I couldn't help but notice you're interested in biology too!

The other day I had lunch with a good friend who is about to graduate. She is considering both academic postdocs and industry, and to get a toe into industry positions she attended a small local conference/workshop on industry.

She made many useful contacts, although the response was overwhelmingly: **Economy sucks, FDA isn’t approving anything, no one’s hiring. But here, I’ll introduce you to my friend at this other company. Repeat from **

My friend mentioned that she made a real effort to be ingratiating at this workshop, and it paid off; she now has lots of business cards from people who aren’t hiring anybody. We discussed the fact that all successful PIs we know are capable of being friendly and networking at conferences, even though in real life many of them are freaks who appear to look upon humanity with a disturbing lack of interest, or even basic comprehension.

Then my friend said, “All the great PIs just turn it on when they go to a conference, but how come no one ever tells us that we should learn to do that, too?”

This taps into the suggestions Jenny F Scientist made about what else your advisor should teach you besides science. So maybe this should be made explicit, too:

While you may in real life be a grumpy, laser-focused misanthrope, when attending a conference or other opportunity to meet people in your field, put some genuine energy into meeting people, getting interested in what they have to say, and conveying your enthusiasm about your own work, too.

A cynic might read that as: brown-nose, suck up, and self-promote. There’s a fine line. But the word genuine should be a tip-off. If you can’t summon real excitement about science, yours and others’, you are probably in the wrong line of work anyhow. At least that's what I think...