Edit

EMBL Fellows' Career Service

Career support and guidance to predoctoral and postdoctoral fellows across EMBL’s six sites

Making connections

Making connections, also known as networking, is one of the most effective ways to learn more about career areas that interest you and gain visibility in your current or future career area, which eventually can support your future job search. 

Furthermore, developing and maintaining a dynamic and diverse network is an important professional skill and your network will be seen as an asset by your future employer whether this is within or beyond academia.

Stepping into a room full of strangers or sending a cold email requesting a meeting for career advice pushes many people out of their comfort zone. Luckily, there are many tools, activities and events that can help you make connections – we outline these, along with related resources below. We advise starting networking activities early, so you can focus on gradually building genuine connections – rather than only reaching out to people when you are searching and applying for jobs.

Key questions

  • How can you build connections with people in your target career areas?
  • What advice and experience do people in your target careers have to share with you?
  • If you are planning an academic career, specific questions may include: what is the academic structure in different countries? how important is teaching experience?
  • If you are planning an non-academic career, specific questions may include: what are typical entry routes?, what does a typical day look like?, what are the long-term career prospects and what are hiring managers looking for?

Overview of networking tools

Informational interviews

Informational interviews are one of the most useful resources for career planning. They are one-on-one conversations arranged with someone who works in a professional setting that interests you. They are not job interviews and are not typically planned around a specific job opening. Instead, they are conversations designed to help you explore your career options and to understand whether a specific career area, lab environment, or institution is the right fit for you. Additionally, they contribute to expand your network. This career planning tool is usually considered for career exploration beyond academia, but it is also useful for those interested in pursuing a postdoc or faculty job.

take action

Take action: our guidance on planning your first informational interview

Slides from our ‘Making connections: informational interviews’ workshop

Handout: Informational Interviews

Online presence

Online presence and social media can help you connect with people and be found by others. We highly recommend assessing whether a personal website and/or social media presence would be a valuable time investment for you.

Personal websites

Many academics use a personal website to increase their visibility in the scientific community. This can be helpful for those applying to the academic job market or who want to be reached with potential opportunities e.g. for reviewing papers. You can get some inspiration with these resources:

X (formerly Twitter) or similar social media platforms

There are a number of social media networks that allow you to find and interact informally with scientists who have similar interests. This is particularly useful for academics. Twitter (now called X) was a major hub for scientists, but in recent years, some communities have relocated to Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads and other social media platforms.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a great resource for keeping track of your professional connections and identifying professionals to reach out to for informational interviews – particularly for non-academic careers. LinkedIn can also help you to:

  • join discussion groups for specific career areas
  • research the career paths of people doing a specific type of job
  • get inspiration by finding scientists with a similar background or skills set
  • establish or reinforce a personal brand
  • be visible to recruiters
  • manage your online CV

take action

Take action: our guidance on creating or updating your LinkedIn profile

Handout: Your LinkedIn profile and personal brand

Conferences and sci. events

Conferences and scientific events are usually the main networking activity for academic careers, offering you the opportunity to build a scientific network in your field. For those exploring non-academic careers, the exhibition hall at conferences can be a good place to meet scientists in different roles (e.g. from industry researchers, scientists in sales/applications/business development roles, journal editors). Additionally, there are many other scientific seminars and events at most universities and institutes.

Attending every conference and scientific event is of course not necessary – be strategic and consider your aims. When attending an event,– check out the participant list (if available) and reach out to people in advance, asking them for a timeslot to meet with you;. Make the most of networking opportunities like poster sessions; and create potential interactions after the event (e.g. following them on social media to make future interactions easier).

Resources for conference attendance:

Alumni, peer and sci. networks

Scientific societies organize conferences and other events, and they also offer additional opportunities  for you to interact with professionals who share your interests: you can volunteer to help organise activities and apply for funding to attend meetings (e.g. travel grants). Some scientific societies also provide mentoring programmes. Similarly, there are many scientific networks that you might have access to through your lab, collaborations or funding. For other career areas, there are also professional societies . Where relevant, we include links to these associations in our career exploration resources.

Peer networks – both in-person and online – can be a very valuable way to connect with peers and exchange on common interests. For example, there is a very active Slack-based peer network for aspiring group leaders (Future PI slack | @FuturePI_Slack). The members share advice and, in some cases, even their job application materials. For non-academic careers, there are many LinkedIn groups with a focus on different career areas (e.g. PhD to Consulting) – those we are aware of are linked for each career area in our Career Exploration page.

Alumni networks exist at many institutions and some funders provide a platform and events for current staff and alumni to connect for networking purposes.

Career events

Career events can be very effective for:

  • career exploration, particularly when you have started the process of working out what you want from your career and need inspiration for careers that might match that and to hear how different people have more navigated career transitions.
  • job search preparation i.e. to identify employers currently hiring.
  • expanding your network of professionals working in the companies and career areas that you are interested in.
  • gain practice in articulating your expertise and career aspirations directly to potential employers, enhancing your networking/interviewing skills.

Go to the next stage of career planning: Job search and preparation

Edit