Damon Ng, PhD

Cheeky Scientist was instrumental for me. I got a lot of guidelines for how to get started, and the biggest decision for me was to make it my priority. Having a very specific set of goals made it easier to focus and put my entire energy into it.

I wanted to change my current job and I had been trying for at least the last six to seven months. I had applied, applied, applied, gone through all the people I know, contacted them, forwarded my resume. I had done every possible thing, applied for 90 or 100 jobs and had not heard back from a single position. I really learned a lot from Cheeky Scientist--how to prevent yourself in an interview situation, what to answer and what not to answer. The most helpful part for me was the salary negotiation guidance, which was phenomenal.

First of all, the resume template that we get from Cheeky Scientist is absolutely amazing. The moment I did that change, I started getting results. I started getting calls from interviewers. Every third or fourth day, I had an interview.

[Joining the Cheeky Scientist Association] helped me a lot to meet people. It was really good to meet people, to speak about our challenges. We had a meetup in Munich recently, five of us who had all already transitioned, so it was really interesting. I think it helps to get other points of views, to get the perspectives of others.

I want to thank the CSA team since I never would have made it to this point without you! I have been a member since Jan 2018 and began seriously applying to positions in June, so it took me about 3 months and 3 interviews before finding the right fit.

I joined Cheeky Scientist a few months before I actually left my position, and a lot of things that did come out from Cheeky did help me bear the impact of leaving a very good job, and help tie me over to what I'm doing now. You just have to learn to trust yourself that this isn't the right place to be, so get out as soon as you can.

Here I am with an offer for an MSL position. Words can not describe the rewarding feeling you have when you finally land the job that you have always wanted. This has been quite a journey, with many challenges and rejections, but being persistent and focusing on my goal has led me here. Special thanks to my MSLA comrades [in CSA].

I've gone to so many great meetups where I've gotten great pieces of advice that I've been able to implement, they've introduced me to people who have been crucial in keeping me motivated and focused during my job search. It's really encouraging, when it's a difficult time in your career and you're not sure how to move forward, to have all these people cheering you on.

I was very stuck in academia. My mental health was at its lowest point - I had a hopeless mindset. CSA gave me hope that there was more outside of academia. The Association provided a great road map to career success.

My biggest challenge was my mindset. My mindset was basically that I was garbage outside of academia, frankly. I didn't think I could do anything else, I didn't think I had transferable skills. I had an extremely limiting set of beliefs before I joined. It's not about your little tiny thing that you research, it's about all those transferable skills that any Ph.D. acquires as they go through their program.

I knew that I needed to have aa well-developed strategy in order to be successful. When I joined the Association, I was very far off from a real job search. But having access to CSA's network was huge.

My main challenges were my CV, networking, and having confidence in your PhD when looking for industry positions. I gained a lot of confidence from reading the materials from the Cheeky Scientist Association and talking with the support team.

I just went for it. I said, if I'm not going to invest in myself, no one else is going to. I'm going to take a chance and see what this is all about. Maybe I'll learn a little bit, maybe I'll learn a lot, who knows. And within a couple of days I knew I made the right decision.

For me the Association was helpful because I was able to see all the different paths available, other than just working in the lab. The private group was great because of all the information there, as well as the support from all the other people facing the same challenges you are.

Cheeky Scientist and Isaiah really helped me to see that I did have value, and I did have value for companies outside of doing just bench research. Because I'd really come to the conclusion that that was not something I wanted to do, but I struggled that I didn't have the skills to do anything else. In academia I had no work/life balance, and in joining Cheeky Scientist I gained that work/life balance back.