Public and private research: a possible articulation?

“Don’t sink your teeth into the bowels of public research, your resume will become indigestible to the private sector!” True or False? In truth this is not the right question to ask…. And then the answer is much more complex. When Melanie tells me “I know that after my Thesis I want to go into the private sector BUT I am too eager to do a postdoc in the public sector ….”: As if the 2 were not quite compatible

✔ A lot of autonomous work and responsibility. In project management, you’ll take a leap forward (ok you mustn’t fall into the wrong team!).
✔ A new expertise (the + challenging is to tame a new research topic, new technologies, new knowledge)
✔ Question pressure we put on ourselves is crazy. We’re pushing those boundaries even more and time is running out!
✔ Another way to work, another lab, even better if it’s within a new cultural environment!

Do what you think is good for you, not for the future potential employers you will have in interview, you don’t know when! What matters most is to have a coherent career path, thoughtful choices and above all to have enough self-confidence to value your transversal competences well on the D-day  So with or without postdoc, private or public postdoc, going through a training or a school before etc I always say that choices guided by passion are much easier to express, to highlight, to value naturally and spontaneously and it works!

Don’t put too many calculations in your path because you will risk interpreting any deviations as a problem in the life of a researcher there are no problems but rather ill-prepared solutions or protocols to revise.