Hey folks, and welcome to the grad school sucks podcast, the show for academics and PhDs who want to leave academia and get a job in the private sector. I'm your host, Dr. Matt Carlson. And today for this week's episode, I'm answering your questions from. Instagram. I have about a dozen questions picked out that you all asked me, and I'm going to spend about a minute each responding to each one of the questions.
And these are all questions generally about going industry, getting your first job and that experience as a whole. So here's the first question. The first question is, what do you actually consider an industry job? Is it just any job that's not a position in a university? So when I say an industry job, I'm specifically referring to any kind of job that's in the private sector where you're working for a for profit business.
It's not necessarily something that's just non academic. Because non academic also includes government jobs and jobs at a non profit. And while some PhDs do go on to work in government or for non profits, the majority of them, when they leave academia, do end up in the private sector working an industry job.
Question number two, How early should you start looking when you know you want to get an industry job in the future? I love this question because I think many PhDs and grad students wait too long before they start doing the basic research needed to being prepared to go on the industry job market. So what I recommend you do is when you are six to nine months away from wanting to start a job, get that first paycheck, you need to start doing your prep work.
That's doing the research on your degree, finding out the kinds of jobs that people with your degree tend to get, then creating materials, both a resume and a LinkedIn profile, and maybe a portfolio project if needed, tailored to that one specific job title. You also need to create a network of people who can help you along the way, and maybe refer you for an open position if one comes along and the timing is right.
And all that can take months, and I don't want you to wait until the last minute. When you're like, Oh, I need a resume. I need to start applying to jobs because if you haven't done the prep work, you're probably not going to be incredibly competitive when you need to be. The third question is what general field did you get your PhD in?
And how do you think job outcomes differ between different fields? I got my degree in the social sciences, and yes, I do think job outcomes vary depending on the field that you come from. In general, what I've seen is that those in STEM tend to have an easier time transitioning to industry compared to those in, say, the humanities.
And the social sciences seems to fall somewhere in between. And for the vast majority of people, I think it's not actually the degree that predicts what kind of a job they'll get, although there are some exceptions, particularly in STEM. I think it's more so the skills that you learn along the way. So if you learn how to be a good teacher and help people learn things, you might find yourself easily transitioning to an instructional design role, even if what you're teaching has nothing to do with the content area you specialized in in grad school.
Alternatively, I think those who learn data analytics are very likely to find themselves easily transitioning to an analytics type role. Again, even if the content area you're growing into has nothing to do with what you studied. For the fourth question, I got several very similar style questions where folks were basically asking what kind of a job should I get if I got a PhD or a master in X, Y, Z field.
And here's my response to those kinds of questions. I get a lot of questions and DMs from people who want to know what kind of jobs they could get with their specific PhD or training. And my answer to them is, Almost virtually the same every time. And that is that you can find out what kind of jobs people from your field tend to get by going on LinkedIn.
And I just made a reel about it this week, but I'll go ahead and tell you again how to do it. It's very easy. You go to LinkedIn. You type in the search bar. Ph. D. in whatever your field is, or Master's in whatever your field is, and put it in quotes. Then you search it and you click the people tab to filter so you only see people and not job listings or companies or posts.
Then you start scrolling through the profiles and you pick out The people who are in an industry job, not people who are grad students or professors. I recommend you get an excel spreadsheet and you document all the jobs you find. That will give you a bird's eye view of the kind of job that you can get with your degree.
And if you want to you can even filter it down by country to see what kinds of jobs people in your country are getting with your training. That is literally the best answer that you could get. Go out and do your own research and find out real results and not just listen to someone like me tell you what the answer is.
The fifth question is about how recruiters will often say that a PhD is overqualified for a given industry role and how I overcome that and here's what I suggest. Maybe you've had this experience before where a recruiter says that you're overqualified because of your graduate education. If so, let me know in the comments.
And I think there are a couple possible responses to this kind of a reaction that you get. Number one, you could actually be applying for jobs that are too low. based on your training. They're too entry level. And I think for many PhDs, particularly those who've done postdocing after their PhD, applying to an entry level job does look a little suspect.
You should actually be applying to more of a mid level job if you had a lot of good experience in your PhD or you did a postdoc. And if you're a faculty, you should often be applying for a leadership position. One thing to think about is how your resume looks. If you're prominently showing that you got a PhD and all this training, then you actually may be turning off recruiters because they are looking for someone who specifically fits the position that they are trying to fill, not someone who is overdoing it.
So I would think about does your resume look and align with the other applicants they are getting. If your application looks overly academic, the simplest way they can say no is say you're overqualified. The sixth question is, how do you find people who would be willing to do an informational interview with you?
So I love when I hear that grad students and academics are doing informational interviews as a way of researching the kinds of roles that they want and learning how to frame themselves better for industry openings. I think it's an invaluable experience that everyone should do as part of their job search preparation process.
Now, if you have people who are not Responding to you about informational interviews, you might be doing a couple things wrong. Number one, you might not be asking enough people. I think if you ask ten people to do informational interviews with you, you'll probably only get one or two, maybe three, that end up saying, Yes.
So you probably need to increase the volume of people that you're reaching out to next. I think an important thing to do is to reach out to people who have training and got a graduate degree like yours. There's kind of a camaraderie of PhDs in industry because we all know the experience of trying to go from academia to industry and how stressful that can be.
The last thing I would recommend is to ask people to just meet with you briefly. There's no reason that an informational interview needs to last an hour. You can often get the amount of information that you need in just 15 to 20 minutes. The seventh question is does it actually matter how many papers or publications you have when you decide you want to switch to industry instead of academia?
This question can be a little divisive because some people have had Great experiences getting job connections due to the publications they have, even connections in industry. But I think for the vast majority of PhDs, your publications will actually not impact your transition to industry or your career in industry that much.
The exceptions that exist are often in the STEM field when you're going to be working on, say, a specific cell culture that you had studied as a grad student or a postdoc. But for the majority of us who end up doing something that's Parallel or a little bit off center of the topic that we studied in academia, I think your publications will actually not make that much of a difference.
That being said, they are a great thing to add in your work experience section to show that you have a tangible product for the work that you've done. The eighth question is Most jobs, even entry level jobs, require some level of industry experience. How do I get past that? And here are some options that might work for you.
It's true. Many companies do want to see that you have some basic experience working in the role that you're applying to, even if it's an entry level job. And here are some ways to get around that or meet that need. The first one is to not pitch your experiences in academia as overly academic. If you worked in a research lab and you conducted work outside of a course, Then you have experience.
It may not be experience working in a business, but it's an experience delivering outcomes for an organization. And so I think framing that on your resume, perhaps even specifically stating the lab or organization that you worked in and not the university as the end employer, and specifically having bullets about.
The experiences that you had there and framing them in ways that align with the job postings you're applying to is the most important thing. The second way is that you can have a portfolio of work where you show projects that align with the job that you're trying to get. That is something that I did and I found helpful.
And the last way is if you are still a grad student is to get an internship with a company. And this is something that's becoming more and more common, particularly for data and research. oriented positions and companies who need those kinds of positions. So think about an internship if you're still in grad school.
The ninth question is, How much money would you expect to make when you get your first industry job after your PhD? And here are my thoughts on that. Obviously, the salaries that a PhD will make after they leave academia and go to industry are going to vary by the kind of job they get, the country that they get that job in, and even the city that they get that job in.
But in general, With the PhDs who I've networked with, a starting salary of around 65, 000 to 85, 000 here in the U. S. is pretty common for an entry to mid level position. And if you're entering with a bit more experience and you're going for, say, a senior level position, you can often expect around 100, 000 a year, if not a little bit above that.
The 10th question is, I'll be 34 after finishing my PhD, do you think it's too late to go industry, and should I stick with academia? So I'm actually 34 right now at the time of me recording this, and I only got serious about my desire to go industry two years ago. So, no, I don't think it's too late for you to go industry, even if you're in your mid 30s.
Or even after that. One of my clients in the group coaching program that I had in the fall was actually a tenured professor when he decided that he was done with university life and wanted to leave academia. So no, I don't think it's too late. Even if you are later in your career than your 30s, I don't think it's too late.
You may face unique hurdles if you are later on in your career in academia, or you have a more senior position like a tenured professor, you may need to get a lot more nuanced and specific about the kinds of jobs that you're trying to get in industry, but it can still be done. The 11th question was, do you think part of your successful transition to industry was being a white male?
And here are my thoughts on that. Certainly, I think discrimination exists in the hiring process for many countries, including the U. S., and I think it was slanted in my favor for the majority of the applications that I submitted. That being said, I think there are many companies that are looking for Diverse candidates and I think the best way to find out what those companies are are not that they say they're looking for diverse Candidates necessarily in the application, but in addition to that looking at their leadership team There's nothing more hypocritical than seeing a job posting that says we want diverse candidates And when you pull up their CEO CFO and COO you see that they are all white men But I think the part of my identity that actually most impacted my successful transition to industry is that I'm a U.
S. citizen, and U. S. citizens or permanent residents who do not require visa sponsorship just tend to get more and more callbacks for jobs, and I'm going to be talking about that in a different video in response to questions about that. The twelfth question was, is it harder for international people to get interviews in the U.
S., and how can I counteract that? And here are some things to think about. Yes, it is harder for international folks to get callbacks in the U. S., particularly if they are not residents, permanent residents, and they are looking for a company to sponsor their visa application. Companies are hesitant to sponsor visa applications primarily because it is expensive.
It can cost thousands of dollars in legal fees, if not more. And many employees only end up staying six to twelve months, so they may not see it as an investment that they want to make. This is not a topic that I can personally speak to, and I am not an expert in immigration law, so I look forward to having more people on the podcast this year who can specifically share their experiences.
of getting a job in the U. S. as an international student, as well as people who can speak to more of the legalities behind everything. And I want to give you a little prequel to one of the interviews that will be coming up, and that's with Lindsey. She got a specific visa when she gained employment after graduate training, that was the EB1A green card.
This is a green card that can be both sponsored by a company or organization as well as self sponsored. And if you want to check out more about this option and submit an application to get a free legal consultation, go to permanentresident. us for all of that. The final question, the 13th question, is how do you actually do this whole thing of transitioning from academia to industry?
With all the experience that you got in doing teaching and research, how do you jump to something new like that? And here is my overarching thought on how to do that. So if you are getting or have a PhD and you want to get a non academic job, here is the full list of things that I think you should do in order to get that job.
Number one. You should start by gathering some research and you're going to do that by doing informational interviews with PhDs. You're going to jump on LinkedIn. You're going to search your degree. You're going to find job titles that sound interesting that you see pop up again and again for people who have degrees like yours.
And then you're going to reach out to those people, probably a dozen, if not more. to try to get them on Zoom to chat with you about that role and what you need to do in order to get that kind of role. Then you're going to create a resume and a LinkedIn profile tailored to that one specific job title and you're going to start applying to jobs.
You're probably going to have to apply to about a hundred jobs to get one offer. And if you're not getting callbacks, that means your resume needs some tweaking and you need to make sure that you're applying to the right job with your skill set. And that's really all there is to it. Of course, it can be a lot of work, but I think if you do the prep work of building a network that feeds you information on a specific career path and how to get there, that is the best place to start.
All right, folks, those were 13 questions and 13 answers from me to you. Common questions that I get about going industry. I hope you appreciated that and learned something from it. If you're interested in following me on Instagram, where I'm most active on social media, I'll put a link below. You can also just find me at gradschoolsucks.
And if you want to start your journey to industry today, I recommend you download my six week checklist. It is a one page. PDF that outlines the specific tasks that PhDs need to complete in order to be competitive on the industry job market. And I can't wait to see you all next week for another episode of the Grad School Dislex Podcast.
See you then.