Sharks Don’t Sink

Jasmin Graham Pantheon (2024)

Burnt out by a ”toxic, white, male-dominated publish-or-perish environment”, tired of being left to clean up rooms after a meeting and talked to as though she was lazy, Jasmin Graham quit academia in December 2019. Scrolling through Twitter (now X) one day in 2020 — during the pandemic and at the time of the Black Lives Matter protests — Graham found photographs of Carlee Jackson-Bohannon, like her, a Black woman and shark scientist. The pair connected and then two more Black women, who were also marine biologists, got in touch and a movement was born — Minorities in Shark Sciences (MISS). This part family memoir, part manifesto charts Graham’s love of sharks — comparing their struggle to survive and thrive with the challenges faced by Black women in science. As an independent scientist without a PhD, Graham cannot apply for grants that are earmarked for projects led by people with a doctorate, and her first summer of going “rogue” with no academic affiliation, involved “hustling for funding and boat time”. Graham used some grant money to erect a prefabricated one-person laboratory, her science shed, in her backyard. In doing this and building her MISS network, Graham creates her own research study group and finds her place, realizing that she doesn’t miss the prestige, routine and rigour of the academic career track.

The Algorithm

Hilke Schellmann Hachette Books (2024)

Nature’s 2024 survey of hiring managers in science suggests that artificial intelligence (AI) is yet to transform recruitment, although almost half of industry hirers report using the tools either to design interview questions or to screen and manage applications. Overall, 25% of respondents across academia, industry and other sectors worry about applicants using AI for writing their cover letters and CVs.

But as Schellmann’s book suggests, AI is set to revolutionize the workplace — but the potential for misuse is huge. Although most warnings about AI and work are about humans being replaced by robots, Schellmann, who is an investigative journalist, predicts that AI will become like an evil and unaccountable human-resources director: screening CVs; conducting interviews; and spying on employees. For example, if a student writes a negative review of a lecturer, AI could pick that up and use it against the teacher. AI is not immune to bias, and a biased algorithm that is used on a large-scale “making high-stakes decisions, including hiring, is one of the most important civil rights issues of our time”, Schellmann warns.

The Future-Proof Career

Isabel Berwick Pavilion (2024)

This book, by the host of the Financial Times’s ‘Working It’ podcast and weekly newsletter, looks at the human side of work and getting on with people. It’s divided into two sections, one for employees, which includes advice on dealing with toxic managers and the post-pandemic workplace, and a section for managers that covers, among other things, poor communication, micromanagement and bullying. Berwick advises employees who are seeking a pay rise to create a narrative for why they should get more money and back it up with data.

In April, at a launch event for her book at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Berwick said: “Treat any pay negotiation as an adult–adult scenario. Too often we get trapped in dynamics where we feel we’re the child and our boss is an adult and that infantilizes us. We get nervous.” She adds: “We have a perfect right to ask for more money. Decouple your sense of worth from what you’re paid. Bosses can make you feel bad for asking.” Berwick says pay-rise negotiations are often about more than money, and instead of getting a rise you might get useful training, an interesting secondment or a better job title.

Leaving Academia

Emma Williams Intellectual Perspective (2024)

Emma Williams, a medical physicist turned professional trainer and coach, aims her latest book at postdocs (which she defines as someone working on a fixed-term contract on a project that someone else got the money for) who want to leave academia but aren’t yet ready to take the plunge. The book is split into three parts: the first looks at your working life as it is now, including the sobering reminder that an average career swallows up 80,000 hours. Section two focuses on getting ready to make the leap into the unknown and thinking about your strengths and values — and how courageous you are.

Williams advises you to curate a network of people — some you might already know, some you might not. Ask them for advice, don’t beg or plead, respect their time and never directly ask for a job in your introductory e-mail. She also urges you to stop looking like a postdoc by rewriting your CV so that it focuses on your skills, rather than grants. When the time comes to tell your principal investigator (PI) you’re leaving academia, William urges tact, saying: “Be mindful you are choosing a career course your PI has not; try not to malign their career.” The final section looks at post-postdoc life. You’ve got the new job — so what now? Williams gives advice on how not to create a new comfort blanket after abandoning the “itchy scratchy” one that cocooned you in academia. Have monthly check-ins with your new boss, to ensure you’re on the right track. Look at others in your industry — where are they and how did they get there?

Over Work

Brigid Schulte Henry Holt (2024)

It’s not you, it’s the system, is the message of this book. If you’re feeling burnt out you can try deep breathing and yoga, but that’s only tackling the symptoms and not the causes. Brigid Schulte, gender equity advocate and director of the Better Life Lab at New America, a think tank in Washington DC, investigates the reasons for toxic workplaces — lack of employee representation, profits over people, weak labour laws — and what can be done to fix them.