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I'm a postdoc in computational biology. I've been given the opportunity to choose if I want to be co-first author (listed second) or a co-corresponding author (possibly listed next-to-last or third from last) on a manuscript based on my contributions. It has been beaten into my head that postdocs looking for a job are judged by their first author publications, but I've also recently heard that having corresponding author papers highlights your ability to plan and supervise a study and may help you get a job. Which option is better and why? I'm already listed on a separate manuscript as the last (and co-corresponding) author.

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    One would think this depends completely on the field. (For example, in my field, authors are listed alphabetically. And "corresponding author" is merely where the journal should send correspondence about the paper.)
    – GEdgar
    Commented Jun 6, 2016 at 22:08
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    Co-first author!? What more will people come up with? Considering all authors as equal and listing them alphabetically like they do in that horribly unfair and socialist discipline, mathematics? Truly, we live in dark and dangerous times.
    – Dan Romik
    Commented Jun 7, 2016 at 0:07
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    @GEdgar technically true, but in the OP's field it is implied that the (co)-corresponding author "led" the study. fwiw, I'd go with the latter option especially if you already have a decent list of first author publications
    – fanli
    Commented Jun 7, 2016 at 17:17
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    It is very difficult to give a generic answer without knowing the details. For example, the answer could depend on where exactly you are searching for a job and what the rest of you CV is like.
    – Bitwise
    Commented Jun 7, 2016 at 17:19

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I would say co-first author:

  • First authorship is more important: if a professor both led the work and made the biggest contribution to the paper, they will generally choose first authorship rather than last authorship.
  • Early in your career, making a big contribution to the research itself is likely to be most important, and first authorship shows that.
  • The "last author" signifying the leader of the work is less widespread (one discussion here). Even in fields that use this convention, it is not always used. Thus, your last authorship might not mean as much. Especially if someone knows you are not a professor leading your own lab, they might not give you much credit for this.
  • "co-first authorship" is a clear idea: you are one of two people who equally made the largest contributions to the work. But "co-last authorship" is not so clear. What does it mean? Especially if the other last author is the professor who runs the lab? It's not clear what this would say about your contribution.

Of course this is referring to fields where authorship ranking by contribution is used; this isn't universal.

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  • FWIW, the last author convention is very well established in most of biology. If you were going up for tenure, I'd think a last author paper with a student >> a first author paper, even if you could plausibly claim both. Corresponding author, OTOH, varies a lot within biology.
    – Matt
    Commented Mar 7, 2022 at 13:59
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If possible, you should aim to have both in your portfolio. Your goal as a postdoc is to show that you are as versatile and as talented as possible. First-author publications demonstrate your ability to do research; "last-author" or corresponding author publications show an ability to oversee research (although the former effect is stronger than the latter).

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