hi everyone , currently i am pursuing PhD in India, and i have only one supervisor for my thesis. due to conflict of interest she told me to write my thesis and submit. and not allowing me to perform any new experiments. but my personal feeling is till now whatever i have done is not sufficient and satisfactory for a PhD degree. but she will somehow manage to get me the degree. she also told me that she will not provide me any reference or recommendation letter, or if she have to write then she will write every possible bad opinion on me. and asked me to choose between not writing a reference letter or a writing a really bad one. finally i thought its better to remove her name as a referee from my curriculum vitae, as she is not going to write it anyway. i may somehow manage three reference letters from my MSc dissertation supervisor and other teachers from my MSc teachers. now will that be sufficient for any application for post doctoral position, specially without any reference letter form my PhD supervisor? i am very certain if some potential post doc supervisor call her or mail her to know about me she is going to talk really bad about me. literally she is willing to give me a PhD degree and more willing to ensure that I could not do anything after that. i dont know how to handle this crooked woman. So, is anyone can suggest me whether without her reference letter, I can mange myself a post doctoral position? I have a second author in a publication in IF 4.4 and going to have a first authorship publication in IF 2-3.

This is a difficult situation. Can you get a reference from your PhD examiner maybe? Good references from your MSc supervisors are ok too. It will come up in interview why you don't have a reference from your PhD supervisor, and you will just have to be honest and say that your working styles were different and you didn't see eye to eye.

thanks TreeofLife. I planned another way of pursuing another phd in germany, as they scheduled 3-4 years of duration for phd dissertation. so i appeared in TOEFL, Subject GRE in Biochem and Cell Biology and also GATE exam in India as GATE score is also acceptable in germany instead of GRE. but now I am bit confused. should I try for another PhD in germany or should i try a post doc position in india and then try for a post-doc postion abroad. In India, the age limit to apply for assistant professor or same level job is 37 years and and for associate professor level is 42. Currently i completed 30 years in jan, 2016. and there is no opportunity to get any reference letter from PhD examiners because As i said before that My supervisor will manage them to get me a phd degree and they are all her friends. and my work is not at all satisfactory. but yes I can manage good reference letter from my MSc professors. can anyone suggest what should be my future plan ? should I go for a phD in germany or should I try to get a post doc in India. as information, my dream is to be an independent scientist, and in India, to get a scientist job someone must have some good post doc experience from abroad with some good research papers.

It's going to be difficult to get funding for a PhD in Germany if you already have a PhD.... Maybe try to apply for postdocs in Germany and just don't give your PhD advisor as a referee. You're going to have the same issue when applying for any job, PhD or postdoc - they will all ask for references from your last employer.

thanks TreeofLife. i was looking for a PhD again because I am not sure with what i have achieved till now may get me a post doc position. What do u mean by difficulty in funding another PhD in Germany? and why is that so? can you please tell me what the supervisors are looking for when a student write them for a post doc position?

You are not supposed to do two PhDs. What would be the point? Unless you change subject area drastically, no one would fund another PhD.

You should start by applying for advertised postdoc positions - these will be listed as Research Associate or Research Assistant - writing to potential supervisors randomly won't be very helpful.

You already hold a PhD degree and are quite old for a PhD position. As a German, I think that this is nearly impossible unless you have connections or work in some special field where it is hard to find PhD students.

You can always try to apply for PostDoc positions but keep in mind that the competition is very, very high. Especially in Germany, PostDoc positions are rare because they are very expensive compared to PhD students. Without a reference of your PhD supervisor(s) you need a really good explanation why she did not provide you with one and even if you have an explanation, they will still contact her to hear her side of the story. So it is often her word against your word. As there are tons of applicants for these kind of positions that have a good reference from their PhD supervisor, potential employers usually won't risk it.

I don't wanna discourage you, but maybe you should also think about a plan B outside academia. The assistant professorships or associate positions usually don't forgive flaws in the CV. There are so many people with "perfect" CVs that still struggle to find a tenured position that you would need a lot of luck or really good connections to land one of those.