I once got the advice from highly successful academics (tenured ivy league profs) that if you want become an academic you should “resist the temptation of the tenure track for as long as possible” and rather do another post-doc.
Once you enter the tenure track, the clock starts ticking and by the end of it, your tenure will be judged by your total publication record. If you do (another) postdoc before entering the tenure track you’ll have more publications in the pipeline, which will give you a competitive edge. This might also increase your chances of getting more competitive professorship.
By the same token, it perhaps pays to do pre-doctoral fellowships and master’s degrees. This is also important for picking a Euro vs. US PhD where the 3 year Euro PhD might better for people who do not want to go into academia whereas the 5 year+ US PhD might be better for academia.
This is probably overstated—at most major US research universities, tenure outcomes are fairly predictable, and tenure is granted in 80-95% of cases. This obviously depends on your field and your sense of your fit with a potential tenure-track job, though.
That said, it is much easier to do research when you’re at an institution that is widely considered to be competitive/credible in your field and subfield, and the set of institutions that gets that distinction can be smaller than the (US) top 100 in many cases. So, it may often make sense to go for a postdoc if you think it’ll increase your odds of getting a job at a top-10 or top-50 institution.
I once got the advice from highly successful academics (tenured ivy league profs) that if you want become an academic you should “resist the temptation of the tenure track for as long as possible” and rather do another post-doc.
Once you enter the tenure track, the clock starts ticking and by the end of it, your tenure will be judged by your total publication record. If you do (another) postdoc before entering the tenure track you’ll have more publications in the pipeline, which will give you a competitive edge. This might also increase your chances of getting more competitive professorship.
By the same token, it perhaps pays to do pre-doctoral fellowships and master’s degrees. This is also important for picking a Euro vs. US PhD where the 3 year Euro PhD might better for people who do not want to go into academia whereas the 5 year+ US PhD might be better for academia.
This is probably overstated—at most major US research universities, tenure outcomes are fairly predictable, and tenure is granted in 80-95% of cases. This obviously depends on your field and your sense of your fit with a potential tenure-track job, though.
https://dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2014/07/21/dont-worry-too-much-about-whether-youll-get-tenure-because-you-probably-will/
That said, it is much easier to do research when you’re at an institution that is widely considered to be competitive/credible in your field and subfield, and the set of institutions that gets that distinction can be smaller than the (US) top 100 in many cases. So, it may often make sense to go for a postdoc if you think it’ll increase your odds of getting a job at a top-10 or top-50 institution.