When I came to look for employment, all the advertised jobs required a number of years of formal experience, and I began to despair of finding a job that I actually wanted to do!
There has been a belief at Stanford that hiring a postdoc is a matter between the postdoc and the hiring faculty member. It has been thought of as an individual relationship and has had few rules and regulations.
A shortage of mentoring, insufficient project planning, no feedback, and poor contact with the promoter are just some of the hurdles that young researchers are facing at universities.
The Council of Postdoctoral Scholars has made great strides within a very short period of time. We provide a needed conduit between UC administration, faculty, and postdocs.