Should I Even Do a Postdoc?
I spoke with someone recently who asked this question. They are at a decision point in their career, and are open to industry and hybrid roles, but don't want to close the door on academia, which is still their first choice.
When I defended my PhD in 2013, I briefly considered taking some time to recharge and to think through whether doing a postdoc was even the right next step. However, my supervisor was worried about losing momentum, plus I hadn't heard of anyone in my field actually getting a faculty job without one. So I didn't take the break. I did two postdocs back to back, in six years total.
I learned an enormous amount. But I also didn't think clearly about what I was actually training for. Looking back, I think that's the most important question to ask.
What are you actually training for?
My two postdocs were very different from each other. The first was at a large research institute funded entirely by grants, with multiple research groups running in parallel and many staff scientists who focused solely on research. It looked nothing like my PhD, which was a small university lab. At the institute, I learned how NIH funding works, how to apply for and execute grants, and how to lead high-profile multi-site projects. I built my network, and those connections ultimately led to my faculty job.
The second postdoc was much closer to a traditional university environment. I learned how to nurture a small research group, got more directly involved in data collection and administration, and watched my mentor navigate the balance of teaching, research, service, and clinical responsibilities — things I'd been largely shielded from at the institute.
Here's what's interesting: the faculty role I eventually got looked a lot more like my second postdoc in terms of environment and structure. But my current role as a data scientist maps more closely onto my first postdoc: the large research organization, the grant-driven culture, the juggling of competing priorities across parallel projects. I didn't anticipate that at the time, and it's made me realize how much the environment you train in shapes the work you end up doing.
Would I do it again?
Honestly, I'm not sure. Right after my PhD there's no way I was ready for the faculty role I got six years later. I needed that time. But those six years also directly contributed to the research drift I've written about — the gradual pull away from what originally drew me to the field. Had I started my own lab straight out of graduate school, it might have been more closely aligned with my actual interests.
It was also a genuinely challenging period. The pay is low throughout your late twenties and early thirties. The mental health toll is real. I relocated to the US for my first postdoc and I'm still here thirteen years later, so it's safe to say that doing a postdoc completely altered the trajectory of my life. And yet, because it was such an intense shared experience, I made some of my closest lifelong friends during that time. The transient nature of a postdoc means those friends are now scattered across the globe — but, as one of them reminded me, that also means that anywhere I go, I have a friend to visit.
Some questions worth asking before you decide:
What are you actually training for? Running a university lab, working in a research institute, or something in a hybrid or industry setting?
Are you curious about the applied aspects of your discipline and how it connects to real-world impact, products, or clinical translation? Hybrid postdocs are increasingly common in fields like digital health and offer exposure to both the research side and the commercial or translational side of the work you might be doing.
If you took a research position within an organization, would you be okay with it evolving into a more permanent staff scientist role? In my experience, once people get used to the stability and higher pay, they often don't end up applying for traditional faculty positions. That may be completely fine, but it's worth thinking about before you start.
What specific skills do you want to develop? Grant writing, leadership, a new technique, or something else?
And perhaps most importantly: are you choosing a postdoc because it genuinely serves your goals, or because it's simply what people in your field do?
That last question is the one I never asked myself. I'm not sure my answer would have changed, but I think I would have made more intentional choices along the way if I had.