Developing a good reputation in academia

[ocelot41]

I strongly suspect I am shit at this and am not doing myself any favours - I publish a fair bit and am lucky enough to have the job I want at the institution I want. But I don't feel comfortable doing that whole suit, networking thing that you see at big American conferences. It feels fake and a bit personality -free to me. I would rather talk with someone whose work I find interesting, whether they are a post doc or a prof than try to muscle in on conversations with 'big names' simply because they are 'big names'. But I see who gets invited to be part of big research grants or other leg ups etc and guess what? Its the folk who are good at that stuff. Someone sort me out!

Never done any of that and am quite senior and respected. Haven't managed to get any grants to speak of though, which is irksome as it would be a main way for me to close up invidious gender pay gap I suffer as lowest paid prof in uni.

I'm VERY shit at this, and IME it seems to be very much about the groups you are 'in with' and the people you have in your research circle. I've always been a Lone Ranger and I know I have made my journey far more difficult because of this. But I find it hard to put on a face for networking/bullshitting, but ideally in our profession you would be good at it.

You need to fake it until you make it I guess, something I'm generally hopeless at (!!)

I am glad am not the only one at least!

Another one who is not big on networking. Plus my field is very male-dominated. Networking events mean talking to middle-aged white men who are nice but condescending ... I don't go to these events for the good of the other attendees - in case I get the rage and scream at everybody ...

But I've been in this game long enough to know what I want and don't want.

There's more than one way to skin a cat. If you're more comfortable on paper, can you write to people with ideas for collaborations or comments on papers? (Always nice when someone has read your paper). Or meet for coffees one to one? Sometimes all you need is one or two solid mates to get you going

I have felt like this at times, I am always the one who gets chatting to the new PhD student or the industry person at conferences, and rarely the big professor, as I find trying to be in the right crowd and say academic things rather stressful!

I've done ok by finding people to collaborate with in a fairly direct way by writing to them, perhaps having a meeting and then writing a grant together. I haven't found conferences the best place for this type of networking.

I need to do more though and I am aware that I don't get invited onto as many grants as I could, I seem someone who people like, always say 'let's write you in the next one' but it never quite happens. If I'm making it happens it seems to work better. I have friends who are deluged with requests for their inclusion!