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At the AIChE Annual Meeting

Creating a Good Abstract & Poster

The Meet the Faculty Candidate Poster Session – What is it?

The Meet the Faculty Candidate poster session is an annual poster session that provides a great opportunity for faculty, recruiters, and Department Chairs to speak directly with current graduate students and postdoctoral researchers who are seeking faculty positions. Think of the session as an opportunity to advertise yourself!

Upload your Résumé or CV

We would like to invite all authors to post their résumé to AIChE's CareerEngineer (new in 2018!). The Search Committees will be able to narrow down their search to participants in the Meet the Faculty Candidate Poster Session each year.

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Logistics of the Poster Session

Each presenter is given a 4'x4' space for their poster. Please limit the size of your poster to 3.75 feet wide x 3.75  feet tall (110 cm x 110 cm) so that it fits in the space.

Pushpins are made available, but we recommend bringing your own, especially if you are posting individual sheets of paper. 

Please plan on arriving at least 15-20 minutes before the start time of the session to put up your poster.

View AIChE Poster Session FAQs

Time Management

Try to understand who you are talking to before you invest the time. People may come up and ask questions but they may not be someone that can give you a job. In that case, an employer may see that you are busy and as a result skip your poster.

Don't get discouraged!

Roman - "My first experiences were that no one came up to ask questions (I started as a grad student, but you really need a postdoc to be taken seriously).  Do not get discouraged! There are a lot of you, and you are all at the top of your game. Also, I think landing a job in academia is harder than industry.  So, try to learn from your experience and make your package more attractive for the next year.  You will get some interest eventually, I promise."

After the Poster Session

Here are additional events you should attend:

Note: Check www.aiche.org/annual for the Technical Program for specific dates/times/locations for these events.

  • Workshop: Career Planning for Prospective Faculty
  • Workshop: Effective Teaching for New or Prospective Faculty
  • Education Division Future Faculty Mentoring Meeting
  • NSF Workshop I & II: You will get a chance to interact with NSF program officers. One of the workshops features a proposal writing section, which will be useful for you.

Go to university receptions

On Sunday, go and enjoy the receptions and have some fun. The most part has just begun. Hopefully, you have received some invites to the evening university receptions by employers who were interested in your poster (if you did not, go to them anyway). Check out the schedule for these things on the meeting app (ancillary events). At this point, these are more important for you than the actual conference!

In case you are not aware, Monday through Wednesday of the conference, many universities hold receptions with free refreshments. At the receptions, the faculty (including those on the search committee) typically stay in their room, while everyone else is floating around from one reception to the other.  While this is a fun experience for hungry students and hand-shaking professors, these will be more important for you.

Try to go to as many University Receptions as you can, starting with the hiring universities. When you enter the room, do your best to identify the important people (ie, the ones on the search committee).  These tend to be the older folks, and typically, they will be surrounded by job-seekers, such as yourself.  Go and approach these professors and take part in the conversation.

Introduce yourself

Start with extending your hand, introducing yourself and then start speaking about your research. Think of it as an "elevator-pitch", where you have just 5 mins to impress someone (because eventually, someone else will interrupt you).  Make sure that your name tag is visible, and have your resume and business cards on hand. Ask them for their card and find out who else from their department is around that you could talk to. Maybe even ask if they would mind introducing you to the next professor.

Unless you were approached a department representative at the poster session, this is a low yield activity, but you should give it a try. If you were indeed approached and invited, treat this as an effective mini-interview.  Try to talk to everyone from the department.

Some schools will offer to interview you at the conference. You should agree to do so! It's not quite as good as an on-site interview but better than nothing.

Make sure to invite people to your talks, both when you meet them and when you submit your packet to them online before the conference.  You can indicate the date and time of your talks in the cover letter and hopefully they'll attend if interested.

Finally, if you see Roman anywhere, feel free to ask him to introduce you to whomever is your target. He will do his best to try!