Benchmarking Yourself for Job, Prize, PhD, Grant or Fellowship Applications: As Easy as 1, 2, 3

In your career you will constantly be applying for opportunities: PhDs, postdocs, tenure-track positions, grants, fellowships and prestigious awards, just to name a few.

A key part of being successful at this process is benchmarking yourself – evaluating how your track record and capabilities stack up, both to the specific opportunity, and to someone at your career stage and with who’s had your opportunities.

In this video, I unpack the key aspects of benchmarking oneself, propose a “as simple as 1, 2, 3” way to broadly categorize performance, and highlight how important context is when doing a benchmarking exercise.

I also highlight some key things to watch out for, including the fact you never know the full story of people you might use to inform your benchmarking, and the mental toll looking at others can take.

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Complete topic list and timestamps:

(0:00) Introduction to Benchmarking Yourself
(0:17) Two Key Benefits of Benchmarking Yourself
(0:37) Benchmarking for Compelling Applications
(1:24) Benchmarking for Prioritising Professional Development
(1:45) Benchmarking Yourself is Optional
(2:37) Getting Started: Basic Principles
(3:03) The Three Simple Categories of Performance
(3:43) Considering Role Requirements
(4:08) Considering Career Stage and Seniority
(4:37) Performance vs Capability vs Track Record
(6:00) Consider Discipline Norms
(6:51) Track Record Relative to Opportunity
(7:39) The Three Performance Categories in Detail
(7:50) Category 1: Noticeable Underperformance
(9:51) Category 2: Typical, Not Noticeable
(10:37) Category 3: Noticeably Exceptional
(11:26) Sanity Check: You’re Not 100% Exceptional!
(12:07) Under- and Over-Estimation is Common
(12:56) Sanity Check 2: Ask Others
(13:20) Using this Benchmarking Information
(13:59) Pitching Appropriately
(15:05) Identify Weaknesses for Development
(16:35) Ask Colleagues for CVs and Applications
(17:08) Search Up People on the Internet!
(17:38) Check Funding Body Reports
(18:07) Check University-Collected Statistics
(18:37) You Never Know the Full Story of Others
(19:28) Manage Your Mental Health
(20:20) Benchmarking: Optional, But Consider It!
(20:51) Recap: 3 Categories, Context Matters