Where postdoctoral journeys lead

TL;DR

This study analyzes how postdoctoral experiences influence early academic success, highlighting the importance of the postdoc stage over doctoral training and suggesting a balanced approach to changing research directions.

Contribution

It introduces a new measure of early-career success based on citation patterns and links postdoc activities to subsequent academic achievement.

Findings

Postdoc period is more influential than doctoral training for early success.

Changing research direction moderately benefits career outcomes.

Relocation, topic change, and early citations are key factors in success.

Abstract

Postdoctoral training is a career stage often described as a demanding and anxiety-laden time when many promising PhDs see their academic dreams slip away due to circumstances beyond their control. We use a unique data set of academic publishing and careers to chart the more or less successful postdoctoral paths. We build a measure of academic success on the citation patterns two to five years into a faculty career. Then, we monitor how students' postdoc positions -- in terms of relocation, change of topic, and early well-cited papers -- relate to their early-career success. One key finding is that the postdoc period seems more important than the doctoral training to achieve this form of success. This is especially interesting in light of the many studies of academic faculty hiring that link Ph.D. granting institutions and hires, omitting the postdoc stage. Another group of findings can be summarized as a Goldilocks principle: it seems beneficial to change one's direction, but not too much.