Get perspective in whichever way you want to you want to do it do your internships do your overseas lab visits Take take a career break. Just just do anything That's not this endless tunnel vision of the hustle bustle and grind of just getting research results and publications out Get perspective whatever that may mean for you. Hey folks and welcome to the grad school sucks podcast the show for grad students and academics Who want to take their graduate degree out of the ivory tower and into industry? I'm your host dr. Matt Carlson and today I'm talking with my friend Merle who lives in Australia She got her PhD in behavioral science and then broke into the finance sector and today I talked with her about how she made the transition from academia to industry how she specifically broke in to Finance and her work consulting there and then also we discussed her book the ultimate guide to doing a PhD we cover a lot of things so without further ado, let's get to the interview when in your PhD program. Did you? Realize that you were gonna go to industry So there's I think there for most people there's gonna be a couple turning points where I think first you have to admit to yourself That there is a problem It's that stuff that one is stopped your denial I think the second step is I'm figuring out what the problem is And then I think from there on as long as soon as you realize that it might be that you're just not a great fit for academia Or academia is not a great fit for you. However, you want to phrase that Then I think the realization can start to see pin at academia just isn't for you Industry might be for you because not everyone goes into industry either I obviously depending on your definition of industry, but I know loads of people who go into policy governance nonprofits I mean in my sector, so I'm a behavioral scientist in my sector. This is very very common to do as well So I don't want to discredit that But I I don't have a strong viewpoint or strong vision on policy and regulation So I guess for me the alternative always would have been industry But the irony is that throughout the PhD and being in academia I had to completely revisit what my concept of industry was and what the kind of jobs and industry Were that would hire someone with a PhD that made a lot of sense for behavioral scientists to be in That weren't with you know, any of the big 10 consulting firms because at the ripe age of 20 Deluded and ignorant. That was what I thought industry was Just the entire consultancy sector which as I said, you know, this this is not how you should go about it You should do your research. You should talk to more people. You should actually understand what's going on in the world I'm not panic At the age of 20 and then make life-changing decisions, but here we are. Yeah, and frankly, I you know, I did a very similar thing I You know decided I want to change the world. I applied to one master's program became a therapist Also had professors that said you'd be good at research. You should think about PhD you have a mind for academia and Just was like, yeah, sure sign me up for whatever is next and I think many people actually Yes, end up in graduate programs in that same kind of way where we don't Super concretely know what's like five or ten years down the road We just know we like learning. We like our subject we like the environment that we're in and we just want to go further with it and Are you simply don't know anything else? Exactly like I don't think I'm So this is a thing my my main recommendation and I think I'm just hijacking the order of your podcast But my main recommendation is actually and I've actually had a lot of pushback on this and which is perfectly acceptable Obviously, but through my own experience. I think it makes a lot more sense if you go into a PhD Having had industry or corporate or non academic experience. I don't care when you've got it. I don't care How you've got I don't even care if you've got any subject that you're still in But I think it just puts a lot more things into perspective that and that is a kind of perspective that you do not have When your entire journey has been academic like mine was I just I just don't recommend Like being entirely academic when being like, okay Yeah, I'm gonna continue in academia and hope this works out for me. You don't have a counterfactual You don't have any other experience to compare it to And that can also make you feel really really trapped because you don't know the alternative It's very unfortunate. I'm sorry. You had a similar experience though. I find it really funny Especially because someone told you you have an academic mind. I still don't know what that means Still not a clue Yeah Yeah, oh well So we both find ourselves here in industry jobs. What kind of a role did you end up stepping into when you went industry? Right. So highly ironically after the round I just gave I think the role is best described as essentially being an internal consultant I know the irony is not lost on me either But it's essentially you can call an internal consultant, but really I'm just a researcher The business comes to me with very specific problems things aren't working from an internal perspective a customer facing perspective Sometimes even a regulatory perspective as new regulations come in and we do actually have to obviously we have to abide by them In the way that obviously is also beneficial for our customers and for us You do have to look for win-win-win situations. They're very scarce, but we try our best And then then they come to us and they just ask us how do you actually do this and if there's Things that we know very little about especially with extremely new regulations. We we take the testing Some of that is fieldwork. Some of that is lab work. We actually do still build a lot of experiments Like online type experiments as I said, but I'm a behavioral scientist So it's a good mix of economics and psychology. So lab experiments galore and Yeah, and we we disseminate what comes out of that What recommendations to take from that how to implement that and then when we move to implementation We continue testing so it's still very research-heavy. There's just no publication journey at the end realistically Right. Yeah, that's really interesting. So how'd you end up getting that role? So that's so as I said, I finished my PhD during the during the pandemic and The last project in my PhD which didn't end up in my PhD to begin with which is a bit, you know interesting Was that I had data from this financial institution that I currently work at Because they very specifically Australia is very ahead of payments. I need to give a bit of contact. Otherwise, it's gonna make no sense So Australia had a lot of the payment technologies already enabled So I think they were one of the first in the world to actually properly do google pay android pay apple pay the whole regular role But that wasn't a country-wide decision to make that was actually financial institution choice to make so the financial institution I currently work for was very Late to the game with actively switching on apple pay. This has a variety of reasons. Let's not get into them now But they switched this on and then when they switched it on I started getting the data So I could see how people spent their money before having apple pay activated and after Because there's a large literature saying that this is going to make a difference and it does Um, so I had this data. I was going through the motions of of you know, disentangling this effect And then essentially my my phd was running its course My friend who was still working in this institution at the time was like, hey, I As a result of the pandemic she she was based or she grew up in in new york herself. She was like, listen, I'm moving back home Um, I know roles are going to be available. Her her role included We're going to be hiring for for multiple roles. I know you're on a leave academia. I think you should apply And I told her because she was in a managerial function. She was leading a team. I was like, listen, I don't I don't have any experience leading a team. She's like, it doesn't matter. Just apply to the world Uh, and even if you fail at least the the team knows you by this stage They have a better idea of who you are and they and they know that you actively want to move Um, so I did exactly as she told me she is actually filled with a with a lot of wisdom I can't imagine her ever doing a phd. I think she might be too smart for that So, uh, so I applied to the to the job and um, as this did that team already knew me. I think it was a relatively Easy interview process to be very honest. I mean, you're sitting opposite people Who are asking you questions about behavioral science and they know that you know the answer So it was it was a very it seemed more like a bunch of Friendly very informal chats about behavioral science where you had to give a presentation or you had to design an intervention or whatever. It was very friendly. It was very uh Yeah, cozy almost And in in the end, I mean, um As predicted by myself I didn't get the the managerial job because I at a time didn't have any major managerial experience But they were like listen, uh, we want to hire you anyway. Just you're not going to manage a team You'll just manage projects and do research. I'm like excellent sounds good to me And then as soon as Australia opened up after the pandemic I uh, skedaddled off to sydney so that is uh From january last year So there you go easy does it That's so that that's my journey in so I recommend for anyone who's doing a phd try to get data from industry and then Just slowly slowly wiggle your way in Yeah, and This is not the first story that I've heard where Someone got a great industry job by having a relationship with that employer While they were a grad student whether that was a data collection project Or someone did their dissertation with the data another person a lot of people done internships during their their graduate programs which I find really interesting and I think I think that speaks to if you have that like long term view of you know, maybe academia won't work out I'm gonna maybe end up in the industry might as well start like sowing some seeds for the future For folks listening who have the time before they go on the market. I think that's a great, you know great takeaway Yeah to think about Hey folks I wanted to interrupt my conversation with murall briefly just to let you know that if you're interested in taking your phd to industry you need a roadmap and I've created a roadmap a one-page pdf that outlines all the steps and specific Tasks that I think phds need to do in order to be competitive on the job market and if you'd like to download that free pdf you can go to sixweek checklist dot com Or click the link in the description of this episode now back to the interview Can you speak a little bit about what you think the opportunities are in the financial sector for phds? Maybe just from the social sciences or more broadly I find it very difficult to approach the the financial sector as a A whole entity I think for the average phd Still sorry graphical students or someone who's about to hit the job market or someone who's still got a couple of years to get there It kind of depends on what your niche is I Struggle to see where someone would take a lot of advantage out of having a phd in finance unless they had a phd in like financial Modeling because that is what that the financial sector as an industry is looking for that because this is so data heavy Obviously machine learning AI these applications are becoming going to become increasingly more popular And already have become rapidly popular and they need people who actually know what on earth is going on there Do you need a phd in that or do you need a lot of rigorous trainings through like master programs online courses and having a very active github or kaggle? I feel like some people know exactly how to How to work this domain, but realistically Your skill set needs to be very visible Online you need to be easy to find your projects your your ability with with coding machine learning them You know, whatever needs to be visible online A phd is maybe a way of doing that But i'm not sure it would be the way but if you're looking to enter the financial sector Please have a very very very strong Quant skill background if you want to do it through a phd My specialization is behavioral science or behavioral finance if you will that is very niche If you can bear the quant like financial modeling again in that case i'm very very niche my Topic or my subfield if you will is very phd heavy Because you need a quite a rigorous set of research skills to be able to operate in this field because you'll have to do field research You have to do experimental stuff both in real life and so in the in the lab online in real life Doesn't matter you need to be able to do all of them You need to be able to create and build quite a variety of methodologies So you you can do a phd as long as that phd very clearly showcases that It can make you more competitive, but you need to find Units that specialize highly in research to make that work for you Not every unit is going to be super open-minded to that Um, so you need to do quite a lot of research beforehand I think if you're looking to do a phd in in finance in behavioral finance Quant finance whatever you want to call it and you don't have a very strong academic end goal I I really consider what is that you really want from it if you're using it as an opportunity to continuously be exposed to People who can continue to train you in that courses in the development from an academic side, but that's completely valid Um I'm not sure it's the way I would necessarily go I don't regret doing my phd. I don't think I would have gotten hired without it But but that is because my phd was very practical and focused right so that's another recommendation Then so focus something on which is currently really going in in the field So something very innovative I suppose Yeah, so I want to change yours for a second. So you wrote a book I did Is it the ultimate guide to doing a phd? It is yeah, it is yeah, so grad school is very american phd is very european I'm giving my heritage away in the title already. Oh really okay, so what was the uh incentive or what Inspired you to write the book So I have to I have to take that a couple steps back as well. So I started blogging I I know I'm such a boomer. That's what it is. Um, I think As soon as the first year of my phd ended or I wasn't in the summer of my first year moving to my second year of the phd and I started Blogging because I was actually really disappointed with how little you wrote in the phd and I really really like to write A phd as I'm sure many people are aware is you write one thing it gets critique to shreds And then it's just editing and editing and it's mind-numbing. I don't like editing, but I love writing So I was really disappointed with that and the other thing and this is a critique at academia has had to withstand for the past 50 years And it's really not going well. Um, it's just this very ivory tower Intra like interesting results or applies results or any kind of results. They don't trickle down They're hidden behind paywalls and journals and they they are not accessible By any means to anyone who could actually benefit from them So I got a bit annoyed. So I started blogging about anything I found in my research anything I found in behavioral economics behavioral science behavioral finance insert some kind of behavioral here and You know, I really really enjoyed that and then I started thinking because most of my my friends and family who weren't doing a phd But they're actually really quite struggling to understand what it was. So I wrote about that. I wrote about my experiences from Applying to supervisor selection to mental health struggles and then there were many I'm afraid and They were very very popular like all the stuff on behavioral finance. I wrote this also very popular. So I'm very thankful for for a great audience but these articles on the struggles in the phd they were They got taken up by a very different audience And they just kept spiraling into more and more people reaching out to me to the extent where I probably had a chat about someone asking me should I be doing a phd in behavioral science? How do I go about this? Do you think it makes sense? Like does this fit in my five-year plan? So all of a sudden I'm like twice or three times a week having Calls with people from anywhere in the world asking me about what about career and Like you know life trajectory advice, which I'm not entirely sure I was equipped to give massive disclaimer in front of all of these chats But the thing is this is this is not scalable Um, I still had these chats when I moved to Australia and the time difference got so absurd that I think I had one of these chats at like 2am Like I have to respect the person. They were really tenacious. They really wanted to talk to me And I was like, you know, well, I'm a night person. Let's do it They don't don't be surprised if I'm like sitting there with a glass of wine, but I will answer your questions at 2am Um, I think I actually got home from a party as well just to take that call. So it was yeah, it was very interesting She's doing very well by the way. So I'm very glad. I'm not sure it's because of my advice, but she is doing very well So this it just became unsustainable. It's not scalable. It doesn't work. But so I'd already written I'm inclined to say 20 20 25 posts about so really not that much in the grand scheme of things But I realized that I'd very much written about what was relevant to me at the time It wasn't super cohesive and I was like, you know what between the Between me submitting the phd dissertation and moving on to the next job. There was a couple months And I was like, you know what I'm gonna synthesize the whole lot merge it together See if I can actually Write this up as a proper journey as a proper almost step by step guide Uh, and so I did and then I got it published with uh, I'm not even sure where the publisher is from to be honest Well, they got published Uh, and I hope it's it's useful to people I hope they can make much more sense of a phd than I did because I generally felt like I was free falling from one stage into the next and I think Realistically in my third year, I'm not entirely sure if I made any progress or I did more of a regression And I don't want that for other people. I think As you've already mentioned, there's loads of people who during the phd get their epiphany moment and they do an industry internship Or they do an overseas visit. They get experience with way more labs or may other institutions other people other pis um, or they work with data from From corporate from industry, maybe even from from governmental It's that tends to be a bit more sensitive and they get just this plethora of experiences and they get perspective And that is so important But I think at the time me as an early 20s, I had no idea what I was doing Just none and I was just you know, and the phd is is very tunnel vision. It's very focused And because of the tunnel vision and because of the panic and because of this perpetual feeling of Not knowing what you're supposed to be doing and as a result consistently feeling like a failure um, there's not a lot of mental capacity left To take a couple breaths take a couple steps back and get that perspective and be like, you know, what maybe this isn't healthy Maybe this isn't what I want to do with my life and maybe it's time to As a colleague of mine did take six months off and have an internship with the world bank or oacd Which in in europe are really good, uh, applied behavioral economics Organizations or at least these organizations have those units and uh, yeah, they they learned a lot from that Obviously if the world hadn't shut down thanks to the pandemic, I think I would have done more of that But you know that that's that's hindsight. I mean, that's just me lying to myself But yeah, so I hope this this guide can tell people that even if you're find yourself in the in the darkest part of your tunnel vision There there are ways out. There's definitely ways of dealing with it. You should deal with it You should deal with it very proactively And if you go into a phd knowing all of these things you can be really quite proactive about it because it doesn't catch you Of guard as badly but uh, yeah expectation adjustments are Are definitely in order Yeah, absolutely. So what where in someone's journey through a phd? Do you think this book would make the most impact? Well, it describes all stages so realistically probably get it even before you start I've got entire chapters now to actually successfully apply to a phd Which seems to be quite a struggle as well. So do get it done. But as I said if you Read this book or at least if you read like the first two or three sections Which is um before the phd very much in the first year so the the year that you're still being told things Are you trying to figure out what is what this is actually going on as well as the first part that you actually have to do research? I feel like if you read those Before you even start your phd in the process that you're applying at the time that you're actively considering. Hey, is this for me? I think that will already help you massively because that's how I wrote it I feel like the idea of a phd to a lot of people is this this vague abstract blob in the same way that consulting was a vague abstract blob To me when I started getting into the recruitment stages of it And they didn't meet my expectations as a result I hated it and I just don't want that to happen to people where they're like Because actually I've read recently and it's very disappointing that there's a very high percentage of people that drop out In the first year of the phd because it is still so Talled and they were hoping to do independent research and to you know accelerate and this this the and in the states It might even be longer than than one year of teaching it might actually be close to two or three obviously depending on the field that you're in and it is just such a disappointment because If you have that expectation that just doesn't align you might be missing out on something great Or maybe you saved yourself from a lot of headaches. It's difficult to say really Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So if people want to pick up the book, where do you suggest they go to buy it? Um, I'm pretty sure it's on amazon. I mean, I'm not I'm not saying it. I'm the biggest fan of jeffrey bezels But you know by this stage it is easy Let's let just make life easy for ourselves Which is how he became a billionaire after all right. It's not a bad strategy Yeah, what do you what do you foresee in the future for someone who's who's getting into let's say They're in your field. They're focused on the finance sector What are the the career paths that they can kind of look out and see into the future? What are some possibilities? Fair play. I think consultancy in our sector is not likely to die out Um, I think the units within companies like internal type consultancies. They'll continue growing But that is a kind of like a who knows who kind of game um, especially as What I've recently noticed is that people kind of jump between the financial institutions that they're in and you tend to once you're in that pool Great and you can kind of keep circling in in that pool. Hopefully circle upwards, you know Um, the other thing which even these consultancies and other kinds of companies will will have to start hiring is people with specializations and behavioral data science and behavioral AI I'm not saying that if you don't have any quantum skills, you're completely unemployable If if you cap out analytics that is completely fine if you prefer To you know be on the consultancy side be on the the research design the methodology side that is completely valid And like you're still going to get hired. It's just if you want to be in the area that has the most rapid growth Um, and that's still very much in in infancy so you can make the most impact the quickest I'd probably move towards behavioral data science and behavioral AI so You have a strong strong background in quantum skills But even if all of behavioral science completely collapses, you still have a very very strong skill set that you just take to the next sector So you're very employable And I personally find behavioral AI very interesting. Uh, don't have the skill set. Yeah, but I'll be working on it Absolutely So for folks who want to follow along with your journey and consume some more of your content Where do you suggest they look to follow you? Um, I think the easiest way to follow me is actually on linked in like I used to be twitter, but quite frankly It's yeah, I mean we all know what happened to twitter Or x or whatever it's currently called. I mean, it's my x favorite app. So I presume it was very aptly named Um, and the blog is just called money on the mind So you can you can find me in my my ramblings about behavioral finance and the academia now on there as well Yeah, I've got the blog pulled up. Who who does your blog? What kind of readership does your blog target? Well, it's surprisingly a lot of americans, which as a european I always find very funny. It's like, oh, it's found its way to the states So there we go. Um, so I as I mentioned, I Did the blog because I want to break down like really academic really complicated concepts So anyone can apply them and anyone can understand what's going on So I don't think I'm being read by the most academic of people because I'm sure they just read the journals but I think I have an audience ranging from behavior on tuesday as to people with like years and decades of experience in the in the behavioral domain Um, and just seeing what what's going on in the the behavioral finance domain. So it's it's a very varied readership. I think the The limits on or the the spread of the variance on on terms of levels of education age Where they are from in the world is actually really quite varied. So I'm actually really pleased with that I'm getting a very varied and broad audience, which makes me happy. It's good for the field Yeah, that's great. Well, I have links to your book your linkedin and the blog in the description of this episode So folks are listening. They can scroll down on youtube or on the podcast and get links to those three things uh merrill It did we cover everything that you wanted to talk about today? I'm curious to hear from from my end. No, but I'm very curious because you've interviewed so many people I'm them very curious to learn. What is your number one piece of advice For someone who's already in grad school to make the most of it Hmm, I think the So I I think now where I am in life is I'm I'm stuck in the What do you do after grad school? And so that's that's what I think about and I think the most impactful thing you can do is to network and You know, if you want to stay in academia, of course, you can network in academia But I think if even there's like a 30 chance or a 50 chance that you're going to go to industry I think you start start making those connections early Because the worst thing you can do is to need a job in six weeks and that's when you start networking and that just doesn't work You need a you need a network six to 12 months before you're going to start asking people for things and So I I think that's the thing that I impress on people the most when I meet with them right now So how do you go about networking because I've gone about a variety of ways I and the blog is actually Has always been a core part of that because it makes me very easy to find um I also drop everything I've ever done on SSRN which actually gets you quite a lot of media attention Assuming that your topic is remotely interesting But then so I'm just I push out content and then people come to me I'm not even sure if that's just not working or just screaming into the void and sometimes the void screams back Um, but so what what is what are your tips for networking then come on teach me? I clearly still need help Well, so I'll I'll divide maybe networking into two topics one is like When you don't know anything about industry and you want a network for a future job I think the easiest thing to do is reach out to Upper classmen who've already gone into industry Maybe people who were in their fifth year when you were in your first year And they're the easiest people to get who will say yes to speaking with you Of course And I think once you once you get them the easiest question at the end is Do you know two or three other people who you think I should talk to and then it just grows from there And really if you do that a couple times you'll have More than enough spider web connections kind of shooting out Uh, so I think I think that's probably where I would start I think if you don't even have that, you know googling not googling getting on linkedin and searching phd in For me, it's human development and family science and just see who pops up scroll through profiles And you know for for folks like you the way I network with them is I have them on the podcast and You know we share like conversations as content creators and I think that's That's like kind of another I don't know a different kind of networking that most people probably won't do and they probably don't need to do But I think being active on Frankly linkedin is the place where everybody hangs out. So I think being active on that Even just in people's the comments of people's posts That's gotten me connections to cool people so I frankly find that PhDs are really willing to to chat um More so than non phd's because we get The journey, you know We get what you're having to go through that is very fair. I mean, I feel like in that regard. I've gotten a bit behavioral science is a very I want to say open field, but I don't think open is the right word for it I think it might actually be like a very clicky field, but that's that's doesn't sound good at all but it's like In in behavioral science, you're never more than two degrees removed from anyone. It's not possible Because the the field I mean 20 years ago this field was like niche like niche niche So like it's it's it's growing and it's and it's growing greatly but like Like anyone in your direct circle will have a tide like a major behavioral scientist So it's that makes it very very easy that this this field isn't very difficult to To network in or to get to know Like major players in I feel like if you approach this from like all of finance for example, that's that's much more difficult So much more difficult So yeah, sometimes I guess you get lucky with a very niche field Yeah, yep. Yep. I think so too. Well, moral. It's been great talking with you For folks listening check out the book LinkedIn check out our blog all links to all three of those things I have one last question for you For grad students who are listening What is one thing you think that grad students should consider doing before they graduate? It can be something fun or it can be something serious just one thing to do Get perspective in whichever way you want to you want to do it do your internships do your overseas lab visits Take take a career break. Just just do anything That's not this endless tunnel vision of the hustle bustle and grind of just getting research results and publications out Get perspective whatever that may mean for you Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for chatting with me. Merle. Thanks so much for having me Matt. It's been good All right, folks. That was my conversation with Merle. I hope you got a lot out of it Be sure to check the description for links to her book as well as her LinkedIn profile and blog Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you all next week