Cadmore media player playing video Navigating a Career in Scholarly Publishing: Pathways for Early Career Professionals with an Academic Background
Video Player
Accessibility
Using forms mode, you can utilize keyboard shortcuts to make usability more efficient.
Space bar will play and pause the video. Pressing escape will close all displays and pressing it again will jump to the end of the player.
You can press A to open the Keyboard Shortcut Dialog which also provides an audio description of the player and all of its features.
Language
1x
Play Speed
Adjust Volume
Transcript
Search
Result Count
of
Click to jump to result
Search
Re-center
Segments
Result Count
of
Click to jump to result
Search
Name:
Navigating a Career in Scholarly Publishing: Pathways for Early Career Professionals with an Academic Background
Description:
Navigating a Career in Scholarly Publishing: Pathways for Early Career Professionals with an Academic Background
Thumbnail URL:
https://cadmoremediastorage.blob.core.windows.net/679df7be-f7f1-4900-a571-804dcccfdb00/thumbnails/679df7be-f7f1-4900-a571-804dcccfdb00.jpg
Duration:
T00H59M35S
Embed URL:
https://stream.cadmore.media/player/679df7be-f7f1-4900-a571-804dcccfdb00
Content URL:
https://cadmoreoriginalmedia.blob.core.windows.net/679df7be-f7f1-4900-a571-804dcccfdb00/GMT20240214-155949_Recording_gallery_1920x1080.mp4?sv=2019-02-02&sr=c&sig=1W0hcGFz3i8ydcmJdMHw6Jxh4%2BNj5JGVhHnh6KiO2xY%3D&st=2024-12-08T22%3A31%3A39Z&se=2024-12-09T00%3A36%3A39Z&sp=r
Upload Date:
2024-03-01T00:00:00.0000000
Transcript:
Language: EN.
Segment:0 .
Thank you and welcome to today's SSP.
Early career subcommittee webinar. Navigating a career in scholarly publishing. Pathways for early career professionals with an academic background. We are very pleased that you can join us today. My name is Rebecca Benner and I'm a member of the SSP early career subcommittee. I have just a few housekeeping items to review before we get started.
Attendee microphones have been muted automatically, so please use the Q&A box to enter questions for the panelists. We will leave time at the end to address them. You can also use chat to say Hello or to alert us to any technical problems you are having. Closed captions have been enabled. You can view captions by selecting the More option on your screen and choosing show captions.
This one hour session will be recorded and made available to all in the next few days. A quick note on SSPS code of conduct and today's meeting. We are committed to diversity, equity and providing an inclusive meeting environment, fostering open dialogue, free of harassment, discrimination and hostile conduct. We ask all participants whether speaking or in chat, to consider and debate relevant viewpoints in an orderly, respectful and fair manner.
Help us reach our goal of raising $500,000 to ensure the future of our fellowship and mentoring programs and initiatives. By joining the SSP generations fund. Join the more than 350 organizations and individuals that have already donated and see the link in the chat. So it is now my pleasure to introduce our moderator today, Gillian barndt.
Gillian joined the World of scholarly publishing in 2022 at frontiers, where she works on the journals frontiers in molecular biosciences and frontiers in Cell and developmental biology. Prior to this, she received her PhD in pre-modern Japanese history from the University of Southern California, where she focused on education in the high end era Japan. She continues to research on her own while developing her new career in publishing.
Gillian, over to you. Thank you so much, Rebecca, and good morning, everybody from sort of sunny Los Angeles. So it's my pleasure today to introduce our four panelists. First is Harry Blum, who is a senior publishing liaison for the Nasa science Explorer. He is an astrophysicist by training and obtained his PhD at Leiden University in 1997 on the analysis of gamma ray satellite data after a postdoc position at INR in puebla, Mexico.
He started a career in academic publishing at kluwer in dordrecht, the Netherlands. In 2004, he moved over. He moved to New York City to become senior editor in astronomy and space technology for Springer. Over the next 20 years, he gained wide ranging publishing experience, including books and journal acquisitions in the physical sciences, managing large global publishing teams and expansion into new geographical areas.
As a vice president since 2023 or 2013, he became responsible for supporting publishing teams in driving content growth and development across the Springer Nature journals division. His team worked on the definition and implementation of publishing policies, pilots and processes. In 2021, he left Springer Nature to focus on teaching and consulting in the areas of his expertise. Next, we have Elizabeth sherburn Demers, who is the director at Michigan State University press.
She has previously worked at University of Michigan press, Johns Hopkins University press and University of Nebraska press, as well as quarto publishing group Potomac books and Greenwood publishing group. She has a PhD in American history from Michigan State University. Uh, next we have, Uh, Amanda sweets, who is the publishing ethics specialist for ieee. In this role, Amanda is responsible for upholding the integrity of the scholarly record by assisting with policy developments, implementation and resolution of ethics and plagiarism concerns.
Prior to joining ieee in 2023, LaManda started her publishing career in 2019 at aip publishing. Amanda is passionate about contributing to the scientific and publishing communities. She was a founding member of committee and continues to serve on ieee committee. Amanda also serves as a mentor and guest speaker to students at her previous Alma maters before starting her career in publishing.
Amanda worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Dr. Kirk schantz. Upon the completion of her PhD in chemistry from Case Western Reserve University in 2017. Finally, last but not least, we have Breonna Gilmartin, who recently became a portfolio transition manager at Wiley, specializing in journal transitions and new journal launches. She has an Ms. in Chemical biology from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken and leveraging her background in science.
Breonna started her publishing career as an editorial assistant in the new physical sciences group at Wiley in February 2012 and has grown with the same portfolio of mostly science society owned journals in materials, science and engineering over the last 12 years. So welcome to all of our panelists. Uh, so to start off this webinar, I'd like to ask a question to each panelist.
The first is when you earned your degree, what did you do next and for how long before you decided to enter the world of publishing? Why did you end up deciding to leave academia, or why did you decide to pursue publishing? So can we start with harry? Yeah so as you heard in my, in my bio, um, after getting my PhD degree, I went to Mexico. I was looking for some adventure.
But also at that time I was still, um, thinking I would really like to have a career in science but didn't actually really know what that was all about. So I went to Mexico, which was quite a big step going from the flat polder of the Netherlands to living close to a big volcano. So definitely there was some adventure and did some did some nice work at that institution, went to some conferences.
But during those conferences I already discovered like, HMM, I love, you know, this adventure in Mexico, but I'm not sure if science is something for me. So actually, after the year I went back to Holland, I was a little bit forced because I missed my girlfriend, so I wanted to go back. She's not my wife, so guess it was a good step. But also having decided to leave science, then the question comes up what's next?
There there are a few, I think very natural steps. One is teaching, but the other one is publishing. And I was lucky that an opportunity opened up to become an astronomy editor, you know, right in my field at kluwer in dordrecht. So that's how it went. Excellent. Thank you so much.
I'll pass it over to Elizabeth. Thank you so much. So for me, when I was in graduate school, I had the opportunity. I had been teaching, I'd been doing these teaching assistantships for a long time, and I really loved teaching and working with students. But then I had an opportunity to have a graduate assistantship at the press and I didn't get it.
But three days into the semester, the person who did get it dropped out and I was next on the list. And so I was able to kind of pivot and do that and I just fell in love with it. I loved everything about it. And just really loved working. Everything I liked about teaching was there in publishing, but you got like a product so you could see something.
And so that was really great. And then I sort of had written the first draft of my dissertation and decided to go on the job market both in, you know, for professorial positions as well as for academic acquisitions positions in publishing. And I had several on campus interviews for teaching jobs but never really converted any of them. And I had one interview for an acquisitions editor position and that was at University of Nebraska, and they offered me the job.
And I said, well, when opportunity knocks, I guess I'll do this. And I thought, maybe I'll get back into teaching someday. But I really just continued my love affair with publishing and that it went on from there. So I managed to break in while I was still in school, so I was very fortunate. That's really cool. Thank you so much, Elizabeth.
Amanda, what about you? Um, so I feel like I have a similar story to Harry. When I was doing my PhD in chemistry, I had no idea what I wanted to do next. Like originally when I started grad school, I thought I wanted to go into industry. Um, and. I just the more friends that I had that were older that went into industry, I was like, wow, this 9 to 5 is nice.
But they all just talked about the monotony of their jobs. So I was like, don't want that. So then I decided to do a postdoc just so I could get a little bit more experience, learn a new side of chemistry. My research shifted a little bit, so that was really interesting. But then at the time, my postdoc advisor is the editor in chief of the army family of journals.
So I got to publishing a lot through him, and that's where I was really exposed to it more and saw like the backside of publishing, like I knew it as an author, but didn't know it as like what the editorial staff had done. So I thought it was really interesting. And that's how I started applying to things. And now here we are, six. It's fantastic.
Brianna, what about you? fYeah and again, sort of the same lines. Um, so I was sort of a pre-med as an undergraduate. Um, figured out that wasn't really the line for me. I wasn't really, you know, feeling it didn't really want to spend the rest of my life doing that. Um, Stevens also makes you do senior research to graduate as an undergraduate. Um, so I had already started working on this project and I decided to buy myself a year of time and do some graduate studies to get my master's just to kick off my college loans another year.
Um, and as I was doing that, I realized I really didn't want to be in a lab either. Wasn't really for me either. Um, and I went to go talk to my advisor one day and I said, you know, here I am getting my master's in Chemical biology. And no did to go to Med school, no desire to be in a lab. What do I do with the rest of my life? And he asked me what I enjoyed, what classes, what did I like about school?
I said, really? Honestly, I loved working on the student newspaper. It's a lot of fun. Stevens doesn't have soft majors. I couldn't switch. I like to do it. And he asked if I ever thought about scientific publishing. I don't know what that is. Sure, baby.
Let's what is it? Oh, I know somebody that works down the block at Wiley in Hoboken, New Jersey. And I'm on the IUPAC committee with her. I'll go see what it's about and have lunch with her. And she invited me to be their summer intern. So haven't turned back because I too, loved everything about it. Thank you so much. I love hearing all these different stories.
So everyone made their way over to publishing because we keep talking about how publishing is this field people kind of fall into. Um, a follow up for Amanda. What fascinated you most about working in publishing? Um, so I've had a few different roles since I started in publishing and I feel like it's continued to evolve. Initially, I started as an associate editor at we had an in-house editorial team, so it was really exciting getting to like get guess like first preview of manuscripts.
And I worked for applied physics reviews, which does accept original research, even though the name may lead you to believe otherwise. Um, but so it was just really exciting just to get to see all of this like New research that was being submitted. And at the time, you know, I got to also launch new journals at. So that was just kind of exciting to see like that business side of it.
Um, but one of the things that, you know, I had this opportunity to come to tripoli and the thing that I think is fascinating me the most, you know, initially when I was told about this ethics position opening, it was like, that sounds so boring. Like, who wants to do ethics? Like, I'm thinking of philosophy back in undergrad, like, this sounds terrible. And it is the most interesting thing that I have ever done.
I get to like, you know, you're just, like, deep in these investigations of things. And, you know, I always had, like, a love affair with CSI when I was younger, when it first came out. So, like, I feel like I get to do that. And it's just that's I think my ultimate fascination now with publishing is this epic side. The ethics side is so interesting.
I really want to pick your brain about your job later. Did you really have a clear idea of what to expect in your career in publishing, or were you rather following this job lead and just kind of ended up here? Um, and it's just been a bunch of. Like, guess like, oh, look. Piece of candy. Like following.
Just like. Just, you know, following where the path took me. You know, initially, when I was applying to positions out of my postdoc, I had applied to a few different flavors of publishing. So including like journal management, you know, this associate editor position that ended up taking at the time the. The job posting for when applied to the associate editor position like it was later?
Asked my boss. It was written vague on purpose, but wasn't even really quite sure what I was doing. But then when had the interviews and had a better idea, I was like, OK, this is cool. So guess I really would have to say I was following job offers. I also desperately wanted to get out of Texas, which is where my postdoc was. So I was ready and I really wanted to be in New York, come back to New York.
So this, um, my, my social life or my personal life was aligning in that way, too, which allowed me to move back to New York, which was something I was hoping for. I'm really glad you're able to take that opportunity and move to New York. Um, I have a question now for Elizabeth and Breonna. So how did you start in publishing and looking back, where did you see any hurdles to overcome or opportunities you could seize early on?
I don't. You know, I was thinking about this a lot, and I don't know that I remember any hurdles per se, but there were a lot of opportunities because I was at such a small press and I had the really good fortune and I never thought of this person as a mentor until just recently.
But I had the really good fortune to work for the person who was the editorial director, editor in chief at MSU press at the time, a woman named Julie law, who just taught me everything and gave me a lot of opportunities to do different things. So if I went to her and I said, I'm interested in x, she'd say, OK, great, go do this. And she would challenge me in interesting ways.
I mean, I was a brand new graduate student and she said, hey, I want you to go do a conference for us, represent us. It's in another country, figure out how to get the books through customs and, you know, go do it. And now I'm kind of amazed at the freedom that I had and the trust that they put in me. And I just it boggles my mind as somebody who now oversees people.
But those opportunities were really special and really formative for me because I got to really explore a lot of the different aspects of publishing that were available then and now. There are so many more aspects of publishing. I think if there is a hurdle today, it's that it can be easy. Once you get into a track like an editorial track or acquisitions or you know, an it track or something like that, it's hard to get out of that and to explore other aspects of publishing.
And in that sense, you know, working in a small house was really a terrific opportunity for me because I got to do so many different things. Yeah, for me, after I had interned and applied to maybe two or three different positions at Wiley, sort of as I was finishing my graduate degree. And I know not having a background in publishing or journalism or anything, that that was a little bit of a hurdle that they did take a look and say, you know, well, why do you want to be in business books or something like that?
And finally, after a couple of months, they had started a brand new group in this physical sciences group at Wiley where the journals were all managed in-house at Wiley. So when you have a bunch of PhD editors looking for an assistant, it made a really good fit to hire somebody with a master's in science. Um, so it, it was a nice sort of way of getting in there. And I know the person that had hired me as an intern definitely went up to the person in the group and told them to hire me.
And really worked on my behalf for me, even giving me notes about interviews and things like that. Um, sort of trying to help me get into the industry in the first place. Um, but no, there were, there were a couple hurdles just there. And then coming in, there were just so many opportunities. I think just to use my background towards some of my work because, you know, again, that not a lot of people in the role had that science background where connecting to the work was a lot easier.
Um, I think, you know, even just looking through top downloaded articles that you could tell keywords that go along the lines and stuff like that, that, that maybe somebody else in the position might not recognize. So there was definitely opportunities where I was able to help, you know, go to conferences and really talk to scientists. Yeah, that's a really important skill. I'm really glad you're able to utilize that early on.
Yeah Uh, next question is for Amanda. Have you had a mentor? And how did that work? Uh, so informally, I would like to consider my boss at publishing that had guess my first mentor. You know, he started. American Physical Society. So had him at publishing. So like guess like he, he like he taught me about like confidence of, like, you know, it's OK to change careers.
It's when, say, careers mean the actual company that you work for. So I had to change companies. It's know, he also had helped in the launch of journals and like that was something that was put on the publishing. So like got to learn like just so much stuff from him. And he's actually followed him to tripoli. So I but you know, and got to learn about all of this ethics from him too and.
And like he taught me so much when I worked as the associate editor, just like thinking with like an editor hat, which is just a very different hat that you put on when you know, when publishing versus the other roles that I've ever used. So like, I've just learned so much from him. And in a more official capacity actually did just start doing has a mentorship program and I've been paired with someone.
I'm the mentee because I'm only five years in publishing, so I'm still pretty new. Um, so I, you know, I've only had one meeting with her, so I can't really report much on that, but I'm looking forward to also like connecting with somebody that's not in my direct, Path guess so. It's a really great opportunity if you can get a mentor.
I'm going to plug right here. This mentorship program as well. I know the application just closed for the next cohort, but if anyone listening is interested in the future, it's a great program and I have my own mentor through that as well. Um, next, I have a question for Harry and for Elizabeth. If you look back at your first 3 to five years publishing, which milestones would you describe, defined and boosted or helped you in your early career?
And we'll start with Harry. So, um, so when I started at kluwer, I think I still had very much of a science, um, mindset, a very perfectionist, a little arrogant as well. If you're, you know, you're a physicist, you think understand everything and, and then so suddenly you are in this completely new environment. It's a that was kluwer was, is a commercial publisher.
And so I think the first milestone for me was adjusting to a different culture, um, doing very mundane things as well. You go out to a conference, you have to unpack the boxes with the books, and so it's suddenly this physical work instead of solving equations. Um, and also remember that after a year or so, there was already an opportunity to become manager because some people left and I felt, who wants to be a manager?
So so I had to learn that, you know, promotion can be important as well. But in a way it was also good to just take some time to get to know a completely new world. And I think the first milestone for me was when I realized, wait a minute, I need to make sure I need to make my boss look good, because then everybody's positive and I need to really just reach my targets.
But actually, I need to overshoot my targets. So once I got ready a little bit more for a promotion or understanding the value of a promotion, I think really reaching actually blowing out my, my, my, my target, that was really a milestone. And then once I, let's say, followed those two principles, the career went so much better. So I'll leave it at that.
Thank you so much, Elizabeth. So I don't know if it's so much a milestone, but I think one of the things that really was so beneficial to my career development was going to conferences and meeting people. Not not just working with different people on my own staff, but meeting people from other presses. And in fact, that's how I got my first real job in publishing, as well as my second real job in publishing.
From having interactions with other publishing professionals in those conference settings, I mean, as well as the authors. And so I think that's one of the most important things that early career people can do, if it's available to you, is to get out and to talk to other people and to network in your own publishing milieu and authors and other people. But those face to face relationships were really crucial to me at the beginning of my career, and I didn't understand that so much then and I do now, right that the benefit of those.
But the other thing that's great is that the people I met when I was a very early career person are still people that I stay in touch with. Who are influential or even very good friends or, or sounding boards or so forth. I had a meeting last week with a woman who ended up being my second boss and with whom I've stayed friends for years and years and years. And just being able to kind of pick her brain about how to put a digital project together and how to think about it, because her career went in a different direction and mine went in a different direction.
But we stayed in touch and were able to. In fact, she's the one who connected me to you to be part of this webinar. And so that really is sort of how those things work throughout your whole career. So that's I would say that was the most important milestone. Thank you so much. Don't think any of us can speak less about networking and how important it is.
So it's really important to do that, especially early on. For Briana, are there any defining learning experiences over the years that you would like to share? Yeah well, so I think particularly as a science background data nerd, you know, I worked a lot with bioinformatics and things like that, so data mining, um, but I think that came to me as looking at how people right as scientists versus maybe in the real world, not so much.
So, um, I know, particularly when it came to doing like presentations that one of the things is I used to put all my data into a presentation because I like seeing it. Why wouldn't somebody else? But, you know, I had a boss early on teach me that you can't take action off of a slide, get rid of it. And it's no use being in there to anybody. And it's just data for the sake of data.
And that was sort of one of those lessons that I had to take and go, OK, right. You don't need that. And I think, um, just following that is looking to write or tell your presentation towards how people speak and how they'll understand is a really big change. Because I think again as a scientist that you may know your data backwards and forwards and every which way, but if you can't tell people your message, it's again, not really good to anybody.
So, you know, working on communicating for others and making sure you're telling them the message, they'll understand. It's really good advice. Yeah all right. The next question is for Harry, Elizabeth and Amanda. Which skills, looking at your academic background, really helped you the most in your early publishing career?
And if you'd like to go. I could go first. Um, so. So when I went into publishing, this was the onset of electronic publishing and, In our lab. We were already trying to do things electronically as much as possible, for example, posting on a preprint archive, but also doing the typesetting of your papers really well.
You do the equations in latex. So I had quite some knowledge about typesetting. I was also able to, you know, write my own websites. I mean, nowadays it's probably this sounds ancient, but in those days websites were, were a new thing. So when I went to kluwer, this actually gave me an advantage because I was able to talk to the marketing department about, you know, how to promote switching to electronic publishing.
But I was also able to Polish the manuscripts. I now you wouldn't touch them anymore, but because there's a specialized production department. But at that time, it was it was an advantage that if a manuscript would come in, you could already do some polishing and then send it on to the production department so it would get published faster.
So so those technical skills at that time were really helpful. I think another skill and this may sound trivial and especially maybe if you're a scientist, but the ability to actually really work hard if you do what you like. And in the beginning there was so much for me to learn, like this new environment and how do things work in the publishing company. But I enjoyed it a lot.
So and it was it was easy for me to make long hours. And then some colleagues would look at like, oh, you're already here or are you still here? So but I think that is something that you learn as a really, you know, focused and dedicated scientist. Do you do that? Um, and then the third skill I think was very results driven. I very quickly picked up that perfect is the enemy of good. And I mentioned that targets already you get a list of targets and then you realize, oh, if I reach those targets, do I do it well?
So you keep measuring how am I doing against my targets? How am I doing against my peers? And I think that was also a skill that was really helpful for me. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. Thank you. So I'm an acquisition. Well, I came up, I'm now in management, but I came up through acquisitions.
And for me, I think the skills that were most helpful early career were those critical thinking skills, research skills, problem solving skills, but also teaching. I mentioned teaching before, but that experience of being up in front of a crowd of people and talking to them and asking questions and answering questions, oops, I'm so sorry. Asking questions and answering questions was really formative for me in going to conferences and talking to authors and talking to other editors and just kind of thinking about how people were presenting their ideas.
So all of those research, teaching and academic skills are directly applicable to publishing, at least in the acquisitions track, which is what I was in. And now that's probably really reassuring to hear for those who are looking to leave academia, who have a lot of teaching experience and being able to utilize that in the future. Amanda, what about you? Um, so, you know, if my initial job being an in-house editor, my academic background 100% just straight helped me because I needed to be able to say like, is this novel research?
Um, does this have any business being in our journal? Like, what's the scope of it? You know, what are. Um, how much of it is like New versus just like an incremental increase? Um, one of the fun things I'll say had to do. So I was working obviously for a physics journal and am a chemist. I did do physical chemistry, but there was I had had to learn some more things.
So, you know, just having that general researcher mindset and being able to read literature and not just get cross-eyed over it was really helpful. Um, my postdoc advisor also liked to suggest us to be reviewers on papers, and he was really helpful in training as a reviewer and I learned a lot from him on how to really analyze a paper. And that way, you know, like, is this novel, is this an increase?
You know, how much of this, um, is it the right for, right for that journal, you know, like, what's the scope of that journal? Is it a broad scope journal, is it a specific journal? Things like that. So that was an easy slide for me. Excellent. Thank you so much.
This is a related question for Harry and for Amanda. What did you emphasize in your resume or applications from academia to transfer over to publishing? Start with Harry. So did I did something good and think I did something bad. Um, the good. The good thing was that, um, in my cover letter, I was able to address the job really well, because, um, what I did was I. I called a couple editors already working for kluwer and just asked them, like, what are they looking for?
Because I don't know, publishing so well in terms of, you know, the organization. Um, and so they, they were giving me some really good hints that I could use in my, in my cover letter to the resume. But then in my resume, I think I may have overestimated my science credentials. So I put all my publications in there, you know, nicely formatted.
And what was so interesting about the science did and then I noticed during the interview, they were a little bit worried that are you just, you know, you come back to Holland just to get like a parking job and then you move on to science because you obviously love science. So kind of had to defend myself a little bit. They're like, well, actually, I want to make a real change here. But it was it was revealing that during the interview also, I also got questions like, do you think can sell a car?
And that for me was already like, aha. So this is really a different culture that I have to adjust to. Um, but there was one good thing about giving all those details about my science background and that's, um, that's, there were a few names mentioned in my resume that were actually editors in chief of journals and book series, and it was clear that I already knew these people. So that would then make the job easy, but that I only discovered later on.
Thank you so much, Amanda. Um, so for me, I think I kind of hit on it a little bit in the previous question. Um, but, you know, knowing that it was a, the scope of the journal was slightly out of my research background. Like I emphasized the fact that my research from my graduate school to my postdoc was able to change and was able to publish in my postdoc.
So like I was able to adapt and learn a very different side of chemistry. Well, when I say different, I mean like working with a different metal and using it and like actual materials application versus just, you know, small molecule synthesis. So like, I, you know, learned a lot of new skills on my postdoc and like that was over was only two years. So like, you know, just being able to show that I could adapt easily, um, to a very changing environment.
Um, and then, um, kind of working on the network thing that Elizabeth had mentioned earlier. And then what Harry just said also, you know, part of a job as an editor, you do need to commission papers, you know, because you want your journal to grow. So, you know, showing that like, you know, we collaborated with different research groups and that like, you know, was able to say that like, I have, you know, I may be young, but I do have a little bit of a network.
And they're good scientists and they're people that could publish with us. Um, so, you know, just showing all of that was really helpful. Um, but I mean, generally speaking, like it obviously depends on what job you're applying for. Like I would have a very different answer if I would have applied straight to this ethics job. But for that associate editor position specifically, that was really helpful.
Thank you. I know this is like the trickiest part of the process of going through from shifting over, trying to figure out what you're supposed to emphasize, what to include. So I really appreciate all of your insights. Um, my last question for all of the panelists is what is your best advice for someone who is looking to leave academia and potentially enter publishing?
Uh, let's start with Harry. So I already mentioned trying to talk to people who are already doing the job because you can learn from them and you can ask them, so what is your day to day schedule look like? What do you do? Um, I think the second and this is already guess after you made a choice like, Oh there's a, there's an advertisement for, for a publishing job at this company.
So let's call that company. Let's call some people. But I also think it's important to. If you are thinking to work for a specific publisher, check the mission, vision, values that they have and see if that's a good fit to you. Because I mean, I definitely had to adjust to a very commercial environment. And fortunately that went well.
But it does it did go well for everybody. I did see that various publishers were hired and they were gone after a year. They couldn't stand that sort of that environment. So so I think that's an important thing to check as well. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. So I would say if you're in academia, either as an academic or as a graduate student, but you don't have any publishing experience to get as involved in publishing as you can.
And, you know, I agree with Harry, you know, talk to publishers about their jobs, like can expand those networks information, interview people, go to conferences and talk to the publishers about what they do and what kind of opportunities there might be. But there are other ways to show that you're very seriously interested, which is be involved in journals, for example, edit a journal or be involved in the peer review processes for your journals, especially now that there are so many other options for peer review, you know, open review or, or digital kinds of peer review, be involved in commenting on things, get your name out there, anything that you can do to be involved in the publishing process, even if you don't have that position yet, is really going to be helpful for you to finding out if this is really also what you want to do.
And, you know, as I said before, there are so many different kinds of opportunities in publishing, so keep your mind open because the right fit, there's a fit for you in publishing, but it might not be what you think it is immediately. So just keep getting out there and talking to people and stay positive, right? It may not happen right away. And it may.
Who knows? But it won't happen in your living room. So get out there. It's fantastic advice. Thank you so much. Amanda, what about you? So I have two things, I guess. Um, one is the networking. Just even if it's, you know, if you're going to an academic conference, all of the publishers are always there.
Like, I went to the conference as a graduate student. Everybody's there. Ask them if they're hiring, talk to them about their jobs. There's usually editors that are there or there'll be the books. People will be there. Um, and you know, as Elizabeth just said, there's so many different sides of publishing too. Like there's, you know, you could be interested in the marketing side, you could be interested in editing, you could be copy editing.
So there's so many different options. And with that, my second advice would just be keep an open mind. Because, you know, as I said earlier, like the ethics thing, like at first when I heard about this, I was like, no, no. But then, like, you know, I asked more questions about it and was like, whoa, like, you know, maybe this is something I'm interested in. And then I absolutely enjoy being here every day.
Now so I'm so glad that I took this opportunity. Um, and I do want to just do a brief plug. We always do internship positions in various paid internships. Um, we always do them various seasons. We have some, there's some summer ones that are still open and they're all across our publications department and even some of the other ones. Um, you do need to be pseudo local though, because they do want you to come into the office sometimes.
So greater Piscataway area. Um, but check it out. Thank you so much and Thank you for that plug. I hope a few people on the call will be able to try that out. Rihanna, what about you? Yeah, shout out to New Jersey over there while he has those two and I recommend those as well. Um, because they I will say getting into Wiley like that was a really big thing for me because you got to experience a little bit of everything.
Um, but yeah, so my advice sort of as you get into it, figure out what you really like to do, like about the job like, and honestly try to go towards those directions, even if it's did get hired, go talk to your manager about this is what I like, this is what I'm good at. You know, they might figure out a way to get it into your job. You know, I, I launched graphic I launched designing covers at Wiley just because I was the layout editor of my student newspaper in college that they'll figure out a way to make it work.
And you know, it'll have it'll help you kind of love a little bit more about your job. I'd also say just be aware that if as you come in, you're going to be entry level and not everything you do is going to be exactly 100% what you want to be doing. Um, it's unfortunate, but it's, it's kind of the case that a lot of entry level jobs are going to be about data entry and, you know, doing a spreadsheet and things like that are very basic and you might not be like, oh, this is really interesting yet it'll get better, I promise.
It's really good advice because I know I've experienced that in my first position as well. Well, Thank you to all of our panelists for answering these questions. Now we're going to open it up to Q&A. Rebecca, should I read the questions or would you like to pick them out? yeah, I'm happy to read them out, if you like.
We did have two that have some answers, but maybe, maybe the other panelists might want to jump in and respond as well. But this question is, is about any opportunities that are available for those of us who want to enter scholarly publishing but don't have a scientific background. I don't know if anybody has a perspective on that. I'm going to plug again because we have internships and stuff in marketing and you don't need a science background for marketing, but it's still publishing.
They have data, different sides of the data, aspects of it, data analysts, things like that. The business side. So, no, you don't need to have science to work at a scientific publisher. Yeah I'll also add in my background is in Japanese history, it is not in science and I work on two science journals now at frontiers and my team is a variety of some who have science backgrounds, some who do not.
But the skills that you pick up in the PHD, regardless of it's humanities or scientific background, will be critical for roles in publishing. So don't be afraid to apply for these positions even if you don't have that scientific background. You know, I can add also that diversity is important these days. And I remember from my kluwer days, but also a little bit later at Springer, that the management didn't they didn't want only, you know, former scientists, they want they wanted other people with project management skills or working in other commercial companies.
They wanted those people as well, even for editorial roles, because ultimately the editorial role I think, has changed into a management role. You send stuff out for review, you don't do it yourself. And so your personal skills being an outgoing person, not shy, you like to travel, that's sometimes much more important than having a particular science background.
Definitely agree with that one. OK I have another question. Then we have another attendee who's said that you mentioned the risk of getting stuck in a single track within the publishing landscape. Do you have any advice for people who currently work in scholarly communication at universities, for example, supporting researchers in their publication efforts or helping administer journals?
Et cetera, but would like to make a jump to a press. Yeah, I would say that especially now that as more and more presses, University presses go into libraries or have more partnerships and collaboration with libraries, there are more opportunities for people in scholarly communications to be involved with the press. But, you know, I think my advice is the same, which is get to know the people at the press.
If you've got one there, or just kind of reach out to those folks or reach out to the journals managers. At if you're already working in journals on campus, reach out to journals, editors and just talk to them about, you know, what they're looking for and what they need. I mean, I think the advice that everybody has given here about just finding out more information is really crucial.
And make it known that you're interested in that change because people just aren't going to read your mind. Right so my advice was to apply because frankly, you have nothing to lose. You don't get the job. You don't get the job. You apply.
Great Thank you. Another question from the group. To what extent is each of you still involved in the research community in which you trained, for example, staying involved in the relevant society? I'll say was active up until my membership lapsed about two weeks ago. Um, just with this new role, I have no business being at related events anymore.
Just don't work in chemistry. So I stayed active with them for. Um, five or so years after I left, like seven years after I left my PhD. nature of the beast now have a new society that work with I, you know, I'm active with and now I'm doing this with SSP. So, you know, just it evolved.
Yeah, I worked with all material science and engineering journals, so mine for the last 12 years, I've pretty much been sort of in my kind of area of expertise, which has been nice, sort of being able to relate and stuff. I do think the line I had to draw with a lot of my societies was that I can't do those editorial jobs that I'm not supposed to be commissioning and I'm not supposed to be doing all those things that their editors are supposed to be doing.
Just because I have the background to, um, you know, but it also, it worked really well with doing things like proposals and stuff when, you know, one of the societies was at my college and literally the person I was talking to was one of the professors I knew from college like it. It makes it really easy to go through stuff like that. Yeah, I'm lucky.
I'm a historian. And I've worked a lot in history publishing or related social science kinds of fields. And, you know, it's just being able to go to those conferences as a publisher has been invaluable for kind of keeping my hand in terms of keeping up with scholarship and the reading. And so forth. But I had dreams when I got into publishing that I'd be writing books and doing research and maybe teaching on the side.
And and I ended up not doing any of that. And it ended up being OK. Actually, I have a lot of fulfillment with what I do do. So it worked out. And so exactly that. Just following up on that, I found stuff I liked more. So for me, it was actually throughout my career I drifted away from astronomy more and more. First, at first it became physics and then it became mathematics and computer science.
And then it became much more things like opening an office in Brazil, doing policies, ethics. So so I drifted away. And then a few years ago, I decided, OK, I want to go back. So actually, there's also there's also an opportunity there. I think build up your network and then at the end of your career, you go back. So that's why I now do consulting for the Nasa science explorer, which is a digital library, a portal, and I sign content licenses for them.
So I use my network throughout different publishing companies to make that happen. So so yeah, I guess it is an example like you drift away, you, you learn new things, but then perhaps if you want, you can go back at the end. Yeah, I cheat as a historian because it's still easy to kind of keep up with what is happening, even though I've been out of it now for about a year and a half.
Um, but that first year of, of working in publishing, I really didn't have time to think about the research. I was really focused on building up my career and figuring out how to do this job first. Now that I've kind of found that balance, I'm starting to look at research again and talking with a colleague about doing a project on the side for fun, but it's very much a for fun thing and not my main focus anymore, which honestly is the best of both worlds for me.
Great we have one more question in the chat. Will a PhD come across as being overqualified for an internship? I say it depends on the internship. Some of these positions do want you to have PhDs. So if you're interning with a PHD, then no. Um, I mean, if you I would say maybe something like a copy editing job.
If there was an internship in that regard, you would be overqualified. Um, I think that would be of speaking to what Harry said when they were asking him if he was going to jump ship because you would, you would be overqualified. So I think just, you know, look at what the actual job posting would be if it's available and then, you know, if the internship.
And sometimes they'll pay you more if you have a PhD with the internship. So, Yeah. Yeah that's when I interned at Wiley, I was in the process of finishing my master's and that was a very big sort of hiccup that they were hesitant because they said, you know, are you just going to leave as soon as you're done? You know, and convincing them that I wasn't.
But also, you know, looking if you already have your PHD, you know, looking at instead of the internship, just applying to the job instead that you don't need the don't need the internship just to get into the company. There are plenty of PhD level jobs available as well. I guess I'll add to it the internships. I don't know if other companies do it, but it is really big on like temporary positions like to cover leaves and things like that.
we keep a lot. They keep a lot of the temps that they hire two full time positions. So that's also something you can look at. It's a little bit lower stakes situation, too. So if you have the ability to do a temp position for like six months or whatever it may be. Um, kind of the same idea as an internship, I guess.
I would say that our interns tend to come from I mean, they just come from our graduate programs, which is great, right? I mean, that's very mission driven for us. But I know that when I'm hiring for entry level positions, we have a lot of PhDs applying for those positions and they're competing against people who are just coming out with bas. And when you're looking at a position that is primarily data entry and learning, I think I don't think it's a disadvantage to have a PHD, but I do think really have to be prepared to answer that question am I just going to leave?
And so if you are able to address that in your cover letter, if you are able if you have a good answer for that, if you make it to the interview stage, I think that's going to go a long way to convincing people that you are somebody they want to hire and have in their organization for a long time. Yeah, I think that's critical is just making it very obvious that this is not a short term sort of switch.
Yeah, I have nothing to add to that. I think a lot of sensible things were said so. Great Thank you. So there's one more question in the chat or the Q&A. Where do you look for job listings? How to search for jobs that might be appropriate for a phd?
Um, I'll say guess because I'm the newest out of the gate here. Um, the. I know that, like, if you just, If you're looking for like industry jobs, like anything that's going to say scientists on it is probably going to be a position. Um, if you're looking at publishing jobs, that's a little bit more of a homing, but there's websites that you can look through.
I think it's called versatile PhD. It's been so long since I've looked at the website, but that'll show you like opportunities that maybe aren't directly in your career path where they would like people with the PhD. When I say knowledge, I just mean the experience that comes with getting that researcher background of a PhD. So like just that research experience that comes with it. Um, the, and I think there's, I mean, just, just Google alternate PhD career paths, there's 100 things are going to pop up that you can look through.
Um, this also comes down to, like, what you actually want to do. Do you want to continue on in the field you got a PhD in then apply to be an editor. Because there are plenty of editorial roles that require that PhD. I know Wiley again, we have in house groups that we physically hire the PhD person in house, and those are always very hard to come by because you know, you have to have the background, but the desire to be in publishing.
You know, so if that's something you're really interested in and you want to keep working in the field you got your PhD in. Absolutely, 100% That's where I would apply for those editorial roles. I would like to add to Breonna's comment. Please read the job posting carefully. I have served on hiring committees at for editor roles and they're applying they think they're applying to associate like when, say, associate editor, mean copy editing positions and vice versa.
So just please read carefully every job posting you are looking at. I would say too, having worked in both University press and commercial academic press publishing, I used to work for a division of Elsevier earlier in my career that I keep an open mind because there are really great jobs across the spectrum. And when I left University press publishing to go into commercial academic, I remember my husband was horrified.
He's like, Oh my god, leave the Academy. And I loved working in commercial academic publishing. I loved the pace. Some of the smartest people I'd ever met in my life, lifelong friends. It was just really a great opportunity. So just, you know, cast a wide net as you're looking. And for University specifically, I don't know if this the question was this specific, but the press's job board is a really good place to find University press, editorial and other kinds of University press positions.
And of course, there are other, you know, LinkedIn. Obviously the SSP wnet.org has an amazing job board, especially for kind of journals and digital publishing and then trade. New York is still publishers weekly, I think is still the gold standard for that. So you can look at your various society to like if you're a chemist, like if you look at the job board or if you look at the American Physical Society job board, there's most of the times you can search by your degree level too, which will help narrow it.
So yeah, use those as resources because publishers will post on those websites also. Agreed and talk to your advisors because that's how I got in. So I'm sure your advisors know people and conferences. Ask the publishers at the conference. Yeah, I think the well, the well known publishers are large enough that they are constantly searching for people.
So you go to a website of the publisher, you check if the mission, vision and values are a good fit to you and you will find the button like contact, contact us or jobs, or you'll find on their website what they're looking for. And yeah, there's always something. And fit your resume cover letter towards the job you're applying to? Yes emphasize different things based on which job you're applying.
Don't do a boilerplate letter. If it's too dull, then they don't want to, you know, invite you for an interview. We know. We know when you haven't looked at it. And we know when you were applying for another job using it. Just like we in the first sentence if we want to publish your book or not.
Hey, well, that's the end of the questions in the Q&A. Jillian, anything else you or the others want to add before we conclude? Uh, just keep an open mind and see what's out there. I know it's really scary to make the leap from academia into publishing, but trust me, it is worth it. I don't regret it at all. So give it a shot. And if you don't like it, you can always go back.
That's always an option. Excellent well, Thank you very much to our panel for participating in this engaging discussion today. And Thank you to all of our attendees for being present and participating. So you will receive an evaluation form via email within 24 hours. A link to the evaluation form has also been posted in the chat.
And we encourage you to provide feedback to help us shape future programming, please visit the SSP website for information on upcoming programs. This discussion was recorded and all registrants will receive a link when posted on the SSP website. You must be logged in with your SSP login credentials to view. And this concludes our session today. Thanks, everybody.
Segment:0 .
Thank you and welcome to today's SSP.
Early career subcommittee webinar. Navigating a career in scholarly publishing. Pathways for early career professionals with an academic background. We are very pleased that you can join us today. My name is Rebecca Benner and I'm a member of the SSP early career subcommittee. I have just a few housekeeping items to review before we get started.
Attendee microphones have been muted automatically, so please use the Q&A box to enter questions for the panelists. We will leave time at the end to address them. You can also use chat to say Hello or to alert us to any technical problems you are having. Closed captions have been enabled. You can view captions by selecting the More option on your screen and choosing show captions.
This one hour session will be recorded and made available to all in the next few days. A quick note on SSPS code of conduct and today's meeting. We are committed to diversity, equity and providing an inclusive meeting environment, fostering open dialogue, free of harassment, discrimination and hostile conduct. We ask all participants whether speaking or in chat, to consider and debate relevant viewpoints in an orderly, respectful and fair manner.
Help us reach our goal of raising $500,000 to ensure the future of our fellowship and mentoring programs and initiatives. By joining the SSP generations fund. Join the more than 350 organizations and individuals that have already donated and see the link in the chat. So it is now my pleasure to introduce our moderator today, Gillian barndt.
Gillian joined the World of scholarly publishing in 2022 at frontiers, where she works on the journals frontiers in molecular biosciences and frontiers in Cell and developmental biology. Prior to this, she received her PhD in pre-modern Japanese history from the University of Southern California, where she focused on education in the high end era Japan. She continues to research on her own while developing her new career in publishing.
Gillian, over to you. Thank you so much, Rebecca, and good morning, everybody from sort of sunny Los Angeles. So it's my pleasure today to introduce our four panelists. First is Harry Blum, who is a senior publishing liaison for the Nasa science Explorer. He is an astrophysicist by training and obtained his PhD at Leiden University in 1997 on the analysis of gamma ray satellite data after a postdoc position at INR in puebla, Mexico.
He started a career in academic publishing at kluwer in dordrecht, the Netherlands. In 2004, he moved over. He moved to New York City to become senior editor in astronomy and space technology for Springer. Over the next 20 years, he gained wide ranging publishing experience, including books and journal acquisitions in the physical sciences, managing large global publishing teams and expansion into new geographical areas.
As a vice president since 2023 or 2013, he became responsible for supporting publishing teams in driving content growth and development across the Springer Nature journals division. His team worked on the definition and implementation of publishing policies, pilots and processes. In 2021, he left Springer Nature to focus on teaching and consulting in the areas of his expertise. Next, we have Elizabeth sherburn Demers, who is the director at Michigan State University press.
She has previously worked at University of Michigan press, Johns Hopkins University press and University of Nebraska press, as well as quarto publishing group Potomac books and Greenwood publishing group. She has a PhD in American history from Michigan State University. Uh, next we have, Uh, Amanda sweets, who is the publishing ethics specialist for ieee. In this role, Amanda is responsible for upholding the integrity of the scholarly record by assisting with policy developments, implementation and resolution of ethics and plagiarism concerns.
Prior to joining ieee in 2023, LaManda started her publishing career in 2019 at aip publishing. Amanda is passionate about contributing to the scientific and publishing communities. She was a founding member of committee and continues to serve on ieee committee. Amanda also serves as a mentor and guest speaker to students at her previous Alma maters before starting her career in publishing.
Amanda worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Dr. Kirk schantz. Upon the completion of her PhD in chemistry from Case Western Reserve University in 2017. Finally, last but not least, we have Breonna Gilmartin, who recently became a portfolio transition manager at Wiley, specializing in journal transitions and new journal launches. She has an Ms. in Chemical biology from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken and leveraging her background in science.
Breonna started her publishing career as an editorial assistant in the new physical sciences group at Wiley in February 2012 and has grown with the same portfolio of mostly science society owned journals in materials, science and engineering over the last 12 years. So welcome to all of our panelists. Uh, so to start off this webinar, I'd like to ask a question to each panelist.
The first is when you earned your degree, what did you do next and for how long before you decided to enter the world of publishing? Why did you end up deciding to leave academia, or why did you decide to pursue publishing? So can we start with harry? Yeah so as you heard in my, in my bio, um, after getting my PhD degree, I went to Mexico. I was looking for some adventure.
But also at that time I was still, um, thinking I would really like to have a career in science but didn't actually really know what that was all about. So I went to Mexico, which was quite a big step going from the flat polder of the Netherlands to living close to a big volcano. So definitely there was some adventure and did some did some nice work at that institution, went to some conferences.
But during those conferences I already discovered like, HMM, I love, you know, this adventure in Mexico, but I'm not sure if science is something for me. So actually, after the year I went back to Holland, I was a little bit forced because I missed my girlfriend, so I wanted to go back. She's not my wife, so guess it was a good step. But also having decided to leave science, then the question comes up what's next?
There there are a few, I think very natural steps. One is teaching, but the other one is publishing. And I was lucky that an opportunity opened up to become an astronomy editor, you know, right in my field at kluwer in dordrecht. So that's how it went. Excellent. Thank you so much.
I'll pass it over to Elizabeth. Thank you so much. So for me, when I was in graduate school, I had the opportunity. I had been teaching, I'd been doing these teaching assistantships for a long time, and I really loved teaching and working with students. But then I had an opportunity to have a graduate assistantship at the press and I didn't get it.
But three days into the semester, the person who did get it dropped out and I was next on the list. And so I was able to kind of pivot and do that and I just fell in love with it. I loved everything about it. And just really loved working. Everything I liked about teaching was there in publishing, but you got like a product so you could see something.
And so that was really great. And then I sort of had written the first draft of my dissertation and decided to go on the job market both in, you know, for professorial positions as well as for academic acquisitions positions in publishing. And I had several on campus interviews for teaching jobs but never really converted any of them. And I had one interview for an acquisitions editor position and that was at University of Nebraska, and they offered me the job.
And I said, well, when opportunity knocks, I guess I'll do this. And I thought, maybe I'll get back into teaching someday. But I really just continued my love affair with publishing and that it went on from there. So I managed to break in while I was still in school, so I was very fortunate. That's really cool. Thank you so much, Elizabeth.
Amanda, what about you? Um, so I feel like I have a similar story to Harry. When I was doing my PhD in chemistry, I had no idea what I wanted to do next. Like originally when I started grad school, I thought I wanted to go into industry. Um, and. I just the more friends that I had that were older that went into industry, I was like, wow, this 9 to 5 is nice.
But they all just talked about the monotony of their jobs. So I was like, don't want that. So then I decided to do a postdoc just so I could get a little bit more experience, learn a new side of chemistry. My research shifted a little bit, so that was really interesting. But then at the time, my postdoc advisor is the editor in chief of the army family of journals.
So I got to publishing a lot through him, and that's where I was really exposed to it more and saw like the backside of publishing, like I knew it as an author, but didn't know it as like what the editorial staff had done. So I thought it was really interesting. And that's how I started applying to things. And now here we are, six. It's fantastic.
Brianna, what about you? fYeah and again, sort of the same lines. Um, so I was sort of a pre-med as an undergraduate. Um, figured out that wasn't really the line for me. I wasn't really, you know, feeling it didn't really want to spend the rest of my life doing that. Um, Stevens also makes you do senior research to graduate as an undergraduate. Um, so I had already started working on this project and I decided to buy myself a year of time and do some graduate studies to get my master's just to kick off my college loans another year.
Um, and as I was doing that, I realized I really didn't want to be in a lab either. Wasn't really for me either. Um, and I went to go talk to my advisor one day and I said, you know, here I am getting my master's in Chemical biology. And no did to go to Med school, no desire to be in a lab. What do I do with the rest of my life? And he asked me what I enjoyed, what classes, what did I like about school?
I said, really? Honestly, I loved working on the student newspaper. It's a lot of fun. Stevens doesn't have soft majors. I couldn't switch. I like to do it. And he asked if I ever thought about scientific publishing. I don't know what that is. Sure, baby.
Let's what is it? Oh, I know somebody that works down the block at Wiley in Hoboken, New Jersey. And I'm on the IUPAC committee with her. I'll go see what it's about and have lunch with her. And she invited me to be their summer intern. So haven't turned back because I too, loved everything about it. Thank you so much. I love hearing all these different stories.
So everyone made their way over to publishing because we keep talking about how publishing is this field people kind of fall into. Um, a follow up for Amanda. What fascinated you most about working in publishing? Um, so I've had a few different roles since I started in publishing and I feel like it's continued to evolve. Initially, I started as an associate editor at we had an in-house editorial team, so it was really exciting getting to like get guess like first preview of manuscripts.
And I worked for applied physics reviews, which does accept original research, even though the name may lead you to believe otherwise. Um, but so it was just really exciting just to get to see all of this like New research that was being submitted. And at the time, you know, I got to also launch new journals at. So that was just kind of exciting to see like that business side of it.
Um, but one of the things that, you know, I had this opportunity to come to tripoli and the thing that I think is fascinating me the most, you know, initially when I was told about this ethics position opening, it was like, that sounds so boring. Like, who wants to do ethics? Like, I'm thinking of philosophy back in undergrad, like, this sounds terrible. And it is the most interesting thing that I have ever done.
I get to like, you know, you're just, like, deep in these investigations of things. And, you know, I always had, like, a love affair with CSI when I was younger, when it first came out. So, like, I feel like I get to do that. And it's just that's I think my ultimate fascination now with publishing is this epic side. The ethics side is so interesting.
I really want to pick your brain about your job later. Did you really have a clear idea of what to expect in your career in publishing, or were you rather following this job lead and just kind of ended up here? Um, and it's just been a bunch of. Like, guess like, oh, look. Piece of candy. Like following.
Just like. Just, you know, following where the path took me. You know, initially, when I was applying to positions out of my postdoc, I had applied to a few different flavors of publishing. So including like journal management, you know, this associate editor position that ended up taking at the time the. The job posting for when applied to the associate editor position like it was later?
Asked my boss. It was written vague on purpose, but wasn't even really quite sure what I was doing. But then when had the interviews and had a better idea, I was like, OK, this is cool. So guess I really would have to say I was following job offers. I also desperately wanted to get out of Texas, which is where my postdoc was. So I was ready and I really wanted to be in New York, come back to New York.
So this, um, my, my social life or my personal life was aligning in that way, too, which allowed me to move back to New York, which was something I was hoping for. I'm really glad you're able to take that opportunity and move to New York. Um, I have a question now for Elizabeth and Breonna. So how did you start in publishing and looking back, where did you see any hurdles to overcome or opportunities you could seize early on?
I don't. You know, I was thinking about this a lot, and I don't know that I remember any hurdles per se, but there were a lot of opportunities because I was at such a small press and I had the really good fortune and I never thought of this person as a mentor until just recently.
But I had the really good fortune to work for the person who was the editorial director, editor in chief at MSU press at the time, a woman named Julie law, who just taught me everything and gave me a lot of opportunities to do different things. So if I went to her and I said, I'm interested in x, she'd say, OK, great, go do this. And she would challenge me in interesting ways.
I mean, I was a brand new graduate student and she said, hey, I want you to go do a conference for us, represent us. It's in another country, figure out how to get the books through customs and, you know, go do it. And now I'm kind of amazed at the freedom that I had and the trust that they put in me. And I just it boggles my mind as somebody who now oversees people.
But those opportunities were really special and really formative for me because I got to really explore a lot of the different aspects of publishing that were available then and now. There are so many more aspects of publishing. I think if there is a hurdle today, it's that it can be easy. Once you get into a track like an editorial track or acquisitions or you know, an it track or something like that, it's hard to get out of that and to explore other aspects of publishing.
And in that sense, you know, working in a small house was really a terrific opportunity for me because I got to do so many different things. Yeah, for me, after I had interned and applied to maybe two or three different positions at Wiley, sort of as I was finishing my graduate degree. And I know not having a background in publishing or journalism or anything, that that was a little bit of a hurdle that they did take a look and say, you know, well, why do you want to be in business books or something like that?
And finally, after a couple of months, they had started a brand new group in this physical sciences group at Wiley where the journals were all managed in-house at Wiley. So when you have a bunch of PhD editors looking for an assistant, it made a really good fit to hire somebody with a master's in science. Um, so it, it was a nice sort of way of getting in there. And I know the person that had hired me as an intern definitely went up to the person in the group and told them to hire me.
And really worked on my behalf for me, even giving me notes about interviews and things like that. Um, sort of trying to help me get into the industry in the first place. Um, but no, there were, there were a couple hurdles just there. And then coming in, there were just so many opportunities. I think just to use my background towards some of my work because, you know, again, that not a lot of people in the role had that science background where connecting to the work was a lot easier.
Um, I think, you know, even just looking through top downloaded articles that you could tell keywords that go along the lines and stuff like that, that, that maybe somebody else in the position might not recognize. So there was definitely opportunities where I was able to help, you know, go to conferences and really talk to scientists. Yeah, that's a really important skill. I'm really glad you're able to utilize that early on.
Yeah Uh, next question is for Amanda. Have you had a mentor? And how did that work? Uh, so informally, I would like to consider my boss at publishing that had guess my first mentor. You know, he started. American Physical Society. So had him at publishing. So like guess like he, he like he taught me about like confidence of, like, you know, it's OK to change careers.
It's when, say, careers mean the actual company that you work for. So I had to change companies. It's know, he also had helped in the launch of journals and like that was something that was put on the publishing. So like got to learn like just so much stuff from him. And he's actually followed him to tripoli. So I but you know, and got to learn about all of this ethics from him too and.
And like he taught me so much when I worked as the associate editor, just like thinking with like an editor hat, which is just a very different hat that you put on when you know, when publishing versus the other roles that I've ever used. So like, I've just learned so much from him. And in a more official capacity actually did just start doing has a mentorship program and I've been paired with someone.
I'm the mentee because I'm only five years in publishing, so I'm still pretty new. Um, so I, you know, I've only had one meeting with her, so I can't really report much on that, but I'm looking forward to also like connecting with somebody that's not in my direct, Path guess so. It's a really great opportunity if you can get a mentor.
I'm going to plug right here. This mentorship program as well. I know the application just closed for the next cohort, but if anyone listening is interested in the future, it's a great program and I have my own mentor through that as well. Um, next, I have a question for Harry and for Elizabeth. If you look back at your first 3 to five years publishing, which milestones would you describe, defined and boosted or helped you in your early career?
And we'll start with Harry. So, um, so when I started at kluwer, I think I still had very much of a science, um, mindset, a very perfectionist, a little arrogant as well. If you're, you know, you're a physicist, you think understand everything and, and then so suddenly you are in this completely new environment. It's a that was kluwer was, is a commercial publisher.
And so I think the first milestone for me was adjusting to a different culture, um, doing very mundane things as well. You go out to a conference, you have to unpack the boxes with the books, and so it's suddenly this physical work instead of solving equations. Um, and also remember that after a year or so, there was already an opportunity to become manager because some people left and I felt, who wants to be a manager?
So so I had to learn that, you know, promotion can be important as well. But in a way it was also good to just take some time to get to know a completely new world. And I think the first milestone for me was when I realized, wait a minute, I need to make sure I need to make my boss look good, because then everybody's positive and I need to really just reach my targets.
But actually, I need to overshoot my targets. So once I got ready a little bit more for a promotion or understanding the value of a promotion, I think really reaching actually blowing out my, my, my, my target, that was really a milestone. And then once I, let's say, followed those two principles, the career went so much better. So I'll leave it at that.
Thank you so much, Elizabeth. So I don't know if it's so much a milestone, but I think one of the things that really was so beneficial to my career development was going to conferences and meeting people. Not not just working with different people on my own staff, but meeting people from other presses. And in fact, that's how I got my first real job in publishing, as well as my second real job in publishing.
From having interactions with other publishing professionals in those conference settings, I mean, as well as the authors. And so I think that's one of the most important things that early career people can do, if it's available to you, is to get out and to talk to other people and to network in your own publishing milieu and authors and other people. But those face to face relationships were really crucial to me at the beginning of my career, and I didn't understand that so much then and I do now, right that the benefit of those.
But the other thing that's great is that the people I met when I was a very early career person are still people that I stay in touch with. Who are influential or even very good friends or, or sounding boards or so forth. I had a meeting last week with a woman who ended up being my second boss and with whom I've stayed friends for years and years and years. And just being able to kind of pick her brain about how to put a digital project together and how to think about it, because her career went in a different direction and mine went in a different direction.
But we stayed in touch and were able to. In fact, she's the one who connected me to you to be part of this webinar. And so that really is sort of how those things work throughout your whole career. So that's I would say that was the most important milestone. Thank you so much. Don't think any of us can speak less about networking and how important it is.
So it's really important to do that, especially early on. For Briana, are there any defining learning experiences over the years that you would like to share? Yeah well, so I think particularly as a science background data nerd, you know, I worked a lot with bioinformatics and things like that, so data mining, um, but I think that came to me as looking at how people right as scientists versus maybe in the real world, not so much.
So, um, I know, particularly when it came to doing like presentations that one of the things is I used to put all my data into a presentation because I like seeing it. Why wouldn't somebody else? But, you know, I had a boss early on teach me that you can't take action off of a slide, get rid of it. And it's no use being in there to anybody. And it's just data for the sake of data.
And that was sort of one of those lessons that I had to take and go, OK, right. You don't need that. And I think, um, just following that is looking to write or tell your presentation towards how people speak and how they'll understand is a really big change. Because I think again as a scientist that you may know your data backwards and forwards and every which way, but if you can't tell people your message, it's again, not really good to anybody.
So, you know, working on communicating for others and making sure you're telling them the message, they'll understand. It's really good advice. Yeah all right. The next question is for Harry, Elizabeth and Amanda. Which skills, looking at your academic background, really helped you the most in your early publishing career?
And if you'd like to go. I could go first. Um, so. So when I went into publishing, this was the onset of electronic publishing and, In our lab. We were already trying to do things electronically as much as possible, for example, posting on a preprint archive, but also doing the typesetting of your papers really well.
You do the equations in latex. So I had quite some knowledge about typesetting. I was also able to, you know, write my own websites. I mean, nowadays it's probably this sounds ancient, but in those days websites were, were a new thing. So when I went to kluwer, this actually gave me an advantage because I was able to talk to the marketing department about, you know, how to promote switching to electronic publishing.
But I was also able to Polish the manuscripts. I now you wouldn't touch them anymore, but because there's a specialized production department. But at that time, it was it was an advantage that if a manuscript would come in, you could already do some polishing and then send it on to the production department so it would get published faster.
So so those technical skills at that time were really helpful. I think another skill and this may sound trivial and especially maybe if you're a scientist, but the ability to actually really work hard if you do what you like. And in the beginning there was so much for me to learn, like this new environment and how do things work in the publishing company. But I enjoyed it a lot.
So and it was it was easy for me to make long hours. And then some colleagues would look at like, oh, you're already here or are you still here? So but I think that is something that you learn as a really, you know, focused and dedicated scientist. Do you do that? Um, and then the third skill I think was very results driven. I very quickly picked up that perfect is the enemy of good. And I mentioned that targets already you get a list of targets and then you realize, oh, if I reach those targets, do I do it well?
So you keep measuring how am I doing against my targets? How am I doing against my peers? And I think that was also a skill that was really helpful for me. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. Thank you. So I'm an acquisition. Well, I came up, I'm now in management, but I came up through acquisitions.
And for me, I think the skills that were most helpful early career were those critical thinking skills, research skills, problem solving skills, but also teaching. I mentioned teaching before, but that experience of being up in front of a crowd of people and talking to them and asking questions and answering questions, oops, I'm so sorry. Asking questions and answering questions was really formative for me in going to conferences and talking to authors and talking to other editors and just kind of thinking about how people were presenting their ideas.
So all of those research, teaching and academic skills are directly applicable to publishing, at least in the acquisitions track, which is what I was in. And now that's probably really reassuring to hear for those who are looking to leave academia, who have a lot of teaching experience and being able to utilize that in the future. Amanda, what about you? Um, so, you know, if my initial job being an in-house editor, my academic background 100% just straight helped me because I needed to be able to say like, is this novel research?
Um, does this have any business being in our journal? Like, what's the scope of it? You know, what are. Um, how much of it is like New versus just like an incremental increase? Um, one of the fun things I'll say had to do. So I was working obviously for a physics journal and am a chemist. I did do physical chemistry, but there was I had had to learn some more things.
So, you know, just having that general researcher mindset and being able to read literature and not just get cross-eyed over it was really helpful. Um, my postdoc advisor also liked to suggest us to be reviewers on papers, and he was really helpful in training as a reviewer and I learned a lot from him on how to really analyze a paper. And that way, you know, like, is this novel, is this an increase?
You know, how much of this, um, is it the right for, right for that journal, you know, like, what's the scope of that journal? Is it a broad scope journal, is it a specific journal? Things like that. So that was an easy slide for me. Excellent. Thank you so much.
This is a related question for Harry and for Amanda. What did you emphasize in your resume or applications from academia to transfer over to publishing? Start with Harry. So did I did something good and think I did something bad. Um, the good. The good thing was that, um, in my cover letter, I was able to address the job really well, because, um, what I did was I. I called a couple editors already working for kluwer and just asked them, like, what are they looking for?
Because I don't know, publishing so well in terms of, you know, the organization. Um, and so they, they were giving me some really good hints that I could use in my, in my cover letter to the resume. But then in my resume, I think I may have overestimated my science credentials. So I put all my publications in there, you know, nicely formatted.
And what was so interesting about the science did and then I noticed during the interview, they were a little bit worried that are you just, you know, you come back to Holland just to get like a parking job and then you move on to science because you obviously love science. So kind of had to defend myself a little bit. They're like, well, actually, I want to make a real change here. But it was it was revealing that during the interview also, I also got questions like, do you think can sell a car?
And that for me was already like, aha. So this is really a different culture that I have to adjust to. Um, but there was one good thing about giving all those details about my science background and that's, um, that's, there were a few names mentioned in my resume that were actually editors in chief of journals and book series, and it was clear that I already knew these people. So that would then make the job easy, but that I only discovered later on.
Thank you so much, Amanda. Um, so for me, I think I kind of hit on it a little bit in the previous question. Um, but, you know, knowing that it was a, the scope of the journal was slightly out of my research background. Like I emphasized the fact that my research from my graduate school to my postdoc was able to change and was able to publish in my postdoc.
So like I was able to adapt and learn a very different side of chemistry. Well, when I say different, I mean like working with a different metal and using it and like actual materials application versus just, you know, small molecule synthesis. So like, I, you know, learned a lot of new skills on my postdoc and like that was over was only two years. So like, you know, just being able to show that I could adapt easily, um, to a very changing environment.
Um, and then, um, kind of working on the network thing that Elizabeth had mentioned earlier. And then what Harry just said also, you know, part of a job as an editor, you do need to commission papers, you know, because you want your journal to grow. So, you know, showing that like, you know, we collaborated with different research groups and that like, you know, was able to say that like, I have, you know, I may be young, but I do have a little bit of a network.
And they're good scientists and they're people that could publish with us. Um, so, you know, just showing all of that was really helpful. Um, but I mean, generally speaking, like it obviously depends on what job you're applying for. Like I would have a very different answer if I would have applied straight to this ethics job. But for that associate editor position specifically, that was really helpful.
Thank you. I know this is like the trickiest part of the process of going through from shifting over, trying to figure out what you're supposed to emphasize, what to include. So I really appreciate all of your insights. Um, my last question for all of the panelists is what is your best advice for someone who is looking to leave academia and potentially enter publishing?
Uh, let's start with Harry. So I already mentioned trying to talk to people who are already doing the job because you can learn from them and you can ask them, so what is your day to day schedule look like? What do you do? Um, I think the second and this is already guess after you made a choice like, Oh there's a, there's an advertisement for, for a publishing job at this company.
So let's call that company. Let's call some people. But I also think it's important to. If you are thinking to work for a specific publisher, check the mission, vision, values that they have and see if that's a good fit to you. Because I mean, I definitely had to adjust to a very commercial environment. And fortunately that went well.
But it does it did go well for everybody. I did see that various publishers were hired and they were gone after a year. They couldn't stand that sort of that environment. So so I think that's an important thing to check as well. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. So I would say if you're in academia, either as an academic or as a graduate student, but you don't have any publishing experience to get as involved in publishing as you can.
And, you know, I agree with Harry, you know, talk to publishers about their jobs, like can expand those networks information, interview people, go to conferences and talk to the publishers about what they do and what kind of opportunities there might be. But there are other ways to show that you're very seriously interested, which is be involved in journals, for example, edit a journal or be involved in the peer review processes for your journals, especially now that there are so many other options for peer review, you know, open review or, or digital kinds of peer review, be involved in commenting on things, get your name out there, anything that you can do to be involved in the publishing process, even if you don't have that position yet, is really going to be helpful for you to finding out if this is really also what you want to do.
And, you know, as I said before, there are so many different kinds of opportunities in publishing, so keep your mind open because the right fit, there's a fit for you in publishing, but it might not be what you think it is immediately. So just keep getting out there and talking to people and stay positive, right? It may not happen right away. And it may.
Who knows? But it won't happen in your living room. So get out there. It's fantastic advice. Thank you so much. Amanda, what about you? So I have two things, I guess. Um, one is the networking. Just even if it's, you know, if you're going to an academic conference, all of the publishers are always there.
Like, I went to the conference as a graduate student. Everybody's there. Ask them if they're hiring, talk to them about their jobs. There's usually editors that are there or there'll be the books. People will be there. Um, and you know, as Elizabeth just said, there's so many different sides of publishing too. Like there's, you know, you could be interested in the marketing side, you could be interested in editing, you could be copy editing.
So there's so many different options. And with that, my second advice would just be keep an open mind. Because, you know, as I said earlier, like the ethics thing, like at first when I heard about this, I was like, no, no. But then, like, you know, I asked more questions about it and was like, whoa, like, you know, maybe this is something I'm interested in. And then I absolutely enjoy being here every day.
Now so I'm so glad that I took this opportunity. Um, and I do want to just do a brief plug. We always do internship positions in various paid internships. Um, we always do them various seasons. We have some, there's some summer ones that are still open and they're all across our publications department and even some of the other ones. Um, you do need to be pseudo local though, because they do want you to come into the office sometimes.
So greater Piscataway area. Um, but check it out. Thank you so much and Thank you for that plug. I hope a few people on the call will be able to try that out. Rihanna, what about you? Yeah, shout out to New Jersey over there while he has those two and I recommend those as well. Um, because they I will say getting into Wiley like that was a really big thing for me because you got to experience a little bit of everything.
Um, but yeah, so my advice sort of as you get into it, figure out what you really like to do, like about the job like, and honestly try to go towards those directions, even if it's did get hired, go talk to your manager about this is what I like, this is what I'm good at. You know, they might figure out a way to get it into your job. You know, I, I launched graphic I launched designing covers at Wiley just because I was the layout editor of my student newspaper in college that they'll figure out a way to make it work.
And you know, it'll have it'll help you kind of love a little bit more about your job. I'd also say just be aware that if as you come in, you're going to be entry level and not everything you do is going to be exactly 100% what you want to be doing. Um, it's unfortunate, but it's, it's kind of the case that a lot of entry level jobs are going to be about data entry and, you know, doing a spreadsheet and things like that are very basic and you might not be like, oh, this is really interesting yet it'll get better, I promise.
It's really good advice because I know I've experienced that in my first position as well. Well, Thank you to all of our panelists for answering these questions. Now we're going to open it up to Q&A. Rebecca, should I read the questions or would you like to pick them out? yeah, I'm happy to read them out, if you like.
We did have two that have some answers, but maybe, maybe the other panelists might want to jump in and respond as well. But this question is, is about any opportunities that are available for those of us who want to enter scholarly publishing but don't have a scientific background. I don't know if anybody has a perspective on that. I'm going to plug again because we have internships and stuff in marketing and you don't need a science background for marketing, but it's still publishing.
They have data, different sides of the data, aspects of it, data analysts, things like that. The business side. So, no, you don't need to have science to work at a scientific publisher. Yeah I'll also add in my background is in Japanese history, it is not in science and I work on two science journals now at frontiers and my team is a variety of some who have science backgrounds, some who do not.
But the skills that you pick up in the PHD, regardless of it's humanities or scientific background, will be critical for roles in publishing. So don't be afraid to apply for these positions even if you don't have that scientific background. You know, I can add also that diversity is important these days. And I remember from my kluwer days, but also a little bit later at Springer, that the management didn't they didn't want only, you know, former scientists, they want they wanted other people with project management skills or working in other commercial companies.
They wanted those people as well, even for editorial roles, because ultimately the editorial role I think, has changed into a management role. You send stuff out for review, you don't do it yourself. And so your personal skills being an outgoing person, not shy, you like to travel, that's sometimes much more important than having a particular science background.
Definitely agree with that one. OK I have another question. Then we have another attendee who's said that you mentioned the risk of getting stuck in a single track within the publishing landscape. Do you have any advice for people who currently work in scholarly communication at universities, for example, supporting researchers in their publication efforts or helping administer journals?
Et cetera, but would like to make a jump to a press. Yeah, I would say that especially now that as more and more presses, University presses go into libraries or have more partnerships and collaboration with libraries, there are more opportunities for people in scholarly communications to be involved with the press. But, you know, I think my advice is the same, which is get to know the people at the press.
If you've got one there, or just kind of reach out to those folks or reach out to the journals managers. At if you're already working in journals on campus, reach out to journals, editors and just talk to them about, you know, what they're looking for and what they need. I mean, I think the advice that everybody has given here about just finding out more information is really crucial.
And make it known that you're interested in that change because people just aren't going to read your mind. Right so my advice was to apply because frankly, you have nothing to lose. You don't get the job. You don't get the job. You apply.
Great Thank you. Another question from the group. To what extent is each of you still involved in the research community in which you trained, for example, staying involved in the relevant society? I'll say was active up until my membership lapsed about two weeks ago. Um, just with this new role, I have no business being at related events anymore.
Just don't work in chemistry. So I stayed active with them for. Um, five or so years after I left, like seven years after I left my PhD. nature of the beast now have a new society that work with I, you know, I'm active with and now I'm doing this with SSP. So, you know, just it evolved.
Yeah, I worked with all material science and engineering journals, so mine for the last 12 years, I've pretty much been sort of in my kind of area of expertise, which has been nice, sort of being able to relate and stuff. I do think the line I had to draw with a lot of my societies was that I can't do those editorial jobs that I'm not supposed to be commissioning and I'm not supposed to be doing all those things that their editors are supposed to be doing.
Just because I have the background to, um, you know, but it also, it worked really well with doing things like proposals and stuff when, you know, one of the societies was at my college and literally the person I was talking to was one of the professors I knew from college like it. It makes it really easy to go through stuff like that. Yeah, I'm lucky.
I'm a historian. And I've worked a lot in history publishing or related social science kinds of fields. And, you know, it's just being able to go to those conferences as a publisher has been invaluable for kind of keeping my hand in terms of keeping up with scholarship and the reading. And so forth. But I had dreams when I got into publishing that I'd be writing books and doing research and maybe teaching on the side.
And and I ended up not doing any of that. And it ended up being OK. Actually, I have a lot of fulfillment with what I do do. So it worked out. And so exactly that. Just following up on that, I found stuff I liked more. So for me, it was actually throughout my career I drifted away from astronomy more and more. First, at first it became physics and then it became mathematics and computer science.
And then it became much more things like opening an office in Brazil, doing policies, ethics. So so I drifted away. And then a few years ago, I decided, OK, I want to go back. So actually, there's also there's also an opportunity there. I think build up your network and then at the end of your career, you go back. So that's why I now do consulting for the Nasa science explorer, which is a digital library, a portal, and I sign content licenses for them.
So I use my network throughout different publishing companies to make that happen. So so yeah, I guess it is an example like you drift away, you, you learn new things, but then perhaps if you want, you can go back at the end. Yeah, I cheat as a historian because it's still easy to kind of keep up with what is happening, even though I've been out of it now for about a year and a half.
Um, but that first year of, of working in publishing, I really didn't have time to think about the research. I was really focused on building up my career and figuring out how to do this job first. Now that I've kind of found that balance, I'm starting to look at research again and talking with a colleague about doing a project on the side for fun, but it's very much a for fun thing and not my main focus anymore, which honestly is the best of both worlds for me.
Great we have one more question in the chat. Will a PhD come across as being overqualified for an internship? I say it depends on the internship. Some of these positions do want you to have PhDs. So if you're interning with a PHD, then no. Um, I mean, if you I would say maybe something like a copy editing job.
If there was an internship in that regard, you would be overqualified. Um, I think that would be of speaking to what Harry said when they were asking him if he was going to jump ship because you would, you would be overqualified. So I think just, you know, look at what the actual job posting would be if it's available and then, you know, if the internship.
And sometimes they'll pay you more if you have a PhD with the internship. So, Yeah. Yeah that's when I interned at Wiley, I was in the process of finishing my master's and that was a very big sort of hiccup that they were hesitant because they said, you know, are you just going to leave as soon as you're done? You know, and convincing them that I wasn't.
But also, you know, looking if you already have your PHD, you know, looking at instead of the internship, just applying to the job instead that you don't need the don't need the internship just to get into the company. There are plenty of PhD level jobs available as well. I guess I'll add to it the internships. I don't know if other companies do it, but it is really big on like temporary positions like to cover leaves and things like that.
we keep a lot. They keep a lot of the temps that they hire two full time positions. So that's also something you can look at. It's a little bit lower stakes situation, too. So if you have the ability to do a temp position for like six months or whatever it may be. Um, kind of the same idea as an internship, I guess.
I would say that our interns tend to come from I mean, they just come from our graduate programs, which is great, right? I mean, that's very mission driven for us. But I know that when I'm hiring for entry level positions, we have a lot of PhDs applying for those positions and they're competing against people who are just coming out with bas. And when you're looking at a position that is primarily data entry and learning, I think I don't think it's a disadvantage to have a PHD, but I do think really have to be prepared to answer that question am I just going to leave?
And so if you are able to address that in your cover letter, if you are able if you have a good answer for that, if you make it to the interview stage, I think that's going to go a long way to convincing people that you are somebody they want to hire and have in their organization for a long time. Yeah, I think that's critical is just making it very obvious that this is not a short term sort of switch.
Yeah, I have nothing to add to that. I think a lot of sensible things were said so. Great Thank you. So there's one more question in the chat or the Q&A. Where do you look for job listings? How to search for jobs that might be appropriate for a phd?
Um, I'll say guess because I'm the newest out of the gate here. Um, the. I know that, like, if you just, If you're looking for like industry jobs, like anything that's going to say scientists on it is probably going to be a position. Um, if you're looking at publishing jobs, that's a little bit more of a homing, but there's websites that you can look through.
I think it's called versatile PhD. It's been so long since I've looked at the website, but that'll show you like opportunities that maybe aren't directly in your career path where they would like people with the PhD. When I say knowledge, I just mean the experience that comes with getting that researcher background of a PhD. So like just that research experience that comes with it. Um, the, and I think there's, I mean, just, just Google alternate PhD career paths, there's 100 things are going to pop up that you can look through.
Um, this also comes down to, like, what you actually want to do. Do you want to continue on in the field you got a PhD in then apply to be an editor. Because there are plenty of editorial roles that require that PhD. I know Wiley again, we have in house groups that we physically hire the PhD person in house, and those are always very hard to come by because you know, you have to have the background, but the desire to be in publishing.
You know, so if that's something you're really interested in and you want to keep working in the field you got your PhD in. Absolutely, 100% That's where I would apply for those editorial roles. I would like to add to Breonna's comment. Please read the job posting carefully. I have served on hiring committees at for editor roles and they're applying they think they're applying to associate like when, say, associate editor, mean copy editing positions and vice versa.
So just please read carefully every job posting you are looking at. I would say too, having worked in both University press and commercial academic press publishing, I used to work for a division of Elsevier earlier in my career that I keep an open mind because there are really great jobs across the spectrum. And when I left University press publishing to go into commercial academic, I remember my husband was horrified.
He's like, Oh my god, leave the Academy. And I loved working in commercial academic publishing. I loved the pace. Some of the smartest people I'd ever met in my life, lifelong friends. It was just really a great opportunity. So just, you know, cast a wide net as you're looking. And for University specifically, I don't know if this the question was this specific, but the press's job board is a really good place to find University press, editorial and other kinds of University press positions.
And of course, there are other, you know, LinkedIn. Obviously the SSP wnet.org has an amazing job board, especially for kind of journals and digital publishing and then trade. New York is still publishers weekly, I think is still the gold standard for that. So you can look at your various society to like if you're a chemist, like if you look at the job board or if you look at the American Physical Society job board, there's most of the times you can search by your degree level too, which will help narrow it.
So yeah, use those as resources because publishers will post on those websites also. Agreed and talk to your advisors because that's how I got in. So I'm sure your advisors know people and conferences. Ask the publishers at the conference. Yeah, I think the well, the well known publishers are large enough that they are constantly searching for people.
So you go to a website of the publisher, you check if the mission, vision and values are a good fit to you and you will find the button like contact, contact us or jobs, or you'll find on their website what they're looking for. And yeah, there's always something. And fit your resume cover letter towards the job you're applying to? Yes emphasize different things based on which job you're applying.
Don't do a boilerplate letter. If it's too dull, then they don't want to, you know, invite you for an interview. We know. We know when you haven't looked at it. And we know when you were applying for another job using it. Just like we in the first sentence if we want to publish your book or not.
Hey, well, that's the end of the questions in the Q&A. Jillian, anything else you or the others want to add before we conclude? Uh, just keep an open mind and see what's out there. I know it's really scary to make the leap from academia into publishing, but trust me, it is worth it. I don't regret it at all. So give it a shot. And if you don't like it, you can always go back.
That's always an option. Excellent well, Thank you very much to our panel for participating in this engaging discussion today. And Thank you to all of our attendees for being present and participating. So you will receive an evaluation form via email within 24 hours. A link to the evaluation form has also been posted in the chat.
And we encourage you to provide feedback to help us shape future programming, please visit the SSP website for information on upcoming programs. This discussion was recorded and all registrants will receive a link when posted on the SSP website. You must be logged in with your SSP login credentials to view. And this concludes our session today. Thanks, everybody.
Form Title Download
Transcript
Form Title Bookmark
Entire Media
Segment(s)
Custom Clip
Start At:
End At:
Form Title Share
Entire Media
Segment(s)
Custom Clip
Start At:
End At:
Form Title Accessibility and Keyboard Shortcuts
The cadmore media player is a professional video and audio player experience designed to deliver media as well as relevant transcript, segmentation, and metadata. On the screen is a traditional html video player with buttons such as play, pause, forward, captioning, language and play speed selection and more. Adjacent to the video player are generally tabs, one of which shows a scrolling transcript of the video and the other shows any segmentation of the media, sometimes referred to as chapters. At the top of the video is a menu bar containing an Explore button and Tools button. The Explore button allows you to dig deeper into the video by opening up an explore dialog which contains tabs for a visual navigation of the video using thumbnails, an about tab which contains rich metadata about the media, a segments tab which contains further information about the video, and a related tab which contains links to other media related to this media. The tools button opens a menu with options for sharing the media on social media, creating bookmarking links, creating embed codes for your website, generating citations, and more.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts only work while you are in forms mode. By entering forms mode, you will be able to quickly access portions of the media player with single key commands.
Spacebar: Play/Pause Toggle
I: Info Menu,
O: Tools Menu
T: Transcript Tab,
S: Segments Tab
F: Forward 15,
R: Rewind 15
L: Languages,
P: Playspeed
M: Mute Toggle,
V: Volume Bar
N: Video Only Toggle,
B: Full Screen Toggle
C: Captions Toggle
Escape: Closes dialogs and menus / Exits Player
Z: Next Transcript Chapter
X: Previous Transcript Chapter
Q: Next Transcript Paragraph
W: Previous Transcript Paragraph
Entire Media
Segment(s)
Custom Clip
Start At:
End At:
Embed Size
-
You Size - Responsive
-
We Size - Responsive
-
Picture Overlay Popup
-
400 x 225
-
512 x 288
-
400 x 700
-
768 x 1024
-
1024 x 512
-
1280 x 608
Form Title Cite
No citation provided.
Info
Segments
Related
Thumbnails
Exit Clip Mode
You have requested to see a portion of the video outside of the clip.
Click OK to switch to the full video or click if you would like to stay inside the clip. You can always go back to the clip with Tools and Clip Mode