The jobs you don’t know you have

I decided to leave my position as a program manager at the U.S. Army Research Office because I wanted to solve the problem of the hidden curriculum around research funding. The hidden curriculum is information that you must know to be successful but that isn’t explicitly taught.

I could see that most PIs had not received sufficient training on how to engage with the research funding process. While you are likely comfortable figuring many things out on your own, with funding, the stakes are too high to take a trial-and-error approach.

This week, let’s consider the jobs you don’t know you have, broadly. These jobs are detective, marketer, and salesperson.

Over the next three weeks, we’ll dive into each job more specifically. But now let’s look at what all these roles have in common:

• You are never told that you should take on these roles.

• The activities are seen as ‘lesser’ than doing research.

• The activities take a different skillset than research and may not come naturally.

• You think none of your colleagues are doing these activities when in fact the most successful ones are.

Here’s some good news: You don’t need to gain that much skill in any of these roles to see big returns. Take sales; you don’t need to become the greatest salesperson ever. There are people whose entire careers are built around sales, and you will never need to develop the entire skillset of those people. Just by developing some very basic competence in this area, you will uplevel big time.

There’s a big difference between not being able to ride a bike and being able to ride. Once you can ride, you can get places efficiently and get a lot of enjoyment out of riding as well. You never need to become a competitive cyclist to experience the many benefits of riding a bike.

Yes, teaching, research and service demands have expanded, and keeping up with those duties can feel overwhelming. Adding more to your plate can seem impossible. That’s why I want to emphasize that gaining just a bit of skill can help you. You don’t need to devote hours a week to any one of these activities.

Inline with my mission to ‘unhide’ the hidden curriculum of research funding, I’ll be breaking down each of these roles in the weeks ahead. For now, see the video below for an interview where I discuss the research funding hidden curriculum.

More on the hidden curriculum

Last year, I had the opportunity to speak with Jennifer van Alstyne of the Academic Designer about leaving my program manager position and starting Wise Investigator. This video provides more context around the hidden curriculum.

When you are ready, here’s how we can help

Need to get your research funded, this year? Check out our 10-week program to get you there.

Want a done-for-you website that highlights your research impact? Let us do that for you. (We even write all the content for you!)

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