Skip to main content
NIH Intramural Research Program, Our Research Changes Lives

Navigation controls

  • Search
  • Menu

Social follow links

  • Podcast
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn

Main navigation

  • About Us
    • What Is the IRP?
    • History
    • Honors
      • Nobel Prize
      • Lasker Award
      • Breakthrough Prize
      • Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE)
      • Presidential Medal of Freedom
      • National Medal of Science
      • Searle Scholars
      • The National Academy of Sciences
      • The National Academy of Medicine
      • The National Academy of Engineering
      • The American Academy of Arts and Sciences
      • National Medal of Technology & Innovation
      • Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals
      • Crafoord Prize
      • Fellows of the Royal Society
      • Canada Gairdner Awards
    • Organization & Leadership
    • Our Programs
      • NCI
      • NEI
      • NHGRI
      • NHLBI
      • NIA
      • NIAAA
      • NIAID
      • NIAMS
      • NIBIB
      • NICHD
      • NIDA
      • NIDCD
      • NIDCR
      • NIDDK
      • NIEHS
      • NIMH
      • NIMHD
      • NINDS
      • NINR
      • NLM
      • CC
      • NCATS
      • NCCIH
    • Research Campus Locations
    • Contact Information
  • Our Research
    • Scientific Focus Areas
      • Biomedical Engineering & Biophysics
      • Cancer Biology
      • Cell Biology
      • Chemical Biology
      • Chromosome Biology
      • Clinical Research
      • Computational Biology
      • Developmental Biology
      • Epidemiology
      • Genetics & Genomics
      • Health Disparities
      • Immunology
      • Microbiology & Infectious Diseases
      • Molecular Biology & Biochemistry
      • Molecular Pharmacology
      • Neuroscience
      • RNA Biology
      • Social & Behavioral Sciences
      • Stem Cell Biology
      • Structural Biology
      • Systems Biology
      • Virology
    • Principal Investigators
      • View by Investigator Name
      • View by Scientific Focus Area
    • Accomplishments
      • View All Accomplishments by Date
      • View All Health Topics
      • The Body
      • Health & Wellness
      • Conditions & Diseases
      • Procedures
    • Accelerating Science
      • Investing in Cutting-Edge Animal Models
      • Creating Cell-Based Therapies
      • Advancing Computational and Structural Biology
      • Combating Drug Resistance
      • Developing Novel Imaging Techniques
      • Charting the Pathways of Inflammation
      • Zooming in on the Microbiome
      • Uncovering New Opportunities for Natural Products
      • Stimulating Neuroscience Research
      • Pursuing Precision Medicine
      • Unlocking the Potential of RNA Biology and Therapeutics
      • Producing Novel Vaccines
    • Research in Action
      • View All Stories
      • Too Much of a Good Thing
      • Turning Face Perception on Its Head
      • Safeguarding a Second Chance at Life
      • A Biological Betrayal
    • Trans-IRP Research Resources
      • Supercomputing
    • IRP Review Process
    • Commercializing Inventions
  • NIH Clinical Center
    • Clinical Center Facilities
    • Advancing Translational Science
    • Clinical Trials
      • Get Involved with Clinical Research
      • Physician Resources
  • News & Events
    • In the News
    • I am Intramural Blog
    • Speaking of Science Podcast
    • SciBites Video Shorts
    • The NIH Catalyst Newsletter
    • Events
  • Careers
    • Faculty-Level Scientific Careers
    • Trans-NIH Scientific Recruitments
      • Stadtman Tenure-Track Investigators
        • Science, the Stadtman Way
        • Earl Stadtman Investigator Frequently Asked Questions
      • Lasker Clinical Research Scholars
      • Independent Research Scholar
    • Scientific & Clinical Careers
    • Administrative Careers
  • Research Training
    • Program Information
    • Training Opportunities
    • NIH Work/Life Resources
The NIH Catalyst: A Publication About NIH Intramural Research

National Institutes of Health • Office of the Director | Volume 26 Issue 6 • November–December 2018

New Methods

Making Informed Career Decisions

New Tool Helps NIH Postdocs Visualize Employment Trends

BY ROBIN ARNETTE, NIEHS

Scientists looking for jobs after completing their training may soon have a new tool that helps them evaluate various career paths. Developed by a team led by Tammy Collins (National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences), the tool uses a method that differs from others in that it creates a standard career-outcome taxonomy that classifies careers in the biomedical sciences by sector, type, and job specifics. Until now, the lack of standardized measures has made it difficult for postdocs to make informed decisions about their career prospects. The creators hope this novel approach will be useful throughout NIH as well as for academic and research institutions around the world.

circle graph showing percentages of people in different careers

CREDIT: NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY

The NIEHS study categorized career outcomes for NIEHS postdocs by sector, type, and job specifics. The authors envision that this approach will help young scientists make career decisions based on data and not anecdotal evidence.

Team members collected detailed career outcomes—by searching through PubMed, social media, alumni websites, Google, Board of Scientific Counselors reviews, and more—for some 900 NIEHS postdoctoral fellows over the past 15 years. Lead author and NIEHS computer scientist Hong Xu analyzed the data using the R Project for Statistical Computing, a free online program that displays data using graphs and charts. The study appeared earlier this year in the journal Nature Biotechnology and is the first standardized method for categorizing career outcomes of NIEHS postdocs (Nat Biotechnol 36:197–202, 2018; DOI:10.1038/nbt.4059).

“As we sought to determine how to make sense of detailed career outcomes in a standardized way, we used a bottom-up approach, rather than forcing the data into any particular naming system already being employed,” said Collins, who is the director of the NIEHS Office of Fellows’ Career Development. “We looked at what our postdocs were specifically doing, and asked what is the most logical way to categorize and visualize the information.”

The careers project began in 2013 as a way to establish a snapshot of career trajectories for NIEHS postdocs and to report the findings to NIH. The researchers found distinct differences between domestic and international NIEHS postdocs in the kinds of jobs they landed. About half of the postdocs were from the United States and half were from other countries. U.S. postdocs were more likely than their international counterparts to enter for-profit companies to do applied research.

In contrast, international postdocs were almost twice as likely as their U.S. peers to enter academic tenure-track positions and do basic research. Notably, 70 percent of those academic positions were outside the United States. Overall, nearly half of all NIEHS postdocs went into the academic sector, which was surprising to some, because many young scientists thought that doing a government postdoctoral fellowship might hinder their chances of getting a tenure-track position in academia.

“We hope that the taxonomy, definitions, and visualization methods presented will eliminate a key hurdle in career outcome reporting and analysis—inspiring others to use our methodology so that more finely tuned, meaningful, institution-level information will be available for cross-comparisons within the global scientific research community,” the authors wrote in their paper. “Having this institution-level information will allow prospective and current doctoral candidates to evaluate their career prospects based on real data, rather than anecdotes. Likewise, this information will allow institutions to critically evaluate the effectiveness of their programs, so that data-driven decisions can be made to provide programming that supports student transitions into the modern career environment.”


The career outcomes tool was presented to the scientific directors, this spring, to promote trans-NIH adoption. For more information, go to https://www.niehs.nih.gov/careers/research/fellows/alumni-outcomes/index.cfm or contact Tammy Collins (984-287-3651 or tammy.collins@nih.gov).

This page was last updated on Wednesday, April 6, 2022

  • Issue Overview
  • Features
    • 2018 Research Festival
    • 2018 Research Festival: Plenary Sessions
    • 2018 Research Festival: Selected Concurrent Symposia
    • 2018 Research Festival: Virtual Reality
  • Departments
    • From the Deputy Director for Intramural Research
    • Colleagues: Recently Tenured
    • From the Annals of NIH History: An Oral History of a Machine
    • Announcements: KUDOS
    • New Methods
    • Research Briefs
    • The Training Page
    • The SIG Beat
    • NIH in History
    • Announcements
  • Issue Contents
  • Download this issue as a PDF

Catalyst menu

  • Current Issue
  • Previous Issues
  • About The NIH Catalyst
  • Contact The NIH Catalyst
  • Share Your Story
  • NIH Abbreviations

Catalyst links

  • Follow The NIH Catalyst

Subscribe Today!

Subscribe to The NIH Catalyst Newsletter and receive email updates.

Subscribe

Get IRP Updates

Subscribe

  • Email
  • Print
  • Share Twitter Facebook LinkedIn

Main navigation

  • About Us
    • What Is the IRP?
    • History
    • Honors
    • Organization & Leadership
    • Our Programs
    • Research Campus Locations
    • Contact Information
  • Our Research
    • Scientific Focus Areas
    • Principal Investigators
    • Accomplishments
    • Accelerating Science
    • Research in Action
    • Trans-IRP Research Resources
    • IRP Review Process
    • Commercializing Inventions
  • NIH Clinical Center
    • Clinical Center Facilities
    • Advancing Translational Science
    • Clinical Trials
  • News & Events
    • In the News
    • I am Intramural Blog
    • Speaking of Science Podcast
    • SciBites Video Shorts
    • The NIH Catalyst Newsletter
    • Events
  • Careers
    • Faculty-Level Scientific Careers
    • Trans-NIH Scientific Recruitments
    • Scientific & Clinical Careers
    • Administrative Careers
  • Research Training
    • Program Information
    • Training Opportunities
    • NIH Work/Life Resources
  • Department of Health and Human Services
  • National Institutes of Health
  • USA.gov

Footer

  • Home
  • Contact Us
  • IRP Brand Materials
  • HHS Vulnerability Disclosure
  • Web Policies & Notices
  • Site Map
  • Search