Join Millions Of PhDs Who Use Our Job Search Resources Annually

As a PhD, you already have the strong communication skills you need to succeed as a medical writer. You just need to focus them on other audiences besides academics, like doctors, patients, regulatory bodies, and the general public.

Every week, we scour the Internet for the best industry transition articles for PhDs – so you don’t have to! Our two consultants independently search for the most informative articles in the categories of networking, CVs/resumes, interviews, transferable skills, academic blues, industry positions, and business acumen. Our consultants vote on a top article for each category and a top overall article for the week. This week’s best articles are… Industry Transition Articles: Top Overall Top Overall: Start Career Advising for Ph.D. Students in Year 1 – Leonard Cassuto Networking Top: How Long Should You Know Someone Before Asking For Job…

PhDs are highly suited to work in project management. They know how to oversee parallel projects and juggle multiple tasks. They can also coordinate different teams and integrate separate features into a cohesive whole. Industry project managers do the same thing. But there are some key differences PhDs need to understand before they transition into this industry role.

In industry, it’s important for professionals and job candidates to maintain a strong knowledge of the business arena.  That’s why every week, Cheeky Scientist scours the Internet acquiring the best industry transition articles for PhDs – that way, you don’t have to! Our two consultants independently search for the most informative articles in the categories of networking, CVs/resumes, interviews, transferable skills, academic blues, industry positions, and business acumen. Then they vote on a top article for each category and a top overall article for the week. And here are the results! This week’s best articles are… Industry Transition Articles: Top…

Management consulting is not going anywhere. Ibis World reports an annual industry growth of 3.4% with consulting businesses currently numbering nearly 800K. Given that consulting is thriving, management consultant salaries tend to be on the higher end. Consulting giant McKinsey has raised the base salary of PhD-holding consultants to $165K. And the most exciting part is that this number seems to be growing for PhD hires. A business willing to pay salaries of this quality values its employees to a high degree. PhDs deserve pay that reflects their unusual and highly functional skill sets. And industry is willing to pay that amount to PhDs who understand the business world. Your time in academia has probably been one of the greatest challenges of your lifetime… But all that work has prepared you for a high-end industry role like that of a business consultant. The consulting industry has a powerful need for PhDs to fill high-level roles as management consultants. And it's no surprise that PhDs are in high demand for a job like this… Management consulting is made for PhDs: candidates who can apply their academic skill set to the analysis of large datasets. Candidates who can provide solutions that other employees can't. A PhD armed with industry knowledge can identify relevant patterns for a given company, and that’s incredibly valuable to any business.

In industry, it’s important for professionals and job candidates to maintain a strong knowledge of the business arena.  That’s why every week, Cheeky Scientist scours the Internet acquiring the best industry transition articles for PhDs – that way, you don’t have to! Our two consultants independently search for the most informative articles in the categories of networking, CVs/resumes, interviews, transferable skills, academic blues, industry positions, and business acumen. Then they vote on a top article for each category and a top overall article for the week. And here are the results! This week’s best articles are… Industry Transition Articles: Top…

As with most long-term projects, consistent accountability requires motivation. Research done at the University of Rochester identified two types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is the kind of curiosity that drives you to pursue knowledge all the way to mastery. PhDs almost always have a lot of this motivation. Loving your field of study and wanting to advance it is what made you push your way through a doctoral program. Intrinsic motivation derives from natural satisfaction – when the task is its own reward. The problem is that intrinsic motivation rarely drives a job search. What PhDs need is extrinsic motivation. This kind of motivation drives some pursuit through a “separable outcome.” In other words, the task is not its own reward – you’re doing it because of something you’ll get out of it. The most effective way to develop extrinsic motivation is through internalization. You must take external rewards and make them feel like they are internal. If you want that industry career, you need to hold yourself accountable during your job search and recreate the power of intrinsic motivation. So how do you do that?

In industry, it’s important for professionals and job candidates to maintain a strong knowledge of the business arena.  That’s why every week, Cheeky Scientist scours the Internet acquiring the best industry transition articles for PhDs – that way, you don’t have to! Our two consultants independently search for the most informative articles in the categories of networking, CVs/resumes, interviews, transferable skills, academic blues, industry positions, and business acumen. Then they vote on a top article for each category and a top overall article for the week. And here are the results! This week’s best articles are… Industry Transition Articles: Top…

LinkedIn is an excellent resource for networking, and it makes the whole process easier than ever before. But LinkedIn should not be the only place you are meeting industry professionals. You need to attend in-person networking events too. Meeting in person allows someone to get to know you at a far more significant level than the internet alone will allow. The amount of rapport and relationship-building that can occur during a 10-minute, in-person interaction could take months if attempted over the internet. There is no substitute for face-to-face networking – it’s what we as a species have evolved to do. In fact, Psychology Today reported that speech makes up just 7% of how we actually communicate. Yet when networking online through emails and messaging, word choice is the only part of your communication that is coming across. The most important components of how we communicate – body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice – are totally absent when all you’re doing is writing to someone. That means the only way to fully communicate with someone is in person. As PhDs, many of us are introverted, and that definitely includes me. PhDs may tend to avoid in-person networking events for this reason. Instead, we opt for online networking, where we can just write – an arena in which many of us excel. But merely networking online is not enough. According to Forbes, 80% of job openings are never even advertised. This means that the majority of job openings can only be accessed via other people. And if you meet someone in person, they are much more likely to tell you about an opportunity than if you were to chat with them online. Bottom line: If you truly want an industry job, there is no way to avoid in-person networking events. You’re better off embracing them, and you will look back and thank yourself for it.

In industry, it’s important for professionals and job candidates to maintain a strong knowledge of the business arena.  That’s why every week, Cheeky Scientist scours the Internet acquiring the best industry transition articles for PhDs – that way, you don’t have to! Our two consultants independently search for the most informative articles in the categories of networking, CVs/resumes, interviews, transferable skills, academic blues, industry positions, and business acumen. Then they vote on a top article for each category and a top overall article for the week. And here are the results! This week’s best articles are… Industry Transition Articles: Top…

The main reason you should be looking for an industry job instead of staying in academia is simple: There are too many academic research scientists. Nature reported that in recent years, the number of academic research scientists jumped by 150% in the U.S. alone. Meanwhile, the number of tenured and other full-time faculty positions has plateaued and, in many places, even declined. Around 10% of all postdocs had been going on for more than 6 years. Imagine doing a postdoc for 6 or more years. A lot of PhDs don’t have to imagine that scenario – they are living it. Academia doesn't value its researchers because there are too many of them. Yet in industry, there are not enough. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, industry employment for biotechnology and biopharmaceutical scientists was projected to grow 13% over the last decade. Society has become increasingly reliant on technology and pharmaceuticals. They are also becoming more affluent, allowing for more spending on medicine. As a result, industry employers need PhD-level research scientists. The problem is that few PhDs know how to get hired into industry R&D positions, and even fewer know what life will be like once they’re hired. I had both of these problems until I joined the Cheeky Scientist Association. The Association taught me what I needed to know to get hired, and has continued to support me in my industry career.

Every week, we scour the Internet for the best industry transition articles for PhDs – so you don’t have to! Our two consultants independently search for the most informative articles in the categories of networking, CVs/resumes, interviews, transferable skills, academic blues, industry positions, and business acumen. Our consultants vote on a top article for each category and a top overall article for the week. This week’s best articles are… Top Overall Top Overall: How to use these 7 presentation skills to nail a job interview – Darren Menabney Networking Top: How to be a networking pro when you’re shy and…