Postdoc Hunters Club

During my postdoctoral experience, I came up with some survival rules that had a certain popularity over Facebook. If anything, hope it makes you laugh - because laughter is what makes us invincible.

... Rule #1 of the Postdoc Hunters Club: it doesn't matter how many applications you send, the fright of being unemployed never ceases.

... Rule #2 of the Postdoc Hunters Club: annoy your reference letters writers with deadlines and last-minute-requests until there is no way they can have a positive word about you.

... Rule #3 of the Postdoc Hunters Club (aka The L'Oreal Rule): apply everywhere, no matter if they are looking for somebody with orthogonal mathematical interests to yours. Because you're worth it. And just in case.

... Rule #4 of the Postdoc Hunters Club: you are not applying enough until you begin loosing track of the whole application process.

... Rule #5 of the Postdoc Hunters Club: the more topic-matching that advertised position is, the higher away (academically speaking) and unreachable it is.

... Rule #6 of the Postdoc Hunters Club: fantasize with answering all kinds of bizarre brutalities at questions like "why do you think your profile matches with our selection criteria" or "do you have any criminal records?".

... Rule #7 of the Postdoc Hunters Club (aka the Sisyphus Rule): no application is complete until, when all documents required ready, you realize there's a tiny little detail in the Further Particulars that discards authomatically your application.

... Rule #8 of the Postdoc Hunters Club: the more applications piling up (with an urging deadline), the more invitations to give talks (the further, the better) and the more papers reviews requests.

... Rule #9 of the Postdoc Hunters Club: applicant maturity comes the moment you have a 1-, 2-, 3- and 4+ pages version of your research statement, and several ways of addressing it depending on the audience it goes to (e.g. for non-experts aliens to math world, for non-experts but members of the math world, for the total experts on your topic, for experts in a neighbouring topic to yours etc). And a 1-, 2- and 3+ pages version of your CV.

... Rule #10 of the Postdoc Hunters Club: that moment when you have to stop applying, but you don't even know how. Because applying is your job, right?

... Rule #11 of the Postdoc Hunters Club: keep the scientific planning for the future (organizing/attending conferences, research plans, etc) as if there is no tomorrow. As if you had no position dying in a couple of months and nothing for afterwards. ‪#‎PostdocHuntersClub‬

… Rule #12 of the Postdoc Hunters Club: feeling like it’s been a thousand years ago what happened only a year and a half ago (i.e. your PhD defense), because you didn’t sit your ass down.

... Rule #13 of the Postdoc Hunters Club (European spin-off): that assisted suicide called Marie Curie.

… Rule #14 of the Postdoc Hunters Club: feeling special because you got a rejection letter via regular post.

… Rule #15 of the Postdoc Hunters Club: sharing job offers is caring. As long as they are not applicable for you.

… Rule #16 of the Postdoc Hunters Club: “Yes. But you don’t have that many papers.”

... Rule #17 of the Postdoc Hunters Club: that weekly apocalypse.