4 ms·

I've heard of two instances in my social circle of PIs turning on students for no good reason and divebombing their academic / research careers intentionally th

I've heard of two instances in my social circle of PIs turning on students for no good reason and divebombing their academic / research careers intentionally through the reference recommendation system you mentioned. (One ended up in software engineering, which they incidentally picked up while studying their other field). - It is a pretty scary situation to have someone above you with absolute power over your entire career track which you may be a decade in to pursuing. - It's extra scary that the system's incentive structure of can create feedback loops that reward abusive behavior and grow its prevalence. PIs have a certain realm of absolute power -> they can choose to use it to irresponsibly ride others to increase that realm. And there's little downside and possible recourse for the abused. Higher ups see: More awards! More publications! (Wait, where'd those students go...) That said there are lots of good PIs out there doing awesome stuff and treating their teams well. Definitely worth finding ways to get the real scoop on the PI. Former lab members, for example, or anyone outside of the "just don't upset the leader" incentive structure. Makes you appreciate how valuable it is for incentive systems to be tethered to financial reality and for the supply of job-slots to be rapidly responsive to success at creating value. Non-profits and certain pockets of politics are missing some piece of this sort of reality results tether/job-slot responsiveness as well.

Al-Khwarizmi 4y ago
A tip for people who are being harmed by the recommendation letter system: some countries don't use recommendation letters that much. For example, in Spain, many PIs don't ask for recommendation letters at all. Others (like myself) may ask, but only view it as a possible positive signal if the recommender happens to be someone I know personally. But I would never discard a candidate for a lack of recommendation letters if their CV and interview show that they're good. I have never understood why Americans trust those letters so much when they depend mostly on factors that aren't correlated with candidate quality (personal relationship between the candidate and their references, personality of the letter writer that might lead them to be more or less enthusiastic, cultural expectations, even writing skills of the letter writer, etc.) Of course, I'm aware that changing countries is out of the question for many people, but for those who are willing, applying in places where they aren't important can be a way out.
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Al-Khwarizmi 4y ago

A tip for people who are being harmed by the recommendation letter system: some countries don't use recommendation letters that much. For example, in Spain, many PIs don't ask for recommendation letters at all. Others (like myself) may ask, but only view it as a possible positive signal if the recommender happens to be someone I know personally. But I would never discard a candidate for a lack of recommendation letters if their CV and interview show that they're good. I have never understood why Americans trust those letters so much when they depend mostly on factors that aren't correlated with candidate quality (personal relationship between the candidate and their references, personality of the letter writer that might lead them to be more or less enthusiastic, cultural expectations, even writing skills of the letter writer, etc.) Of course, I'm aware that changing countries is out of the question for many people, but for those who are willing, applying in places where they aren't important can be a way out.

deleted 4y ago
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