by Dave Jensen » Wed Sep 14, 2016 11:08 am
SP said, "When you recommend a soft-skills overhaul, "Find out what you're doing wrong in the interview" (Dave), don't you guys yourselves sin in treating this as an exact science? I mean: should I come to the interview with a white or a blue shirt? When asked about salary expectation, should I aim low (oops, low self-esteem) or high (oops, can't afford him)? When asked about my deficiencies, should I mention the classical forte-in-disguise ("work to hard"), or did this become by now something every HR guy knows and resents? I've heard the entire gamut of responses to these questions; from websites, colleagues, and even HR people. So who's right? Which soft-skill-improving advice should I adopt? I say again: I'm positive that I can benefit zero from such a seminar. Sounds infuriatingly arrogant, but indulge me for now. Where do I go from here?"
SP, it's clear that you aren't one for listening to advice -- you just make fun of it. You haven't read the forum if you are talking about answering salary "expectation" questions . . . that's probably one of the most over-discussed subjects here and NO ONE would ever recommend you try and give them your expectations on earnings. So, if you're not up to speed on that advice from the Forum, my guess is that you don't know what this entire website is about. You likely haven't read the many articles, the forum discussions or anything, on networking (peer+2, informational interviews, etc), and my guess is that you would simply ignore the advice of others, considering it a part of the "HR Thingie" that you so despise. In reality, the SC.org website was started by the publishers of SCIENCE because they knew that people needed specific advice from the fields of science because so much of what has been written about job searching and career development in the mass media is just nonsense for scientists.
Yes, working for yourself will be the best approach and I'll leave it to others to help you find a location to talk about your interests in a scientific editing role. Just by reading your posts, I find that you've got a very unusual personality, a "prickly" tone that likely comes through in interviews as well.
I would be happy to communicate with you personally if you'd like. Someone needs to call the letter writers to ask your references in more detail about your style to see what might be good advice for you that is specific and targeted.
Dave
“There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.”- Alain de Botton