just feel like I’d be exploiting this person by putting him in another post-doc. I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to do, but I want to tell him that I don’t think another post-doc is the right thing for him, but I’m afraid he may be insulted. There are a lot of non-tenure track positions out there in addition to a bunch of industry positions (the economy, while slowing, is still quite hot if you have the right skillsets). Maybe I’m overthinking this, and should just bring in who I think will be a great researcher, but I just feel dirty doing it.
