We Fight For PhDs And PhD Careers

I applied to every industry position with the exact same resume before becoming a Cheeky Scientist program member. I first transitioned into industry as a Medical Science Liaison, and now I’m a Strategy & Communications Director at Novartis. I would encourage any PhD who wants to work in industry to join Cheeky Scientist.

Before joining the Cheeky Scientist Association, I felt like I wasn’t ready or prepared to start my job search. Once I joined the Association, I was able to grasp the material and techniques from the modules and began to feel confident in my job search. I even went for the more challenging position and got it!

Extremely happy to share that I’ve successfully transitioned away from academia. Landed the role of Data Scientist at Siemens Healthcare! I’ll be working on their ML/AI teams at the intersection of diagnostic imaging, machine learning, and regulatory compliance! It’s everything I wanted for my first job with a competitive pay! I am extremely grateful to all the support I received from the cheeky community.

I was looking for my next career move and I was kind of stuck, because I didn’t really have a networking and job search strategy. Whatever applications I did, I got auto-reject emails and didn’t hear anything meaningful back. I was a bit lost. So I joined the Association and obviously expected it to help me, but I didn’t realize how helpful it would be in getting a network and support system. It really exceeded my expectations.

Before joining the Cheeky Scientist Association, I struggled with imposter syndrome and rejection. I knew I wanted to transition into industry but needed to make time for it. After joining the Association, I changed my academic CV to the Association’s resume template and immediately saw results; this motivated me to go further.

I’m so happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Scientist at Sanofi! Excited to be a part of the developability team and make an impact in biopharma.

People in CSA are open-minded. They are very supportive. You can write whatever question you want, and they will give you 10 replies. This group really helps you to solve very complicated questions. They face it and share their knowledge of it.

Before joining Cheeky Scientist I didn’t know how I was going to do this. Where do I even begin? So I saw Cheeky Scientist on Facebook and on LinkedIn and I thought, maybe I should give it a shot. It was a leap of faith but I did it anyway, and I’m so grateful I did.

I started this week with my job as Senior Sales Manager at ChemScene and I am currently on training. I thank you for all your advice and help during this time. I am excited and happy to reorient my career in this direction and that I have found this position that seems to fit well with all the requirements that I wanted in my next role. Hope to continue to collaborate. Best regards! Aleksandra

When I first heard about the Cheeky Scientist Association, I was finishing up my PhD and thinking of doing a postdoc and trying to understand what to do after that. I didn’t want to do more than one postdoc, I wanted a clear plan for my career, so that’s when I joined the CSA. The most important information was about the CV, how different the academic CV is from the industry resume. The private group was also very useful–whenever we’d ask questions we’d get very helpful replies from the group. The Association exceeded my expectations for sure.

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.

Now that I am in my 3rd week into my new position, I am happy to announce that I’ve started working as a UX Researcher II at LexisNexis Risk Solutions! I cannot thank enough to all those who have supported me through my journey from Academia. I cannot list everyone as there are just too many of you, but I just cannot express how grateful I am for the amount of support and encouragement I have received from the community, especially from those who left academia like myself. I’m really excited to grow more as a UX Researcher.

I went to medical school in Mexico, but this wasn’t what I wanted to practice in. After joining Cheeky, I started highlighting my soft skills and got my resume noticed. My biggest advice would be to network like crazy.

Having Cheeky Scientist as a resource was definitely helpful, just being so supportive and how responsive everyone was, it was great seeing that consistency. I think Cheeky Scientist definitely took the time to address every question that pops us. I like that Cheeky Scientist is not just saying things but actually doing it, Cheeky Scientist is doing what they’re preaching.

I’m thrilled to announce that I accepted a job as a Sensory Scientist at Osmo. It’s a 25 person company using AI to create new smells and I think they’re going to be huge. They need someone to run the olfaction lab which is exactly what I want to do and the Cheeky Scientist content definitely helped me nail the interview. It’s fore $100K/year which I was more than happy to accept because it’s exactly what I want to do. The plan is to reevaluate in a year as my role becomes clearer and I’ll definitely appreciate some help with salary negotiations at the point with CS. Anyways thanks for all your help!

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.

I joined Cheeky Scientist because I was struggling to find fulfillment in academia. I knew she needed to improve my networking skills to transition into industry, but had no idea where to start. CSA, showed me the way. I’m now a medical science liaison.

I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Marketing Director at World Financial Group (WFG)!

I was confident in my networking and my ability to speak with people outside of academia, but I had a lot of work to do to get my academic skill sets and my research translated into a very non-academic, non-research role. The other part was LinkedIn. I hadn’t put a lot of thought into how important it was, and it turned out to be probably the most important tool.

I’m a PhD in Archaeology, and thanks to Cheeky Scientist, I’m also a Social Media Analyst with Bakamo Social! CS showed me you can land the industry career of your choice, regardless of your PhD background.

I am happy to share with you that I am joining ExxonMobil as a Wells Researcher in the next few weeks. This is my second career transitionin the last five years, moving from an academic postdoc position to non-profit research and now to one of the biggest oil and gas company. The overall process from interviewing to the visa approval (O1) took nine months but the wait was worthwhile. The hiring team counted my PhD and Postdoc tenure as a relevant work experience and I am hired as a mid-career professional (equivalent to 12 years of work experience) that qualifies me for 4 weeks of paid leave per year. The best part is that the offered salary is 4x jump from my postdoc salary 5 years ago 🙂 I have been a member of Cheeky Community since 2018 and have found your tips and resources of immense help for both of my job hunts. So thank you very much for all the guidance you and your team are extending to the PhD students and postdocs through this forum. Regards, Swanand Bhagwat

The biggest struggles I had were just finding resources and people to talk to. I thought the private group was one of the best things about joining the Association. It’s a place where people are lifting each other up and helping each other and that was great.

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.

I m excited to share that I will joining UES, Inc. as a research scientist. My role will be based at the Air Force Research Laboratory within the 711th Human Performance Wing, where I will hav e the privilege of working alongside an exceptional research team.

Before I became a Cheeky Scientist member, I had applied to over 200 positions online. No successes. Cheeky Scientist showed me I had what it took to get a position as a Senior Research Scientist. Become a member if you’re ready to get hired in a top industry role.

I recommend Cheeky Scientist to all PhDs because Cheeky Scientist’s programs helped me develop my job search strategy and learn the transferable skills I needed to get hired. Now, I’m in a top position as a Scientific Support Specialist, working with a great industry team.

Absolutely ecstatic to announce I’ll be starting a new role as Medical Science Liaison – Alzheimer’s Disease & Brain Health at Eisai US in a few weeks! I am thrilled to be back in the Alzheimer’s therapeutic area as it is a disease state I am so passionate about. Looking forward to supporting healthcare providers during this historic time in space to help them provide the best care possible for their patients! T

I thought I couldn’t land a great industry position with only academic experience… Until I became a Cheeky Scientist program member. Now I’m in the position I’ve always wanted to be as a Scientific Consultant and I have Cheeky Scientist to thank.

I was feeling stuck in my job search, unsure of where to start or how to market myself to industry employers. Now, I hold a top position as an associate director of alliance management and business development for Scholar Rock. Don’t hesitate to become a Cheeky member – it’s worth it.

It’s been about a year since I joined Cheeky Scientist during my final PhD year and started attending classes and making all the suggested LinkedIn changes and networking. I had 0 idea what kind of job I wanted and had the extra hurdle of looking for US jobs as a non-citizen. I graduated with my PhD in August and stayed on as a Postdoc so I could stay on OPT status, and now next week is my last week in academia!! I am super happy to share that after 66 applications, many rejections, a lot of ghosting, and a few final round interviews resulting in more rejection, I finally received 2 different job offers at once last month!! I will starting as a Solutions Engineer at Geospatial software company in 1 week! I am super grateful for all the help I received on this platform, anytime I had doubts on how to structure my resume, update my LinkedIn profile, reply to tricky company emails, navigate negotiations, etc. Thank you very much to everyone for your help and support! I am beyond excited to start this new stage in my professional career. Judit

I wasn’t sure the Association would benefit me, being in South Africa, but I was wrong. The private group is amazing. If you post a question or you support somebody you start building up relationships, and everybody in that group is fantastic.

A year before completing my PhD, I got a head start on my industry transition process and joined Cheeky Scientist.  I’m a senior consultant in healthcare analytics at Monmouth Partners, Ltd. I had the education and talent, but CS made it all possible by showing me how to apply it to industry.

I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as a Project Manager at Genedata!

The biggest part was letting go of my publications and presentations. CSA taught me I could turn them into numbers for industry to understand, and that was powerful.

The Association and its members were vital in helping me to maintain focus, and they offer a wealth of insight and information. As is often said, ‘Knowledge is power.

I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Molecular Manager at Yakima Chief Ranches.