PhD Transition Report On-Demand

Join Isaiah as he discusses what a negative bias is and how you can use it to your advantage in your job search Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode… First, Isaiah explains that the brain has a negative bias and how that works in our everyday liveNext, Isaiah points out that you can use your negative bias to your advantage, but that won’t work if you just complain about the situations in your lifeFinally, Isaiah states that the best way to leverage your negative bias is by taking action From This Week’s Show…  How Your Negative Bias Works Your brain has a negative bias—it has a preference for negative information over positive information. This can help you in your job search.  Studies show that negative information is quickly routed through your amygdala and into your long-term memory banks while positive information has to be held in your awareness for more than 12 seconds to be stored in your long-term memory banks.  This is why you will remember the one negative comment your boss said to you during your performance review forever but will instantly forget the fifteen positive comments he made before and after. This is also why…

Join Isaiah as he explains why your technical skills are worthless in industry and why you need to start communicating your transferable skills right now Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode… First, Isaiah states why your technical skills won’t get you hired in industry and why you should focus on your transferable skills insteadNext, Isaiah reveals why PhDs overlook their transferable skills when creating their professional profiles, which makes them lose professional opportunitiesFinally, Isaiah discusses why you need to let go of your technical skills if your want to advance your career and get an industry job From This Week’s Show…  Your Technical Skills Won’t Get You Hired The idea that you will be hired because of your technical or specialty skills is a lie. That’s one of the last things employers truly care about. Sure, if you put buzz words on your resume that match the words in the job posting, you might get a callback, but those skills are not going to get you a job offer. There’s an immense amount of data showing that the number one reason employers hire PhDs is because of their transferable skills. Your transferable skills are the softer skills that…

Join Isaiah as he discloses what your most valuable asset is and how you can protect it to ensure success in your job search Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode… First, Isaiah explains why mental energy is your most valuable assetNext, Isaiah discusses why it is so difficult to protect your mental energyFinally, Isaiah gives some advice to make the most out of your mental energy From This Week’s Show…  Mental Energy Is Your Most Valuable Asset Fatigue can ruin your career. Whether it’s burnout, exhaustion, stress, apathy or up and down energy levels, nothing has ruined more careers than mental fatigue. This is because nothing can save you from your fatigued mind. Not time—hours don’t matter when your brain is incapable of making good decisions. Not money—dollars won’t buy you clarity or stamina. Not relationships—how can you make others happy when you can’t do it for yourself?  If you’ve ever sat in front of the TV to watch something you’ve seen before because you’re tired, you know that time is not your most valuable resource. If you’ve ever bought anything beyond food, water, shelter, or your other basic needs, you know money is not your most valuable resource.  If you’ve…

Join Isaiah as he explains why being invisible is the number one reason you’re not getting an industry job and why you need to do to change that Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode… First, Isaiah presents the number one reason why you don’t have an industry job: you’re invisible to employersNext, Isaiah argues that you’re invisibile by choice and what you can do to change thatFinally, Isaiah discusses how academia tends to isolate PhDs and makes them prone to come up with excuses and why you need to stop this trend and take action From This Week’s Show…  The Number One Reason Why You’re Not Hired The number one reason employers are not hiring you in industry is because you’re invisible to them. We live in the attention economy, and as a PhD who has spent their entire life in academia, you’re attention-poor. Your resume is being ignored due to obscurity. Despite what they admit publicly, most industry companies care very little about your technical skills. They can teach you the technical skills you need to learn on the job. With attention to technical skills off the table, industry employers are not hiring you because you’re invisible…

Join Isaiah as he discusses why you should establish your desired professional lifestyle if you want to have a fulfilling career Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode… First, Isaiah explains why many PhDs end up stuck in a career they don’t fully enjoy because they focus on job titles instead of professional lifestyle Next, Isaiah uses academia as an example to illustrate why chasing job titles is a losing strategy Finally, Isaiah presents a list of questions you should answer to establish your desired professional lifestyle so you can get hired into a fulfilling career From This Week’s Show…  The Wrong Strategy Most PhDs Follow To Establish Their Desired Career Do you know which career is right for you? Most PhDs never set professional goals even though university studies show that just writing down your goals increases your odds of attaining them by 33.54 percent. Instead, most PhDs work on whatever is put in front of them. They fall into whatever position academia gives them permission to hold. The few PhDs who start searching for a job outside of academia and do the research necessary to start understanding the industry landscape, sectors, and job titles often get lured…

Join Isaiah as he explains what is the innovation and commercialization career spectrum and how you can use it to find your target position Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode… First, Isaiah presents the innovation and commercialization career spectrum and goes into details about the innovation side of the spectrumNext, Isaiah dives deep into the commercialization side of the spectrumFinally, Isaiah presents a list of PhD-level industry positions ranked on where they fall in the innovation and commercialization career spectrum From This Week’s Show…  What Is The Innovation And Commercialization Career Spectrum All industry job titles can be considered in terms of where they are on a spectrum of innovation and commercialization. This may be a new concept to you if you’ve been in academia your entire life where nearly two-thirds of all research is basic, so let’s break it down. The world of business has innovation on one side of a spectrum and commercialization on the other. The innovation side might start with a company’s intellectual property (IP), or perhaps the very beginning of an idea before it becomes a company’s IP. It includes ideation (brainstorming ideas), validation (validating the best ideas based on what a company’s…

Join Isaiah as he explains what a pragmatic mindset is and why having one will positively impact all aspects of your life Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode… First, Isaiah discloses what a pragmatic mindset is and how it’s different from other mindsetsNext, Isaiah presents data on the positive effects of having a pragmatic mindset Finally, Isaiah discusses why having the right mindset is the most important aspect to keep motivation high From This Week’s Show…  What Is A Pragmatic Mindset Your mindset defines your point of view, or the way you look at the world. If you’re always looking at things from a limited viewpoint—you don’t have enough time, you’re too old, you’re too busy—you’ll always have a limited attitude, and you’ll never make progress in your job search. You’ll never reach your full potential in your career either. Likewise, if you’re always taking on too much at once—inflating what is logically possible for you to achieve or succumbing to every desire that presents itself—you’ll always feel behind, overwhelmed, and out of control. As a result, you’ll always be in pain. The only way to relieve this pain is to transform your mindset. You must develop a…

Join Isaiah as he discusses why you should never start a job search with a trial and error mentality and what you should do instead Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode… First, Isaiah illustrates why you should never rely on trial and error during your search by telling the story of a PhD he recently talked to in a transition callNext, Isaiah gives an example of how using trial and error will significantly reduce your chances of getting hiredFinally, Isaiah gives some advice of the strategy you should follow if you want to see results in your job search fast From This Week’s Show…  Why You Should Never Rely On Trial And Error Experimentation is a horrible transition strategy. I recently talked to a PhD who had lost funding and was unemployed. They were completely desperate to get hired, which is something I hate seeing but, unfortunately, see too often. Like most PhDs, this person thought that getting hired would be pretty straight forward. They thought that once they really started trying in their job search, opportunities would come faster and faster. Only, they didn’t come faster. In fact, they came slower. That’s when this PhD sent me…

Join Isaiah as he gives some advice on why you should be aware of the negative people in your life and how to deal with them Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode… First, Isaiah talks about the importance of identifying and dealing with the negative people in your life to prevent them from holding you backNext, Isaiah discusses what you can do if you’re in an environment where you can’t just cut out the negative peopleFinally, Isaiah illustrates how you can channel negative energy into positive actions by telling the story of the Atlantic codfish From This Week’s Show…  Why You Need To Identify And Deal With The Negative People In Your Life The people you allow in your life will affect your emotions, your decisions, and your actions. Most importantly, they will affect your options. You’ll never reach your full potential if you keep giving your valuable time and energy to negative people. Stop letting everyone into your life. Start making room for your biggest dreams. Create space for new, positive people who will support you and like you just the way you are. If you’ve already let negative people into your life, cut them out. If…

Join Isaiah as he discusses the importance of self awareness when you interact with industry employers during the interview process Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode… First, Isaiah tells why PhDs often annoy industry employers using his own story as a referenceNext, Isaiah talks about the information you should have to make yourself presentable to employers and the importance of self awarenessFinally, Isaiah explains the most important aspect of a hiring process and how you should prepare for it From This Week’s Show…  Why PhDs Often Annoy Industry Employers What’s worse – being invisible to industry employers, or being seen but being seen as another annoying PhD? I know for a fact that I annoyed the first few industry employers I reached out to when I was starting my job search because I made it all about me. I need a job! Pay attention to me! Read my resume! Help! I’m desperate. It was an awful way to present myself. On top of this, I was experimenting in my job search. I was trying things out. I figured trial and error worked well in research so why not apply it to my job search. What I should have…

Join Isaiah as he explains how other people’s opinions can affect your life and why you should be careful about who you let in and ask for advice Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode… First, Isaiah discusses the effect that other people’s opinion can have on your emotions and behaviorsNext, Isaiah reveals why most people are better off trusting their instinct than asking for advice about their livesFinally, Isaiah illustrates how this can affect PhDs who are still in academia and what they should do if they want to avoid getting stuck From This Week’s Show…  How Other People’s Opinions Can Change Your Emotions And Behaviors Other people’s opinions about you and your career can be like viruses. They can infect you. No matter who you are or how strong you may be, other people affect your emotions and behavior. These feelings and actions circulate through social networks in patterns similar to that seen in epidemiological models of the flu virus. A scientific study published by the Proceedings of the Royal Society estimated that every positive person you let into your life increases your chances of being positive by 11 percent, but every negative person you let into…

Join Isaiah as he explains the right job search sequence you should follow and why doing so will get your hired faster Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode… First, Isaiah describes the wrong job search sequence he, and other PhDs, used to followNext, Isaiah discusses the steps you should take to put together a job search strategy in the right sequenceFinally, Isaiah explores what will happen once you commit to the right job search sequence From This Week’s Show…  The Wrong Job Search Sequence PhDs Follow My first industry job search looked like this: I’d wake up on a random day tired of doing my meaningless research and feel motivated, briefly, to update my resume. Then, I’d submit the same resume to 5-6 different positions, feel great about myself for a few days and do nothing at all for my job search, reach out to a few contacts on LinkedIn over the weekend when I could batch all my networking (of course Saturday was the worst day to reach out to people). I’d start to feel bad about myself two weeks later when I didn’t hear back from the jobs I applied to and then a few weeks…

Join Isaiah as he discusses why you should set up deliberate times to work on your job search instead of trying to stay busy and why this will make a big difference Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode… First, Isaiah reveals what it takes to master a skill and what is the fundamental difference between elite and average performersNext, Isaiah dives deep into what it takes to be a top performer in whatever skill you’re trying to masterFinally, Isaiah explains how this relates to you job search and why you should always prioritize being productive over being busy From This Week’s Show…  What It Takes To Master A Skill You may have heard that mastering any skill, whether it’s business, surgery, playing the violin, or fencing, requires 10,000 hours of practice. What you may not have heard is that this practice is best done in short bursts, not in long, drawn out days. Studies reviewed in Psychological Review have shown over and over again that the fundamental difference between elite versus average performers in any field is the number of hours the elite tier spends on deliberate practice  —the uncomfortable, methodical work of stretching your ability to execute…

Join Isaiah as he explains why speed of learning is a key skill that all PhDs, no matter their background should leverage when planning their transition Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode… First, Isaiah discusses why all PhDs have top of the line speed of learning skillsNext, Isaiah reveals the lies that other candidates tell PhDs because they are scared of their ability to learn new things quicklyFinally, Isaiah tells you how you should leverage your speed of learning to ensure you get into your target industry job From This Week’s Show…  All PhDs Excel At Speed Of Learning When I was in academia, I always felt slower and less intelligent than those around me. I’m not sure why, but years later I realized that most PhDs felt like this. As PhDs, we hold ourselves to an incredibly high standard and, when left unchecked, this high standard can result in impostor syndrome, analysis paralysis and intellectual defensiveness. The first step to overcoming this is to realize how valuable you and your PhD training are. The most valuable skill you have is your ability to learn faster than any other group of people. This is because PhDs are rigorously…

Join Isaiah as he explains why academia has failed PhDs and why you should accept this reality to get your career and life back on track Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode… First, Isaiah tells the story of how he got stuck in academiaNext, Isaiah reviews the data that show why academia has failed PhDsFinally, Isaiah explains why you need to accept this reality and take action to get your career back on track From This Week’s Show…  How Isaiah Got Stuck In Academia I was so happy to get into graduate school. I thought the rest of my career was set. I would get my PhD, have a road paved in gold ahead of me. The road would lead to either an untouchable tenured professorship, or, should I choose, a highly successful career in industry. I would probably start out as a VP at Pfizer or Intel. Five years later, headed toward my sixth year, I found myself desperate to get a response to hundreds of resumes that I had sent out over the last two months. What happened? Like many PhDs, I ended up stuck in academia with no training on how to get out. Why…

Join Isaiah as he explains what is a 30-60-90 employment plan and what are the goals you should achieve at each stage once you get hired Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode… First, Isaiah discusses discusses what a 30-60-90 employment plan is what should be the goals for the first 30 days of a new employeeNext, Isaiah reveals what a company expects from you at the end of your first 60 days in a new positionFinally, Isaiah reviews the goals of the first 90 days, which usually mark the end of the probatory period From This Week’s Show…  What Is A 30-60-90 Employment Plan Once you transition into industry, you’ll want to work with your employer to make sure you’re doing things right during your first 30, 60, and 90 days. You may want to create and submit a 30-60-90 employment plan to your employer during the interview stage in order to impress them with your candidacy and put your name at the top of their hiring list. The first 90 days of your employment are critical because they get you past the probationary period of your employment and set you on a trajectory for career success—or not. …

Join Isaiah as he explains why most companies have a probationary period in place and why the onboarding process is important Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode… First, Isaiah discusses why most companies have a probationary period in place and the stages new hires go through as they become valuable to the companyNext, Isaiah lists the expectations for new hires who are in the investment zoneFinally, Isaiah examines what happens when you start bringing economic value to the company From This Week’s Show…  Why Most Companies Have A Probationary Period In Place Once you transition into your new industry career, you will likely have a probationary period whereby the employer can release you from your contract. The reason for this is simple – you have not added any value to the company yet and the company has very little evidence that you can add value to the them. There is a process to becoming valuable to a company, and not everything is about speed. This process can be divided into two zones: the “investment zone” and the “return zone.” The “investment zone” is where the organization is investing in you as a new employee. This is where you…

Join Isaiah as he walks you through the questions you should ask to ensure you get the best possible job offer Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode… First, Isaiah presents the two questions that have helped thousands of PhDs get better job offersNext, Isaiah explains why open-ended questions are so powerful during salary negotiationsFinally, Isaiah gives a list of the best open-ended questions to ask to counteract things that employers might say during salary negotiations From This Week’s Show…  The Two Questions That Have Increased The Job Offers Of Thousands Of PhDs After reviewing the initial offer and staying grateful for the opportunity but neutral (at most) toward the salary amount, you should get curious about what else is possible. This is best done by asking the employer open-ended questions such as, “Is there anything else you can do in terms of salary?” or, if they say no to this first question, “Is there anything else you can do instead of salary?” These two questions have helped thousands of PhDs swiftly get a 5 to 15 percent increase in salary and a 20 to 40 percent increase in their signing bonuses. Why Open-ended Questions Are So Powerful During…

Join Isaiah as he explains why you should never accept a verbal salary offer and how you can deflect early salary questions Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode… First, Isaiah discusses why companies will try to get you to agree on a verbal salary offer and why doing so is never in your best interestNext, Isaiah reveals how you can avoid giving a number early in the interview process: by deflecting salary questionsFinally, Isaiah gives some examples of how you can deflect salary questions until you get a written offer From This Week’s Show…  Why You Should Never Commit To A Verbal Salary Offer Be aware that the company will try to negotiate salary with you before giving you a written offer. Any number you provide in this context will only hurt you; therefore, you should prepare to deflect these attempts. You may have to deflect these attempts dozens of times with the same person. Yes, dozens. If you get too uncomfortable during this process to continue deflecting, you will not be paid what you’re worth. If you allow your brain to convince you that you did everything you could and agree verbally to an offer or a…

Join Isaiah as he explains why you should always negotiate your salary and how you can use your walkaway number as a lever Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode… First, Isaiah discusses the importance of salary negotiation in industry and some general rules that should convince you to always negotiateNext, Isaiah gives advice on the best way to negotiate and what you should consider throughout the interview processFinally, Isaiah illustrates the importance of having a walkaway number and why you should set your walkaway number early in the interview process From This Week’s Show…  Why You Should Always Negotiate Your Salary Offer Failing to negotiate your salary offer is devastating to both your income and to your career. The good news is that industry employers expect you to negotiate. In fact, if you don’t negotiate, your employer might second-guess your value in industry. They might start to see you as unqualified, desperate, and easy to replace. They might also think less of your character and credibility, and you will have to work harder to prove yourself after getting hired—if you get hired—than someone who negotiates. All of this is because making deals is a key transferable skill in…