Choosing your preferred rejection mode

In academic and research careers, so much can feel so far out of your control.

But there's one way I've found very useful, both for myself and those I mentor, to pull back a little bit more control of your fate, and that is the concept of:

𝐂𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞

And that's the topic of today's Hacking Academia video and podcast - the 40th in the series!!! 🎉🎉🎉

When you apply for a grant, fellowship, project, award, job or promotion, you face a number of choices that are mostly within your control:

❓ how closely should I pitch this project to the work I'm already doing?
❓ how grand or narrow in scope a project should I propose?
❓ how incremental or impossibly blue sky should the proposed research be?
❓ how strongly should I make the claims about contributions relating to a prize or promotion application?
❓ where on the underselling to overselling spectrum do I want to pitch this research?

Your answers to these questions are shaped of course by the guidelines of the scheme you're engaged in - for example some grant schemes being risk averse, whilst others are deliberately "blue sky" (risky fundamental basic research).

But they're also shaped by something within your control - your ability to significant bias *how* your application would be rejected - if it is at all.

So why would you do this?

Because it has the beneficial effect of 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘢𝘭 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘳𝘦𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘥.

It also has the beneficial effect of making you deliberately think about how you want to pitch whatever it is you're submitting - which can also improve the overall clarity and quality of the submission.

🖥️ Youtube link: https://lnkd.in/dHJqfg9U