Postdoc Hiring in the Age of AI: What Still Matters (and a Call for More Advice from Those Doing the Hiring)

SERIES · Part of our application-season series for people considering a PhD, doing a PhD or looking for a postdoc. We expect a few more contributions like this one from people involved in hiring this year, and welcome others (send us yours); they will be added to this post as they arrive. Applicants can ask questions in the comments below. Each contribution reflects only its authors’ views. All posts in the series

Alessio Figalli and Sobhan Seyfaddini, Professors at ETH Zurich

Drawing on our experience as past and current members of postdoctoral hiring committees, we would like to share our perspective on how to evaluate postdoctoral candidates in the age of AI.

AI does not change what we ultimately want to assess in a candidate: the depth of their mathematical understanding, the substance of their own contributions, and their potential to develop new ideas.

At the initial shortlisting stage, we expect recommendation letters and CVs to play an important role, but we do not regard publication counts alone as a reliable guide to a candidate’s potential. We are more interested in the substance of the work and in what the application reveals about the candidate’s own contributions, ideas, and development as a mathematician. Where possible, we may also examine selected papers more closely to gain a better understanding of the mathematical ideas involved and how they are presented.

For shortlisted candidates, the interview will be crucial for assessing their mathematical understanding and judgment more directly.
Can they explain the ideas behind their results, why the arguments work, and where the difficulties lie?
Can they discuss what they tried, what failed, and which questions remain open?
We would also like to understand how they see their work in a broader mathematical context, why they consider it significant, and what they regard as their own main contributions. We expect that a talk followed by an in-depth discussion will give us a good sense of each candidate’s mathematical understanding, maturity, and approach to research.

Our advice to applicants is therefore to make their own contributions clear in their applications and to be prepared to discuss their work in depth, since a thoughtful and honest mathematical conversation can reveal far more than a publication count. While the ways in which we assess candidates may evolve as the tools available to mathematicians change, our emphasis will remain on mathematical understanding, originality, and research potential.

Received 5 November 2026.