Career Feature, Career Column, Career News and Career Brief in 2018

Personalized recommendations and a solid science background are crucial, say Ruth Gotian and Ushma S. Neill.

Support-based peer associations offer professional value.

Katherine Bassil discusses the importance of learning to recognize failure as a door to success.

If you’re looking to move labs, countries or sectors this year, or seeking general career inspiration, here’s some advice from five researchers who featured in Nature Careers in 2018.

Scientists who travel to meetings are more likely to co-author papers than are those who stay at home.

US immigration policies and stance might be deterring attendance.

Scientists in the food industry find diverse roles from mediating public-health scares to perfecting meatless burgers.

Many undergraduates in the natural sciences will never take part in research, despite a willingness to learn. But their presence can teach others how to lead.

Two studies reiterate that very few postdoctoral researchers land academic posts — and suggest that the skills postdocs learn are not sought by employers outside academia.

Duanduan Han describes how she has made her lab experiments and hobbies complement each other.

Knowing when to hand-hold and when to step back is crucial for helping early-career researchers.

Female researchers’ scientific impact might be undervalued by citation metrics in some countries.

Five fathers describe how they and their partners combine parenting and careers.

Researchers who are mobile get more citations and build broader teams of collaborators than those who aren’t, study finds.

Roles on the screen largely reinforce the message that scientists are white men.

A productive lab need not be a negative environment, says Fernando T. Maestre.

Becoming a leader in a field you are passionate about can teach you crucial management skills and offer a support network outside of the lab.

The Royal Society of Chemistry has a plan to boost retention and promotion of female academic researchers.

Practices might differ from country to country, but undergraduate students can be better served in research, says Shaun Khoo.

Scientists are merging their life’s passions with their academic studies, and coming up with new fields in the process.