Your Job Candidate Profile

Join Isaiah as he explains why job candidate profile is important for PhDs to communicate their value to the industry employers and get hired in high-paying industry roles

Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode…

• First, Isaiah discusses why it is important for PhDs to have a strong job candidate profile
• Next, Isaiah reveals how PhDs should manage job candidate profile
• Finally, Isaiah explains why a professional profile is important for PhDs

From This Week’s Show… 

Why Is It Important For PhDs To Have Strong Job Candidate Profile

Many PhDs want to transition out of academia. To get hired in the industry, you need to craft your professional profile carefully and correctly. Your job candidate profile should communicate your PhD worth in the language of the industry. PhDs acquire many skills. Highlight the as the right keywords. Your professional profile includes your industry resume and your LinkedIn profile. 

These give the recruiter a comprehensive idea about your expertise and skills with respect to the job at hand. You can expand your profile to include other documents and other social media profiles. However, the most searched ones are resume and LinkedIn profiles. 

Spend very little time during your job search on your professional profile.

How Should You Manage Your Job Candidate Profile

Regardless of background, PhDs are expert researchers. Highly trained in identifying problems and finding solutions to those problems. Create a profile compiling these skills. And then only slightly adjust it as needed based on the jobs you target. Applying to a new job online? Uploading a resume? Make the resume highly targeted to that position. Use appropriate keywords and connect them to your skills and expertise. Keywords should have every technical skill and transferable skill from the job posting inserted into the resume. 

If you do not have a particular skill on the job posting, find a way to insert the skill by mentioning it alongside the relevant skills. Or simply mention your ability to perform tasks related to the skill. Write “Experience using XYZ skill relevant to ABC skill required for the position” whereby ABC skill is the skill on the job posting that you would not have been able to mention without first mentioning the relevant skill you actually have. Or  write, “Ability to perform XYZ analysis on ABC instrument”. 

Why Professional Profile Is Important For PhDs To Be Hired In Well Paying Roles

Professional profile is not only online or on paper, it’s also in person. Prepare to present yourself as a credible and viable solution. A solution to the problem an industry employer is facing. If there is a need. Job is posted. Find out that need. Learn why the job is open in the first place. Find out before you interview with the company. 

To get a job offer following any real-time interviewing interaction with an employer requires you to display a certain level of mastery. Not mastery over your skills alone or even over the job at hand. But mastery over yourself. Employers evaluate you on your self-mastery. During any industry interview. Most PhDs find this very hard to believe but it is absolutely true. Only a few employers will require anything from you beyond answering a few questions during an interview. Industry employers will pay you tens of thousands of dollars a month based on the answers you give during a few short meetings. So based on the short time interaction, why would they commit their money and resources? 

Industry employers must commit to hiring you based on very little information over a very short period of time. Therefore, they will carefully evaluate your behavior and response. How you master yourself even under stress. Hence, don’t study common interview questions or wait until you get an interview to prepare for an interview. This “cramming” is ineffective. You need to practice interacting with other professionals in a very professional way behaviorally and you need to start now. 

You can have the professional lifestyle you’ve always wanted. It’s waiting for you. 

If you’re ready to start your transition into industry, you can apply to book a free Transition Call with our founder Isaiah Hankel, PhD or one of our Transition Specialists. Apply to book a Transition Call here.