Advice for PhDs and Post-Docs

If you ever have the time, here are a few presentations I gave for Early Career Researchers:

• I gave an invited talk at ICAPS Launchpad 2025, with slides available here, covering multiple different topics. This is the talk announcement: Doing a PhD can feel like solving a partially observable planning problem with ill-defined actions and an unknown goal. In this talk, I'll reflect on my own (decidedly suboptimal) trajectory and the heuristics I wish I had early on. Topics include choosing research directions, the power of colleagues and reviewing, and time management strategies, among others. It's a mix of reflections and well-meant advice - some of it hopefully helping to derive a better policy for navigating a PhD (and convincing you to start one in the first place).
• At the Third SET & SysCom HDR/ECR Conference 2024 of UNSW Canberra, I gave an invited talk on Success in Academia. 80% overlap with the presentation linked above -- and those parts that do overlap are actually much, much better in the above presentation (since it's newer), yet there is one section here (on academia vs. industry) which isn't included in the above.

Maybe you might also find my webpage's section on thesis writing advice useful, as it contains several resources including a "LaTeX template" that also contains a list of (very!) frequently done LaTeX/typesetting errors and points towards typical marking guides etc. I still see LaTeX errors in publications by experienced scientists, so going through the advice certainly makes sense, even if you successfully published already.

How to get ready for a Post-Doc or the first Professorship?

Having enough scientific publications at top-tier venues should be a no-brainer, but many forget that there are other factors that influence whether somebody else wants to hire you -- and you can't start checking these other boxes too early. In other words: you don't need to wait until you are a post-doc: already while you are a PhD student you can work on some of these; and some will even help you obtain a post-doc position in the first place.

Here is what counts:

• Teaching skills:
  • You should definitely get some tutoring done, correcting exercises, exams, and teaching tutorial groups. Ideally, teach multiple different classes; experience matters as you will always learn more with more exposure.
  • Even more important would be experience in teaching course material. Check out whether you can give guest lectures about the topics you are already an expert in. Better yet, check out whether you can deliver some of the regular lectures. Maybe your current supervisor can arrange this.
  • If you are really keen, you could even work on formal teaching qualifications. There might be several opportunities to obtain certifications related to higher education. Just search for it, offers might come up regularly.
• Supervision experience: Getting hired as a post-doc certainly comes with the expectation of supporting your new boss with supervision. So, you might not want to wait until you are actually graduated, as you would not have already demonstrated what they might be looking for. So, instead, you should try to get involved in student supervision already as a PhD student. Ideally, you start early with co-supervising some students together with your PhD supervisor or other peers. That way, you can learn it before being entirely on your own.
• Organizational skills: This would be going above and beyond, but competition is fierce. :) So, having evidence of strong organizational skills can't hurt, and might even be an enriching experience. For example, you could check out whether you can organize a summer school (etc.) at your University. Even the speakers might be happy about this since they can count these as invited talks. So, it'd be a triple win: for you (and your co-organizers), the participants, and the speakers.
• Peer reviewing: It will likely be important that you help with reviewing, so some experience is expected. Many conferences require years of experience, though you don't have to wait until you have them. You can start reviewing for workshops -- and can work towards that by approaching organizers and asking whether they can add you to the team of PC members, possibly at reduced review load in case you are still a beginner.
• Possibly not yet relevant as a PhD student (depending on circumstances), but certainly as a post-doc: Prove independence from your supervisor. Work on publications that don't involve him or her. Do, however, make sure that these are not ideas that were taken from him or her. If in doubt, clarify.
• Not relevant for your PhD career, but once you are a post-doc: Funding. As soon as you are a post-doctoral researcher, you should check out which research grants are achievable given your career stage. Funding is among the most important factors in obtaining a professorship, so obtaining a research grant yourself is a key milestone. Discuss this with your supervisor, as he/she might be able to support, e.g., by explaining the system or showing/sharing their own proposals.

Some purely abstract advice orthogonal to all above: Keep all evidence! Maintain a list with everything you've ever done. Many small things might pile up quicker than you expect, so always document everything regularly to make sure you don't miss anything. Related: plan wisely what you are willing to share publicly on your webpage. Public information is more credible than what you only put in your CV; but it's your call what you are willing to share with everybody online.