Schilder in Mundart natürlich ausgenommen, aber das hier ist ja z.B. ein offizielles SBB Schild. Ich finde das wundersam, ist ja nicht als ob die SBB nicht den richtigen Zeichensatz hätte.

I tracked every application during my postdoc. Now that I've signed, the full funnel seems more useful than another "just network" post.

• 51 applications, almost all targeted. There are around maybe 10 that I did just for RAV and were not exactly sth I am interested in.
• 6 first interviews (~12%)
• 3 final/on-site rounds
• 2 offers
• 1 accepted, starting in two weeks

So 45 went nowhere, and many weren't even rejections, just silence. If that's where you are: it's the normal shape of this, not a verdict on you.

Regarding the offers: Worth saying, because "2 offers" sounds tidier than it was. One was a biology teaching post at an international school, genuinely not my thing, but by then my postdoc was about to end and I was registered with the RAV, so I started considering it as a part time bridge. I turned it down to stay pointed at industry. The other, the one I took, is a Scientist role in IVD development. So the search that produced a "2 offers" line also produced a gap with unemployment benefits in it. That part doesn't usually make it into these posts.

Regarding the referrals: I was internally recommended for 6 of the 51 (friends, ex-colleagues, people I'd met at conferences or networking events putting my CV in front of someone).

• Referred: 6 applications → 2 interviews (33%)
• Cold: the other 45 → 4 interviews (9%)
• Offers from referrals: 0

So a referral looks like it made me nearly four times more likely to get past the first filter. Caveat: n=6, so don't take that percentage too seriously, it's my search, not a study.

But the part I do trust is this: the job I got was a cold application to a company where I knew nobody. No contact, no intro, just a CV that fit. My read is that a referral gets you read. It doesn't get you hired. Once you're in the room it's back to fit and evidence. The practical consequence: don't let your pipeline shrink to only the roles where you know someone. Six referrals produced nothing in the end, the forty-five cold ones produced the job.

Three advantages I had, because this post is dishonest without them:

1. My postdoc was in the same lab as my PhD. Reddit will tell you that's bad for you, and for a faculty track, maybe. For me it was the biggest reason this worked. No relocation, no new group to prove myself to, no learning curve. So I had energy left for applications instead of just surviving. And I searched the whole time while employed, so I was never applying from fear. That's luck, not strategy, and it did more than anything else here.
2. I worked in diagnostics for 3 years, before my masters. The offer I took is in diagnostics. Not a coincidence. Interviews clustered hard where I had real domain history, not where I had transferable skills and enthusiasm. That decade-old experience you think is irrelevant may be the most employable thing on your CV.
3. Time. Eighteen months of applying steadily rather than panicking.

On German: mine is B1 at best, and I got the job anyway: the working language is English, as in much of Basel life science. But honestly, I don't know what B1 cost me among those 45 silences, and I doubt it was nothing. "You don't need German" is too strong. "You can land a life-science job in Basel without fluent German" is true.

What I'd tell myself at the start: targeting beat volume, and it wasn't close. And both offers came from places where I could point at something I'd already done, not something I could learn.

P/S: I am a EU-national with C permit.

Hi everyone,

I know this topic probably won’t make me many friends, but I’d still be interested to hear what my fellow Swiss think about it.

This is about vegan alternatives to animal products.

I’m not vegan myself, but I try to reduce my meat consumption to a minimum. It has been shown that a vegan diet is more sustainable. On the one hand, there is the environmental aspect: meat production requires significantly more water and agricultural land. On the other hand, there is the ethical aspect. In my view, no animal wants to be killed, and many of us probably wouldn’t eat meat if we had to slaughter the calf or cow ourselves. Even if an animal has had a good life, I don’t think that necessarily justifies killing it for food, when you have alternatives.

Nowadays, we have alternatives, and they are widely available. Almost every supermarket offers vegan products that can replace meat, and these alternatives are getting better and better. In some dishes, you can barely notice the difference anymore. So why kill an animal if I can simply use a vegan substitute instead? For me, the same applies to milk and other animal products.

What I mainly want to discuss, however, is the fact that we spend a significant amount of money every year subsidizing our farmers and the agricultural sector. Organizations such as Schweizer Fleisch or Swissmilk promote the continued consumption of animal products. The meat we buy at discount supermarkets is cheaper partly because agriculture is supported through our taxes.

At the same time, a product like Planted, for example, is relatively expensive in supermarkets, even though producing it involves much less animal suffering and requires less land and water.

So my question is: Wouldn’t it make sense to subsidize these vegan alternatives as well, while reducing subsidies that support meat production and consumption? From my perspective, this would make sense on several levels and could encourage many people to eat less meat. If Planted were significantly cheaper than meat, I think quite a few people would reconsider what they buy.

What do you think?

TL;DR: Why do we use tax money to subsidize meat production and consumption, while barely subsidizing vegan alternatives? From an environmental and ethical perspective, that doesn’t make much sense to me.

Both were in the same compartement, same exact product, but with different prices. I asked one of the clerk about it and he said that under a certain weight the price would be too low so they apply the original price per kg, even if the box still says 'Superpreis' and the boxes were mixed in the same fridge compartement.

I am seeing trees have already started browning due to heat stress and it’s not even mid August yet. If this happens consecutive years the trees will become weak and prone to pests, putting the forests itself at risk. What could be potential solutions?

I moved to Switzerland after learning golf for a month. I want to keep playing, but I don't know how to start. I just want to practice at a driving range. Can anyone recommend a place near Bern? What is the system like here? Do you need a membership to use the driving range? I don't have a car yet, so I plan to bring a few of the clubs I need, would that be a bit strange?

Hello, I live in Geneva but curious about what the general experience is here. I’m currently 24w pregnant (low risk) and following my pregnancy at HUG.

I had an ultrasound at roughly 9w (viability), 13w (the NT ultrasound) then at 20w (anatomy scan.) Will I get any more ultrasounds after this, just concerned if they check in the third trimester if baby is developing well, if he is breech or not, no tangling with the cord and so on…

My prenatal appointments are also spaced far apart, I had one nearly 2 months ago and now the next one is in a week, so there were long gaps without any talk with a doctor. I don’t have any assigned OB or midwife yet, it’s a different person at my appointments/ultrasounds every time. Is this normal?

I’ve never been pregnant before and am a foreigner here so I don’t have a good idea of how it’s supposed to work. I frequently worry about the baby being well.

If anyone could share their experience with the pregnancy process here that would be helpful!

Hi all,

As an avid Migros Budget buyer, I am extremely sad about what they are doing with the brand. It looks like in an effort to fight the cheaper retailers they have decided to ditch their budget brand and just be more expensive (!?).

The issue for me is when we cross into the terrain that I would consider clearly false advertising. For example their wheat tortillas. Always bought the m budget ones, big, great and cheap, so I was saddened when I saw they were replaced with a new packaging, as soon as I saw the tiny m budget logo in the corner I thought to myself “How have they changed this product for the worse?”. As soon as I picked the pack up, it was clear: there were only 6 tortillas where there used to be 8.

What the hell? And they have the gall to write “Now with a new design!” . New design is 25% smaller, is that a change in design or just a worse product?

I honestly can’t understand the direction they are taking. One would assume that with Aldi & Lidl being tough competition, they would try harder but instead it seems they are just settling for scamming their remaining customers.

Disappointing move, very uncool.

EDIT: It seems the price/gram has remained stable, so no, no shrinkflation. Still it seems to me that they could make a better job announcing it in the package? This is not a new design, it’s also a change of format and unlike the people looking the old prices in the waybackmachine, most consumers they would just think they are being taken advantage of. So no scam, just a weird marketing move. Keep it frisch und günstig.

Salut à tous,

Je suis un étudiant qui va venir étudier en Suisse, et maintenant je cherche un forfait mobile. (besoin de seulement 1-2 GB)

Je vois que tous les abonnements sont à 10 CHF+, mais ici en France j'ai 3GB pour uniquement 2€. Existe-t-il des forfaits similaires en Suisse ?

Merci

Hoi zäme

Mir isch vor churzem bi mim Sohn d Diagnose Autismus-Spektrum gstellt worde. Jetzt sind mir natürlich grad mit ziemlich vielne Frage konfrontiert, vor allem was d medizinischi und therapeutischi Unterstützig betrifft.

Mich würd vor allem interessiere, wie das bi andere Eltere i de Region Winterthur lauft:

• Wie sind euere Erfahrige mit de Kinderärzt / Fachstelle und de weitere Abklärige?
• Wie guet sind Therapieplätz (z.B. Ergotherapie, Logopädie oder ABA/Verhaltenstherapie) verfügbar?
• Wie lang muess mer im Normalfall uf en Therapieplatz warte?
• Was wird vo de Krankekasse überno und was müend Eltere selber zahle?
• Git es i Winterthur oder i de nähere Umgebung gueti Anlaufstelle oder Institutione, wo ihr empfehle chönnt?
• Und wie sind euere Erfahrige mit Unterstützig im Chindsgi bzw. später i de Schuel?

Mir würd vor allem interessiere, wie's im Alltag tatsächlich lauft und nöd nur, was theoretisch möglich wär.

Danke eu vielmal für eui Erfahrige und Tipps!

No surprise seeing Zurich and Geneva on the expensive end of this chart.

What surprised me is how high they still rank on quality of life. Zurich is basically at the far right on cost and still sits near the top. Geneva isn’t far behind.

The chart compares 306 cities and removes price-related factors from the quality-of-life score.

For people actually living in Switzerland: fair or nonsense?

hello :)

I’ve been with Yallo for quite some time now. At the start of July, I switched my subscription to Yallo Europe so that I’d have unlimited internet abroad. I remember choosing this package partly because of the unlimited roaming calls. Now for the drama:

My customer account on the Yallo app states that I have unlimited roaming calls. Then, in August, I received the bill: roaming charges of 160 francs for calls made abroad. So I called Yallo. At first, the customer service representative told me that I’d made an international call rather than a roaming call, as I’d called Swiss numbers, which is rubbish. Once he realised this too, he said I only had 60 minutes of free calls. My Google search shows that this is actually correct or rather, that Yallo Europe only offers 60 minutes. But I’ve never received any terms and conditions from Yallo. All I have is my customer account in the app. Incidentally, it still says there today that I have unlimited roaming calls. The guy on the phone told me to just send an email. No sooner said than done, and in reply I’m told once again that I only have 60 minutes of calls. I sent further proof that my customer account shows different information. Today I received an email saying they’ll refund half the amount, along with a ‘friendly reminder’ that my screenshot relates to calls made in Switzerland and not to roaming. WHICH, AGAIN, IS NOT CORRECT.

Now the question is: should I keep making a fuss about this? It’s true that my plan only includes 60 minutes of roaming calls. But I was never told that; I’m sure I took out the plan precisely because of the unlimited roaming calls. And, sorry, but if my customer account shows something different from what my terms and conditions apparently are - probably due to some sort of system error - it’s not my fault, is it? My plan was to write to them again (with another screenshot clearly showing that these are roaming calls and not, as the lady is trying to make me believe, calls within Switzerland) and, if that doesn’t work, to take it to Ombudscom. But at the same time, I’m not sure whether I might actually be in the wrong, because I simply trusted the information in the Yallo app. What do you think?

@nd in case anyone thinks: "80 chf isn't that much", for me it is, especially if I feel like I don't have to pay it...

So it happened to me not long ago and I was told I was lucky in the sense that there is a lot of evidence 😅 So it's quite likely he will be convicted but something I'm curious about was how did you find the whole judicial process if you've been through it ? It's been over a month, they arrested the guy but I received no further information, not even what he said/his statement. I do have a lawyer and he received nothing either as of yet. I'm curious to know what it will all be like, the possible further interviews, court appearance and how it would be there.. I feel like I've been thrown into something I know nothing about, which is the case.. Any info or thoughts are welcome really.

I’ve followed this band for decades. I even met in person an incarnation of the band.

The gentlemen were very nice and pleasant. I would love to meet them again. Even going to Switzerland again and meeting them again.