Propelling Careers

In the spirit of continuing with the reflecting theme that we have had over the last few episodes, Jim and Lauren planned this episode to give advice for how to use the holiday “slowdown” to help you as you set goals for 2026 and strategize for how you will accomplish or at least make progress on these.  We hope you find this episode helpfuland we hope you enjoy listening.    Why are we doing this...

Given the holiday season Jim and Lauren put together an episode about giving thanks.   We talk about different ways you could give thanks as well as what we are thankful for. We hope you enjoy listening!.    Why should people focus on giving thanks Advice for how people could give thanks When to give thanks What are we thankful for professionally and personally     Lauren Celano, CEO of Propel Car...

Welcome to Propelling Careers Podcast episode 85. Given the holiday season and the various networking opportunitiesthat come with it, we thought we would do this episode to provide advice for how to network during these various events/activities. We will cover advice for how to connect with your current network and build yours also. We hope youenjoy listening.    Be authentic as you engage with pe...

This episode 84 is a follow up from the last episode, episode 83. In this episode, we share a few more lessons learned during the last few months of recruiting that Lauren has been involved with.  Jim and Lauren hope that you find these two episodes helpful especially if you are in a job search.  We hope you enjoy listening.    Timeline wise - things sometimes move really fast  If you cannot move...

The last few months have been really busy for Lauren with the recruiting work that she does for entrepreneurial  life sciences companies.  In this episode, Jim and Lauren share a few lessons learned over the last few months, to help others who are on the job search (or who are in the process of hiring).  We hope you find the advice in this episode helpful and hope you enjoy listening.    So many a...

This episode focuses on ways to help your network help you especially if you are in a job search. We put this episode together to provide advice to make it easier for people to help you and we cover tips including these below. For many people, this might be their first real job search so they might not have thought about these tips before. Even for seasoned people, this job market is different tha...

In this episode, Jim and Lauren cover tips, including these below, to make mentoring relationships more successful. Jim talks about this topic a lot and Lauren has also covered it in some of her talks. This is a really important topic and we are looking forward to this discussion.  We hope you find the advice in this episode helpful and hope you enjoy listening.    Quit taking it personally (Q-TIP...

This episode will continue from episode 79 to continue to focus on advice on questions Jim and Lauren get often about career readiness, self-advocacy, and how to mentor up. Both episodes 79 and this one, are Inspired by a recent Q&A session Jim had at BCH. We hope you find the advice in this episode helpful and hope you enjoy listening.    How should postdocs handle mismatched expectations bet...

Jim and Lauren both get questions about career readiness, self-advocacy, and how to mentor up. Inspired by a recent Q&A session Jim had at Boston Children’s Hospital, in this episode, we answer the questions from the audience, and other advice to help our listeners. We hope you find the advice in this episode helpful and hope you enjoy listening.  Why Jim was at BCH? Strategies we have found m...

In the last episode, no 77, Jim and I talked about the 2 body problem and reasons why this might occur, and in this episode, we thought we would continue the discussion to talk about how to negotiate if you find yourself in a two body situation.  We cover points such as these below.  We hope you find the advice in this episode helpful and hope you enjoy listening.     From the institutional perspe...

Lauren was in Chicago and Ohio a few weeks ago and the question of the two body problem came up a few times.  Jim and I decided to do this episode to provide insight on the two body problem.  We also cover insights on the academic nomad situation.   of career planning also since this can relate to the two body problem.  We hope you find the advice in this episode helpful as you plan for your caree...

Jim and Lauren both had busy weeks last week as part of national postdoc appreciation week (NAPW) which is the third week in September. In this episode, 76, we will cover topics below including what we talked about, questions from the audience, and other advice to help our audience. We hope you find the advice in this episode helpful and hope you enjoy listening.     What Jim and Lauren were up to...

In this episode, Jim and Lauren cover advice for how to assess opportunities and evaluate job descriptions in terms of how to understand and interpret some of the language in them.  Wording in job descriptions are not there just to fill space. Wording is often carefully chosen to provide information about the organization and role. This can include information about the company stage, growth, cult...

In our last episode, we talked about the steps in the job search process (26…).  To follow up this episode,  Jim and I decided to focus on advice for how to structure your time when you are in a job search in this episode.  We provide advice for people who are currently working and job searching as well as those who are fulltime job searching due to a RIF or other reason.  We will provide tips for...

In this episode, Jim and Lauren outline all of the steps involved in a job search process. There are so many things you need to do if you are job searching and it can beoverwhelming to keep on top of everything. In the next episode we will talk about ways to help organize your schedule to help you be more efficient during the job search process.  We hope you find this advice in this episode andthe...

With so many people impacted by RIF’s (reduction in force, layoffs, etc) we thought we would do this episode to provide advice specifically for people who have been impacted by this.  RIF’s can apply to everyone - people in academia, industry, on-profits, government, etc. We will focus on a few topics in this episode focused on helping plan your job search if you have been impacted by a RIF. We ho...

This episode continues from the last one, episode 70, to add a little more reflection on the last 69 episodes. In the spirit of reflection, we will also share a few thoughts around reflecting on your job search and why this is important to do. We hope you enjoy listening.    Our reflection of the podcast: Our biggest surprises from doing our podcast A few lessons we have learned from doing our pod...

This episode is more of a retrospective of the last 69 episodes.  A few weeks ago, we had our 5,000th play and this got us thinking about doing a retrospective episode, since we have so much content. In this episode, we reflect on a few topic areas of the podcast to help for our listeners as they navigate the many episodes.  In addition to reflecting on the episodes, we also reflect on the themes,...

In this episode , Jim and Lauren cover a range of advice focused on job applications, applicant screening, timing for filing roles, and a few other topics we have been asked recently. We hope you find this discussion helpful covering these points below and we hope you enjoy listening.    How do companies usually process applications? Is it in the order they are received? Or is it something else?  ...

This episode continues from episode 67 and covers a few more pieces of advice relating to interviewing including presentations as well as how to assess culture fit and also how to follow up from interviews. These are really important topics and many of you listening may have similar questions to these points we cover below. We hope you find this helpful and we hope you enjoy listening.  How to con...

In this episode, Jim and Lauren cover advice for interviewing. This is the first of two episodes focusing on interview advice.  Lauren recently gave a talk to postdocs and grad students at Harvard Medical School on interviewing in early June and this episode covers questions received during this talk as well as questions that Jim and Lauren have received during coaching discussions. We cover these...

In this episode, we cover Jim’s recent trip to Louisville Kentucky. He travelled there to give a few career focusedtalks to grad students and postdocs at University of Louisville as part of their CRAFT (Career Research Advancement Focused Training) series for professional and career development. We cover a number of pieces of advice that Jim covered, such as these below. We hope all of you enjoy l...

In this episode, Jim and Lauren talk about a few conferences that Lauren attended / spoke at between June 10th and 23rd 2025 covering these points below.  Lauren was at the Graduate Career Consortium (GCC) conference in Minneapolis MN from June 10-13, The BIO conference in Boston from June 15-18 and the American Society of Microbiology Microbe (ASM) conference in Los Angeles from June 19-23.     W...

In this episode, Jim and Lauren discuss universal pieces of advice, including these below, that apply to everyone,regardless of career focus, functional department, or industry sector. We hope you find this helpful as you navigate your career and search and we hope you enjoy listening!       You should keep an updated resume even if you are not looking for a role since you might need it for other...

In this episode, Jim and Lauren discuss myths that we have heard from people regarding the job application process, application review process, and interview process.  Wedispel these myths, including points below, and share insights about why these myths are not accurate. We hope you find this helpful as you navigate your career and search and we hope you enjoy listening!       Myth: The best-qual...