4. "The Research Hustle"

One of the things I love about research is that surge of frenetic energy you feel by constantly looking for an opportunity. Trying to do that one extra thing that will set you apart from all the other talented researchers. In this week’s blog I focus on ‘The Research Hustle,’ how to harness it's power and conquer it!

My Experience:

‘The Research Hustle’ does not refer to a dance move or the recent (2019) movie starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson. It is the important quality of constantly looking for opportunities to demonstrate your expertise in the six skills by which researchers are constantly judged (publishing outputs; attracting grant funding; presenting findings at conferences; collaborations; completing research services and teaching/supervising students), outlined in ‘The Academic Playbook’.

No matter what level of researcher you are, you should always be pursuing publications, grant funding and new collaboration opportunities. However, junior researchers are unlikely to have a high number of any of these measurable outputs. Plus as a junior researcher you aren’t really sought out for many, if any, collaboration opportunities.

So you need to find other ways to stand out.

As a junior researcher, I focused on completing as many research services as I could. For example, reviewing journal articles and organising events for local special interest groups, allowed me to refine some of my research skills, interact with new people / researchers, familiarise myself with the current literature, and add many much needed lines to my CV without a lot of time investment. These activities might take a few hours to complete compared with the months (and sometimes years) to get one manuscript published!

Your place in 'The Academic Hierarchy' and career stage will determine which skills you should focus on right now. But in short, if you have an opportunity to demonstrate a research skill that you have not previously demonstrated, do it!

There are two purposes to ‘The Research Hustle’:

1. To fill any skill set holes on your CV. If you can minimise and eventually eradicate all the skill shortages, you will maximise your chances of funding success.

2. To become a better and more well-rounded researcher.

At this stage it is natural to think, what research skills do I need to develop? In the next section, I will tell you how to pick these skills.

The Lessons:

• Be a hustler!!

All the best researchers are.

• If you are unsure what skills you need to develop, create a CV skill summary.

The skill summary is a way to visualise the skills you clearly demonstrate in your CV.

Get a piece of paper, and list all the research skills I mentioned in ‘The Academic Playbook’ and add any others I have missed (then email me and let me know so I can update the blog).

Then get out your CV, and tick the skills you have demonstrated on your CV. Whenever I have done this exercise, I always have to update my CV as I have forgotten to add a whole bunch of skills / publications / talks etc. So if you are the same as me, go update your CV.

When you have finished your skill summary (and updated your CV), focus on the columns / skills that are not ticked. Can you do something to get a tick in those columns? For example, if you have never peer-reviewed a journal article maybe ask your supervisor, or any senior academics you trust, if you can co-review the next paper they are asked to peer-review, or ask them to talk you through their process of how they review a paper. In the future, they may then nominate you to review an article on their behalf.

Also, show your CV to a senior academic you trust and ask them what skills you should develop. If they know what skills you want to acquire, they may look out for these opportunities for you.

• Always be on the lookout for a research opportunity.

As a PhD student, I once arrived at a talk early and sat quietly waiting for it to begin. I started speaking to a man who was also there early, and we had the standard conversation introducing ourselves and our research interests. He was actually the invited speaker that day. After we finished chatting, he suggested I email him. I did and in a couple of emails I set up my first international collaboration!

Just. Like. That. Just by turning up early to a talk!

In the interests of full disclosure I should admit the collaboration was not productive. I conducted some data analyses and interpretations for him, but we didn’t get a publication out. This is the nature of research, not every opportunity will result in an output, and that’s OK. There was always the possibility we would work together on another project in the future.

• At each research-related event you attend, get the contact details of at least two people you didn’t know before that event.

Research is a small world, you never know where these opportunities will lead.

At a different talk in Sydney, a few years later as a postdoc, I met a different man and we started chatting about our research interests and our love of health data. It turned out, he was the Co-founder and CEO of a start up business providing insights from pharmaceutical data to pharmaceutical companies. This was how I was introduced to the startup world, and he became my boss a few months later…..

What are your top tips for harnessing the power of the research hustle? Please let me know by posting a comment or emailing me.

BB

Photo by Billy Huynh on Unsplash

Related blogs

'The Academic Hierarchy'

'The Academic Playbook'

I will write a new post every Friday about another aspect of the research world. Please email me to subscribe to my blog. AuthenticResearchExperiences@gmail.com

I am also an avid reader of start-up stories, or research a passionate person has embarked upon across all topics. Click here if you want some new book recommendations.