Industry Careers

Here is the funny thing that most PhDs don’t understand - your PhD is incredibly valuable and so are you, BUT you are not above the job search process. You and your PhD don’t give you a free pass to not have to learn to speak the language of industry, to not have to follow up, to not have to learn industry buzzwords and transferable skills; to not have to practice behavioral questions, on and on. Being smart, proven, or successful in one area does not make you any of those things in another area. Get over yourself. Otherwise, you…

Think academia and industry are your only two options for a career? Think again. For PhDs, government careers can represent exciting and unusual ways to apply your expertise in meaningful ways. Imagine helping craft the policy that leads to cleaner air or lower emission vehicles.  Or, imagine identifying a troubling trend before it comes to a head—and helping agencies take the steps they need to mitigate a crisis. Government jobs are as specialized and as varied as PhD programs. They need smart and intelligent people who are trained to work with dedication and discipline. None better than PhDs to fill…

Negotiation is one of the most challenging parts of a job search. This is because PhDs are never trained on how to negotiate. In fact most think they put their offer at risk if they do. The truth is that you have a higher chance of putting the prospects of your future employment at risk by not negotiating because salary negotiation is a social norm in industry. PhDs can and should negotiate successfully. Most importantly, they should never let their academic stipend or fellowship, which is not a true salary, be used against them. For example, A PhD in the…

We finally have a COVID-19 vaccine.  “Finally” is relative.  It feels like it’s taken forever because 2020 dragged on and we faced one bad situation after another.  However, when you consider the time it takes to research a new disease, create a vaccine (through a lot of trial and error), test it, and start distributing it, things have progressed relatively quickly.  According to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine, a typical vaccine timeline can last somewhere between 5-10 years. In some cases, it can take even longer.  PhDs’ role in the vaccine process is an important one and may be the…

Most PhDs think that they can get hired overnight once they start uploading their resume.  Unfortunately, this is just not true.  As an example, Irene Minkina, PhD, a member of our Cheeky Scientist Association, was applying for 5 months before she made progress. Irene uploaded 25 total resumes, took 6 writing tests, and had 6 total interviews.   PhDs who do not have any career training often have to load more than 200 resumes before they get an interview.  This just shows that a bad resume can keep you from getting a job and a good resume is not enough to…

The academic PhD career track is dead. The academic system is completely broken.  Not too long ago, you could become a tenured professor right after graduate school.  Then, you needed one year of postdoctoral experience to become a tenured professor.  Now, you need 6-10 years of postdoc experience just to get into a part-time, contract or adjunct professorship. Here’s the good news… In industry, PhDs are highly valued, respected, and paid.  This is the mission of Cheeky Scientist – to get as many PhDs hired into top industry positions as possible.  Specifically, we want to get more PhDs into the…

What is the difference between a Data Analyst and a Data Scientist? Well, salary, for one.  Data scientists get paid more.  Transferable skills for another.  Data Scientists have the ability to not only understand and communicate technical data, but business data as well.  In fact, they can translate technical data into business data. This ability to translate, to “speak nerd and normal person” as I like to say, is the differentiator for most of the top industry PhD careers available right now.  Finally, job candidates with Bachelor degrees and Master’s degrees only are often hired into Data Analyst roles, while…

If you think employers or job recruiters are going to read your resume word for word, you’re wrong. The people reviewing your resumé are skimming at best.  Eye tracking studies show that employers only spend 5-7 seconds on a resume (HRDive).  Those same studies show that resumes are read in a F-shape, whereby employers skim the top one-third or so of the resume (the first horizontal bar of the F-shape), which is known as the Visual Center, then skim down the left-hand side of the first page and, if you’re lucky, the second page (the vertical bar of the F-shape). …

Studies show that 525 resumes are received for every open position but only 1 person will get hired into this position. PhDs chase one lead at a time via the outdated process of uploading their resume to a job site, when the process does not move forward, having to start all over again. Most PhDs never make it out of academia for long because they do not have the stomach for a high level job search. But You can be different. By leaning into the challenging, or tortuous parts of your job search, instead of avoiding them, you can save…

Want to increase your eligibility for the top PhD jobs? Consider our Data Scientist Career Program. You’ll get everything you need to start your career. We have seen so many PhDs without industry experience and without data science experience getting hired into Data Scientist roles, while seeing many more fail to get hired into this career track simply for being invisible to employers, that we decided to create an Advanced Program dedicated to this career path. Our Data Scientist Advanced Program ensures that your resumé, LinkedIn profile, and interview answers appeal to top-paying industry employers. The Program will also ensure…

Here is the funny thing that most PhDs don’t understand - your PhD is incredibly valuable and so are you, BUT you are not above the job search process. You and your PhD don’t give you a free pass to not have to learn to speak the language of industry, to not have to follow up, to not have to learn industry buzzwords and transferable skills; to not have to practice behavioral questions, on and on. Being smart, proven, or successful in one area does not make you any of those things in another area. Get over yourself. Otherwise, you…

Too many PhDs, are so brainwashed into thinking that their PI is some kind of omnipresent and omnipotent force in their career, that they will do whatever it takes to keep them happy, even going as far as working for free after they run out of funding. PhDs need to shake off this mindset and deprioritize their PI and their academic career if they would ever be able to transition into academia. Academic letters of recommendation, even from the most prestigious PI, are worthless in industry.