Another postdoc with a chip on its shoulder

So I applied to a really great-seeming fellowship at my current institution, with many of the faculty located in the research institute where I work. It was funded by a government agency under a high level training grant, intermediate between postdoc and faculty. It came with a stipend about 30% higher than average postdoc salary and a sizeable research fund. I'm not sure what's normal for a research fund, but it was four times the size of a research fund for last year's almost tenure-track position and 30% larger than the research fund of a similar postdoc that I interviewed for. It seemed too large to spend, even, since my research is quite cheap, and so I spent lots of time thinking about the new kinds of research projects that I could do with it.

I applied back in February and followed all the application instructions on the website including an "Application letter that includes (a) research areas of interest, (b) objectives to be achieved through the fellowship, and (c) implementation plan for objectives." My implementation plan was slightly vague, but since the cover letter was already about 3 full pages, I figured it was best not to continue on. It's pretty standard.

They asked to meet with me from 11:30-12 on a Wednesday. The coming Wednesday was during a national conference located in this city and the next Wednesday I thought I might be away (and was), so I missed part of the conference to meet with them. Arriving at work in the middle of the day, I hadn't realized I would have parking problems and parked several blocks away in a sketchy neighborhood so I was five minutes late. Four people were sitting around a conference table with room for 20, looking very serious, and the purpose of the meeting was to ask a few questions about why I'm interested and then to tell me that my application was incomplete and that I needed to submit a three year plan. This meeting reminded me a bit of another postdoc that scheduled a meeting in order to tell me that my application was incomplete.

They interrupted each other and interrupted me, and some combination of the personalities and the too-large conference room and the rush of the meeting prevented us from establishing any rapport at all. One of the faculty members started to give the website's URL, but since it's one of those acronyms that no one uses in real life, she stumbled over it, and two more faculty members had to chime in, attempting to complete it. All of which seemed to assume that I hadn't actually seen the website, and had just sent my packet to them blindly.

I asked for details about what they wanted in this three year plan, and it sounded like something that I could dash off, so I promised it in an unrealistically short time-frame. I learned later that this plan is the standard document that many postdocs complete in their first month in the position. Not that that's all that they do during the first month, but they spend a great deal of time identifying milestones, deciding reasonable time-tables, detailing the papers that they want to write and the papers' time-tables. It's basically a sort of grant application, and therefore more time-consuming than actual work.

That night I got an offer, a few days later I saw my friend, the next morning he was killed, then I was at an interview, and then I had work to make up, another trip to plan, and I just didn't get to the three year plan. My current mentor and a senior research scientist in our group had offered to be my mentors under this postdoc, but I hadn't had the chance to figure out enough details to contact them, or to look at a couple other potential mentors. I finally sent an email reiterating my interest, explaining the reason for the delay (interviews and the death of a friend), and that I hoped they would understand if I sent the document in the next week.

Most emails mentioning a death get some form of condolences in reply. This email got a "Dear Dr. New Postdoc." So far, the only time anyone ever uses my title is when I'm getting rejected. Acceptances always use my first name.

The rejection text in full was

Thank you for your interest. However, after further review of your initial papers and interview we have decided that you would not be a good fit for our program and that we would probably not be able to find an adequate multidisciplinary project and mentoring team to support you. So it will not be necessary for you to send further information.

Again thank you for your interest and for your interview and good luck in finding a position.

It was terribly unprofessional on my part not to tell them right away that I expected the three year plan to be delayed and to add one of those non-apologies to the effect that I'm sorry that I hadn't seen the three year plan listed anywhere in the application webpage and then give the URL where they had claimed the directions for writing a three year plan would be. I did neither of those, and I take full responsibility for not being more timely in getting in touch with them, but under extenuating circumstances people often are willing to be somewhat understanding.

So many problems on their side, including:

1. Imposing an additional application requirement a month after submission of the original application, when candidates are rushing around elsewhere and no longer in application-mode.

2. Scheduling a meeting which is too short to be an interview, but expecting it to take the place of an interview, and giving no flexibility about time: it had to be 11:30-12 on a Wednesday and take place in the next two weeks.

3. Outright lying in the rejection letter. The guy I'm currently working with and another research scientist volunteered to be my project and mentor; I mentioned that in my cover letter and in the meeting. One of them had worked before with this training grant, so it's a lie both that I'm not a good fit and that they couldn't find a project and mentor. I'm also a good fit for the training grant in general. This year and last, I applied to the same training grant at several other universities, and got interviews at many.

4. The lack of good will, both assumed and showed. Yes, I come from a high-ranked university and have a single-authored paper in the top journal in my field (though not on a subject where many follow-ups are possible), but I applied to their program because I was genuinely interested and I honestly think the research projects are better than two of the Ivys I visited under the same training grant; I certainly don't intend them to be a safety school. Imposing additional barriers is just playing hard to get, and seems to assume a lack of good will on my part.


My response to their rejection was to say that I was disappointed, and to explain in more detail about exactly how little time I had in the two weeks since we met, and I also mentioned my friend's name in case they thought that I had made up the story. I hope that they google his name and get nightmares from the news articles' description of the accident.

Lack of good will


More generally, I've had two other experiences with lack of good will.

Last year, I applied absolutely everywhere, including faculty positions at public commuter colleges. One of the commuter colleges had very specific requirements for the cover letter, I met the requirements by talking about my public high school's diversity and about how I would contribute to their vocational focus in both my cover letter and interview, and I got an interview and fly-out. They took me at face value, and while I declined the fly-out due to realizing that a 3 course load was too much for starting a career if I ever wanted to do any research, it's to everyone's credit that we all assumed good will.

On the other side, I had three experiences with lack of good will, all at R1 universities, which as far as I understand are considered universally more desirable than commuter colleges. I don't mean to reply to this lack of good will on their part by saying "Some of my best friends are commuter colleges," but truly I don't see any reason why an R1 school would think I wasn't really interested and decide to put up barriers.

- Last year, a tenure-track faculty position phone interview by committee went really well so we scheduled a fly-out, and I sent them everything necessary and then embarked on all my travels. Traveling wipes me out, and takes a long time to recover from. I started getting all these phone calls from them about specifics, and since the trip was already scheduled and I was in the middle of other interviews and half out of my mind with exhaustion, I didn't call them back until after the interview. After a three day marathon of traveling and interviews and evening dinners, I sat down on the train to go home, and as it's pulling out of the station, I attempt to return the phone call, and within two minutes we get disconnected, so I had to wait until I was home, having in the meantime frustrated the search committee chair. Within a day, my trip was downgraded: instead of being picked up from the airport, they gave me the train schedule and instead of the big name brand hotel I was placed in an "inn." It seemed like a pretty clear signal that they didn't want to talk with me at all, and since my time felt in short supply, I cancelled the trip.

- This year, I had the two postdocs with chips on their shoulder where they didn't even want to speak with me. They asked a few cursory questions and then told me over a month after I'd submitted it that my application was incomplete. In one case, they were right and I'd forgotten to attach the cover letter (big oops) and in the other case it was totally manufactured.

I really don't get it.