Of the 97 postdocs interviewed in 2016 and early 2017 for the Research Policy paper, 84 had originally planned to go on to an academic career. At the time of publication, five of those postdocs, or 6%, had in fact landed tenure-track positions, but many of the rest will eventually have to pursue other options, says lead author Christopher Hayter, a higher-education researcher at Arizona State University in Tempe. “It’s shocking when a postdoc at a top research institution can’t find a job in academia,” he says, “but that’s par for the course.”

postdocs can have a hard time competing for non-academic jobs. One potential employer interviewed said that postdocs “have all the academic science skills you don’t need, and none of the organizational skills that you do”.

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