The purpose of this study is to explore the messages and experiences described by postdocs during their education and training and how these messages influenced their respective career trajectories. Of additional interest is whether postdocs have access to resources that assist them in their career and professional development. Postdocs want more information on career development strategies and pathways (Chen, McAlpine & Amundsen, 2015; Gibbs, McGready, & Griffin, 2015; Miller & Feldman, 2015) and higher education institutions want to find ways to support and help postdocs with more career and professional development programming (CGS, 2017). In order to support postdocs, qualitative research is needed to help understand postdocs' perceptions of a career (e.g., work-life balance, work responsibilities, and other job attributes) and examine the factors that they encounter that affects their attempts to transition out of the postdoc into their chosen career path.This research project involved open, semi-structured, in-person interviews with four purposefully selected participants in the biological sciences who were currently engaged in a postdoc position, had been in their positions for less than two years and were currently in the process of looking for a full-time position. Participants were interviewed twice about their educational and postdoc training experiences, followed by a third interview to identify critical moments in their educational and postdoctoral experiences. Individual narratives were then constructed to represent these moments as major common themes in their lives. This study found that participants transitioned into postdoctoral training immediately after completing their doctoral degrees to 1) acquire research experience and access information about faculty life, and test whether being a faculty member is right for them. Some took postdoc positions 2) because no other work was available to them in their chosen career path or in the case of international scholars, 3) transitioned into a postdoc to buy more time to deal with immigration issues. This study also found that 1) visa issues still hindered international postdocs transitions out of the postdoc and limited their ability to find jobs. Also, postdocs wanting to transition to careers outside the academy, 2) had a harder time transitioning out due to lack of resources. Finally, only postdocs who 3) asserted their agency and utilized an identity-trajectory framework, were able to transition out of their positions.From this study, three themes also emerged that illustrate how postdocs interpret their education and training experiences, and the decisions they made about their career during that training: 1) faculty could only provide career advice on faculty careers, and 2) faculty were viewed as role-models for what work-life balance would be like working in academia and; 3) postdocs not wanting to pursue a career as a tenure-track faculty member, had to look outside their department for career support and advice, especially those looking for careers outside of academia.Findings from this study fill in the gap in the literature, by providing a better understanding of postdoctoral career motivations and how postdocs find and use the information to make decisions about their careers. Results can also be used to directly develop and enhance programs and strategies that institutions are developing to help not only postdocs but graduate students in general, prepare for careers outside the academy or to develop alternative paths to tenure-track faculty positions.
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