Inspiring Conversations with Women Professors: The Many Routes to Career Success Part II - Outcomes and lessons from the conversations

Key advice from 23 female professors to young people aiming for an academic career and a tenured professorship. Find your research field and central questions early, understand yourself and whether you are suited to a professorship that involves heavy workloads, regular teaching, supervision of young researchers, budgeting, and recruitment. Develop skills to benefit from the PhD period, write research publications, navigate the postdoc years career transitions, the tenure-track process, finding a permanent position. Advice for young women pursuing an academic career: develop inner strength and self-confidence, benefit from support in the system, advice on challenging work environments, learn from good supervisors and mentors, dare to try for the next career steps, and learn from failure and try again. Keep career paths and possibilities open, be ready to take unexpected opportunities, find your own approach to career and family, and use support structures for young academic parents and dual careers.