Hey folks, with the holidays being here, I know everyone is super busy. So I'm releasing a super short episode for this week. Welcome to the grad school sucks podcast. My name is Dr. Matt Carlson, and this is the show for grad students and academics who want to take their career to industry. So the topic that I want to talk about today is something that I often get asked about and frankly get some pushback on.
from academics who are wanting to go industry, and that is about the importance of having focus in your career search by choosing to pursue one job title. That's right, one job title. Now, I did not do this the first time I tried to go industry. I pursued a number of different job titles, and even applied to be a community manager at a video game company, which is And I think the reasons that I did this are the same reasons that other grad students do it, and that's that as a grad student you do a lot of different things, from research, to writing, to teaching, there's a lot of different skill sets that you develop.
as someone involved in the academic research world. Additionally, you probably get a lot of interest and satisfaction from doing all those things. One of the reasons that I think an academic career is compelling is the fact that you can have your hands in so many different activities. That being said, in industry, we really like to break things up.
Unless you're at a startup, you're probably going to be focused on one core job for the majority of your time. And so when you think about the process of going to industry, one thing you need to do is you need to think about your skillset. You need to identify the different job titles that could utilize that skillset and start doing informational interviews with PhDs from your field who've already made it to industry.
So that you can understand these roles that are available to you and choose one. Use their experiences to help guide you in knowing what you would be best at, what you would be most satisfied doing, and what would have a career progression that you would appreciate.
In addition to the fact that I liked so many things and felt I had skills in so many different areas, I pursued multiple job titles in my first job search because I felt like it would actually increase the possibility that I would get a job. I was spraying and praying, so to speak. And there's a proverb that goes something like the person who chases two rabbits catches none.
And I think that type of wisdom is really apt here because making the transition from academia to industry, I think is a lot like getting into grad school. Or, starting a research career. When you apply to grad school, you're often not applying to a physics program, a biology program, a psychology program, and a history program.
You're usually picking one field and you're applying to multiple programs within one field. Why? Because if you spread yourself too thin in too many different subjects, you're probably not going to get accepted to any of them because you're just not going to be a compelling candidate. Your materials won't feel focused.
The training that you've done beforehand probably won't be. completely aligned with whatever individual program you're applying to. And people can see that. And frankly, the same is true of a research career. If you want to get grants, you typically are not going to get them with an app, with a application that says, I would love to learn more about this area.
It's usually, I'm an emerging expert in this area and I want to go deeper. And getting your first industry job is really the same thing. Recruiters are looking for a safe bet. And a safe bet has two qualifications. The first one is that you are friendly, relatable, and that you could work as a team. You're not a stinker.
You're not a sore sport. You're not someone who is a lone wolf and going to be difficult to work with. The second is that you can just do the job. You understand the skill, you can do the job, you can show up without a lot of training on the job, and be able to accomplish whatever is needed. And those are really just the two core things that recruiters and hiring managers are looking for.
And if you're applying to three or five different kinds of job titles, I suspect your application materials are really not going to be so laser focused that it shows that you could do the job compared to your competition. And again, your competition is likely going to include people who didn't go to grad school and instead have real world experience in the direct role that you are applying to.
And even if you could learn faster than them, even if you could use your grad training to excel, to the heights of that role, you are going to be seen as a risky bet compared to someone who's already done the role. So your application needs to demonstrate that you can do the role even if you've not had that specific job title before.
And the way you're going to do that is by having focus. Having focus in understanding what your resume needs to look like. Having focus in understanding what your LinkedIn profile needs to look like. And then having focus in preparing for interviews. By learning the jargon of that role and probably doing some upskilling.
And to go back to LinkedIn profiles for one second,
a common rebuttal to this pursue one job title mantra that I keep saying is I can just make resumes for each different kind of job. And of course that is true, and actually I have multiple resumes when I'm on the job market as well, but they're for multiple kinds of data analyst positions, not for multiple career paths.
Additionally, you can only have one LinkedIn profile, and LinkedIn profiles have become more and more important as years have gone on. And when you're on the job market, recruiters are going to be looking at your LinkedIn profile if your resume is compelling enough. And you don't want to have a bland LinkedIn profile that could apply to three or four different career paths.
You want to have one that's laser focused, talking about the career, The skills and experiences that you've had that have led you up to this point and how this next step that you are pursuing is going to be a logical step for your career path. And now let's go to upskilling and wrap this all up.
Upskilling is simply learning a new skill and it's something that you're probably going to have to do to get your first job in industry. You're probably going to have to do it even before you start a job. And while that is unfortunate, it is not a Insane ask for recruiters and hiring managers to want you to have learned the basics of a job before you start the job.
When I tried to be a data analyst the first time, I didn't know SQL. And that is one of the most common data querying languages in industry. And so for my second time on the job market, I did upskill. And I taught myself SQL with an online course. And I ended up And it probably wasn't only because of learning SQL.
I had a much better resume and I was laser focused on one job title. But I think it did play a role. And it is probably near impossible to upskill for multiple different kinds of career paths. If you want to go into UX Design, you need to learn Figma. If you want to go into Data Analytics, like I said, you need to learn SQL.
And if you want to go into Human Resources, you need to learn, Workday, and it's going to be real hard for you to learn all three of those things while you're trying to finish your dissertation, create a resume, do all these coffee chats, you're just putting too much work on your own plate.
So here's my takeaway. Start with coffee chats with PhDs who are already in industry, people from your field, and try to understand the world of these different kinds of job titles that you could pursue. And the better you understand that world, the more you do these informational interviews, the more you can select one with confidence, even before getting the job, and go all in on that one job title, and that will maximize your chance of getting that job.
And if you are looking to take your social science graduate training and academic experience to industry this next year in 2024, I want to give a quick plug. I just wrapped up my first group coaching program for academics and grad students and postdocs from the social sciences who wanted to get their first industry job in the U.
S. job market. Just wrapped that up earlier this month. It was a great experience. I had seven people and several of them have actually already accepted job offers.
And I'm going to be launching my next group coaching program with a brand new cohort here in the next few months. And if that is something you are interested in, then I encourage you to follow along with the podcast and subscribe to my newsletter because I will be announcing applications soon. for that group.
But for now, sit back, get rested, spend some time with family and friends, and enjoy this holiday break, and I will see you all next week.