Ilya Captain, PhD

Ownership is a magical thing. Stating the desired outcome, expectations of quality, and giving ownership works wonders. People want to succeed and do a good job, especially when they get to take credit for their good work. Taking the concept even further, when ownership and credit are established within companies and teams, people will take on projects without even talking to their managers. Good managers know this. And even when they step into project meetings, they make it clear who the owner is. This empowers their team even further.

This is hands down the most important attribute of a paper. Scientists don't generally read papers, they skim them instead. Visual aids catch the eye and need to be clear to get your point across. Keep them as generally understandable as possible and you'll increase your readership.

Stories are king when it comes to interviews. People quickly forget lists of skills and competencies but they remember stories. The best way to bring the point home is to craft a story that exemplifies how your skills were used. They should be simple and easy to retell. For example, instead of saying: "I have deep experience handling complex projects involving many stakeholders in an enterprise setting" Instead say: "I stepped into a project that was a mess. I started with creating a list of people involved and prioritizing tasks belonging to these people. We started to get back on track after just a few meetings. I'm proud of it to this day!"

Pausing is completely acceptable and does not reflect poorly on the candidate. However, it doesn't feel natural to pause, and I have definitely given some less than ideal interview answers because of the awkwardness. Here are a couple tactics that can help: • Use a pause phrase, such as "you ask a good question, let me think about this", and establish this phase with yourself before heading into the interview. • Rephrase the question back to the interviewer and ask for confirmation. This will help both of you reflect on the best answer. • Confirm that you are on the right track. Ask "...is this what you had in mind with this question?" Happy interviewing out there!

Being "good" as writing is relative. Looking at myself, I'm good when I keep my writing short. However my writing quality degrades rapidly if I need to write more than a couple of paragraphs. I know that I have this limitation I work within it: I write on my own when short is OK and seek help (be it a person or ChatGPT or both) when I need to work on something longer. Getting a critical look at where you excel and where you need help will improve the output of your work.

This is something I've been investing into over the last 6 months. What it really comes down to, is taking the time to develop a personal branding strategy and consistency around that strategy. What topics are you knowledgeable in? What are you passionate about? The key is to select a few "categories" of content that you can sustain talking about for a few years. This takes time, patience, and effort, but it 100% worth the investment. I recommend talking to Natasha Walstra (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ndwalstra/), who can get you started and help you to refine your approach as you get more advanced with it.