Special Interest

Referrals are extremely powerful. They can give your resume directly to a hiring manager, help you skip steps of the hiring process, and even have a hiring committee reverse a rejection. One of our transitioned members recently shared the following story about a candidate they referred for a position at their company. Someone connected with me and sent me a message on LinkedIn. As they were polite, I agreed to have a voice chat. I attended a few meetings in my company and found out they were looking for someone with a profile that fits this person’s. So, I invited…

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…

The biggest obstacle that PhDs must overcome when they decide to leave academia is being invisible.  Without an industry network, you are invisible. It doesn’t matter if you are the best fit for your dream industry position if recruiters and hiring managers looking to fill that position don’t even know that you exist.  This is something that I know very well, not just from working with thousands of PhDs, but from my personal story.  When I first started looking for industry positions, I thought I would be easily found.  I quickly learned how wrong I was. I was invisible. No…

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…

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…

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…

Whether you’re a recent PhD or have been pursuing a career in academia, you’ve spent several years, your hard-earned money, and valuable resources working for your advanced degree. It’s paid off. You have a PhD! …Now what? Like the 187,000 Americans expected to earn a PhD in the 2020-2021 school year calendar alone, you’re not just broadening your horizons and expanding your knowledge. You’re also solidifying a wider range of future job opportunities with higher pay. In most university programs, a PhD is the highest possible degree one can achieve. That means you’re viewed as having reached the height of…

“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…

When I started the long road toward my doctorate, I never would have put “PhD” and “unemployed” in the same sentence.  Nevertheless, that’s the reality 60% of all PhDs will face at some point in their career. You might even be living (or soon facing) that reality right now. With more universities scaling back in-person classes in favor of virtual learning, you can expect those secure full-time professorship jobs to grow fewer by the day, too. Why offer a tenured position when you can just hire low-paid adjuncts – especially with online courses becoming the norm? Fortunately, PhDs in data…