Plus, what to do if your offer is paused and how to manage work anxiety.
Welcome to Career Coach, a column for job seekers and employees navigating the ins and outs of finding, landing and succeeding in jobs in the biotech industry. Each month, Carina Clingman, founder of The Collaboratory Career Hub and host of the “Biotech Career Coach” podcast, answers questions from the community. You can email her questions at hello@collaboratorycareerhub.com.
In this column, we’ll discuss how to handle interviews for two jobs at the same employer, as well as offer guidance for what to do when an employer pauses a job offer or if you’re struggling with anxiety after making the change from academia to industry.
Q: “I have phone interviews for two different positions at the same company coming up next week. I’m particularly interested in one of the roles because it has a higher title and seems to align better with my career goals. How should I communicate this during the interviews?”
CC: Congrats on getting not one but two interviews!
I always recommend keeping an open mind when it comes to job opportunities. Even if a role only marginally interests you, if you have the chance to interview, I’d recommend having the conversation anyway. Sometimes, unexpected opportunities turn out to be the best ones, and a path you never considered might suddenly open to you. Over the years, I’ve seen more than a few candidates end up loving jobs they initially hesitated to interview for.
When asked to interview for two positions, keep an open mind. Meet the hiring managers, chat with the team and ask a lot of questions. You might discover hidden aspects of the job that were not obvious at first glance.
When speaking to the manager or hiring team, maintain enthusiasm for both roles. After gathering all of the necessary information, you can decide which position is a better fit. It will be much easier to communicate your preference to the company when backed up by thoughtful reasoning.
I’d recommend not discussing your preference for one role over another during the interviews to avoid inadvertently closing a door. If you’re asked directly which you prefer, you can demur by saying something like “I’m intrigued by both positions, and I’m enjoying learning about each career path. It seems like I can’t go wrong either way, so I’m gathering as much information as possible to decide which role is the best fit for the team and for my career goals.”
And don’t stress about titles. They can be negotiable. If you’re a great fit except for the title mismatch, HR might be able to adjust the title to better suit your skills. Remember, titles can vary across companies, so stay open-minded.
Q: “I got a verbal offer, but then the board decided they needed to hire someone with a skill that was not listed in the job description. HR just called to say they were pausing my offer in order to interview two candidates put forward by the board. Is this normal? What should I do?”
CC: This is so frustrating and incredibly disheartening, and I’ve been the one to break this awful news to candidates on several occasions.
Unfortunately, pausing offers at this late stage is more common than you’d think. I wouldn’t say it’s “normal,” but it happens often enough that I always recommend candidates keep pushing forward with their job search until an offer has been signed. It’s not over ’til the ink is dry.
First, let’s talk about why this can happen. In your specific case, I know you were interviewing for a fairly senior position, and the requested skill has to do with fundraising, which is of particular interest to the board. In a perfect world, the job description should have been approved by the board if the position is critical to funding and investors. We don’t live in a perfect world, so it seems as if that step was skipped, and the board intervened fairly late in the process.
I should note that paused or canceled offers can happen at any level. In the past few years, many of my clients have instituted hiring freezes when a funding round was not going as planned or as a result of a poor clinical indication. In those cases, we might freeze all recruiting processes, from entry level through the C-suite, for a specific or indeterminate amount of time.
When offers are paused or canceled due to funding issues or a companywide hiring freeze, there’s little candidates can do. But in a case like yours involving a missing skill, you can take action. Being gracious and offering to provide additional materials or documentation to showcase your transferable skills that qualify you may keep you in the running. Providing an additional reference to speak to your skills or transferable skills in this new area can also help.
As you work through any remaining steps with this position, continue with other interviews and applications to keep multiple opportunities alive. You’ll be in a better position to find something else if this role doesn’t work out.
Q: “I’m three months into my first industry job. I did a Ph.D. and a postdoc, and I love my work, but I dread this job! I have so much anxiety, and I feel like people don’t like me or think I’m any good at what I do.”
CC: Without observing the situation firsthand, I don’t know if your worries and fears are real or imagined, but either way, here are some tactics to take control of your work happiness.
First, document and/or journal about specific incidents that are causing you discomfort, whether it’s interactions with colleagues, misaligned expectations or feeling unprepared for certain tasks. Use this documentation as a foundation for collecting your thoughts.
I personally use the ABCDE Model, developed by Albert Ellis, Ph.D., to process emotions and separate facts from perceptions. This framework involves identifying the activating event (A), beliefs (B) and consequences (C), disputing irrational beliefs (D) and developing new effective beliefs (E).
Now that you have your thoughts organized, if you have a weekly meeting cadence with your supervisor, bring your concerns to that conversation. If you don’t have a weekly meeting, set one up! Good managers will help you craft a plan to gain both confidence and competence in your role.
The reality is that academic environments don’t always require or encourage the same goal-oriented conversations you’ll need to have in a corporate position. Learning to navigate those critical (and often stressful) conversations with your manager and colleagues is vital for your professional growth and workplace well-being.
If, in the end, you’ve tried all of the above and still feel unhappy or psychologically unsafe in your role, consider changing jobs. Not every work environment will be a great fit for you, and that’s OK.
Carina Clingman, Ph.D., is the founder of The Collaboratory Career Hub, an online community for people interested in working in biotech. She’s also the founder and CEO of Recruitomics Consulting, which specializes in talent acquisition and talent strategy for startup biotechs. Listen to her new “Biotech Career Coach” podcast, learn about joining the career hub or send questions to hello@collaboratorycareerhub.com.
