Postdoc application dilemma
Hi folks. Need some suggestions
I recently came across a postdoc advertisement in my niche that will ideal for my future trajectory. I feel my profile suits the job description quite well. However, I'm yet to complete my PhD. I'm writing my thesis currently and expect to defend in 3 months' time from now. The application requires that the candidate has a PhD.
I emailed the Prof. regarding my eligibility and got a reply as attached in the screenshot. Now I don't fully gauge what "truly exceptional" means here. Does it mean publication in Nature or Nature subject journals? The PI has a couple of papers in Nature portfolio. I have received similar responses from other PIs upon approaching and few no replies or rejections on advertised positions that I've applied to.
So far I consider my profile as decent with my preliminary results yielding two Q1 papers (one above 11 IF) and a proceeding paper in a flagship conference where I was a finalist in the paper award category. I have given talks in top tier conferences. However, I feel this doesn't make the cut. My core results from my PhD are yet to be published and would constitute 3 to 4 really good future publications. However, I haven't fully written them. Untill they're published, I cannot hold those works to my credibility. The caveat is that my PhD has stretched quite long (more than 8 years) due to unavailability of resources, bureacratic and technical delays, and absolutely no expertise of my current PI in my niche with him having a totally hands off approach and minimal interest. I have been a lone driver of my research throughout. Infact there is hardly anyone with good knowledge depth that I can deliberate my ideas with in my country let alone my university since the area is really difficult.
I joined PhD directly after my bachelor's and had a totally vague idea about how research and academia worked at that time. It took me 6 years to publish my first paper. It has been a tremendously difficult journey so far. However I have been resilient enough that both my master's and PhD works have yielded good results which I'll publish one by one in the future. But how do I prove my capability at this time given my situation? Due to the responses I've received so far, I feel I'll keep loosing out on postdoc opportunities commensurate with my capability and skill due to my current situation. Any suggestion with how I should navigate postdoc searches and future applications would be greatly appreciated.