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I know many PhDs who moved from one lab to another or one adjunct ship to another and never really had to interview. Because academia is such an isolated environment most PhDs already know most of what they need to know about the culture, pay, and what’s expected of them. This familiarity gets them in the habit of not asking questions during industry interviews and blowing it spectacularly.  I kept bombing my early industry interviews and I couldn’t figure out why – I knew I was the most qualified candidate they’d interviewed. Many of the interviewers told me so. I…

Nothing could prepare me for the shock I received walking into my first industry onboarding experience. Literally, everything was different from what I had experienced in academia. The processes, the culture, the pace – absolutely everything. I also had no idea what onboarding meant. I heard the word tossed around but, to me, it was just the process you went through to get all the mandatory paperwork out of the way. That was so far from the truth. My first onboarding experience lasted almost 6 months. Yet, throughout that whole process, I had no idea that I was still being…

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…

PhDs are talking about the wage push inflation. We are going through a very rare time in the economy. A very rare time in the timeline of humanity. So, if you are a PhD looking for an industry job, it’s possible that you feel lost most of the time.  You might feel like you don’t know the rules you need to follow to get hired. You might feel that the rules are constantly changing. I’m here to tell you that as scary as this time might seem. There are a lot of opportunities that you can take advantage of. In…

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…

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…

“Networking?” For PhDs? The whole idea of networking always seemed strange…. Kissing up to strangers with small talk all for personal gain? No thanks. Wouldn’t people know I’m just trying to use them?  Well, if the industry hiring manager can’t see my value through a resume and CV, then I don’t need them anyway. I’ll always have academia! …Except I know those secure academia jobs are getting slimmer by the year (and never pay what we deserve to begin with). Okay, fine, I’ll network—but only at a few conferences where I know I’ll run into people who can help me. …

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…

PhDs are increasingly being hired in the top-paying jobs across industries. So, there is no reason for you to stay stuck in academia where PhD salaries are stagnant or plummeting. The U.S. National Institute of Health reports a starting annual salary of US $37,740 for academic postdocs and a study published in Nature reported a starting salary of US $23,660 — the minimum wage set by the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act.  Even with the current inflation, the average salaries for postdocs are below $49,999 per year. This means that rent and prices of other day to day products and…

I thought I was doing what PhDs were “supposed” to do. After 10 years of hard work, I was reaching a major milestone: my thesis.  But, in the back of my mind, I knew I was treating my thesis like a means to an end. How could I not? I was a 32-year-old student, who had never actually worked a day in the field, turning over stones for a groundbreaking discovery.  Sure, I knew my stuff and had confidence (I was a PhD after all). But there’s a certain type of confidence that you can only earn through the mundane…

My postdoc tenure was ending soon but with no possibility of an extension. As a result, the stakes were high and the mere anticipation of the unemployment situation gave me chills. To make matters worse, all I was able to hear from the people around me were unhelpful advice, while information and help were all that I needed.  It was frustrating enough to not have a prospective job, but not knowing my industry fit was even more disheartening. Upon scrolling down job postings, I saw that there were several job profiles that I was unaware of. I knew everything about…

When I started applying for jobs after getting my PhD, I didn’t even know what transferable skills were.  I heavily emphasized my technical skills. After all, I had spent the last 5 years perfecting them. But application after application I never heard anything back.  When I really began to analyze the job descriptions I realized the technical skills were not all they emphasized. Words like “communication”, “collaboration”, and “independent worker” continuously popped up again and again. It hadn’t dawned on me before that these are skills known as transferable skills.  I realized that people cared more about whether I could…