Not going to a conference that I am not presenting

[Hope.for.the.best]

I am now a few months into my postdoc. As I am new to the project, I don't have anything I can present in a conference yet.

I just learnt that there is a big conference coming up in my city in a month time. Neither my boss nor the department head has mentioned that attendance is mandatory. I was only asked to complete some experiments so they can present some data in their plenary talks. I have done a good job and they are pleased with that. But then, a PhD student told me that they paid the registration costs for the whole department, and everyone is encouraged to attend. She said she would be going anyway to listen to talks, but without presenting. Actually, I simply don't want to go, as I feel that it is more worthwhile to work on my experiments than wasting days on a conference that I am not presenting. I am aiming to get a few more papers out asap so I can apply for fellowship. The talks of many big people will be uploaded anyway, so I can listen to them later if I wish. Regarding networking, I did get to talk to people in previous conferences, but I did not get to make any big connections. In fact, I made those connections through actual collaboration, rather than from conferences. I know I have all the reasons to not attend, but I worry that I would be perceived negatively, e.g. a poor team player. I am new to the place, and it took me a lot of fight with my PhD advisors to get here. I treasure this opportunity very much. I just don't wish to leave a bad impression, but at the same time, I don't wish to stress myself overly again because I fall behind my experiments. 

It may be a silly question, but is it actually okay to not attend a conference that I am not presenting, under this situation? Thx! 

[rising_star]

I would attend, especially if you're about to be applying for a fellowship. You want people to know you finished your PhD, are doing well in your postdoc, and where your research is headed next so that you can potentially find support for it. You don't have to go to every session or go all day. Be strategic about where and when you attend the conference.

[fuzzylogician]

You don't have to attend the whole thing, but strategically speaking, it makes a whole lot of sense to show up at least for some events. Your registration fees have been paid for and you live in town, so this is a free networking opportunity. Why pass up on it? For networking, it's less about sitting in on talks (though attending a few talks in your subfield and asking good questions is useful); it's about the times between talks, the lunches and dinners, the poster sessions, etc, where you can meet new people and catch up with people you know. This is crucial. There is a limit to how many people you can know through direct collaboration. 

[biotechie]

I would definitely attend. I recently attended a conference that I wasn't presenting at, and word got out that I was looking for postdocs. As a result, I did four unplanned interviews at that meeting. I also found some interesting new collaborators for my current lab and met the editor of the journal my paper was being reviewed at. All of these were extremely beneficial interactions that I never anticipated. You never know when you're going to meet someone who will be on the fellowship review committee or who might be reviewing your paper. It also never hurts to meet new potential collaborators. Finally, don't you want to see what is going on in the field? I always get so many good ideas at a conference and come back energized for science.

That said, you have to go into the meeting with a game plan. If you REALLY don't want to be there, it is going to show, and you're not going to have those positive interactions. You're also going to leave people with bad impressions. Take a hard look at the schedule. Identify talks you want to see and people you want to meet. Then make it a point to go to the talks and to meet/talk to the people. Networking takes a great deal of effort. Make it a worthwhile and fun experience.

Edited June 18, 2018 by biotechie
More info for clarity

[TakeruK]

As everyone said, definitely attend. The advantage of a conference in your home town is that you can selectively attend. I understand the desire to stay in the lab and work on getting your papers out but conferences provide a lot of other opportunities as well. 

During my last year of PhD, a big conference was in my hometown. It was right during all of the postdoc fellowship applications. I attended even though it meant the time preparing a presentation and attending took away from applications. However, I did many of the things people suggested here:

- Selectively chose which days to attend (I think I was there for 2/3rds of the meeting. I found that it was best to plan your schedule on half-day chunks. So, some days I stayed the full day, while others I left at lunchtime (after a lunch to meet with people) or arrived right at lunchtime to meet with people and then attend talks.

- Decided what I wanted to get out of the meeting ahead of time. For many people, I emailed them ahead of time to arrange a coffee or lunch time to chat. For others, I attended the opening reception with the goal of finding them and introducing myself and asking for a time to chat later in the week.

- In my field, you apply to the big national fellowships asking the funding agency to fund a project for you to work on with a host institution and/or mentor. So, many of the meetings in the above point were with potential fellowship mentors. I asked to talk to them in order to discuss what we could work on together. I also used this opportunity to let them know that I am very interested in working with them and/or their department, which usually leads to them telling me about any other opportunities that would be coming up. 

- I also arranged lots of time to meet up with friends that I only ever see at conferences. They are both my own professional network as well as my support group. So I always take time at conferences to build on these professional and personal relationships.

[Hope.for.the.best]

Thanks for all your responses. I think I was not clear in my previous post. I have started my postdoc not very long ago. I am still in the process of optimizing experiments. Obviously, my project direction depends on how things go. If these go well, I can get a few more papers out soon and apply for a fellowship. If not, then I need to figure out alternative approaches before I can progress. When the conference happens, I will not have much idea what my project is, other than what I have been doing to set up the project. I doubt it will be impressive to anybody I talk to. What would you think when you meet a postdoc in a conference, and yet that postdoc keeps saying "I don't quite know my project yet, as I am still optimizing my experiments"? I would expect anyone I meet in a conference can talk about their projects in some details. So I don't wish to make a fool of myself. As far as I know, there are other conferences coming up later in the year. I may be in a better position to attend those.

Actually, what I meant to ask is, if you were my department head, would you be disappointed if I did not attend the conference? I know she is of good intention to ensure everybody who wants to go can go, as the registration fee is very expensive. She puts huge emphasis on team work. I have demonstrated that by working well with other colleagues. If it ended up that everyone in my department, except me, went to the conference, would I look like a bad team player? Thx! 

[TakeruK]

1 hour ago, Hope.for.the.best said:

I doubt it will be impressive to anybody I talk to. What would you think when you meet a postdoc in a conference, and yet that postdoc keeps saying "I don't quite know my project yet, as I am still optimizing my experiments"? I would expect anyone I meet in a conference can talk about their projects in some details. So I don't wish to make a fool of myself. As far as I know, there are other conferences coming up later in the year. I may be in a better position to attend those.

I think you are being too down on yourself! You are interesting and your work is interesting! I am also a fairly new postdoc (this is my 11th month). It's easy to think that what we are doing isn't interesting, but at conferences, people are here to learn about everyone else's work. I find it helpful to just pretend the other person is interested in what I have to say in order to give myself the confidence I need to engage (I'm not a very extroverted person so if I start doubting the other person's interest, I would end up saying nothing).

When I talk to a new postdoc, I want to know about their previous work too. It's okay and safe to talk about your most recent paper from your PhD. In addition, I find that many people (including myself) enjoy talking to new postdocs to hear about what they are doing next or what ideas they have in mind. I think new postdocs are in a special place in our career where we don't have the constraints of being a student nor the service/teaching load of a faculty member and therefore are able to spend more time on research than anyone else in academia. It's also super duper scary because I never know if I am doing enough work, but it's super exciting to be able to just chat about new ideas and start a whole bunch of new projects to see what sticks. 

One note about chatting about new ideas is whether you are worried someone will scoop you though. So if you think you have a really good idea then you might want to be careful who you talk to or what details you say about it. For almost all of my ideas, I think there's a way to say it so that I can convey why it's important and why it's interesting without providing enough detail that someone can just go ahead and do the work without me. But I am also more trusting and optimistic about others---I am usually at conferences telling people about my new ideas because I am looking for collaborators and people who would work with me, so I need to tell people about the ideas to get people on board. This does put me at risk of someone scooping me but I feel like I have enough new ideas that if it happens, I'll just move onto someone else and know who not to work with. 

1 hour ago, Hope.for.the.best said:

Actually, what I meant to ask is, if you were my department head, would you be disappointed if I did not attend the conference? I know she is of good intention to ensure everybody who wants to go can go, as the registration fee is very expensive. She puts huge emphasis on team work. I have demonstrated that by working well with other colleagues. If it ended up that everyone in my department, except me, went to the conference, would I look like a bad team player? Thx! 

No one can really answer this question unless we knew your department dynamics and your department head very well. But in general, yes, I think it could reflect poorly on you if you didn't attend the meeting, especially if everyone else attended. I think it would be okay to attend some but not all of the sessions, but you should certainly be there. It might be an extra good idea to ensure you say hi / greet your dept head and/or other senior profs in your department at some point during the week (e.g. make a point to find them during a coffee break or reception). 

[biotechie]

I definitely did not misunderstand; even new postdocs need to be attending conferences in my opinion. In fact, I'm attending a conference in November. I will either have JUST started my postdoc the month before or will be getting ready to start it. That is about as new as you can get.

In my mind, going to the conference would be nonnegotiable. I would go no matter what. As a new postdoc that might be applying for faculty positions in 3-5 years, you need people to see your face, learn who you are, and watch you develop. Like others have said, it is okay to talk about your PhD work, especially if it is published. You can even talk about what you're bringing from that into your new lab. It is okay to say, "I've recently started a postdoc in X lab, where I'm bridging the gap between my PhD work, A, and how it contributes to B in my new lab," if you've been okayed to talk about it.

I've actually talked to people at conferences before who were like, "Well, I just started in this lab." We end up having an interesting conversation about their previous work and their current stuff. I think you're sweating being new, and you really shouldn't. You DID earn a PhD, and everyone at that meeting is going to know that science takes time.

Granted, if I were worried about experiments, I would schedule things out. I would make sure I hit the important talks and all of the poster sessions. And I would schedule myself to go to at least one social mixer for networking, but I might spend still some time in lab. I always have a notebook with me at meetings. People think it is for me to take notes, but I'm usually planning out experiments and noting important protocols that I need to learn to do an experiment. You're still being productive by going to the meeting, even if it feels like you should be in the lab.

I don't know your department head, but I know the ones I know would expect to see me at the conference no matter how long I'd been working there.

[Hope.for.the.best]

Thanks for your replies again, @TakeruKand @biotechie. My other concern is scooping. Thanks to my nasty main advisor in my PhD, who used an undoable experiment to delay my graduation and manuscript, so he could get me to work as a volunteer, my PhD work has not been published. I have presented some data in conferences, and my dissertation has been made available online, but I would rather not talk about my PhD project anymore until I get my manuscript published.

For my postdoc project, many researchers of my field are trying to get experiments like mine to work but without any success. I was fortunate enough to get some success, so I don't wish to share with anybody until I publish a paper. 

Good news is that I just found out the 2 big speakers of the conference will come to my uni to give the same talks later, so I don't need to stress about meeting them in the conference. My department head has not sent any emails urging everybody to go yet. She normally would do so weeks in advance if she expects everyone to attend. Let's hope that it will be ok for me to not go this time. 

[Hope.for.the.best]

Thanks again for all your replies! I ended up not going to the conference for the said reason. Quite a few people from my department did not go either. Thankfully, the department head did not pull me aside and asked why I did not go. There will be an event in my uni next week, which my department head requires everyone to go. She sent an email about that earlier this week. So I can be rest assured that I don't have to attend any events in future if I don't receive any emails from the department head.