My boss has a website “advertising” his lab and his research. He has a page devoted to his graduate students and post-docs, detailing their research projects, alma maters, and start/finish dates. He also has a page that lists his publications.
He routinely updates the publications page. I know this because I’m constantly consulting it for papers to add to my library. However, the other page hasn’t been changed in three years (well, except for a minor change in a PhD student’s candidacy status). The three post-docs now listed were in the lab when I started, but they haven’t been around for more than a year. Nor have the three new graduate students been added.
Just out of vanity, I regularly check the website to see if the boss has gotten around to updating his site. But over the three years I’ve been working for him as a post-doc, my name is still not anywhere on his website. Nor is it on the department’s website, but I don’t know if that’s his fault or not.
I try not to take it personally–it’s not like the only person who’s been forgotten–but it is a little embarrassing because I know my graduate advisor probably notices the absence (three years after graduation and I’m still on her website). I also wonder what my google-addicted father thinks when he can’t find my name associated with my boss’s lab.
But I’ve never said anything because I don’t want to come across as petty or egotistical. I still get a paycheck and a semi-private office and somewhat frequent “props” for my contributions, so it’s not like I’m invisible to my boss or my coworkers. However, I’m going to be job-hunting over the next several months. I would like for prospective employers to google my boss’s name and find proof that I’m an employee in his lab, at the very least. Right now, there is none. My absence on my boss’s website makes me look like a non-account loser.
So I’m going to talk to Boss Man. I just don’t know how to broach the topic. “Can you do me a favor and update your website?” sounds like I’m asking him to do something personally for me, like I’m asking out of desparation. But saying “I’ve noticed the website is old. Please change it” sounds wrong to me too, for some reason. I don’t know how to ask without seeming like my feelings are hurt. I have a feeling my boss will be a bit embarrassed regardless of my approach. Maybe he should be, but I don’t want to make things more awkward than they need be. I’m all about being tactful.
I agree, just offer to update it yourself as a favor to the lab. You could move the old post-docs to “alumni” and maybe add links to everyone’s websites. And I think it’s fine to say you’d like to take care of it because you’re on the job market, it might be good to remind him of this fact. Unless your boss has some strange power complex, he won’t think its an odd request. (Sadly, lots of academics do have strange power complexes, but you haven’t said anything to indicate this … and even these guys will take some free work on their website)
I’ve seen lots of professors who don’t update their websites, it’s just a detail that slips thru the cracks. They’re brilliant and all, but they’re generally the most organized people, you know?
Tell him that your friends have noticed that you can’t be Googled and have therefore concluded that you no longer exist. For this reason you were not invited out for New Year’s Eve.
I don’t have a solution, but want to assure you that no, you’re not being petty or egotistical. Your listing on a website like this is important among the status-conscious types who inhabit academia. Besides, nothing looks sloppier than an obviously and badly out-of-date web page. I’d like to think that those in charge of the nation’s scientific and academic future are fastidious when it comes to accuracy, in all aspects of their work.
You said you’d noticed others were missing too? If I were you, I’d use that as an “in”. Something to the effect of "now that it’s the new year, maybe we can add Joe Smith, Suzie Johnson and some others to the website…etc?
