Hear Mahesh Bhandari’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.

Right after my PhD I knew I did not want to go into academia and the postdoc path. So I started applying for non-academic positions, but there were two problems. First, I did not know which job titles I might be eligible to apply to. The other part was that all my thought process, my resume, my LinkedIn, everything was academic. Before joining the Association I was lost, I was discouraged. After joining the Association, things started to be a lot different.

First I went to the career development center at my university, and I was very disappointed with the feedback that I got. The main issue with career development centers at various universities is that the advice they give is tailored for undergrads. While going through this process I was trying to find some organization or some person that would be able to give me the proper advice. The whole concept of Cheeky Scientist being by PhDs, for PhDs, and how to transition out of academia, these three things are very unique. I wish that I had got this before graduating, but I'm getting it after graduating and now I'm in a position to help others.

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.

Before coming to this field I didn't really know what an MSL was. The MSLA program was excellent because it's not just like any other program on the internet. It's a group of like-minded, positive-minded people, MSLs in big companies. The MSLA group is so supportive. If you have a question, just type it in and a hundred MSLA members will jump in.

The biggest challenge for me to start with, was just to get people to notice me, basically. You look on LinkedIn and see all these job advertisements and don't know how to get your resume in front of the right people. That was really the first thing I needed help with, and once I joined the Cheeky Scientist Association and began learning the networking techniques, it really changed my whole job search.

I had a hard time accepting the fact that I had to network, and that my PhD and resume were not enough to find a job. Before I joined the Cheeky Scientist Association I definitely was lost. I had sent many resumes with no response whatsoever, and I didn't know where to go. I was just lost. For me, the "aha moment" came on Day 1. I was invited to the private group, and I think after an hour I had already gotten my money's worth.

Job search techniques? I had none. I didn't know where to start, and I only knew how to make an academic CV, I did not know how to make a resume, I didn't know that it didn't need to be longer than two pages maximum. And then networking, I'd only networked on campus, which still gave me good connections but they weren't industry connections. So since then I've been networking on LinkedIn and just anywhere I go. If I learn that someone could potentially help me or I could help them, "Hi, my name is Paige. Nice to meet you."

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.

CSA helped me realize all the transferable skills I had, like writing, mentoring, leadership, and administration. Until it was presented to me in the Association, I didn't realize what skillsets I had that maybe other people didn't have. That was huge.