To attend graduate school, one must have earned a bachelor’s degree before attending any classes. A doctorate will help people earn higher paying jobs as soon as they have done school. Once a person finds the job he wants, and is hired for that job, the hard part is staying with that company and then climbing your way up the corporate ladder. One way to climb that corporate ladder is by obtaining a postdoctoral fellowship.
A postdoctoral fellowship is a position used solely for research but some positions have been created now called teaching post-docs, for people that want to focus on teaching in their careers. Postdoctoral appointees spend anywhere from six months to five years in their position completing research projects and gathering information in their field of study. These positions are most common in the fields of science and medicine. These research positions are usually termed research associate or research assistant professor. No one can begin a postdoctoral research positions until they complete their doctoral studies.
In the United States, a postdoctoral fellowship can be used for basic, clinical, or translational projects as long as their effort is devoted to their own scholarship. There are seven factors that can make a person’s experience as a postdoctoral appointee a success. They are transition to career independence, supervisions by at least one scholar, an individual development plan, a pursuit of basic, clinical or translational projects as long as they are researched, publication of the results, the time spent should not exceed five years and appropriate levels of compensation and health care should be provided to the appointee.
Climbing the corporate ladder as a postdoctoral appointee is relatively easier than doing the same thing without a doctorate to your name. A postdoctoral fellowship in science or medicine are two of the most common types of postdoctoral fellowship available today. Postdoctoral appointees usually join an institution such as a university, a scientific lab, law firm or a hospital to further their training in their chosen area of study.
Climbing the corporate ladder as a postdoctoral appointee is easier than most other routes because the appointee already has their foot in the door with the company of their choice. If you are studying science and know which company, you would like to work full-time for upon graduation, apply to that company as a postdoctoral appointee. If you get the position, not only will you be able to focus 100 percent of your time there on your research, you will also be ahead of the game. You do not need to get that introductory interview when applying for a permanent position. The staff already knows you and your work.
As mentioned earlier, the position usually lasts anywhere from six months to five years and many experts recommend that the position does not continue past the fifth year. At this time, the appointee should be ready to move on to bigger, and better things in their career and in their field of research. In most cases, the most difficult position to obtain on a full-time basis after completing a postdoctoral appointment is latching on as a full-time faculty member at a university. More than likely you will have to apply for full-time jobs at other universities, as only 17-20% of postdoctoral appointees obtain a permanent faculty position following their appointment.
Postdoctoral fellowships are available in education, science, medicine, law, the government and much, much more. Government postdoctoral appointments can be extremely rewarding. They are more often than not the highest paying postdoctoral fellowships available. The salary paid to a government postdoctoral appointee is equal to or sometimes even greater than the salary paid to a full-time professor at a high-ranking institution.
If you want to find the easiest route to climb the corporate ladder, it is as a postdoctoral appointee. They have their foot in the door while doing research, and a majority, of the fields hire, their postdoctoral appointees for full-time, permanent positions once their five years of research is complete. Once they are hired, they can set their own pace as to how fast or how slowly they climb the corporate ladder of their company.
Even though you are excited about finally graduating from college, you might want to rethink your decision to enter the workforce. Consider graduate school and then postdoctoral work. A postdoctoral fellowship on medicine, education, the government, science, or law can help you get your foot in the door and help to climb the corporate ladder once inside.
