Conference posters: good pursuit or not?

[VulpesZerda]

Hi psychology folks! I haven't posted much since I was an applicant. I am now a 3rd year student in a PhD program. I have a question that seems silly:

I have recently realized that in certain fields, like humanities and perhaps some social sciences, at some point in a career, posters may not be considered useful on a CV, like they may be in the sciences. Where does psychology fall on this spectrum? I have 6 posters from undergrad and now 9 from graduate school, almost all first-authored, yet no symposia or podium talks. Am I totally messing up here? All of the conferences from grad school are national, and one conference in particular has been known to be fairly selective with abstracts, but I know that overall it is not that difficult to get a poster accepted. So while I am happy with my experiences at these conferences, I am still wondering how posters are generally perceived in psychology, and if my CV looks bad with too many posters relative to publications (1 relevant one) and other conference activity (none)?

[TakeruK]

Not in your field, but this could be generally true: 

1. You can just use the heading "Selected conference presentations" and only show a few posters if the ratio is a problem.

2. Third year was the shift for me from mostly getting contributed talks instead of contributed posters. After my third year, I only had two posters and they were both at very selective conferences (<25% of abstracts accepted as talks). Typically for my field, everyone gets a poster contribution and 40-50% are talks if it's not very selective (usually means there are tons of parallel sessions and/or shorter talks [5-10 mins]) and 20% to 30% are talks if it's a selective conference (usually only one session and/or longer talks [15-20 minutes]). 

[Quantitative_Psychology]

2 hours ago, VulpesZerda said:

Hi psychology folks! I haven't posted much since I was an applicant. I am now a 3rd year student in a PhD program. I have a question that seems silly:

I have recently realized that in certain fields, like humanities and perhaps some social sciences, at some point in a career, posters may not be considered useful on a CV, like they may be in the sciences. Where does psychology fall on this spectrum? I have 6 posters from undergrad and now 9 from graduate school, almost all first-authored, yet no symposia or podium talks. Am I totally messing up here? All of the conferences from grad school are national, and one conference in particular has been known to be fairly selective with abstracts, but I know that overall it is not that difficult to get a poster accepted. So while I am happy with my experiences at these conferences, I am still wondering how posters are generally perceived in psychology, and if my CV looks bad with too many posters relative to publications (1 relevant one) and other conference activity (none)?

From speaking with my advisor previously on the topic, I would say it isn't expected that a 3rd year Ph.D. student would have talks under his or her belt. However, you might want to keep an eye out for the next two years for talk opportunities because it is more expected in the later years of graduate school.

Personally, I like to focus more on publications instead of posters. On the other hand, if you've done the work and it isn't in the shape for a publication, it is good to have something to show for it. In my opinion, posters are better than nothing, but publications are vital. I don't know that posters will have much sway in getting a tenured position or post-doc, but they must look better than a blank CV for three years.

[lewin]

What's your research area? In social, at the major conferences (SPSP, APS) it's hard or nay impossible (SESP) for a student to present. Instead you could seek out regional or specialized conferences (e.g., ISJR, SPSSI, IARR, MPA, EPA) where getting a talk accepted is easier. Or, apply to a SPSP preconference that has a grad student session or data blitz. I think 1-2 posters per year is just standard/expected for a grad student but it's not unusual to have no/few talks in social because people know the rejection rates are high. The real utility of a talk is more than the CV line; it's that people see you and your research personally. ("Every talk is a job talk.")

 

[VulpesZerda]

Thanks, all!

@lewin, my research has a health focus so I do go to APS and SPSP but also Society for Behavioral Medicine (SBM) is my big one. A small, national, health issue-specific conference rejected me for a talk but accepted the abstract for a poster, so that was my recent attempt. EPA is a good idea for next time, thanks!

[Oshawott]

On 2/8/2018 at 11:54 PM, lewin said:

What's your research area? In social, at the major conferences (SPSP, APS) it's hard or nay impossible (SESP) for a student to present. Instead you could seek out regional or specialized conferences (e.g., ISJR, SPSSI, IARR, MPA, EPA) where getting a talk accepted is easier. Or, apply to a SPSP preconference that has a grad student session or data blitz. I think 1-2 posters per year is just standard/expected for a grad student but it's not unusual to have no/few talks in social because people know the rejection rates are high. The real utility of a talk is more than the CV line; it's that people see you and your research personally. ("Every talk is a job talk.")

Data blitz (or at least the name) seems to be a new(ish) thing for social-personality so I haven't seen it much in CVs. Should I be differentiating it on a CV from a regular talk?

[lewin]

On 2/10/2018 at 11:29 AM, Oshawott said:

Data blitz (or at least the name) seems to be a new(ish) thing for social-personality so I haven't seen it much in CVs. Should I be differentiating it on a CV from a regular talk?

I don't know if there's a convention. Personally, I have one data blitz talk and do differentiate because the acceptance rate was very low for that session and I wanted to include it too.

[fuzzylogician]

There's a natural progression to one's publication trajectory. Posters can be very useful for having one-on-one interactions with interested audience members in a way that a talk doesn't allow for, but in most fields talks are more prestigious. Frankly, neither will buy you nearly as much credit as a publication. That said, in early stages of a student's career, presenting posters doesn't hurt; it shows that you're taking initiative and that you're doing good work. You should talk to your advisor about this, but at some point later in your career, if posters count for less and it seems like you have too many of them compared to talks, you can remove some of them (certainly the ones from undergrad) and keep selected ones only. I don't think that's a concern for you right now, though, and in general if you're doing good work that you're proud of, being at conferences and networking is usually a net positive. 

[VulpesZerda]

Thanks, @fuzzylogician. Lots of good advice as always!