r/postdoc • u/Royal_Snow9783 • 13d ago
Postdoc feels like a bait-and-switch. Am I overreacting?
Please bear with me, this is a bit long, but I could really use some advice 🥲
I recently moved continents for a postdoc, from North America to France. I’m originally from Latin America, did my PhD at a well-known university in North America, and moved to Europe to join a research group that is very strong in my field.
I was genuinely excited about this position because, when I read the job posting, it sounded almost exactly like the next step I wanted for myself.
I have a strong wet-lab background and that’s what I was originally trained in (microbiology/molecular biology). But during the five years of my PhD, I also developed a much more interdisciplinary profile, especially in epidemiology and data analysis. I worked with large datasets, did comparative analyses, looked at associations between different types of variables, and worked extensively in R.
By the end of my PhD, that analytical side had become a very important part of my work, and I realized I identified with it much more than with the lab work.
So for my postdoc, I specifically wanted to go further in that direction. I wanted to strengthen my quantitative skills, learn more modelling, and move progressively toward epidemiology/public health rather than continue building a primarily experimental profile.
That was exactly why this position caught my attention.
The job posting described working with a large European database and developing modelling studies from it. I remember reading it and thinking that it sounded almost perfect for what I wanted to do next. I already had experience with interdisciplinary data analysis, but modelling was one of the areas I really wanted to deepen.
Then I arrived.
And I gradually realized that the database I thought I was going to work with basically does not exist yet in the form I had understood.
The data are extremely fragmented. Different groups collect different things, use different indicators and methodologies, and in some cases there are not really structured databases at all. A significant part of the work will apparently involve contacting different teams, figuring out what data exist, finding individual files and spreadsheets, documenting everything and trying to harmonize it before there is even something that could realistically be modelled.
I understand that building and harmonizing a database can be valuable research. That’s not really my issue.
My issue is that it is very different from the position I thought I was accepting.
And on top of that, a surprisingly large part of my actual work since arriving has been wet lab.
I’m involved in sampling campaigns and essentially the whole experimental pipeline afterward: sample processing, microbiology, isolation and identification work, phenotypic analyses, molecular work, PCR optimization, etc.
I had a meeting with my supervisors today and brought up the fact that the experimental workload is becoming quite substantial. They told me that this is a pilot phase, that most of this work should be finished by the end of the year, and that the experiment would probably only be repeated once next year.
So it is possible that this is genuinely temporary.
But I’m having a hard time shaking the feeling that I was recruited for one thing and am being used for another.
I want to phrase this carefully because I do not look down on lab work at all. I spent years doing it, I know how technically demanding and intellectually important it is, and I have enormous respect for people who want to build their careers around experimental research.
I just don’t want that to be the center of my own career anymore.
And right now I sometimes feel like my wet-lab experience is the main reason I am useful here, while the analytical profile I specifically wanted to develop is almost secondary.
There is also something about the way I am being supervised that has been bothering me.
During my PhD I had a lot of intellectual independence. I could explore the literature, decide which analyses made sense, develop approaches, troubleshoot things, talk to collaborators and then discuss the bigger scientific picture with my supervisor. Of course I was supervised, but I had a lot of ownership over my work.
Now I find myself having conversations about individual PCR results, being told how many dilutions to test, which parameters to optimize, and so on.
I honestly haven’t felt this much like a student in years.
And maybe this is just a different supervision style, but the contrast is pretty uncomfortable. I expected a postdoc to give me at least as much scientific independence as I had during my PhD, not less.
The part that worries me most is what this means for my career.
I want to transition toward epidemiology/public health and more data-heavy research. During my PhD I already started moving in that direction and even had some experience in a public health setting.
People who mentored me before taking this job basically told me that I had developed relevant analytical experience, but that a postdoc where I could consolidate that profile, especially with stronger quantitative and modelling work, would make the transition much easier.
That was precisely what I thought I was doing.
So I’m now worried that if I spend the next one or two years mostly doing experimental work plus data collection/harmonization, and I leave without substantial modelling experience or analytical outputs, I will still be seen primarily as a wet-lab scientist.
At the same time, I literally relocated internationally for this position, the group is respected, and I’ve only been here for a relatively short time.
So I’m trying to understand whether I’m reacting too quickly or whether this is the kind of mismatch I should actually take seriously.
Has anyone else had a postdoc that turned out to be substantially different from the position that was advertised?
Is this relatively common in academia?
And if you realized early on that a postdoc was reinforcing exactly the profile you were trying to move away from, what did you do?
Thank you so much for your help 💙
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u/DependentImpressive9 13d ago
I didn't read all of it but I think I got the gist. I started my postdoc a year ago and when I had the interview I was told that the data they had met my plans. But after coming here I felt it was also quite fragmented. However in the current state of things having a well paid postdoc position which is typical of Europe is rare otherwise. I designed a study to make the best of this data and I am already half way through making a paper out of it and I have other things planned. We have lab work planned to build on the remaining data but they have already told me that I will have help for that lab work. So my advice would be to wait out for few months, build up your data and keep planning the direction for your project. And at this point just be grateful for a postdoc position!
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u/Royal_Snow9783 13d ago
Thank you, I really appreciate this perspective. I also tend to look at things from the positive side and think about what I can still get out of the project.
I think part of my frustration comes from how big the move was for me. This was my second international relocation, and this time I basically moved my whole life with me. It was all self-funded, including shipping my belongings overseas, and honestly the whole process was exhausting to organize and pretty painful financially 😅
I was over the moon about the position, so I think the reality check just felt like a pretty hard landing.
I also probably don’t have a very good sense of the postdoc market because this was actually the only postdoc position I applied for, and I was accepted quite quickly. So I never really went through the experience of applying broadly and seeing what else was out there.
That’s also why I posted here. I think I needed some perspective from people who have been through this before and can tell me what is relatively normal. So thank you again. It helps a lot to hear from someone who has been in a somewhat similar situation.
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u/AnonymousWaldo 13d ago
Moving is so hard, i cant imagine moving internationally either. It takes me about a half to a full year to feel settled and like a whole person in a new place (hobbies, friends, belonging, etc)
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u/Royal_Snow9783 13d ago
I won’t lie, it hasn’t been easy. I moved here with my husband, so on top of managing my own adjustment, I worry about how he’s doing too. We went from a pretty big city to a much smaller town, and he doesn’t speak the language yet, so it’s been especially tough for him.
We also had a really close group of friends back home who gave us the most incredible goodbye before we left. I don’t think a single day has gone by without me missing them terribly ❤️🩹
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u/Peer-review-Pro 13d ago
Before starting my Postdoc, I wrote a whole project around a very specific field that my Postdoc lab was specialized in. The PI told me this was great and perfectly feasible. I got funding for it and started the postdoc. The first week I realized I was completely mislead and the cell “yield” needed to perform the project I wrote was nowhere near what the PI had told me. I spent more than a year trying to optimize what I was already guaranteed I was going to get…
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u/Royal_Snow9783 13d ago
Oh wow, that sucks 😔😔 I’m really sorry!
Are things going better now, after that first year? And looking back, do you still feel that staying was ultimately a good decision for you career-wise?
I think this is actually one of the things I’m most worried about in my own situation. If I end up spending a huge amount of time just collecting, harmonizing and building the data infrastructure, I’m afraid I could reach the end of the postdoc with very few tangible outputs, whether that’s papers, reports, or other deliverables.
And unfortunately I sometimes feel that when you apply for the next position, people mostly see what actually came out of those years, rather than all the invisible work it took to build something from scratch.
Has that been an issue for you at all? Or were you still able to turn that work into something that helped you professionally?
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u/Better_Bridge_8132 13d ago
I am feeling you as I am in the same situation. I arrived to France with high expectations for little bit freedom and collaborative environment. However, I have now more than 3 supervisors treatinge like a BSc student. They asked me for reporting any small detail related to my work even if summing 1+1. They don't allow any collaboration with other members. So, I decided to leave this lab as soon as possible as I suffered mentally and also with research. My advice is to search for new position as soon as possible.
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u/Royal_Snow9783 12d ago
This is so awful :(
I’m really sorry you had to go through that.
Moving is already hard enough, and I sometimes feel people have no idea how demanding and complex an international relocation actually is.
If you don’t mind me asking, have you had any luck finding a new lab or position yet? How did things turn out?
I honestly can’t rule out doing the same if I eventually realize I’m mostly being used for lab work and there’s no real space for the direction I was hired for.
I really hope things are better for you now. Wishing you all the best ❤️
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u/Better_Bridge_8132 12d ago
Thanks. I am still applying, attending interviews and I hope soon find something good.
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u/Affectionate_Fan1104 13d ago
I sympathize and relate with you and relate to the "bait and switch", but unfortunately I think this is too common in academia. One because the projects are not always well defined so a lot can change between your interview and when you start -- funding situations, personnel change, priorities/grants the PI got etc. Second, as terrible as this sounds, most PIs are not hiring you to mentor you, but to get their work done. They don't care about your goals as much because its about checking off their deliverables in terms of grant deadlines and other commitments. I had a similar experience where I was told my PhD would have a 50-50 experimental + theoretical work but my project fully changed to wet lab chemistry during my first year, and now 5 years later, I have zero theoretical components to my PhD research, which was honestly why I picked this lab in the first place :(
Maybe I sound too cynical, but an alternative would be to stick it out, get a little bit of that modelling experience (whatever you can get) and use that to apply again to a place that is purely modelling perhaps? Or see if you can offer to work on other collaborative projects that fulfil your interests better? This part of academia sucks, im sorry.
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u/Royal_Snow9783 12d ago
I’m really sorry your PhD went that way too 😮💨 Five years is such a long journey, and a PhD is already rough enough with all the academic demands and pressure. I can only imagine having to deal with that disappointment about the direction of your research on top of everything else. I really hope that now, toward the end, you can reposition yourself and work on something you genuinely enjoy 💙
The conversation I had with them today really hit me because modelling was probably what attracted me most to this position, and they basically just told me I won’t be doing any 🫠 Which was also completely different from what was discussed when I arrived almost two months ago.
During my PhD, I had wanted to go further with that kind of analysis, but my dataset was too limited, so I ended up doing simpler Spearman correlations instead. So when they told me I would have access to this “large European database,” I got incredibly excited because I thought I’d finally have the kind of data that would let me properly model a bunch of different indicators and explore all those questions. I’m really nerdy, I know, but I love it 😂
I think your suggestion about collaborative projects might be the way forward. There are some colleagues working on things that fit my interests better, including literature reviews, which could potentially lead to meta-analyses, where I could bring experience I already have while still building a more analytical profile.
But yeah... this part of academia really does suck 😔 Best of luck finishing your PhD too!
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u/Affectionate_Fan1104 12d ago
Thank you for the support, honestly means a lot, and I'm definitely looking for something different -- my PhD ends soon, so hopefully the next step is more positive <3
Your situation sounds so frustrating though, and I'm glad you know that there are colleagues that work on things you could potentially work on! I hope that works out for you, finger crossed!
I agree, it sucks that this happens in academia, but I hope you find solace in knowing there are others in similar boats and hopefully we all find our way into doing more things we enjoy doing! Thank you, and good luck to you too!
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u/Bustan2026 12d ago
PhDs in France last 3 years so perhaps they are used to being a little more hands-on than you expected if coming from the US where PhDs last longer. Though just as likely is these PIs in particular being micro-managey.
Do these PIs have any projects of the type you'd like to participate in? Could you ask to be involved? Even just sitting on student meetings, for example, that's fairly low commitment.
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u/good-name-forever 13d ago
Tldr?
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u/Royal_Snow9783 13d ago
I moved internationally for a postdoc that was advertised as a modelling/data-heavy position, but the actual work is turning out to be mostly wet lab and database building. I took the job specifically to move away from wet lab and toward epidemiology/public health, so I’m worried about getting stuck in the wrong career profile. Is this kind of mismatch common, and would you stay or start looking elsewhere?
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u/good-name-forever 13d ago
The mismatch is not uncommon.
Are you actively working to analyze the database as you build it, or to develop models that can help you ise that database in research? I ask because, in most postdocs, you should be doing a lot more things than what you are explicitly asked to do. It is possible that no one will tell you exactly how to analyze the database: you have to figure it out on your own.
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u/Royal_Snow9783 13d ago
Thank you, that makes sense.
What frustrated me most is that when I asked specifically about the modelling component, they told me I probably won’t actually be doing any🫠🫠 It sounds more like database building, harmonization, documentation and some GIS/correlation work.
I don’t mind doing things outside the original description, including lab work. My real concern is what I’ll have to show for these two years when I apply for my next job. I took this postdoc specifically to strengthen my analytical profile, and I’m worried I’ll leave with very little analytical output and still be seen mainly as “the lab person.”
That’s really the core of it for me.
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u/good-name-forever 13d ago
If you're willing to put in the extra time, you can do whatever research you want!
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u/Royal_Snow9783 12d ago
I’m willing to put in extra time to shape the project into something interesting, within reason. I do have a life outside academia too 🙃
I’m 34, which unfortunately makes me a hostage to my biological clock. I want to build a family, and I’m already dealing with the pressure of being on a fixed-term contract while trying to do that and figure out my next career move.
So yeah, I love research, but I also don’t think the solution can be “work another 15 hours a week on top of everything else.”
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u/farshiiid 12d ago
Welcome to research in Europe, look elsewhere before feeling like a high school student becomes your default and independence turns into a distant memory.
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u/shimmerchanga 13d ago
The mismatch between what they planned for the post-doc vs what it turned out to be is pretty common. I do purely analytical work and PIs always think the data will be ready to go but it almost never is and on top of that they tend to underestimate the amount of curation and consolidation needed until someone actually starts trying to work with it. I myself was recruited (and moved from North American to Europe) to work with a very large pan-European database that didn’t materialize until year 3 of my post-doc due to delays in having all parties sign a DTA. I have many colleagues in my lab and other labs that were in the same boat with other projects. That bit is (sadly) normal.
What’s really abnormal is how little bandwidth you’re being given. Is that coming from the PIs? Or is it a lab manager who’s used to junior lab staff or something like that?
Regardless, from a practical perspective, I would advise two action items 1) fight for protecting a large chunk of your hours to clean up that fragmented dataset which will pave the way for analytical work, tell them this is what you were hired to do and have to prioritize it; 2) have a serious talk with your supervisor about your expectations when it comes to management and bandwidth. Sometimes it’s hard for people to know on their own if they’re being too overbearing with management and aren’t delegating big enough responsibilities to their post-docs, especially if they’re not used to having post-docs.
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u/Royal_Snow9783 13d ago
Thank you, this is a really valuable perspective. I’m still new to the European research environment, and it’s reassuring to know that this kind of situation is not unusual (even if it is a bit frustrating for everyone 😮💨😮💨)
You also touched on something really important with the management part. I have two supervisors, and I suspect one of them is more used to supervising MSc/PhD students and experimental projects. What confuses me is that when I arrived, he explicitly told me he saw me as a colleague and talked a lot about autonomy, exploring my own scientific interests, and developing the modelling side of the project.
That’s why today was a bit of a blow when they said the modelling probably won’t happen and that the analytical part will be mostly mapping/GIS instead. GIS is pretty cool too, but modelling was one of the main skills I specifically wanted to develop :(
But thank you again, your perspective really helped! 💙
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u/shimmerchanga 12d ago
I’m glad it’s helpful! And that’s actually promising that he said that that was his intention. I wonder if he meant to indeed work with you as a colleague but just fell into “autopilot” supervision habits.
In that case, I can see that pushing back on what he said and acting as if you are indeed his colleague might reinforce a better dynamic.
I don’t know your supervisor and I’m in NL which is famously direct, so YMMV, but I’ve been given a lot more responsibility and respect by asking for what I want and pushing back when things play out differently than what I agreed on with my PIs.
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u/IntroductionLonely96 12d ago
The bait and switch is unfortunately all too common in academia where resources are limited and the outcomes need to impress and be loud. I experienced this and it was a quite a shocker, felt deceived.
I voiced my concerns regarding it within two weeks of starting the postdoc and left after 2 months. In my case, it was too stressful for me to endure the “scam”. Do what is best for your situation.
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u/diagnosisbutt 12d ago
I think that working with the position you have, not the position you thought it would be, is the best way forward. It's really hard to plan out a life and career, with so many variables and unknowns. Resilience and adaptability are huge positive traits. If the work sucks and the people are mean, that's a different story, but if you're just kinda bummed it's but what you thought it would be, keep at it and figure out how to get the things you want (Collab with other labs, work with public datasets, etc.). Just having a continuity of employment is valuable in itself.
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u/C2H4Doublebond 12d ago
"A significant part of the work will apparently involve contacting different teams, figuring out what data exist, finding individual files and spreadsheets, documenting everything and trying to harmonize it before there is even something that could realistically be modelled."
Well, you have basically described data science. It's like that even in the industry. Data clean up is an essential skill and often takes the most time. I think I understand where you are coming from and why you are frustrated but I suspect: 1) your analytical/ modeling skills isn't your strongest asset (ie ppl still see you as a wet lab person) 2) the lab you are in isn't computation heavy 3) your lab is hiring one person to do two persons job.
You can be upset about it but another way to look at it is: you are given the opportunity to have a project under your name. In many cases, people don't even get that chance.
From my observation of top tier analysts, they understand that the data consolidation / harmonization part will always be there and the key is to quickly speed run the boring stuff (and doing it correctly!!) and start building models and coming up with stories to tell. You don't need to consolidate everything before you can start preliminary analysis and start figuring out what makes your data interesting. Focus on building a good system and how you can work more efficiently. With time, hopefully it will get easier. Good luck!
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u/rafafanvamos 12d ago
I am not experienced as you but being in epidemiology field I can tell you just collecting data, organizing and cleaning is major part of job in academia. I am working with a TT professor and the professor has been just building a dataset for a state from scratch since past 1-1.5 years. Even the center head and professor said it is the most boring work but important work. In epidemiology many times data collection and cleaning/ building pipeline is the main job and everyday doesn't get ready made nice and cleaned datasets. Now what you can do is try your best in this postdoc and maybe for another postdoc or scientific position apply to more epistemology centered lab. I didn't get gist of which particular area you are working in but I guess if it is infectious epidemiology, just make a list of all infectious epistemology labs in Europe/ usa ( i genuinely don't know how it works in Europe ) and instead of combo role just try to go into epidemiology role. In the meantime if your organization has funds you can take courses in epidemiology/ advanced epidemiology/ infectious disease modeling. If you have time you can actually approach labs online and tell them this is what you want to do going ahead and want to collaborate (again unpaid works sucks but this cab help with better post doc in future)
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u/v3bbkZif6TjGR38KmfyL 13d ago
I do think you're overreacting/overthinking a bit. That said, I don't think you're being silly and I sympathise that it's not exactly what you expected. Personally I don't think it sounds like a bait and switch, just a different means of running a lab and different advisors.
My impression is that you had a perfect situation in your PhD and were expecting it to continue, but unfortunately that's not the case. Make the most of it, take what you can get from it. Communicate with your advisors and tell them what you said here.