Toxic labs: how to spot them during the interview or afterwards.

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Toxic labs: how to spot them during the interview or afterwards.

Рет қаралды 3,614

Күн бұрын

How do you find out if a lab or PI is toxic? Toxic labs are bad places to work, so it is important to know how you could spot one so you don't find yourself in one of these situations. This videos talks about what you can do during the interview and afterwards.
The video received excellent input from people on twitter/ mastodon. Thanks to all who helped by sharing their tips and experiences!
The first video about toxic labs talks about what they are and why you should avoid them: • Toxic labs: what are t...
The third video talks about what to do if you are in a toxic lab: • Toxic labs: what to do...
0:00 During the interview
1:22 Follow-up visit or online meeting
3:30 Spending some time in the lab (internship)
4:03 Ask people about the lab (your current PI or colleagues; current or past lab members; people in neighboring labs)
6:47 Your own research
8:04 If you do all this, you have done everything you can; and it's worth it!
#phdlife #phd #postdoc #toxicworkenvironment #toxicworkplace #toxic #academia #academicsuccess #interview #interviewtips #phdadvice
Matthias Rillig, professor of ecology at Freie Universität Berlin, talks about life in academia.
Interested in our lab? visit rilliglab.org.
Follow on twitter for life in academia content: @AcademLife
Follow on twitter for ecology content: @mrillig
Find me on mastodon: @mrillig@mastodon.online
LinkedIn: / rillig
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Пікірлер: 25

@mrillig Жыл бұрын

This is the second part of the mini-series on toxic labs, dealing with how to spot these workplaces during or after the interview. As always, please let me know in the comments what you think and if you have any other points to add! Thanks! This video has profited a lot from input I received on twitter/mastodon. Interested in the first part? you can find it here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jLuIrZx2r7OlkqM.html

@evgeniabednaya2106 Жыл бұрын

Excellent! I didn't do any of these and neither trusted my gut feeling, so ended up in a very toxic lab after previous lucky experiences with only nice and supportive labs. Sadly, I was not alone and met a lot of undergrads, PhD, and postdocs sharing similar experience. Since then, I've became a "non-toxic lab advocate" and a mentor, helping academics in their future lab search.

@mrillig Жыл бұрын

Thank you! Glad you could turn it into something positive in the end, for you and for others!

@PadmanabanMohanan Жыл бұрын

This is so good!

@user-dr3zk1mw4i 2 ай бұрын

Love this channel! Thank you so much for everything! ✨🌷 This felt like getting advice from someone who really cares. Thanks again.

@mrillig 2 ай бұрын

Thanks so much!!

@Cristopherus Жыл бұрын

Thanks for this video! It is very timely as I'll have a postdoc interview next week. 😊

@mrillig Жыл бұрын

Thanks; and good luck with the interview!

@oklu_ 9 ай бұрын

If only I could have seen videos like this before I start my PhD journey. I'm with toxic PI who is a extreme narcissist, has zero interest in his students, just all-time being maniac about his childish persona. Glad that I persieted and graduated with my PhD. I'm currently struggling to get out of this environment and find a postdoctoral position that is non-toxic and at least normal! Thank you so much for your video!

@mrillig 9 ай бұрын

Thanks so much for writing, and I am glad you found the video useful, at least as much as it can be at this point. I am sorry you had to go through this experience, and I hope you will have a better experience with your postdoc.

@adi_5fq3c Жыл бұрын

I wish I had seen something similar to your Toxic Lab playlist before starting graduate school. Now, I've changed my lab to get away from my toxic labmates and lab culture. It was extremely difficult and messy to quit.

@mrillig Жыл бұрын

Sorry you had to go through this. I am sure getting out of situations like this is messy and very challenging. I hope things work out for you now!

@michelechirichella8368 11 ай бұрын

Hi and good morning. I have a PhD, done my first postdoc and currently doing the second one. I thoroughly appreciated your video. I just have one thought in mind. This kind of behaviour from PIs should be criminalised and pointed out as the problem, rather than advising the students how not to pick the worng group. This kind of speech is similar to what women have to hear all the time when they get raped. They should have dressed better? Not really. So, I think that the Academic community should really start stop tolerating this kind of behaviour, as this is a misconduct punishable by law. I would really like to see people from Academia speaking up against PIs and schooling them about what they should do, rather than helping students to avoid some type of lab that we know exists and will always exist. Anyway, I truly liked the video and I think it is really useful and my comment is not intended as a criticisms against yourself.

@mrillig 11 ай бұрын

Hi, thanks for writing. I agree with your sentiment completely. To be sure, some types of behavior are illegal and therefore can do lead to dismissal from a job (probably too rarely), but it is just not punishable by law to be a jerk...for this we need other mechanism of 'punishment' or academic disincentives that would need to be instituted with very clear guidelines. I think that's very possible. It would need a bit of an institutional paradigm shift away from just valuing bringing in grant money and publishing high-impact papers. These things are easy to quantify, mean income to the institution, and are thus popular, while being a decent human is more complicated to measure.

@camaralrecords Жыл бұрын

Great video!!! As a black and Latin woman, I am very afraid of starting in a toxic Lab, with prejudiced people and community 😢

@mrillig Жыл бұрын

Thank you. I hope you find a great lab...hopefully the video will help you sort out some of the bad apples!

@eduardoduarte1968 Жыл бұрын

Extremely helpful. I wish I saw this video earlier.

@mrillig Жыл бұрын

Thank you, glad you found this useful!

@austinfrewert4872 Жыл бұрын

Thank you for making this video, it is very helpful. Is there any potential for another video that covers what do to if you’ve found yourself in a toxic lab? Topics such as switching labs, leaving a lab, getting help from graduate student unions, and reporting toxic behavior to the university as well as the potential impacts these actions may have would be helpful. Thank you again for your videos. Cheers

@mrillig Жыл бұрын

Thank you; and thanks for the suggestion. I am preparing such a video, and collecting notes on it.

@austinfrewert4872 Жыл бұрын

@@mrillig wonderful, I’m looking forward to it.