Leaving our life behind us

After some hectic weeks with the selling of furniture/kitchen utensils, as well as our car, it was time to end our time living in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. Sad to leave your friends behind, nice to see our relatives back in Sweden again. With us on the flight from Chicago we had our “Madison life’ packed in four heavy suitcases (just at the weight limits)

Umeå next!

Today Maria decided to accept the offer from Umeå, after discussion about the options we have (or not). It was a big decision, since we also decided upon our new hometown.
Do we want to move to Norrland?
How long travel will it be to visit our parents/siblings?
Definitively a lot to consider, but we decided to give Umeå a try. We don’t have to stay there forever if we found out Norrland is nothing for us (the position is for two years, to start with).

Maria has a job!

Maria was in contact with TM again for a second interview, using Skype (for the first time for TM). That was what she thought at least, but it showed up not to be.
She was offered the PostDoc position in Umeå!
Of course she got excited during the talk, at the same time trying not to sound like that. Strategically asking questions about how it will be to work in the lab. TM also tried to sell in Umeå as a living town, a necessity since we haven’t been living in the north of Sweden before.
There were several good applications received and some with experience in mass spectrometry too. But the main advantage for me was all the publications I've got, mainly from my graduation time (thanks to a kind boss!).

A step in the right direction

Another email from TM, who wanted to talk about the PostDoc position, which seems like another step in the right direction. We started a long weekend trip today, so Maria asked to wait a few days with the talk. The thoughts went in the direction “this probably/hopefully means I’m further to a second interview”, at the same time she tried not to be too excited.

Another interview

Today Maria had a telephone interview (~80 min) with Berlin, a really interesting position. More or less exactly what she wants to work with (study proteins with mass spectrometry), but not in Sweden though.

As a note: Maria was not offered the position, or even heard from them again (that's a little strange).

Time for interview

Maria had a long telephone interview with TM today.
With a seven hour time difference to Sweden it’s a puzzle to find times suitable for both parts. Now it was arranged so that TM called 8 am in USA (afternoon in Sweden) and to the lab phone (due to bad cell phone reception at home and also the cost of incoming calls). Most people in the lab arrived around nine, so most of the hour-long phone interview was “in private”, and if someone (at the end of the hour) heard something, they didn’t understand it. Just to admit it was a clear help that the interview was in Swedish.

Selected for interview

Quite a fast process with the application sent of to Umeå. The professor TM contacted me about an interview, which will take place in the nearest days.
It also strengthen yourself knowing that your resume is attractable (to some extent at least) and your expertise is requested.

The first step is done

The application to the position in Umeå was sent off, just in time for the deadline. This was the sixth application Maria sent off, others had been to labs in northern Europe (Copenhagen, Berlin, Berlin). So far only applications for announced positions have been sent, further on direct contact with specific labs will be done. Although the latter require more work to more or less write your own research idea (in the same field as the prospective research group). Finding the labs is the first step, but not always the easiest.

An open position

This story started when Maria found an announcement about an open PostDoc position in Umeå, the largest city in the northern part of Sweden. We had already decided to stay in Madison, WI/USA, until the end of February, and it was time to start looking for jobs in Sweden (or northern Europe).

Maria's first interview - background

Maria had a telephone interview today with the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca about a position as researcher. The interview was really long, so it was good it was in her native language. Nervous to have a job interview, so long time ago since last time.

Note: Later on, two other top candidates with more exact experience were selected and Maria was not one of them. Hands-on experience of setting up and running HPLC-MS (high pressure liquid chromatography – mass spectrometry) was required.
Though, even if this didn’t generate a job, it was a good start in the job hunting process.