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Writing a cover letter.

They say “ Do not judge a book by its cover ”. Unfortunately or fortunately, you will be judged by the cover letter of your application. It is usually one the first document that invariably accompanies an application. Writing a cover letter can be extremely tricky. It is a very subjective document and can be viewed in a different light by different people. I am a little awkward writing a blog on this topic as I am still in the learning process. But again, maybe this might open doors for a healthy exchange of tips and views between you and me. I have again been very fortunate on getting tips from experienced people, which I have tried to compile in this article. My focus is on a cover letter for academic jobs, though it may be extended to other fields as well. One of the biggest challenge, and I believe one of the most overlooked aspect, of writing a cover letter is the personalization of it for every position or job that you apply for. You just cannot, and must not, send the...
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CV- your projector to the world.

Curriculum vitae , or its popular short-form CV, is a Latin phrase which loosely translates as 'course of my life'. It's an important document which can make or break a career opportunity. That's why it needs to be crisp and error-free. It is a reflection of all that you have achieved through your hard-work in the last decade or even more. So take some time out and be earnest while writing your first CV and eventually editing it as and when you fly higher in your careers! It shouldn't be confused with a bio-data. Your CV doesn't include your date or place of birth, sex, marital status or any other personal information. It is completely a professional document. A photograph should also be excluded from a CV. Academic CVs are generally a maximum of 4 pages long. Some recruiters may ask for shorter ones or a  résumé (also spelt resume). These two terms can also be used interchangeably. While at other times, both a  résumé and a CV may be asked f...
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Social media and science in India

I created a Twitter account and became a regular user of Facebook in my first year of PhD. Yes, exactly the time when you be over confident and think that people are interested in your crap. Or at least I thought that way. Or atleast that's what my Facebook memories tell me. I, being the regular over-enthusiastic first year who believed that she could be "future Nobel prize laureate", setup my Twitter handle as @NaziaPCL, where PCL stands for Protein Crystallography Laboratory, which evidently was the name of my doctoral lab. And if I am not mistaken, also my password for a computer login. On Facebook, as per my memories, I posted about getting bored, my protein eluting rather slowly and of course, my Farmville updates. On the other hand, I didn't tweet much. A couple of dumb tweets, like, "Tweet!". Though I kind of stayed active on Facebook ever since, the Twitter craze lasted exactly one day. Facebook for me has always been a very personal space. I do v...
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Poster presentation and how!

As a postdoctoral fellow, or the "ignored class" as the creator of the PHD comics Jorge Cham referred to us, I  have many things to complain about. Like how how I have a hard time telling my family that I am not "studying" anymore, rather I am now working, with a limited contract, of two years. How I am on the wrong side of 30 and have by biological clock ticking away. But all is not bad. I had the fortune of donning one of the roles that made me feel a little more important - I was asked to be a poster session judge. That's right, I had to "judge" PhD students. This made me realize that all these years of being a PhD student, I had no idea on what aspects I was judged on while presenting a poster. All I knew that the judges had some secret coding for marking on sheets- which I just had to wildly figure out whether it was worth staying for the prize distribution ceremony or not. Now that I am on the other side of "judgment", I wanted ...
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Publish or perish. Sigh!

Like every young researcher, I am yet again in a transition phase of my career where I am wrapping up the work of first postdoctoral research and simultaneously looking for another position. I feel as if I am being unfaithful to my profession. I didn't set out on this project to publish some incomplete and unorganized work. I wrote this project to advance the field of science.  But just as any other unfaithful postdoc, I too have to now settle for publishing something completely different from my original aim. It almost feels like giving up on your "knight-in-shining-armour" dream as a teenager to marry a real human with real clothes, not metal, on him. Not that I am complaining about the human in my life.  This whole "publish or perish" game is becoming more real for me. I cannot survive in the field of academics without publishing. This was made more real when a lab I recently applied to turned out to be yet another "publication is thy mantra...
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