Independent Principal Investigator job talk framework

 I usually email these bits of advice to faculty candidates I have hosted at CCMB. These are useful to the small niche of people who need this only once in their lifetimes, at and beyond CCMB. I am no fount of knowledge to put this on X or Linkedin. So I'll hide these here for anyone who is looking.

"At CCMB there is only one talk. Please shoot for a 40 minute talk. There are usually a lot of questions and that can push the duration to between 1-1.25 hrs. 

These guidelines might help you make the best case for you hiring at CCMB:

Ensure that the audience knows 

a. the process and specific questions that you intend to address, 

b. why they are crucial to our understanding (where this process is crucial and what are we missing because of the absence of this knowledge) and 

c. why you are the person to address them.

The format that has usually worked well at CCMB is where you talk for about 10 minutes about your past research and its impact. Next, bring to the fore your most recent research: why it is important and what you contributed to furthering our understanding (15 minutes), This bit highlights your skillset and lends credribility to the next part. The next bit is what counts a great deal. Preferably based on unpublished observations, bring to the fore the broad theme of your research question (s). Break the question into short-term (5-year) and long-term projects.

Your research proposal suggests this framework may be familiar to you. So, advice that your talk should engage biologists studying structure, cell biology, development, and ecology may not be novel either. Striking a balance between substance and form is crucial for a relatively intelligent general audience. "