Tracking Career Outcomes for Postdoctoral Scholars: A Call to Action

Abstract

The oversupply of postdoctoral scholars relative to available faculty positions has led to calls for better assessment of career outcomes. Here, we report the results of a study of postdoctoral outcomes at the University of California, San Francisco, and suggest that institutions have an obligation to determine where their postdoc alumni are employed and to share this information with current and future trainees. Further, we contend that local efforts will be more meaningful than a national survey, because of the great variability in training environment and the classification of postdoctoral scholars among institutions. We provide a framework and methodology that can be adopted by others, with the goal of developing a finely grained portrait of postdoctoral career outcomes across the United States.

Fig 1

UCSF postdoc career outcomes organized by sector of the workforce, and by career-type, for (A) PhD-trained postdoc alumni employed in the US (n = 899), (B) MD/PhD-trained postdoc alumni employed in the US (n = 141), (C) PhD-trained postdoc alumni employed outside the US (n = 329), and (D) MD/PhD-trained postdoc alumni employed outside the US (n = 62).

Fig 2. Postdoc alumni employed in academic and government positions, separated into three categories: those in faculty positions (i.e., with titles of assistant professor, associate professor, or full professor, or equivalent titles in other sectors, such as group leader or investigator); those in research and teaching positions that are not faculty; and those in positions that are not research or teaching.

Figures are presented as a proportion of the full population of alumni included in this study.