Co-First Author

[Guest]

How do PDs/interviewers/academicians generally view significant papers with co-first authorship? For eg. a basic science project. Any difference in first first vs second first?

[Guest]

Go for first name on the paper. No one is going to delve into details about co-first.

[Guest]

I disagree, you can denote co-authorship on your cv.

[Guest]

It stinks when you are the second of co-first author, but its usually not worth burning a bridge with your PI.

On 20+ interviews, I discussed my co-first author papers as my own, and no one challenged me on it or made a remark about the cofirst authorship. Only at one place in the mid-Atlantic was I challenged with "I see you have a lot of coauthors, but not many first authors. How can we know if you are capable of independent research". I just pushed back by pointing out that two of my papers were co-first authors and then discussed my role in developing the hypothesis and project.

Cofirst author may have had an effect during the application screening but I don't think it did on the interview trail.