Advertisements for myself...

...is a terrible book by Norman Mailer, but one you should read to so you know what sort of buffoon he was.

Speaking of advertisements, I am in the process of writing my first advertisement for a post-doctoral researcher, and it is feels kind of weird, for two reasons. First of all, I have never written one of these before.

More importantly, I do not think I have ever read one, either.

Let me explain. In science, the heavy hitters¹ all get their post-docs by audition, not by recruiting. They always have more applicants than they have money/space/projects so they are actively turning people away, not advertising. Occasionally, a letter will be passed between heavy hitters with a brief project description attached to it, basically to find someone with a specific skill set, e.g. scientist A has an idea that requires expertise in area B, so he contacts people working in area B for some informal recruiting. But in general, the heavy hitters, who I have worked for all of my career, don't advertise, and thus I didn't get my previous jobs replying to ads, and thus I don't exactly know how to write the ad. Luckily, I have a model to work from for another scientist at the University.

That said, I really want to open it with the line, "Mad scientist seeks hunchback..."

1) As a working definition, a heavy hitter is a scientist in academia or a gov't lab that manages more than $1 million in grants at a time.