Hi, I have an question need your suggestions.

I recently received a postdoc offer from a prof which I needed it a lot. However when the offer was passed to the school, the school requests me to provide an exemption applicaton to explain why I was warrant a postdoc appointment 6 years after receiving my PHD. It said that I must meet the criteria of having "unusual circumstances" that affected my usual academic trajectory..

Has anyone encountered this situation before? I would like to know what kind of "unusual circumstances" is ok for me to get the postdoc exemption?

Any suggestions is more than welcomed!

Thank you very much

Rock

What have you been doing since you graduated from your PhD?

I would get exemptions would be something like had a baby, had health problems, had to look after family members etc. Possibly could be decided to get experience in a different type of role before returning to science.

Thank you very much for your suggestions. I am a university lecturer after graduation. However, a divorce and heavy financial pressure affected my academic trajectory. Being a scientist is my life-time goal, however, as you suggested, I may need to do something different before returning to science.

I would just try at this stage to use your university lecturer position as the exemption - they might just be asking to cover themselves anyway and it might be fine.