Industry Careers

The professor I was speaking with took a full step backward.  Her eyes widened. I had just casually repeated a piece of feedback I received on one of the graphs that I had created for a lab presentation verbatim: “I hate your colors.” I had shared the comment solely to illustrate that data visualization didn’t come naturally to me.  Sure, I wouldn’t recommend critiquing someone’s work this way. But I had heard so much worse in academia.  On top of that, I had been bullied repeatedly into apologizing anytime I showed any sign that such comments had hurt my feelings.…

Robust LinkedIn network is necessary for hiring. PhDs often think that they have plenty of time to work on the next step in their career and that they can postpone setting up a job search strategy.  Sadly, many of them wait so long that they end up in a desperate position, where they need a job yesterday. They start fixating on things like “I gotta get hired. I gotta get somebody to help me get hired. I gotta really pitch myself. I gotta talk about all my skills, I gotta ask for help on my resume.” So, they start bombarding…

If you are in academia and want to transition into industry, you need to take the LinkedIn SSI score seriously. It doesn’t matter if you are a PhD student, a postdoc, or are unemployed. If you have a LinkedIn profile, you need to take actions to make it impactful now. You might think that you can put this off until you’re actually ready to transition, but your profile is visible right now. Hiring managers can come to your profile now and make decisions based on it. Decisions that can impact your job search down the line. One of our associates…

By the end of my PhD studies, I found myself in a very bad place.  I knew I wanted to leave academia, but I didn’t know how to set up an industry job search strategy. The only thing I could think of was uploading resumes online.  I kept doing that, but I never heard back from employers. I knew there was another world out there, but I had no idea how to crack into it. Eventually, I became convinced that I had no value. That my PhD was useless. And I lost all my motivation. I had undervalued myself so…

Far too many PhDs are getting ghosted by employers after job interviews. They set up a job search strategy, build a targeted resume and LinkedIn profile, and apply to positions where they have internal referrals; only to get ghosted after a phone screen, or even worse, a site visit. If this has happened to you, you need to prepare better for job interviews. An interview can go south very easily. Maybe you just said the wrong thing and that caused employers to stop considering you. You cannot underestimate the importance of coming prepared.  Take it from one of our members…

I had heard of PhDs transitioning rapidly into management roles, but I never thought I would meet one. I assumed that opportunities to fast track one’s career into the top levels of a company were reserved exclusively for elite PhDs.  The chosen minority who always have brilliant ideas and produce 10 first-author publications in top journals by the time they defend.  The ones who have been aiming for senior management all along. The ones for whom negotiation for a high salary seems to come naturally. Can you imagine being one of them? I can’t.  Do you even know one of…

Most PhDs who join the Cheeky Scientist Association want to become R&D professionals or industry research scientists. There is nothing wrong about that.  After all, the best science and the best research is done in industry. So it’s only normal that PhDs who want to stay close to science are at least considering this career path.  However, after working with PhDs for years, I realized that most PhDs want to become research scientists because they think that they will get to do the same thing they do in academia, so they are more valuable in these positions. If this is…

PhDs know how to get a project done.  They know how to juggle different projects, how to prioritize between different experiments, and how to achieve results while managing low budgets. This leads them to believe that they know everything there is to know about project management. But here’s the thing, project management in academia is very different from project management in industry. Not understanding this difference leads PhDs to stay unemployed because they don’t know how to react to project management-related questions during the interview process. If you are thinking that this doesn’t apply to you because you are not…

For the past four years, data scientist has been ranked among the best jobs in America by Glassdoor and it’s easy to see why: Data scientists command a median salary of $123,263 and they have one of the highest job satisfactions in the market.  That’s not a bad position to find yourself in! Right now, we’re in the age of big data. The problem is, there aren’t enough qualified data scientists to satisfy the need for their skillset. If you have a PhD in data analytics or data science, finding a job shouldn’t be hard. However, you don’t want to…

Resume is your marketing document. PhDs often think that their academic credentials and technical skills should be enough to get them hired in a top industry job.  They underestimate the importance of learning industry etiquette and focus on uploading resumes filled with scientific jargon and technical skills to every job posting that comes their way. As a consequence, they end up in a vicious circle of uploading resumes and never hearing back from employers. Most of these PhDs don’t even know that their resumes are getting rejected by Applicant Tracking System Software before they even reach the hands of a…

I am working on my job search strategy.  Just last week, I sent over 10 CVs through job portals. I hear this from PhDs all the time. They don’t know what a PhD-level job search actually looks like, so they send a bunch of resumes or LinkedIn requests and expect to see results. The thing is, that strategy will take them nowhere.  It isn’t even a strategy. Recently one of our members noticed why uploading resumes online, not only is not a strategy, but is a waste of time.  “I have been following CSA strategies a lot, but today I…

Social media is so fake and shallow. No one shares their problems – only their accomplishments for bragging rights.  I hate LinkedIn. I feel like I’m just bragging and using connections for a job. I don’t have time to keep up with social media as a PhD. I’m busy looking for work! Sound familiar? I said those same things to myself (and anyone who would listen) whenever I needed an excuse to avoid taking social media seriously as a PhD.  Of course, having insulated myself with career academics, they validated my gripes, keeping me in my dead-end bubble. It wasn’t…