Current issues surrounding research and funding, in particular questions about training and workforce stability, affect career development amongst graduate students and postdocs. The Future of Research Symposium, held in Boston, USA, in October 2014, was organized by early career researchers to facilitate discussions about the scientific enterprise and central to these discussions were a series of postdoc-led workshops aimed at discussing problems, and identifying solutions. On May 20th at the NatureJobs Career Expo 2015 in Boston, USA, postdocs from the Future of Research organization led a workshop using a similar format, inviting participants to identify barriers to career awareness and preparedness for early career researchers, and possible solutions to these problems. Here we present the data from this workshop and summarize the main points raised, for the use of the early career research community.