RTFP (Read the F*****g Paper) |
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Suzanne Kennedy |
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When I worked in technical service for a well known biotech company, I have to confess that we often used a certain phrase in the frustration of dealing with calls from angry scientists ranting about a problem they were having with a kit because, as it turned out, they didn’t read the manual.
“Read the F***ing manual” (RTFM), was the phrase (only used after we put the phone down of course). A bit naughty, but it was certainly an essential stress reliever! This article today is not about reading manuals, but research papers.
It is my appeal to everyone to RTFP.
I find that there is a growing problem, especially amongst newer members of the scientific community, of people reading ahead to the conclusions of the paper and taking them as fact without having read the methods and results sections, or critically analyzing the data. This is very poor practice for many reasons but the main point is that just because the article was accepted by the journal you should not assume that the work was reviewed stringently, carried out correctly or reported objectively.
The conclusions contain the take-home message of the paper but these other sections are just as, if not more, important. Here’s what you should look out for in each section.
Introduction:
The introduction builds the story and explains what previous research has shown and what this new research will add to the current knowledge base. This section helps you to determine if the authors did a thorough review of the field, and if it’s your field, you (should) know whether the authors left out any particular papers that are important to cite. If key papers are left out of the introduction, how careful were they with the rest of the paper?
Methods section:
The methods section should clearly and thoroughly outline exactly what was done. Read it carefully. Are the controls described? Did they modify commercial kits, and if so do they explain how? Are they doing the right comparisons? Did they include enough data points?
If the data is qPCR, then take the time to look even more carefully. According to the MIQE guidelines, the authors need to explain the nucleic acid purification method, yields, and purities, which kits they used, how they determined the efficiency of their assays, and how many replicates they did. There are a lot of factors that can influence qPCR data and if the paper is leaving out some of the information, you can’t make accurate conclusions on the data.
Results section:
Here is the part where the authors interpret their data. Each figure is reviewed one by one. Read this part critically. How do the controls look? How do the qPCR curves look? Are the Westerns clean? Is all the data in graphs and tables instead of allowing you to see how it actually looks? You do these experiments too and you know how data should look. The quality of the data is as important as what experiments they did.
Conclusions/Summary:
Here is where the authors have the chance to pontificate on their work and tell you what they think it means. They are making their conclusions based on the results. Now if you have read the whole paper, you are in a position to either agree or disagree. Do you agree with how they interpreted the data? Can you think of alternative explanations for their results? Are they being objective? You’ve looked at the results and you’ve reviewed their methods. What do you think?
As scientists we all have our theories and we want our data to fit our model. We want to be right. Sometimes the need to be right overrides accuracy. It is human nature. I once had a PI tell me “If you want to prove me wrong, go find another lab”. The data didn’t fit his model and he wasn’t open to changing it, which was bad news.
The message in this article today is to please read your papers. Please, please do not just read the conclusions and take them as truth. They aren’t always the only explanation – you may not actually agree. Besides critical review of scientific papers is a necessary skill and will serve you well. Not only as a future reviewer of journal articles, but as writer of your own research.
Let us know in the comments — do you RTFP?
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How Forgiveness Can Help Your Job Hunt |
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Travis Medley |
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2009 was a tough year for job hunters. But the good news is we are starting to see a lot more “action” on the hiring front.
Most of this activity is overdue. Because of recruitment freezes, teams have been stretched and they are working longer hours - often for less pay - and maintaining a larger workload. As a result of this, we recruiters have witnessed a very unusual trend — under the strain of increased workloads, employers are getting sloppy with the recruitment process.
You know from my previous articles about how employers love to use phone interviews in the screening process, but more and more often in recent months, candidates tell us that the phone interviewer calls them 15-20 minutes (or more) late past the scheduled interview time. This is very frustrating and seemingly unprofessional. It would be nearly inexcusable the other way around (if you failed to show up for your interview), but these times are unique. This sloppiness is likely unrelated to the culture or professionalism of the company and more commonly attributed to the multiple hats that people are wearing within organizations at the moment.
While the knee-jerk reaction seems to be to throw your hands up and declare that this company unfit to work for, I would recommend a different course of action: forgive and forget.. and most importantly, make sure that your behavior, words and tone do not reflect your frustration. Instead, take the high road. Would it make you feel better to ‘tell someone off”? Maybe. But will it advance you closer to what you want? No. Will it change them? Probably not. Instead, plan for this possibility and figure out what you would do if it happens to you. (Things seem so much less dramatic when you know it might be coming.)
If it does happen, chalk it up to how much this company needs your help and demonstrate how different you are from other candidates. Show them you can roll with the punches and that you are more professional than other candidates. A job search will throw you all types of curve balls, so be prepared and forgive and forget.
How To Nail Your Telephone Interview
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How NOT to Receive Phone Calls in Your Job Hunt
What Conferences Will You Attend in 2010? |
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Suzanne Kennedy |
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Happy New Year!
Now that 2010 has begun, it’s a good time to start thinking about how you want to spend your travel money (or which meetings you want to nudge your PI about spending their travel money on for you). So to help you plan, here is a list of the bigger, more popular conferences in the life sciences in 2010.
These conferences all take place in the US so please feel free to send us your comments and let us know what additional conferences, large and small, you’ll be attending in the rest of the world that you think are providing the latest and greatest information for your field of work.
January
Plant and Animal Genome (PAG)
January 9th-13th
Town and Country Hotel, San Diego CA
LabAutomation 2009
January 23rd-27th
Palm Springs Convention Center
Palm Springs, CA
February
American Academy of Forensic Sciences 62nd Annual Scientific Meeting
February 22nd-27th, 2010
Washington State Convention & Trade Center
800 Convention Place
Seattle, WA 98101
Biophysical Society’s 54th Annual Meeting
February 20th-24th
San Francisco, CA
March
American College of Medical Genetics Annual Meeting
March 24th-28th
Albuquerque Convention Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico
April
American Association for Cancer Research 101st Annual Meeting
April 17 th-21st
Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington, DC
Experimental Bio 2010 Annual Meeting
April 24th – 28th
Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, CA
May
American Society of Microbiology, 110th Annual Meeting
May 23rd-27th
San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, CA
July
Plant Biology 2010
July 31st- August 4th
Montreal, CA
American Society of Virology 29th Annual Meeting
July 17th-21st
Montana State University, Bozeman, MT
November
Society for Neuroscience 40th Annual Meeting
November 13th -17th
San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, CA
American Society for Human Genetics 60th Annual Meeting
November 2nd-6th
Washington DC
Association for Molecular Pathology 2009 Annual Meeting
November 17th -20th
San Jose McEnery Convention Center
San Jose, CA
December
American Society for Cell Biology 50th Annual Meeting
December 11th – 15th
Philadelphia, PA
An alternative to these large diverse conferences are small focused meetings where you will be able to spend more time talking to your field experts and perhaps even share a meal with a PI whose work you admire. A good place to look for small but focused conferences is the Cold Spring Harbor Labs, the Gordon Research Conferences, and the Keystone Research Conferences. Any of these will give you an intense learning experience.
No matter what you decide, just make sure to go to a conference if you can, even if it’s a local one. Nothing else can invigorate your mind and rejuvenate your passion for your work like a conference.
As well as telling us where you’ll be going in 2010, you could also let us know what was your favorite conference from 2009 and why.
The essential conferences of 2009
15 Ways to Make Contacts at Conferences
Don't Miss This Free Online Bioconference
Scientists. Do You Believe in God? |
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Suzanne Kennedy |
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Perhaps at no other time of year like the winter solstice is the mixture of religious beliefs and daily life more intertwined. Most people, regardless of race and country of origin, come from a faith that believes in God or a Higher Power.
As scientists, it is a widely held belief that we do not believe in God because of our passion for truth. Some think that science and God do not mix and cannot mix; that you cannot be a scientist and actually believe in a higher power or a universal source of knowledge that is not measurable by any lab test.
My experience of what scientists believe
When I speak to my colleagues and friends in the science community, I actually find the opposite belief to be true. Most people I speak to not only believe in God, but in the paranormal, spiritual, and supernatural. We can’t measure any of this with a DNA or RNA test, yet for some, proof is not always something you can hold in your hand. What I have found is that for most scientists, their own experience is proof enough.
This makes sense to me because as scientists, we are trained to have an open mind and to not let our personal biases sway our results. Scientists need to be open to any and all possibility in order to make progress. So a scientist who has experienced divine guidance or intervention, while knowing that there is no explanation with physical laws on how such a thing could have happened, has all the evidence they need to know fact from fiction.
The stats
The stats say that the split is about 50-50 of those who believe in God and those who do not. A survey taken by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in May and June of this year and reported by David Masci in the Los Angeles Times, found that 51% do believe in God and 41% do not. These numbers haven’t changed much over the last 100 years either, despite the numerous discoveries in evolution and biochemistry over the years.
The same poll found that 41% of chemists believe in God while scientists in the fields of biology and medicine were much less likely to believe in God (32%). In terms of age, the younger generation of scientists (18-34) are more likely to believe in God than their senior colleagues.
In comparison, the scientific community tends to believe less that the general public do. 95% of American adults say they believe in a God or higher power and only 32% believe in evolution whereas 87% of scientists believe that life evolved over time.
Based on this data, it would suggest that for many of us, science and religion are not necessarily incompatible and one does not need to choose between the two. We can believe in a higher power and evolution. We can experience things not explainable by science and not need to write it down in a lab notebook as proof it happened.
Many of our scientific predecessors believed in God; Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1627), Rene Descartes (1596-1650), Robert Boyle (1791-1867), Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), and Albert Einstein (1879-1955). Even under persecution for teaching that the sun was the center of the universe, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) maintained his faith in God. And Galileo had no proof that his theory was true using the tools available to him at the time.
Brilliant minds over the ages have recognized that there are some things we can’t explain but that doesn’t mean they aren’t true. Sometimes all you have to base your theories on is a hunch or a feeling or indirect evidence that there is more to this than meets the eye. Does it mean we reject everything that doesn’t fit our cozy model because we can’t measure it in a test tube? No. It means we keep an open mind until we can.
Here’s what I think
I love science because I love the process of solving the riddle and uncovering the clues to unraveling whatever problem I am trying to solve. I love the process of discovery and not just the end result. Fortunately for us scientists, there is an infinite number of puzzles to tackle in the universe and things to discover. Thank God for keeping a few things secret.
ps: I wanted to let you all know about www.bethematch.org. Your bone marrow may hold the cure for a child with cancer. Joining the registry is easy. It is just a cheek swab. You don’t need to give bone marrow unless you are determined the best match for a patient. The greatest present to give any child or parent of a sick child is the chance to live. You might be the match!
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Is Job Hunting Getting You Down? |
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Travis Medley |
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Not a day goes by (and we’re now at about day 400 of “these” days) that we do not hear from candidates about how frustrated they are with their job search. It doesn’t matter if you have just graduated or have 20 years of industry experience; it’s a rough market out there. What is absolutely crucial is that you do not give up. Many people are faced with having to search for a job when opportunities have typically fallen in their lap for the last decade or two. It’s not you – you’re great!
People within our industry are extremely bright – among the smartest in the world, and when you give smart people time, they think. And when thinkers think, they tend to over think – and this is how we get into trouble.
It is important that you constantly review your strategy to ensure that your resume reflects the job, keep your network active, follow-up directly with decision makers, etc. However, be careful not to go too far overboard. We talk to candidates who have changed their resume literally a dozen times or more. These people are driving themselves crazy over very minor revisions (and many times, their “latest” version has come full circle and looks a lot like their first version)!
My message? STOP.
Spend your time and energy on building and using your network, and on hunting down contacts at companies where you would like to work. It’s likely that the problem is not your resume, it’s not that you are a missing a certification, and it’s not that you left out one key word. It is simply that the market is rough. This is not an excuse to lay low and avoid the job market; this is just a reminder that we’re all in the same boat.
Today, it takes more calls, more resume submissions, more follow-up, and more networking to find a position. It’s even likely (we can hope) that it may never be this hard again. But keep at it! Do not let the “market” get you down and don’t rethink everything to death. Formulate a strategy and execute that strategy.
After a while, assess your strategy. If it’s sound, keep going. If not, change it. But no matter what, keep at it. Your next opportunity may be right around the corner.
Job Hunting: Who Do You Need To Impress?
Job Hunting: How to Use Your Network
Job Hunting: Wake Up Your Village
How To Make Fewer Mistakes In The Lab |
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Nick Oswald |
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How often do you make errors in the lab that ruin a good experiment? Rather than flaws in experimental design, I mean errors like forgetting to add a reagent, pipetting the wrong amount or following a protocol step wrongly.
Especially early on in your career, errors like this can be a real drain on your productivity. As I talked about earlier, listening to music in the lab may or may not help you here, but here are 10 other ways in which you can reduce your error rate and get more results.
1. Use a checklist. I have always found that using checklists during experiments is a great way to focus the mind and stop me from forgetting to add something or doing things in the wrong order. But you don’t have to just believe me… a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that the use of simple checklists during surgery cut deaths and complications by one third. So perhaps by adopting checklists you can reduce the attrition rate for your experiments.
2. New protocols and SOPs: write out your own version. When you are performing a new protocol, the worst thing you can do is just jump in and get started without gaining a knowledge of the whole procedure first. That is just asking for things to go wrong. So one rule I always keep is to write out my own version of the protocol in Word before I start, using a standard format. This gives two benefits. Firstly, it forces you to read through the whole protocol and secondly it gives you a standardised copy of the protocol that you can keep, annotate and make checklists from.
3. Annotate. If you make a mistake in a protocol, annotate your copy so that you won’t make the same mistake again.
4. Repetitive pipetting: be consistant and use bookmarks. If you are doing a large experiment with a lot of repetition, just letting your mind wander for a few seconds can ruin your experiment if you don’t put in safeguards. One example is where you have a whole rack of tubes into which you are repetitively pipetting — it’s so easy to get lost and forget where you were. You can guard against this by being rigidly consistant with your pipetting order and by bookmarking your progress by closing the lid (or similar) after you have pipetted.
5. Don’t multitask too much. Multitasking is essential in the lab, but should be practiced with care as overdoing it can make you error-prone. More on this here.
6. Get set up before you start. This is obvious, but it’s often neglected… Make sure you have everything you need before you start. The moment you wander off to pick something up you are inserting an error-inviting distraction into your procedure.
7. Prepare in bulk. For experiments you perform often, it pays to put in a bit of time upfront to prepare for a lot of future experiments in advance. Make stock solutions in bulk (aliquoted if required), prefill tubes with reagents so you can just take them out of the fridge/freezer and go, and create experiment forms to save you from writing out the same stuff in your lab-book over and over again (for more on this click here). The more you can prepare upfront, the less room there is for error later.
8. Don’t spend so long in the lab. Ok so you need to put in the hours to make sure you generate results but there is a tradeoff because spending too long in the lab will dull your sharpness. Where the cut-off lies is a personal thing.
9. Get enough sleep. Just like too many hours in the lab will dull you, so will lack of hours in bed. Get some sleep!
10. Take responsibility. Especially if you are an early career scientist, problems can occur if you expect others to be responsible for your work, for ensuring that you have everything you need etc. Taking the viewpoint early on that the buck starts and stops with you will empower you to make sure that you create the situation where your experiments have the optimal chance of working.
Those are my thoughts on reducing your error rate in the lab. What approaches do you use?
Error Bars in Biology
Don't Overdo The Multi-tasking
How Accurate are Your Pipettes?
Measure Twice, Cut Once |
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Travis Medley |
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This old construction adage has a home within your job search. Attention to detail is crucial, especially in the “e” age. You no longer have your sense of humor, wit, charm, personality or infectious smile to fall back on. Instead, you only have the cold black and white of the written word. So why is it that when your computer will automatically check your spelling and grammar, so many people miss this basic step?
I think most people would be surprised at how many cover letters, resumes and back-and-forth emails are filled with incorrect spelling and grammar. This is 100% inexcusable and may cause you to lose a position before you were ever considered. Additionally, if you are committing these errors, you probably do not know it and have committed to the same error many times over.
The solution - SPELL CHECK! Spell check everything, including your resume, cover letters, emails, LinkedIn profile, Facebook site, etc. After you spell check it, do it again for good measure. Copy and paste your information into multiple formats to check for errors. Ask peers and friends to review your documentation. Each of the documents you employ in your job search will be used over and over; the more refined they are, the better you will look to prospective employers.
The same goes for communicating with your recruiter – take the time to use proper spelling and grammar. Recruiters are much more likely to represent candidates who can communicate clearly and don’t make simple errors. Every candidate a recruiter represents is a reflection of their company to their client. Companies have passed on some of our candidates because of misspellings in a thank you note. Do not underestimate the crippling impact of poor spelling or grammar!
But beware, spell check and grammar check cannot and will not catch everything. Read, re-read (and even read it backwards). Ask others to review your information when appropriate. There are many aspects of your career search that you cannot control, but spelling and grammar are completely within your grasp. Control what you can – measure twice, cut once.
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Be The Golden Child In Your Lab |
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Suzanne Kennedy |
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In a previous article, I listed some ways that people annoy their co-workers and many of you added some of your own pet peeves.
Now I would like to discuss some ways to be the lab favorite, also known as the “golden child”. Does your lab have a “golden child”? Someone who is always perfect, the favorite of the PI, the go-to person for everything by everyone? Do you wonder how they got that way?
Well, actually, I can’t tell you because I wasn’t the golden child of my lab. But I’ve known a few and I run a lab myself. So instead, I am going to tell you what qualities or behaviors a person has to show to be my golden child. That’s right. Here is a list of 5 ways to be my #1 scientist. You’ll be on my “awesome” list instead of the s-list if you do the following:
1. Look things up yourself. Don’t go to your PI or to the post-docs with questions that are easily researchable yourself. If your question is “should I do it this way or that way?” you should already have an answer as to what you think you should do. Your PI wants to see that you are learning how to design experiments and direct a project on your own.
2. Take initiative. If you have an idea or a theory, go for it! Try it without asking. Please do not ask me before doing every experiment. Just do it (within reason- if it requires a trip to Mexico to collect rare mud samples from ancient Aztec burial grounds, then of course, discuss that first) . I expect my scientists to think on their own and have ideas and it is ok to try them out first and see if they have value.
3. Show leadership. You are the project manager for your research. Getting your project done may mean collaborations with others both inside and outside your institution. This is a repeat of points 4 and 5 of the article “Pointers for new graduate students“. In an industrial lab, I like to see my scientists communicating with researchers working in areas of common interest and taking the lead in working together to generate data for posters or for future products. In academics, you’ll want to discuss with your PI first what labs you want to collaborate with, to protect the confidentiality of your work. Once you both agree it is a good idea, take the lead in this area.
Showing leadership can also be willingness and ability to manage another person, such as an undergraduate or a rotation student, and doing a good job at it. Showing the ability to lead another person’s work, oversee someone else’s progress, and take responsibility for their results shows excellent leadership.
4. Be the expert in your area of research. You should know everything about your subject of study. Know what’s going on in the field and who the thought leaders are. Your PI can’t read all the details of every paper for every project in the lab. They are counting on you to do that. Here are some suggestions on becoming an expert.
5. Show progress each week. We all have our off weeks (sometimes months- dare I say year?) where things just don’t go right. But as Nick mentioned in an earlier article, there’s no need to worry about getting results as long as you are doing things properly. If you can show logical experiments as to how you are approaching the problem and how you are dissecting it, it gives your PI confidence that you can figure it out.
If someone comes in with inconsistent results week after week and can’t figure out why and doesn’t have a plan for getting to the answer another way, they are going to quickly fall down the totem pole. If I have to hear “It didn’t work”, I want it to be followed by “but I think I know why or what to try next.”
6. Other stuff. Some things are obvious- of course you should be helping others when you can, sign up to make the coffee for journal club once in a while, bring the microbrewed beer for Friday happy hour (instead of the Pabst Blue Ribbon), and get the extra discounts for the lab by staying on good terms with the sales folks.
For a busy PI with way too many commitments and not enough time to read all of their emails, the best grad students and post docs are independent and inventive, in control and motivated to succeed. Even as a new student, it is never too late to show your willingness to think for yourself and think outside the box (in my lab, we call it “cowboying it”) .
The most fun we have in R&D at MO BIO is when we get to “cowboy it”. And usually our biggest leaps are made this way too.
I would love to hear from some of you “Golden Child” grad students. I know you are reading. Let’s go superstars. Add to this list and tell us more about how and why you are #1.
~Suzanne (now on Twitter)
Thoughts on Industry Jobs
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The Perfect Learning Tool for Science: Video |
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Suzanne Kennedy |
To enable tagging you will need to register on Bitesize Bio. We're sorry for the inconvenience, but it's free, only takes a few seconds, and it will enable you to view our seminars for free, ask questions from the professional community, and take part in the lively community of Bitesize Bio
I don’t need to tell you that you can find (virtually) everything you need to know on the internet — encylopedias are a thing of the past. Now, you have an app for that on your phone. You don’t even need to wait to get home.
So it makes total sense that for science, we would learn techniques via the internet. But not just a literary “how-to” guide anymore. Videos as a learning tool are starting to take a bigger role in teaching. A live demonstration speaks a thousand words!
In a previous article, I talked about JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments) and how they were leading the way in publishing live videos on techniques that go along with a published paper.
But learning can also be just a simple 30 second to 5 minute video on how to perform a specialized technique, one which is not necessarily publishable or citable. That is what some scientists are doing from both academics and industry.
Below are two examples of the use of video to teach techniques; their sole purpose is to teach.
How to Handle a Water Filter Membrane
This first one was made by MO BIO Labs and demonstrates a best practice for transferring filter membranes from a vacuum filter unit into tubes for bead beating or storage. This short 50 second video is enough to give the scientist the basic technique required to safely handle a wet filter membrane without tearing or scratching it.
Filter membrane insertion into a bead tube
It is short and helpful- allowing the user to visualize a technique that in words would be difficult to emulate.
Making a Agarose Gel
This next video was made by researchers at the University of Leicester. Even though this is longer (5:44), it is packed with great information on agarose gels including the size range of agarose separation, what % gel to run for small and large fragments, and what your gel will look like if you don’t melt the agarose completely. This video would be perfect for training new students. This lab also did a second video called Running an Agarose Gel.
University of Leicester Making an Agarose Gel
As you can see, this video is more professionally done and the lab far cleaner than most I’ve ever been in. I hope the University of Leicester plans on doing more molecular biology videos!
BiotechprojectAZ Channel
I wanted to draw your attention to one more academic institution that is creating videos for learning and that is called BiotechprojectAZ. These series of videos show undergraduates demonstrating how to prepare, pour, and stain agarose gels. They are very nicely done and the students speaking on the videos did an excellent job.
These videos are all new and unfortunately, I can’t find any more detail about the location of this work- whether this is a university or college or if AZ stands for Arizona. If the director and producer of the BiotechprojectAZ channel would contact us, we would love to hear more about your plans for future videos and why you decided to embark on this great project.
As you can see, videos offer a better way of learning, but especially when it comes to science. Some much of science is technique based and having “good hands”. If the person with great lab hands could show us exactly how they do that method, the mystery would be revealed.
Bitesize Bio is interested in featuring your video techniques for our readers. They don’t need to be professionally produced and they can be short or long. If you have a great way of doing some technique and want to share it with other scientists, send us the video and we will post it on Bitesize Bio. Scientists helping other scientists is what we are all about.
Critical Learning Habits
5 (and more) Internet Learning Resources
Read Papers? I'd Rather Watch a Video.
Holy Cow! How to Negotiate Your Salary |
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Travis Medley |
To enable tagging you will need to register on Bitesize Bio. We're sorry for the inconvenience, but it's free, only takes a few seconds, and it will enable you to view our seminars for free, ask questions from the professional community, and take part in the lively community of Bitesize Bio
Now that you’ve aced your phone interview and your in-person interview, it’s time to negotiate your salary!
Don’t know where to start? Don’t worry. Here’s my advice.
First things first. Be sure you remember what you have already communicated about your salary; consistency is key. If you are working with a recruiter, be sure they know what salary expectations you have been communicating and be sure you know what the recruiter has been relaying to the company.
Second, it’s important to be paid fairly, but it is more important to get a job you are happy with; if you think it’s fair, it’s fair. I strongly caution against web sites that purport to provide “accurate” salary information. Each person and each position is unique. The skill sets possessed and required are different and a “fair” salary will vary dramatically.
Third, before you can negotiate with a company, you have to know what your expectations are - we find that many people don’t have a good grasp of their own expectations and it can be disastrous during this critical phase.
I recommend knowing your “Absolute Bottom” - the number which you would say “no” to if it was literally one dollar lower. This is a very important number to know. The longer you are looking for a position, the lower this number may be, and that’s okay.
This is about the position being fair to you. From here, I would find the “I think that’s fair” number and lastly the “holy cow!” number. Armed with these three numbers, you can confidently negotiate salary and know how hard to push.
If the company offers you a number below your “Absolute Bottom” - tell them that you were expecting something in the “I think it’s fair” to “holy cow” range. You have nothing to lose because you are not going to take the position at this compensation level.
If the company offers an “I think it’s fair” salary, you need to decide if it’s worth pushing back and potentially losing the offer. A great way to approach this is simply to ask “Is there any wiggle room in this offer?”. If the answer is no, thank them and tell them either you will accept it or you’ll get back to them within 24 hours (if you know you are going to accept, there is nothing wrong with telling them at his point).
If the company offers a “holy cow” salary, tell them thank you and you cannot wait to start!
Finally, if you are anything less than thrilled with the offer, I would encourage you to sleep on your decision. Give yourself some time to consider it and don’t act impulsively. The offer will still be on the table tomorrow and you will feel more confident after having carefully weighed your options.
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