Special Interest

I truly believed I had a stellar resume brimming with all my accomplishments from every walk of life. I kept shooting the same resume at all the different job postings, all throughout the year.  Surprisingly, I never got a call back.  After facing several rejections, I reached out to a friend who is a hiring manager at a firm and asked them to have a look at my resume. The first reaction I received was “what position are you targeting? The feedback that I received from a person who knew what I was trying to convey made me realize that…

I had been enthusiastically job hunting since February but a series of rejections were slowly starting to dampen my spirit. It started gradually, but at some point imposter syndrome got the better of me and I became absolutely sure that I wouldn’t get hired that year. My efficiency and focus plummeted, I went from connection with 20 potential referrals every month, to 5 and then to none. In November, a connection offered to refer me for yet another position. With the last shred of strength left in me, I pulled myself through the process even though I did not have…

If anyone should have known how to execute a PhD job search, it was me. The institution I was earning my PhD at was one of the top 10 across the nation. It was awarded a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training (BEST) in the award’s first funding cycle. My career center was one of the best. What made it one of the top ranking career centers was that they provided opportunities and resources to help trainees prepare for a diverse range of careers. I had taken courses on intellectual property, college teaching, and participated in training…

How many PhDs miss their calling as being a leader and or a boss because of academic failure and not realizing the leadership skills they have?  I remember my own academic education well. Like other PhDs, no one taught me how to develop my leadership skills. Leadership is a core part of real life, of industry. But it’s not a focal point for academia, which is why so many students get their PhDs only to face a harsh reality… Instead of success and recognition, PhDs feel used. They’ve been used by a university system that chewed them up and spit…

I’ve lost a job. I was offered a contract, and they pulled it back. Everybody is ignoring me on LinkedIn now.  I was communicating with somebody about an upcoming interview, and now they’re not replying to my emails. My postdoc is not going to be renewed.  This is the kind of message I’ve been getting from countless PhDs all over the world. The recession has made things challenging for everyone. A lot of PhDs thought academia was going to take care of them, but they’ve found out the hard way that it isn’t true. For weeks now, I’ve been warning…

The current crisis reminds me of something that happened to me years ago, before I had leadership skills. I had an interview with a big company, and it was scheduled to take place on an upper floor of a tall building. I took the elevator, which turned out to be the wrong choice. Normally, I’d have chosen the stairs, but I was feeling nervous and didn’t want to make my heart rate increase – it was already beating fast. The elevator got about halfway up to my floor and abruptly stopped. The doors didn’t open. There were several other people…

You should have seen my academic CV. I would have set off anyone’s anxiety. It was a total disaster. By academia’s standards, it was fine. But I had a real monster of a CV, over 5 pages long and full of academic jargon. And there was no cover letter either. Can you guess what industry employers did after taking a glimpse at my CV? They probably threw it away – that’s assuming it even reached employers. More likely, it was filtered out of candidacy by application tracking software. You might think that, given the current situation, you should be focusing…

Isaiah Hankel has your career guide to navigating the world of PhD jobs during the coronavirus crisis and using this temporary downtime to your advantage. The financial markets have crashed worldwide.  I can tell you from experience what’s going to happen next. I was a PhD student in 2008 during the financial crisis, and history tells us the hiring market is next to crash. After 2008, I felt like there were no jobs, and I had no industry network to connect with. My PI couldn’t help me – he didn’t know anybody either.  He was in the academic bubble with…

Visa Processes for PhDs can be complicated – luckily, contributing author Arunundoy Sur, PhD, can break it down for you. I started applying for jobs early. I was preparing to graduate, and I felt lucky to receive some positive responses right away. In a very short period of time, I had interviews lined up with 4 different companies. I went through multiple rounds of interviews and even reached the stage of salary negotiation in 3 of these cases. It all seemed to be going well. Being proactive was paying off, and now I had a new job lined up before…

Isaiah Hankel, PhD, discusses the global reaction to the coronavirus and how it demonstrates that industry needs PhDs more than ever. The need for scientists is rising, and it’s rising fast. With the recent outbreak of the “coronavirus,” media have reported all kinds of information, not all of it true and accurate. News and other media outlets thrive on timely reportage, and unfortunately, panicked viewers will pay more attention than relaxed ones. The effects of this panic are already observable. Who is in the best possible position to work against this alarmist racket?  Scientists holed up in academia? No. In…

As with most long-term projects, consistent accountability requires motivation. Research done at the University of Rochester identified two types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is the kind of curiosity that drives you to pursue knowledge all the way to mastery. PhDs almost always have a lot of this motivation. Loving your field of study and wanting to advance it is what made you push your way through a doctoral program. Intrinsic motivation derives from natural satisfaction – when the task is its own reward. The problem is that intrinsic motivation rarely drives a job search. What PhDs need…

Are you a PhD with your heart set on becoming a CEO? Pause for a moment and recognize how rare you are. The majority of PhDs will never cross the gap between working for other people and working for themselves. Entrepreneurship in general is rare, but becoming an entrepreneur after completing a PhD is exceptional. Study EU examined the largest companies on each continent, and they reported that among these companies’ CEOs, a mere 10% can boast a doctoral degree. But the question is this: Why don’t more PhDs go this route? After all, as a PhD, you have a…