The timeline is not of importance but lets not be naive about this. Employers absolutely DO interview "ghost candidates" from time to time. The reason for this apparent waste of time is very simple. It allows them to tick a minority quota box or to show evidence that they didnt just hire their friend without at least talking to another candidate.
I am not suggesting that this is what is happening here but it definitely happens.

If you are going to network then avoid doing it indiscriminately or you will waste your time and effort.
Personally I absolutely HATE networking. If you do it with the right people for the right reasons it does work though. Otherwise it becomes transparent and extremely phoney to all around you. If you are good enough at what you do then people will notice you. If you can then hold a conversation, opportunities open up.

Same here. I send him what I consider to be a draft ready to be submitted to the journal. Invariably it needs tweaking or a bit more work but I never send him something I know is not complete.

You might be right but the thing is everyone deals with these things differently. I have had lots of pressure in other aspects of my private life (including finances and long distance marriage) that have added to my feelings of insecurity and overthinking. But precisely because I know that if these small details affect me so much - I will lose it for the bigger ones, I am trying to start early and try to find a way to deal with them better. So yes, I am trying and I am sure I will manage to find a way to develop some resilience. Thanks for your honesty though. It always helps![/quote]

In my personal experience, losing it over trivial things is a sign of underlying stress. Humans can only carry so much of this. The things which tip you over the edge may be a symptom of those other stresses. You mention a couple of these things in your response above. I dont know if you can find ways to alleviate some of the bigger stresses but if you can, you might find yourself a lot calmer over your PhD issues. This might work better for you.
Good luck.

I am going to disagree with the above two posters.
I think there is every advantage in contacting professors speculatively but understand they are probably not sitting with money. You can ask them if they are interested in a preparing a funding request with you as the named postdoc. I have seen that work with colleagues of mine.
Also there is nothing wrong in appyling for biomedical jobs. The fact that you are being shortlisted tells you that your CV is fine. You are not being selected because you are probably up against people with better experience. You need luck and that comes from continuing to apply wherever you feel you are interested in that job. Again I have personally watched several colleagues succeed in this regard over the years, gaining science and engineering jobs they had zero experience for and have personally managed it myself.

Good luck and dont give up.

Agree with ToL although my experience is with industrial jobs.
If a company interviews you and you are a stand-out candidate they will not waste time offering you the job. There are always exceptions and I was once offered a job three weeks after interviewing. Clearly in that case I can assume they offered it to someone else first. In the main though, I expect to hear straight away. If I don't I assume the worst and move on.
Certainly you should not put off other jobs in the meantime.
What you could do if you have another offer is to phone the person you do want to work for and let them know that they are your first choice and essentially find a nice way of giving them 24 hours to decide. I've done that before as well and found this to be a successful strategy.

So you have not been interviewed then by the sounds of it. In that case I dont see this as a job offer but something is very strange here. For a start, I dont know what a "postdoc scholarship" is.
I would have thought a scholarship was for students. Postdocs are not students.
Secondly I not aware of anyone who hires someone without conducting an interview.
I just wonder if something is being lost in translation.