Articles Written By Isaiah Hankel, PhD

PhD students often let themselves get obsessed with making one or two people happy. They fight for the approval of a select few who will never treat them as equals instead of working to build relationships with positive people who will like them just the way they are. They allow negative people not only to stay in their lives, but to influence their decisions. This is a mistake for two essential reasons. First, positive people will not come into your life until the negative ones are gone. Second, you cannot do positive and meaningful work with negative people dragging you…

Connecting with someone is a negotiation. You’re trading value for value. The reason people aren’t connecting with you is because you’re approaching them from a position of need. The first step to correcting this problem is identifying why it's happening. Once you know why you're getting a negative result, you can try something new. Here are 10 reasons why your LinkedIn messages are being ignored.

Many academic advisors have too much unregulated power. Most have little to no management experience or training, yet they're often given complete control over the fate of technicians, postdocs, and graduate students. Don’t ignore the warning signs. If an advisor shows signs of being one of the following 3 personality types, stay away.

Cathy was in a tough place. She had been employed for 3 months after getting her PhD and finishing a postdoc. But this wasn't the end of Cathy's story. By making a few intelligent decisions, Cathy turned things around and is now a Cheeky Scientist success story. Wherever you are at in your PhD career--postdoc, graduate student, or even unemployed--you can turn your story into a success story too. Here's how.

During your industry job search, you are a product introducing yourself to new markets. When you go to typical University or PhD, biotech, or biopharma-labeled events, you’re introducing yourself to what is known as Red Ocean markets. These markets are full of your competitors. The markets are bloody and unlikely to yield any results. Start introducing yourself to Blue Ocean markets--events where you will meet people who won't compete with you and who will help you get the industry position you want.

Segment every part of your job search. Each person you interact with--whether it be a reference, hiring manager, or recruiter--should be treated as a separate audience. Your goal is to engage with these people in whichever way benefits them the best. If you want to get a job over other candidates, you must start tailoring your approach, messages, and resumes to make things as easy as possible for them, now you. Here's how.

If you want a non-academic job, stop thinking like an academic. PhDs stay stuck in academia, not because they are incapable of transitioning quickly and successfully into industry, but because they refuse to trade in their outdated academic mindset for a new, industry-trained mindset. Here are the two biggest reasons some PhDs never trade in their academic mindset and, as a result, never transition into industry.

There is immense value in getting your PhD. A PhD is a high-level achievement and it should not just be handed out to anyone. That being said, you should not have to endure harassment or workplace bullying to get a PhD. You should not be forced to get some magical piece of data to graduate when your lab can’t even afford a working centrifuge. You should not live in fear and be pressured to stay in a system that does not have the means of compensate you fairly. You do not have to accept this. The academic career track is…

Every graduate student and technician knows that postdocs are the keepers of the lab. Postdocs know the most current technologies and methodologies, they know the literature, they know where everything is in the lab, and they know how to get reagents from other labs. Altogether, postdocs know how to get things and how to things done. These are the same skills that make postdocs great industry employees.

Most PhDs are taught that more is always better. Triplicates are better than duplicates. An N of 200 is better than an N of 2. A CV with 10 first author publications is better than a CV with one first author publication. On and on. But, when it comes to creating a strong industry résumé for a PhD job, less is more. Adding the wrong things or too many things to your résumé will keep you from getting the industry job you want. A better strategy is to simplify your industry résumé down to only the things that industry hiring…

Tenured positions are disappearing fast. This is a problem because tenure is the only thing graduate school is geared to prepare students for. Now that tenure positions are drying up, students and postdocs are left empty handed. If you’re a graduate student or postdoc, you are not alone. Everything that’s holding you back is also holding others back. The key is to know that your’e not the only one going through a hard time. Here are 10 things you should keep in mind as you continue down your academic career path.

Having a PhD is a significant advantage. PhDs get paid higher than non-PhDs and are in high demand. Trained professionals who know how to create information, not just repackage it, are desperately needed. Entrepreneurship and innovation are at an all time high. These trends will continue as the economy continues to favor innovation. If you have a PhD or are on your way to having one and you’re reading this, the future is yours. The only thing that can hold you back is yourself—by choosing to be one dimensional and choosing to ignore the less objective soft skills that will…