Faculty and Staff Resources
1. Start with the PDO Job Board
- Interested applicants submit their information through an online form, which keeps your inbox from getting overloaded.
- You do not need to have a formal CU Careers posting to use the tool. A short description of your research and the type of postdoc who would be a good match is enough.
- Already have a CU Careers listing? You can simply link it to the site.
Log in with your CU credentials to submit your post: https://gs.cuanschutz.edu/postdocjobs/
2. Strengthen Your Posting
- Focus on training and mentoring: Share what skills the postdoc will gain.
- Be specific about the science: State the project’s scope but leave room for the postdoc’s ideas.
- Showcase resources: Mention core facilities, collaborations, or professional development.
- Highlight CU Anschutz: Include links to the Postdoctoral Office (here), Career Development Office (here), and/or the Postdoctoral Association (here) to showcase CU Anschutz’s highly supportive postdoc training environment.
- Consider including a link to our Postdoctoral Training Overview video!
The PDO Job Ad Template can help you get started: Click here to download
3. Share Beyond the Job Board
Boost visibility by promoting your posting through multiple channels:
- LinkedIn: A compelling post is a great way to amplify your opening. Here's an example!
- Tip: Ask your colleagues and the Postdoc Office team to “like” and share your post!
- Your Network: Send the posting directly to colleagues, collaborators, and former trainees who may know strong candidates.
- Departmental or Division Channels: Ask your department or division to include the posting in newsletters, websites, or social media.
- Professional Societies, Listservs, and Conferences: Many organizations and meetings have job boards, newsletters, or email groups where positions circulate quickly.
On-Campus Resources
- The Graduate School hosts an online database of funding opportunities available to students and postdocs.
- The Career Development Office has compiled a list of funding opportunities available to international postdocs (here).
- The Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CCTSI) aims to catalyze the translation of innovative science into improved health and patient care at CU Denver, CU Anschutz, and other affiliated institutions. The CCTSI provides career development training and funding opportunities, and membership is free for CU Denver and CU Anschutz constituents.
- University Research is the home for all research activities at CU Denver and CU Anschutz and provides a platform to navigate research infrastructure resources, expertise and best practices for researchers, study staff and administrators. Links to grants and funding opportunities, key research resources, and a calendar of research events.
- Submitting a training grant? Contact us for boiler-plated descriptions of our career development opportunities.
Off-Campus Resources
- The National Institutes of Health allows you to search for funding based on your career stage.
- The National Science Foundation lists funding specific for predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees.
- There are also many other resources that can be found online. For example, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) hosts a site to identify funding, as do many professional societies.
What Does it Mean to be a Great Mentor?
Mentoring comes in many forms and many different mentoring styles can be effective. In general, though, great mentoring means that you…
- invest your time in developing another person's career and well-being
- are committed to advancing the individuals's personal academic and professional goals
- understand and accept that your trainees will have varying career goals
- will tailor your mentoring style to accommodate differences in culture, ethnicity, gender and disability
Why Be a Great Mentor?
In addition to the satisfaction of seeing your trainees succeed, being a great mentor has additional benefits for you. For example, being a great mentor can help you…
- attract the best and most competitive trainees
- create a more productive working relationship, in turn, increasing your own success
- broaden you professional network as your trainees achieve their own career success
Where Does Great Mentoring Begin? With a Detailed Plan.
The NIH now requires progress reports to include discussion of how Individual Development Plans (IDPs) were used in the training of any pre and postdoctoral trainees supported by NIH funds. Furthermore, the NIH also expects postdocs to be actively engaged in their career development regardless of their mechanism of support. As if those requirements were not reason enough, a detailed IDP can help your trainees ensure they are acquiring the skills and qualifications they need to transition in their careers.
We encourage all trainees to create a Career Plan or IDP early in their training and to discuss it with you - you can provide extremely valuable insight into what it really takes to move on. Feel free to have your trainees use our online Individual Career Plan (ICP) tool, or any of the resources online (e.g., AAAS's myIDP.)
In addition to a career plan, setting expectations can alleviate future conflict and foster an environment of clear communication. We also encourage you and your trainees to formally discuss expectations, and a great place to start is with the AAMC Compacts for graduate students or postdoctoral fellows. Finally, the National Postdoctoral Association provides some recommendations for developing a postdoctoral mentoring plan that may be useful.
How We Can Help
The Postdoctoral Office and Career Development Office are here to support you in your mentoring efforts. We can assist with providing data and boiler-plate documents for your grant applications, serve as an informational resource for the exploration and pursuit of your trainee's career goals, and offer a centralized location to identify career development training events on campus. In addition, we also can provide resources that may help you as you help your trainees prepare for the next stage of their careers. There clearly will be other resources that you would find helpful, and we hope you will let us know how we can provide additional support.
Career and Mentoring Resources
Policies and Administrative Resources
As of May 15th, 2015 the Graduate School has discontinued its oversight of the hiring of postdoctoral fellows. This includes signing off on any letters of offer; approval for either new hires or raises; and terminations. These all can now be managed within
your School/College with no additional insight outside of standard HR policies and procedures.
- Policy for Research Postdoctoral Fellows-Trainees.
- You can advertise postdoctoral positions on the Graduate School's Postdoc Jobs website and/or on the CU Careers website.
- Postdoc Job Template
- Postdoc Letter of Offer Template
- Postdoc Addendum Letter Template
- Postdoc Stipend Rates for FY 2025 (new minimum $62,232) and Fringe Benefit Rates.
- SOM Procedures for Hiring Postdocs.
- Just hired a postdoc? Ask them to complete the Postdoc Entrance Survey.
- Postdoc Termination: Termination letter templates can be obtained by contacting the HR Director of Employee Performance and Development, Brad Mathers, at [email protected].
- Have a postdoc who just completed their training? Ask them to complete the Postdoc Exit Survey.
If you still have questions, please don't hesitate to contact us - we're here to help.