PhD Transition Report On-Demand

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**PhD Transition Report On-Demand**

Podcast by Cheeky Scientist

Latest Episodes:

The Invisible Job Candidate May 16, 2022

Show notes

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 employers
Next, Isaiah argues that you’re invisibile by choice and what you can do to change that
Finally, 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 to them. Everything else you tell yourself about why you are being ignored is a waste of time and is a cover for your unorganized, inactive job search.

Why You’re Invisible By Choice

It’s so much easier to blame lack of success in your job search on the lack of some skill, certification, or degree when the hard truth is that you can’t get hired because you refuse to reach out to meet employers or employees.

It’s your refusal to have challenging conversations with people in industry that is keeping you from transitioning. Think of all the tools you have at your disposal today for getting an employer’s attention. You can find everything you need to know about an employer on their website. They might even have a careers page that gives you specific information about how to get in touch with them. You can find these employers on LinkedIn too, including every employee who works at these companies. You can email these employers or simply pick up the phone, call their office, and ask to speak to someone in the hiring department.

So, let’s not pretend like you can’t get an employer’s attention. Instead, let’s admit the truth: you’re invisible by choice.

How Academia Makes PhDs Prone To Isolation

As PhDs, we are trained for years and years to keep to ourselves, and, over time, we have become isolated in our ivory towers. In our isolation, we tell ourselves stories that fit our situation and shift blame off ourselves and onto imaginary forces.

We imagine that we’re not being contacted by industry employers because our PhD has made us overqualified. We imagine that our PhD background is too niche or that we lack some specific skill on a job posting.

In reality, we just don’t want to reach out to anyone because it’s too uncomfortable. Nobody in industry knows you, and nobody will know you if you keep doing what you’re doing.

There’s a cost to playing the attention game incorrectly. Many hiring managers and recruiters will never come back to a job candidate’s LinkedIn profile once they have decided that you lack industry credibility. Worse, many top employers have a mandatory six- to twelve-month waiting period before they will reconsider you for a position at their company once they have reviewed your resume and rejected your candidacy for a position.

Your industry job search is not a trial-and-error affair. This is not academia. If you’re performing a poor and sloppy job search, you’re burning bridges, and it’s time for you to stop.

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.

The post The Invisible Job Candidate appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

What Does Your Perfect Work Day Look Like? May 13, 2022

Show notes

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 into chasing a title that sounds impressive but will never lead them to the professional lifestyle they truly want.

Who cares if Medical Science Liaison is trending if you don’t want to travel and hate giving presentations? Sure, the title of Management Consultant demands respect and recognition, but does that matter if you hate Microsoft Excel and your personal situation would never allow you to work eighteen hours a day, five days a week, onsite in a different city every week, fifty-two weeks a year?

Academia As An Example Of Why Chasing Job Titles Can Only Lead To Failure

Perhaps you thought becoming a PhD and being called “doctor” was going to automatically result in a tenured, untouchable position that came with respect, rewarding work, and all the resources needed to excel. How did that work out for you?

How is that working out for your advisor or for most lifetime academics? What if you could go back and shadow your advisor or any professor or principal investigator (PI)? Would you have planned your career differently?

Would you have created a better target for yourself? Actually, let’s back up. Do you even know what’s important to you in life? Do you know what you’re chasing and why? If not, you’re in trouble.

Questions You Should Ask To Establish Your Ideal Professional Lifestyle

Let’s make things more practical. Start by asking yourself, which activities do you want to spend your work day doing? Which will make you feel the happiest? I’m not talking about overly simplistic, hedonistic happiness. I’m talking about deeper, more complex fulfillment—the lasting happiness that comes with meaningful achievement.

What daily professional actions will lead you to the most meaningful achievement? What characteristics of your career would lead to those actions? Let’s find out with some simple questions you’ve likely never asked yourself.

Do you want to work with a large team or a small team? Or perhaps no team? Do you want to work with numbers? If so, are you interested in large data sets or smaller data sets? Do you prefer to collect and analyze quantitative data or qualitative data?

Do you want a position where you have to read and write a lot? If so, you will want to consider writing-intensive positions. Do you want to work at the company’s headquarters or at one of their smaller, remote, satellite locations? Or do you want to work full-time in the field (or at a home office)? Are you willing to travel and, if so, how frequently?

When it comes to a company’s operations, where on the spectrum of innovation and commercialization do you want to be? Without asking yourself these tougher questions first, you’ll never be able to set a target career path for your job search.

The post What Does Your Perfect Work Day Look Like? appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

The Innovation And Commercialization Career Spectrum May 11, 2022

Show notes

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 spectrum
Next, Isaiah dives deep into the commercialization side of the spectrum
Finally, 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 clients want, need, and might buy), and the creation of a value proposition (an offer to solve a problem that a client has).

The Commercialization Side Of The Spectrum

Across the spectrum, these phases of conceptualization (or innovation) slowly transform into production, or the commercialization of products and services.

There are many phases and job titles that span the middle of the spectrum, including ones in manufacturing, quality control, and quality assurance.

Once the product or service is complete, it would “go-to-market” and be put on shelves (physical, online, or otherwise) to be sold.

These products and services would then need to be supported by sales teams, marketing teams, customer services teams, and even installation and engineering teams.

Where Positions Fall In The Innovation And Commercialization Career Spectrum

I alluded to dozens of different careers, or job titles, as I was discussing the spectrum of innovation and commercialization above.

On the innovation side, an employer might need a Patent Examiner, Patent Scientist, Technical Advisor, and Patent Agent. They might also need a Regulatory Affairs Associate, or perhaps a team of Recordkeepers or Documentation Specialists.

As an idea is turned into a product, the company would need Project Managers, Product Managers, R&D Researchers, Scientists, Engineers, Quality Control and Quality Assurance Specialists, Data Analysts, Data Scientists, Informatics Specialists, Clerks, Technicians, Operational Support Specialists, and more.

Once production crosses from early stages of development to manufacturing and distribution, Manufacturing Agents, Product Engineers, and factory positions of all kinds are needed, such as Shippers, Truckers, Distribution Agents, and Delivery Agents.

Additional marketing positions would be involved throughout this process, including Strategic Marketers, Tactical Marketers, Marketing Communication Specialists, Medical Writers, Technical Writers, Marketing Education Writers, Editors, Translators, Portfolio Managers, and more Project Managers and Product Managers.

Once the product goes to market, Technical Support Specialists, Customer Service Representatives, Sales Associates, Sales Managers, Application Specialists, Retail Associates, User Experience Researchers, IT Specialists, and Storefront Support and Online Support positions of all kinds are needed.

The questions to ask yourself again are: what activities do you want to do on a daily basis and where do you want to be on the spectrum?

The post The Innovation And Commercialization Career Spectrum appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

Having A Pragmatic Mindset May 09, 2022

Show notes

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 mindsets
Next, 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 pragmatic mindset. You must become a pragmatist. A pragmatic mindset will ensure that you stay in touch with reality while always maintaining a sense of personal responsibility in your life.

A pragmatic mindset will also increase your resilience, which is the key to overcoming the pain associated with trauma, tragedy, or adversity.

How A Pragmatic Mindset Positively Ipacts Your Life

Studies reported by the American Psychological Association confirm that people who have a pragmatic mindset are more resilient and that resilient people, when faced with stress, are measurably happier than those who are not resilient.

The same studies showed that resilient people, in turn, have a more stable state of mind overall. Pragmatism is about protecting your mindset, and protecting yourself against unwanted thoughts and desires is essential for goal attainment.

Research from the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin agrees that if you don’t strategically protect yourself from damaging internal influences by controlling your mindset, you are more likely to sabotage your success.

Have you ever pulled back right before reaching a big goal? Have you ever refused to ask for help and tried, unsuccessfully, to do everything yourself? Have you ever overthought a situation and, as a result, failed to make the right decision? This is self-sabotage and it’s the result of impractical thinking.

Why Having The Right Mindset Increases Your Chances Of Achieving Your Goals

A scientific study in the Journal of Applied Psychology looked at personality and goal-striving and found that a person’s mindset emerged as the most important aspect of the self-regulation process and an important motivational strategy that successful people use while working toward goal achievement.

Your mindset today will control where you end up tomorrow. Science shows that when a pragmatic mindset is maintained, goals get achieved, and people feel an increased sense of well-being and improved mood, as well as an increased ability to select, set, and achieve future goals.

Maintaining a pragmatic mindset will protect you against threats of both internal and external distraction. By learning to think pragmatically, you’ll notice an increase in self-reliance, internal motivation, and commitment to your career goals, which will transform the pain of your current position into productivity in your job search.

The post Having A Pragmatic Mindset appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

Trial And Error Works In Research, Not A Job Search May 06, 2022

Show notes

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 call
Next, Isaiah gives an example of how using trial and error will significantly reduce your chances of getting hired
Finally, 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 a direct message and we ended up talking on a Transition Call. “It seems like the harder I try in my job search, the harder things are getting.” Well, I said, that’s because it is getting harder. As you continue to get rejected through your trial and error approach, your reputation is going down in industry.

Trial and error works in research, not in a job search. Industry employers talk and if your job search approach is sloppy, other hiring managers, recruiters, talent acquisition specialists and HR managers will start avoiding you.

How Industry Systems Weed Out Candidates Who Rely On Trial And Error

The applicant tracking systems and AI that employers use talk to each other. That’s right, your data is being collected in your job search, just like everywhere else in life.

Sure, it might be partially de-identified or encrypted (probably not but maybe) and as you get rejected more and more in these AI systems, your reputation score will start to go down.

Take LinkedIn for example, if employers keep “bouncing” away from your profile because it’s too academic, your visibility score will plummet. If you apply to a company’s AI system and get rejected, that system will often prevent you from being considered by an actual person for up to a year.

What You Should Do If You Want To See Results Fast

If this is news to you then you need to wake up and realize that no one is going to wait around for you to figure out how to execute a job search properly. No one is going to give you the benefit of the doubt and think, well, they don’t know what they’re doing now but I’m sure they’ll figure it out later.

You need to get organized, get the right information, execute the right job search strategy, and start having a much higher level or professional awareness.

Otherwise, you will damage your reputation in industry before you even transition.

The post Trial And Error Works In Research, Not A Job Search appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

How To Deal With Negative People May 04, 2022

Show notes

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 back
Next, Isaiah discusses what you can do if you’re in an environment where you can’t just cut out the negative people
Finally, 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 you can’t cut them out, use them to your advantage. The key is to deal with these negative people without becoming a negative person yourself.

What You Can Do If You’re Surrounded By Negative People You Can’t Get Rid Of

I understand that you may be stuck in a classroom, lab or other current role with negative people.

In these cases, you can let your adversary be your advisor. Very often, when stuck, you can leverage other people’s negative energy to your advantage, transforming it into positive and productive energy.

The Story Of The Atlantic Codfish

The Atlantic codfish was in high demand in America at the turn of the century, as news of how good these fish taste spread across the country all the way to the West Coast. But there was a problem. How could the West Coast restaurants that wanted to serve Atlantic codfish get the fish across the country and still keep them fresh?

They tried to freeze the fish and send them by rail, which was the fastest means at the time. But, when the West Coast restaurants received the fish and prepared them, they turned out to be very mushy and lacked flavor.

A little later, someone decided to try shipping the fish live by turning the railroad cars into huge saltwater aquariums. When the Atlantic codfish arrived at the West Coast restaurants, they were still alive. But, when they were prepared, they were still mushy and tasteless.

A few years down the road, a young scientist started studying the codfish and discovered that their natural enemy was the catfish. The scientist recommended that the West Coast restaurants ship the codfish in the huge saltwater aquariums as before but this time with a few catfish.

When the codfish arrived and were prepared, they were flaky and had the same flavor as when they were caught fresh. The catfish kept the codfish from becoming stale.

In the same way, if you have a negative person in your life that you can’t escape by traditional means—walking away, ignoring them, going around them—then use them to your advantage. Learn from them. Turn them into your advisor. Channel their negative energy into positive action. Use it as fuel to drive your job search forward.

The post How To Deal With Negative People appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

Make Yourself Presentable To Employers May 02, 2022

Show notes

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 reference
Next, Isaiah talks about the information you should have to make yourself presentable to employers and the importance of self awareness
Finally, 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 been doing is learning as much as possible about the employers I was interested in working with and contacting them professionally, while presenting myself as the perfect solution to a specific problem they were having.

The Information You Should Have When Applying To Industry Positions

As a PhD working to transition into industry, you need to be prepared to present yourself as a credible and viable solution to the problem an industry employer is facing.

After all, the employer has a job opening because they have a need. Do you know what that need is? Do you have any idea why the job is open in the first place? If not, you need to 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 or over the job at hand but mastery over yourself. Self awareness, more than anything else, is what you are being evaluated on during any industry interview. Most PhDs find this very hard to believe, but it is absolutely true.

Why Employers Put So Much Value On Self Awareness

Few employers will require anything beyond answering a few questions during an interview, which, if you think about it, is absolutely nuts. Industry employers will pay you tens of thousands of dollars a month based on the answers you give during a few short meetings. They’re going to commit not only their money but their people and numerous other resources to you based on what you say about yourself during a few real-time interactions.

This is still the most reasonable means of hiring top talent today. Imagine applying to an industry job only to have the hiring manager bring you into the interview and say, “Okay, today you’re going to manage three of our team members all day while we shadow you and evaluate your every move.” Or “Today, we’re going to stand over you while you run ten different lab experiments.”

This doesn’t happen for a variety of reasons. To start, you have not been onboarded by the company or trained in the company’s processes. The company’s team of current employees does not know who you are or how to work with you.

Instead, these employers will evaluate your behavior. They will see how you master yourself under stress.

This is why studying common interview questions is a waste of time. It’s also why waiting until you get an interview to prepare for an interview (or “cramming”) is ineffective. You need to practice interacting with other professionals in a very professional way behaviorally.

You need to work hard on how you are presenting yourself to industry employers. You need to gain some professional awareness, and you need to start now.

The post Make Yourself Presentable To Employers appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

Other People’s Opinions Can Infect You Apr 29, 2022

Show notes

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 behaviors
Next, Isaiah reveals why most people are better off trusting their instinct than asking for advice about their lives
Finally, 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 your life doubles your chances of becoming negative.

Yet, most people will let just about anyone into their lives. Most people are too free with those they let in and what they take in from these people vis-à-vis listening to their blather. They passively let negative people share their limiting beliefs and limiting opinions.

Why You Should Trust Your Inner Voice Rather Than Look For Advice

As counter-intuitive as it seems, most people make better decisions when they don’t ask for other people’s opinions. You’ll do better when you listen to your inner voice. This is because what you want in life is strongly affected by what other people want in life. Just seeing or hearing about what someone else wants, makes you want it too.

Other scientific studies reported in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology show that people who watch someone else pursue a goal are more likely to pursue the same one. In fact, those same studies showed that people who simply read about another person pursuing a goal are more prone to seek it, too.

Likewise, when you hear advice about what other people want for you, you’re more likely to want the same thing. Their advice influences what you want. It can change your motivation, often for the worse. You can’t solve a personal problem with someone else’s answer. You can’t figure out what your limits are by using other people as a yardstick.

Most people, when faced with adversity, run to their friends and families to ask for help. What should I do? they ask them. Or, even worse: What do I really want? Who am I? Other people can’t answer these questions. You need to find these answers yourself.

The problem is that you’ve been conditioned to value other people’s opinions more than your own. You’ve been trained to want to be like other people, to think like them.

Not only are you taught to listen to other people, you’re also biologically wired to copy their behavior. Mirror neurons in your brain automatically cause you to copy your surroundings.

What This Looks Like For PhDs Stuck In Academia

Scientific research shows that people who are lied to are more likely to lie and cheat. Similar research shows that having an obese friend increases your chances of becoming obese by 171% and having a smoker in your family increases your chances of smoking by 61%.

Given this, what do you think the effect of asking other academics for advice about your job search and career is worth? What do you think the risks are?

If you’re surrounded by lifetime academics and only go to these academics for advice, you will end up like them. You will value the goals they value, think the way they think, and do what they do, and you will never, ever transition into industry.

It’s time to change who you hang around and who you listen to. Your job search and your career depend on it. This takes us to the end of today’s Transition Report. Remember your value and continue to think and act like a successful industry professional.

The post Other People’s Opinions Can Infect You appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

Follow The Right Job Search Sequence Apr 27, 2022

Show notes

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 follow
Next, Isaiah discusses the steps you should take to put together a job search strategy in the right sequence
Finally, 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 later do it all over again.

Does this sequence sound absurd? As you read it, you might have thought: Ridiculous! What kind of moron searches for a job like this! Well, me for one. But what about you? Is your job search any different? If we cataloged your job search activities in a spreadsheet hour by hour, what would the result look like?

How To Set Up The Right Job Search Strategy

An industry job search, executed in the correct sequence, starts with understanding your career options and creating a job search strategy.

Creating a job search strategy starts with realizing that sequence matters. You cannot just haphazardly execute different job search activities at different times. Your approach must be organized in the right order. You also need to record your progress.

At the very least, you should have a spreadsheet with five columns: Companies of Interest, Job Postings or Informational Interview Notes, Company Contacts, Date You Last Followed Up, Next Follow-Up Date.

I know, who would have thought that you had to create a document to catalog your job search process? Once you realize that a job search is a second job that requires very robust effort, you’ll finally see why staying highly organized and documenting your progress is so important.

What Actions You Should Take To Get The Best Results

To get hired, you must design a campaign. You must map out the steps you’re going to take, and you must plan for contingencies. You cannot just fly by the seat of your pants.

Thinking about your job search does not count as an activity. Wanting to transition doesn’t count either, nor does playing out various scenarios in your head. Thinking about, dreaming about, and considering the possibilities of your transition are not the same as executing a job search.

Once you have a strategy in place, you must grow and engage (or reengage) your network. The major component of your networking efforts is following up consistently with an ever-growing list of contacts at the companies you want to work for, setting up informational interviews with those people, and gently guiding them to a position where you can gently ask them for a job referral.

That’s where you need to live. If you want a job that pays well and allows you to do your best possible work, you must get organized, you must document your progress and you must get comfortable with seeking job referrals. This takes us to the end of today’s Transition Report. Remember your value and continue to think and act like a successful industry professional.

The post Follow The Right Job Search Sequence appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

A Busy Versus Productive Job Search Apr 25, 2022

Show notes

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 performers
Next, Isaiah dives deep into what it takes to be a top performer in whatever skill you’re trying to master
Finally, 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 a skill.

Elite performers deliberately practice three times longer than average performers. That’s not the surprising part. The surprising part is that the average performers practiced more hours overall. So, what gives? The average performers work harder than the elite performers and don’t get rewarded for all this effort? No, they don’t. It’s how you practice that matters, not how long.

Elite Performers Make Better Use Of Their Practice Time

When researchers compared the mean time both sets of performers spent working versus the waking hours of the day, they found that average performers passively spread their work throughout the day.

The elite performers, however, were very selective with their efforts. Instead of spreading their work out passively, they consolidated their work into short bursts. These performers’ working time versus waking time charts showed two sharp peaks—one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Elite performers spent more time in deliberate practice but only worked an average of 3.5 hours a day.

How This Relates To Your Job Search

Are you putting in hours of deliberate practice for your job search? If not, how can you get any better at it?

Unfortunately, most PhDs would rather feel busy in their academic endeavors, even once they’ve decided to leave academia, than be productive in their job search. You can set your agenda for your life, or you can follow someone else’s agenda, like your academic advisors. The choice is up to you.

The biggest problem with being busy all the time is that it keeps you reliant on other people. Busyness keeps you dependent on other people. This herd mentality is your brain’s default mindset, and it’s what you have to actively work against every day if you want to be successful in your job search and career.

The only way to stop blindly following others is to stop doing what others want you to do. That means setting firm boundaries with people and continuing to spend more and more time on your own goals.

Staying busy doing what you’ve always done instead of being productive in your job search will only lead to giving up on your career dreams and staying yet another year in academia or in another job you don’t enjoy.

The post A Busy Versus Productive Job Search appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

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