Interviewing

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 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…

Graduate …then get a job? Why must it be sequential? How can I do both at the same time?  When should I start my job search? If I’m a PhD student, what should I be doing? How can I avoid the most common fate of ending up unemployed after I defend? Should I start my job search before or after I defend? We have come across several PhD students who had the same questions. And the answer is: you can have both. You can graduate from your PhD with a job lined-up and avoid unemployment. But to achieve that, you…

“When do you need to get hired?” I asked.  “Yesterday.” Sarah replied quickly.  “Got it …What have you done so far?”  That’s when Sarah got quiet. Why? Like most PhDs, Sarah had done very little in terms of her job search.  Sure, Sarah thought about her job search a lot. She played out different scenarios in her head. But when it came to taking action …she was empty handed.  Now, she was working for free for her PI and scrambling to find a job that would pay her. You see, Sarah had just defended her thesis but spent not time…

Fears destroy your poetntial. I don’t understand why anyone would get their PhD and stay in academia anymore. Logically, that is.  Logically, any PhD can see how postdocs and PhD students are exploited by the system as cheap labor.  Many of them go as far as working for free once they get their PhD, or they get into postdocs that don’t allow overtime, don’t contribute to their retirement, and pay them peanuts.  That’s when self-justification occurs … “I’m doing noble work”  “I’m doing important work”  “I can still be a professor”  “An adjunct professorship is a real professorship”  “Everyone is…

How can you hit your career goals when you’ve never defined your target? R&D career or Clinical, business and finance, marketing or information aggregation roles? Every PhD, regardless of where they are in their job search, eventually admits one thing …they all admitted that they had waited way too long to take their job search seriously. One of the biggest time sucking mistakes that PhDs continue to say they make is that they failed to correctly consider which job titles were right for them. Many never thoroughly reviewed their industry options until they were about to defend their thesis, lose…

In the beginning, you only bothered with applications for your dream industry postings.  They had openings. You have a PhD and the skills.  It seemed like an open-and-shut case. Days turned into weeks. Your phone never rang, and your inbox stayed empty. “They probably already filled the position before seeing my application. They can’t exactly backtrack after hiring someone.” You moved on to your second-tier choices, then third, and then whoever else had a relevant opening with a salary you could live with. Sadly, this is usually the point where most PhDs give up and sentence themselves to a resentful…

My resume is above average. Certainly it’s at the mean. That was my belief when I started my job search. I’m way ahead of where I should be when it comes to transitioning into industry. I mean …I haven’t even graduated and I was already looking at options. That was another belief I had when I started my industry job search. Looking back, I’m amazed at how unscientific my approach was when it came to the most important thing in my life at the time – my career. In retrospect, I had no idea what I was doing. I was…

We’ve seen dramatic changes in the job market since the start of 2020; the fundamentals are changing. From the first wave of lockdowns to the mid-year hiring boom and then the second wave of lockdowns, and now –  the vaccine rollout.  We’ve observed the highest month of PhD hiring ever since we started tracking PhD hiring nearly a decade ago.  The month was November, 2020.  But this boom was followed by an 81% drop in PhD hiring.  And now, with a lot of uncertainty around future corporate tax rates in many countries, we are seeing PhD hiring stagnate in this…

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…

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…

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…