Hear Harshavardhan Sundar’s Story

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.

I think my biggest "aha moment" [after joining the Association] was that companies are looking for what the PhD means, and not the PhD itself. They're looking for people that can solve problems, who can manage projects, manage time, manage people, something that we're used to as PhD students every day.

In India when there are job openings, sometimes there will be thousands of applications, so to get noticed among this many applications, I had to do something different that other people were not doing. After I joined the Association I learned a lot, right now I'm getting a lot of responses. After joining the Association the way I'm conducting the job search process is completely different.