PhD Transition Report On-Demand

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**PhD Transition Report On-Demand**

Podcast by Cheeky Scientist

Latest Episodes:

What Would It Be Like to Work Next To You For 8 Hours? Jan 20, 2022

Show notes

Join Isaiah as he explains why the 8 hours that people work next to PhDs is important and how can PhDs put their best qualities forward

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

First, Isaiah discusses why it is important for PhDs to have a pleasing personality
Next, Isaiah reveals how can PhDs put their best qualities forward
Finally, Isaiah explains why your professional brand will follow you throughout the entire job search process

From This Week’s Show…

Why Is It Important For PhDs To Have Pleasing Personality

If the number one reason employers aren’t hiring you right now is invisibility, or obscurity. Then ignorance of likability, personality and your own professional brand is the second reason. Likability doesn’t mean winning a popularity contest. Not meaning trying to be nicer, funnier, or more agreeable. The truth is that some people hate all of those qualities, while others value them. Employers want to know if others can work around you for 8 hours. Are you likeable?

The problem with likability – everybody likes something different. This also changes depending on their mood. It doesn’t mean you have to change your personality. Rather it means that you have to put the best qualities of your personality forward.

How Can You Put Your Best Qualities Forward

PhDs can put their best qualities forward through proper communication, both verbal and nonverbal. But which qualities should you put forward in the first place? That’s for you to decide. And once you decide, either actively or passively, these qualities will make up your professional brand. If you give a handful of strangers a post-it note and ask them to write down three things they can always count on you for. As well as three things they can never count on you for. What are the people that know you best going to write down? What are the people who barely know you write down? The whole pattern of their answers is a strong indication of your professional brand. Or how you will come off to employers prior to being hired and certainly after being hired. You could take the above exercise a step further. Ask different questions to tease out exactly how people see you. What three traits describe me best? What did you first think of me when you first met? How has this changed over time? What made it change?

The key is to understand your current professional brand. How do you come across to others holistically? Once you find this. All you have to do is find an employer who is aligned with your professional brand. Or adjust your professional brand to align with an employer whose brand you value. You will likely end up doing some combination of the two.

Your Professional Brand Will Follow You Throughout The Entire Job Search Process Not Only For The 8 Hours

Your professional brand will follow you throughout the entire job search process. Although employers want to know if you are likeable enough to work with for the 8 hours starting from your interview. How will they know that? Communicate it on your résumé. Tell as a story in your LinkedIn profile’s Summary section. Showcase by your pacing and tonality on a phone screen. Indicate by your nonverbal cues during video interviews and visits. Show them that you are the best candidate to work with for 8 hours and more.

As a PhD we didn’t spend much thinking about how we were perceived by others behaviorally. At least not in academia. Only obsessed with how logical our arguments were. Does your professional brand say you care more about competency than likability? Or the other way around? Does it say that you are technically superior in a niche field? But underdeveloped in core transferable skills like time management, project management and chain of communication? Or it says that you are management material and should be put in a Senior, Principal or executive-level position? Does it say you need 5 to 8 years of entry-level training first?

Most importantly, do you know who you are? Or, are you willing to be anything to everyone as long as you get hired? Like an amoeba morphing your personality and goals into whatever others want them to be at the time? Either you’ll decide your professional brand for yourself or someone else will decide it for you. You don’t have to wait until you reach the highest levels of success in business to make this decision. You can make it now.

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 What Would It Be Like to Work Next To You For 8 Hours? appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

3 Flavors Of Transferable Skills Jan 18, 2022

Show notes

Join Isaiah as he explains the 3 flavors of transferable skills that PhDs must communicate to get hired in high-paying industry roles

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

First, Isaiah discusses why it is important for PhDs to set specific target
Next, Isaiah reveals what are some system-oriented skills
Finally, Isaiah explains what are people-oriented skills that PhDs can leverage

From This Week’s Show…

Why PhDs Must Know The 3 Flavors Of Transferable Skills

There are 3 main flavors of transferable skills. Systems-oriented, people-oriented, or self-oriented skills. PhDs must communicate two to three skills from each of these categories. List them on your resume and LinkedIn profile. Be ready to discuss them during the interview process. Connect these skills with experience. Communicate how these transferable skills have helped you achieve relevant results in the past. And how they will help you perform better than other candidates at the job at hand. Your previous academic experience and even life experience is proof that you are an expert in at least one subject or discipline.

The key is phrasing the skills in a universal way. If you helped manage your lab’s budget. List “financial acumen” as one of your job skills. Ensured that certain antibodies or other reagents were always in stock in the lab? This is important so that everyone can continue executing their experiments. List “risk mitigation” or “risk management.”

Do not underestimate the importance of systems in business.

System-oriented Skills And Their Importance

You have systems-oriented skills associated with the expertise. Most likely already listed on your past resumes. Systems are responsible for allowing a business to scale. Systems are imperative. As a PhD, you have lived and breathed systems. The only difference is you have called these systems by different names in academia.

Protocols, procedures, methodologies and lesson plans are system-related skills in academia. As a PhD you have handled those. A PhD-level job candidate understands systems and communicates in today’s job market. Take time to carefully brainstorm. Understand, and communicate the process-based skills that you have during your industry transition. The other potential options include documentation, record keeping, writing standard operating procedures. Others are regulatory acumen, production, quality control, quality assurance, creating return on investments, or simply “systemization”.

What Are People-oriented Skills That PhDs Can Leverage For Industry Transition

People facing skills are important for PhDs. PhDs with people-oriented skills can adapt to sudden changes in circumstances. They can effectively communicate with team members who may or may not be in the same office. Flexible, versatile and well-adjusted even to remote work and decentralized workforce. So, PhDs flexible to work with other personality types in an office. Able to mentor, train and work with people who have less technical expertise than you. Can you work cross-departmentally to accomplish goals that will affect the entire organization? Or handle digital cross-functional collaboration? But, do you know what “organizational behavior” is? People-oriented transferable skills are performance management, change management, personnel development. Others are virtual training, project management, task delegation and chain of communication.

Employers appreciate people-oriented relevant transferable skills. Indicates to them that you would be a good leader and collaborator. Hard work, initiative and learning quickly are important skills. Some other self-oriented skills include completeness, stress management, innovation, research, technical literacy and autonomy.

Industry employers need to know if you can collaborate with others and not constantly annoy those around you. And whom other people can respect based on your competency. Self-directed ability to bring your own ideas to the table is important. Strategic thinking and creativity to solve existing problems. are the self-oriented transferable skills that will make you an asset to any organization.

The post 3 Flavors Of Transferable Skills appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

Employers Aren’t Hiring Your Technical Skills Jan 15, 2022

Show notes

Join Isaiah as he explains why employers are not hiring based on technical skills and how can PhDs communicate their value to the employers

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

First, Isaiah discusses why employers look beyond technical skills
Next, Isaiah reveals what are the transferable skills
Finally, Isaiah explains how PhDs can communicate their skills to the employers

From This Week’s Show…

Why Employers Are Looking Beyond Your Technical Skills

PhDs love their technical skills. When I landed one of my first industry jobs, I thought I was adding value to my team by talking about technical skills. Things like “statistical significance”, “reproducibility” and a hundred other academically minded concepts. This language was awkward and irrelevant for the position I was just hired into. My recruiters and colleagues thought, “What is he talking about? Is he trying to teach us a basics stats class right now? We’re not an academic lab functioning on $50,000 a month. Rather we’re a 100 million dollar plus a year company.

Companies need you to focus on bigger, more business-minded concepts. Like integrating your efforts within their Agile project management system, gaining awareness of their brand. Or helping them develop some new conference collateral, and ensuring the R&D product pipeline stays full. “Agile project management” “brand awareness” “conference collateral” “product pipeline”. I knew the general definition of these words and understood them a little. But I could not converse intelligently about them relative to the company’s specific goals, products, processes and larger vocabulary.

If you want to get hired into an industry job, you have to start speaking the language of industry. And this starts with understanding which skills industry employers value the most.

What Are Transferable Skills

Transferable skills are the softer skills that transfer from sector to sector, company to company and job to job in industry. PhDs struggle to list even the most basic skills that industry employers are hoping to see. Skills as project management, time management, writing and editing, and market knowledge. These sound too simple. Academia has taught PhDs that simple means less intelligent and less valuable. Most often the opposite is true. Most PhDs do not even list research, analysis, work ethic, innovation, comprehension or problem solving on their resumes or LinkedIn profiles. Why? Too simple. PhDs prefer to list niche-specific skills that sound impressive like fluorescence microscopy, real-time PCR, quantum mechanics, artificial intelligence, machine learning.

Anything with the words qualitative or quantitative in it.

How Can PhDs Communicate Their Skills To Employers

Some of the most overworked and underpaid people in the world right now are PhDs Despite all education and advanced technical training, most PhDs are not successful when it comes to their careers. You may have spent your time in academia developing some extraordinarily complex laboratory technique. Or you are an incredible computer programmer. Did you study for two years straight to master a field and then spend several years compiling a thesis that helped push a niche scientific field forward? Great – the technical skills you learned along the way will be obsolete in a few years. Many of them are obsolete right now.

The labs in industry are gigantic. Each may be the size of a football field. They are full of hundreds of millions of dollars of advanced robotics doing thousands of experiments in real-time. So, the techniques that you do daily in the labs as PhDs are done automatically. Huge amount of data is generated every minute. Face the reality that all of the technical skills learned in academia don’t matter much. The only skills of any value are those related to your ability to understand these robotic systems. Skills to manage them and to manage the technicians working alongside the robotics. Your ability to strategically map out which experiments to run next is important.

Realize that your transferable skills are more valuable than technical skills.

The post Employers Aren’t Hiring Your Technical Skills appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

The Attention-Driven Job Market Jan 13, 2022

Show notes

Join Isaiah as he explains why attention of the employer is necessary for PhDs to get hired in high-paying industry roles

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

First, Isaiah discusses why it is important for PhDs to understand employer attention
Next, Isaiah reveals what PhDs can do to grab this attention
Finally, Isaiah explains how can attention help PhDs to be hired in well paying roles

From This Week’s Show…

Why Must PhDs Know About Employer’s Attention

PhDs must have the attention of the employer. What happens if you stop pursuing attention in your industry job search at any time? Then whatever attention you have gained will quickly leave you for another job candidate. Consider the position of the hiring manager or recruiter whose attention you are trying to command. A hiring manager wanting to hire a PhD for a position at the company would want the job to be easy. Considering that at times recruiters are trying to hire job candidates for 12 different positions. On top of this, the need to hire could be urgent.

This is the state at which you will meet most hiring managers and recruiters. Also consider the fact that the vast majority of hiring managers and recruiters are not PhDs. Of course, neither do they enjoy research. These people are not highly trained researchers like you. They probably have not even read a book since primary school (over 50% of the general population hasn’t).

Did you think that the hiring managers and recruiters whose attention you are desperately seeking are joyously reading through hundreds of resumes. And doing intensive research in hopes of finding you? Instead, they are skimming through resumes at a rate of 5-7 seconds according to annual resume eye-tracking studies. They are in a hurry. To hire someone who is right at their fingertips. Or someone delivered to them via a silver platter by another employee at their company through an employee referral.

How Can PhDs Grab Employer’s Attention

Getting attention to be hired in the industry does not have to be hard. It’s about showing up in the right places. Places where you are visible to the employers in a professional capacity.

You can increase attention simply by putting yourself into the right LinkedIn groups. Or other online meetups and forums. Show up to in person networking events and conferences too. You can also put your resume on your own free personal website. Send personal messages to people connected to on LinkedIn. Leverage the bevy of other current and new networking-based social media platforms. Increase your visibility. Keep your ear to the ground in terms of opportunities.

For now, just start showing up – everywhere.

How Can Attention Help You In Your Job Search

Reaching out or networking to grab employers attention is not hard. Do not overthink it. There will be time to qualify your connections and job leads later. For now, just get some eyeballs on you. Take a few minutes and do a web search on the definition of impressions, engagement and conversions when it comes to advertising. The impression metric, or reach of an advertisement refers to how many people view that particular advertisement.

When you are looking for an industry job, you are the advertisement. But you currently have no impressions; no eyeballs on you. In advertising, engagement refers to how many people interact with an advertisement. How many clicks does the ad get? And how many people comment on it? How many people drive by the billboard daily? For an industry transition, your LinkedIn engagements are imperative. The number of people you send a message to on LinkedIn. Or have any type of conversation on LinkedIn is your engagement metric. Focus on increasing your impressions.

Impression leads to attention. Your job candidacy is starved for attention right now. It is also at the top of the hiring funnel from your point of view. By getting attention through impressions, you can start conversations. Set up informational interviews, generate job referrals, get interviews and attract job offers.

The post The Attention-Driven Job Market appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

The Real Reason Employers Aren’t Hiring You Jan 10, 2022

Show notes

Join Isaiah as he explains the real reason why employers are not hiring PhDs and how can PhDs get hired in high-paying industry roles

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

First, Isaiah discusses what is the real reason employers are not hiring you
Next, Isaiah reveals what tools PhDs have at their disposal to get employer’s attention
Finally, Isaiah explains how can PhDs overcome invisibility to be hired in well paying roles

From This Week’s Show…

What Is The Real Reason Employers Are Not Hiring You

Employers can only hire you if you are visible to them. The number one reason employers are not hiring you in industry is because you are invisible to them. This is an attention economy. As a PhD who has spent their entire life in academia, you are attention poor. Your job candidate profile is not adept. Resume is being ignored due to obscurity, not a lack of technical skills.

Technical skills are not what gets you hired. Most companies care very little about technical skills. They can teach you technical skills. You can learn on the job. Besides, their techniques are likely proprietary. Lightyears ahead of the underfunded techniques PhDs master in academia. Companies have automated machines to do the tedious tasks done by PhDs in academia. They don’t need PhDs to perform such tasks.

Again, industry employers are not hiring you because you do not exist to them. You are invisible. That is the major reason. Every other excuse is a waste of time and a cover for unorganized, inactive job search. It is so much easier to blame lack of success in job search on the lack of some skill, certification, or degree. While the hard truth is you can’t get hired because you refuse to reach out to meet employers or employees.

It is your refusal to have challenging conversations with people in industry that is keeping you from transitioning.

Tools PhDs Have To Get Employer Attention

Reach out. Network with professionals. Think of all the tools you have at your disposal today for getting an employer’s attention. All information is available on the website. Some websites have a careers page that gives you specific information on how to get in touch with them. You can find these employers on LinkedIn too. Email them. Or simply pick the phone up and call their office. Ask to speak to someone in the hiring department. Let’s not pretend like you can’t get an employer’s attention. Instead, let’s admit the truth – you are invisible by choice.

As PhDs, we have been trained for years and years to keep to ourselves. Over time, we have become isolated in our ivory towers. In our isolation, we tell ourselves stories that fit our situation. Shifting blame off of ourselves and onto imaginary forces. We imagine that we are not being contacted by industry employers because our PhD has made us overqualified. Or we imagine that our PhD background is too niche.

In reality, however, we just don’t want to reach out to anyone because it’s too uncomfortable.

How Can PhDs Overcome Invisibility

Nobody in the industry knows you. They won’t unless you put yourself out there. Having the best resume in the world will not get you hired. Merely uploading resume to a Global 500 company’s job site will not help. They get 2,000 resumes per day per open position. And filter out 90% of them automatically based on applicant tracking system (ATS) software metrics.

But spending time to complete every section of your LinkedIn profile can increase your visibility on LinkedIn Recruiter. Don’t waste your time by failing to correctly reply to the recruiters who reach out to you. There is a cost to playing the attention game incorrectly. Many hiring managers and recruiters will never come back to a job candidate’s LinkedIn profile if they decide that you lack industry credibility.

Some top employers have a mandatory six to twelve month waiting period before they will consider you for any other position at their company. Take your job search seriously. Create a strategy. Your industry job search is not a trial-and-error affair.

Don’t do a poor and sloppy job search. It will burn bridges.

The post The Real Reason Employers Aren’t Hiring You appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

What Career Are You Chasing? Jan 08, 2022

Show notes

Join Isaiah as he explains why PhDs must know what career they are chasing and follow strategy to get hired in high-paying industry roles

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

First, Isaiah discusses why it is important for PhDs to know what they are chasing
Next, Isaiah reveals why PhDs must ask the right questions
Finally, Isaiah explains why professional lifestyle of choice is important for PhDs

From This Week’s Show…

Why Is It Important For PhDs To Know What Career They Are Chasing

Chasing a career?Ask yourself. What is important to you in life? What are you chasing? And why? Can’t answer these questions? You’re in trouble because without these answers you have no idea what you’re doing or why you’re doing it. Everyone is chasing happiness of some kind.

The problem is it’s not defined. Define what happiness means for you. Or what will bring happiness in your life. Happiness is just a feeling. That makes figuring out what will make you happy right now incredibly simple. Figure out which actions will give you the feeling you’re chasing the most frequently. Put this in the context of your career. Which activities do you want to spend most of your time doing throughout the day?

Not the overly simplistic, hedonistic happiness like overeating pizza, drinking too much wine, or binge watching shows on Netflix or Amazon Prime. Rather the deeper, more complex fulfillment.

Questions To Know What Is Important In Life

Lasting happiness comes with meaningful achievement. Think what daily professional actions can lead you to the most meaningful achievement? Which characteristics of your career could lead to this fulfillment? Ask the right questions to find out what is important to you. Simple questions that probably you’ve never asked yourself.

Questions like, Do you want to work with a large team or in a small team daily? Or, perhaps no team? Want to work with numbers or large data sets? Or do you prefer smaller data sets? Do you collect and analyze quantitative data like the user metrics or qualitative data like survey responses sent in from a company funded focus group? Or, both? Does reading and writing appeal to you? Are writing intensive positions ambient for you?

Would you prefer to work at the company’s headquarters or at one of their smaller, remote satellite locations? Does field work excite you? Or, do you want to work at a home office entirely? Are you willing to travel and, if so, how frequently? Most importantly, when it comes to a company’s operations, where on the spectrum of innovation and commercialization do you want to be?

These questions can help you understand the situation better.

Why Professional Lifestyle Of Choice Is Important For PhDs

Everyone has a unique set of professional lifestyle characteristics they consider most important to them. Define these characteristics. Then consider them before starting a job search. Those who did have got hired more quickly. They got paid higher salaries and enjoyed their work more. Then, create your own list of characteristics.

These are the top 12 most popular characteristics. These 12 are listed below in random order. Write these 12 characteristics down and then rank them in order of importance to you. The ranking is highly individualistic. Hence, you must rank them in terms of order of priority for you and your ideal professional lifestyle, not someone else’s ideal. The characteristics are: High salary position, Remote position, In-house position, Innovation position, Commercialization position, Management position, Entry-level position, Writing-intensive position, Numbers-heavy position, Travel time >30% position, Customer-facing position, Highly technical position.

Once you have your characteristics ranked, you can chase your target job.

The post What Career Are You Chasing? appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

You Can’t Hit A Target You Don’t Set Jan 06, 2022

Show notes

Join Isaiah as he explains why PhDs must set a target career and follow strategy to get hired in high-paying industry roles

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

First, Isaiah discusses why it is important for PhDs to set specific target
Next, Isaiah reveals why chasing job titles will not PhDs hired into the industry
Finally, Isaiah explains why professional profile is important for PhDs

From This Week’s Show…

Why Is It Important For PhDs To Have Specific Target

Industry job titles are a lot different than those in academia. There are several job titles. But you must decide what you want your professional lifestyle to look like first. Understand what you want. Set your career goals. Only then start fitting job titles to it. Choose the right career based on what would give you a sense of fulfillment. Do you know which career is right for you? Probably not.

Most PhDs never set professional goals. They don’t set a target. They just fall forward into whatever position happens to come next. Without a target they get into any position. Only a few PhDs start searching for a job outside of academia. They do the research necessary to start understanding the industry landscape, sectors and job titles. But start chasing some title that sounds impressive.

This would never lead them to the professional lifestyle they truly want.

Chasing Job Titles Will Not Get PhDs Hired In Industry

Chasing job titles is a losing strategy. Realize the pitfalls of not considering the professional lifestyle you were chasing. Don’t chase titles. Rather choose the career that will give you fulfillment. “Medical Science Liaison” may be trending but you don’t like to travel and hate giving presentations. “Management Consultant” demands respect and recognition. But that doesn’t matter if you hate Microsoft Excel or your personal situation would never allow working eighteen hours a day, five days a week on site in a different city every week for 52 weeks a year?

Becoming a PhD and being called “doctor” will not automatically result in a tenured, untouchable position filled with respect, rewarding work, and resources you need to excel. But it doesn’t work that way. How is it working out for your advisor or for the majority of lifetime academics? Would you have done things differently when it came to planning your career? Would you have created a better target for yourself to chase?

Why Professional Lifestyle Is More Important For PhDs Than Job Titles

Job titles can be rat poison to your job search. Titles can distract you from the professional lifestyle that gives you the sense of achievement and fulfillment. PhDs look for these in their career. Job titles can also be used against you. Either to compensate for a lower salary offer or refusal to promote you in terms of salary. Or used to lure you into a job that is not the right fit for you. Performance is the most valuable resource to employers. Not titles. Not experience either.

Your ability to drive the right results is what matters. Companies spend the majority of their budgets on hiring, onboarding, and developing performance-based talent. You are the talent in this equation. Companies will do whatever they can to find, influence, poach, and retain talent. Their goal is to keep as much of the best talent as possible. Even invent job titles to get talent. Hire recruiters to take talent from their competitors. They will spend billions of dollars to send you and everyone like you advertisements about how great it is to work at their company. Or how impressed your friends would be if you were called a Senior XYZ versus a Junior XYZ, even though both pay the same amount. The only way for you to avoid letting anyone – in academia or industry – from implanting their career goals into your head, is to actively set your own career goals.

The key, however, is to start by setting goals for your dream professional lifestyle, not your dream job title.

The post You Can’t Hit A Target You Don’t Set appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

Your Job Candidate Profile Jan 03, 2022

Show notes

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

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

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

From This Week’s Show…

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

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

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

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

How Should You Manage Your Job Candidate Profile

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post Your Job Candidate Profile appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

Creating A Job Search Strategy Dec 28, 2021

Show notes

Join Isaiah as he explains why a job search strategy needs to be created by PhDs to be hired in high-paying industry roles

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

First, Isaiah discusses why should PhDs create a job search strategy
Next, Isaiah reveals how PhDs can create a successful job search strategy
Finally, Isaiah explains what PhDs should do after creating a job search strategy

From This Week’s Show…

Why Should PhDs Create A Job Search Strategy

What does it take to get hired into rewarding industry careers? What must PhDs do to get hired into a fulfilling PhD level job? These questions are essential. PhDs think about getting hired without any actual execution. This leads to a sense of failure, rejection and frustration. PhDs need a PhD level job. A job where you can do meaningful work.

Industry job search needs a campaign. It has to be executed in the correct sequence. Start with understanding your career options. Then create a job search strategy for those options. An effective strategy needs the correct sequence. Don’t haphazardly execute different job search related activities at different times. Rather be organized and in order.

How PhDs Can Create A Successful Job Search Strategy

You have to design a campaign. Sketch a map out from start to finish. Trace the steps. Follow your sketch. But plan for contingencies. Don’t wake up randomly and submit a few resumes, do nothing to make progress in your transition. Then reach out to a few contacts another day. And wait for magic. This sequence sounds absurd. As you read it, did you think to yourself “Ridiculous! No one searches for a job like this!”?

You need to record your progress. Make a spreadsheet with 5 columns. Mention Companies of Interest, Job Postings or Informational Interview Notes, Company Contacts, Date You Last Followed Up, Next Follow Up Date. These sections are imperative. Don’t just fly by the seat of your pants. If we catalogued your job search activities in a spreadsheet by the hour, what would the end result look like? Thinking about your job search does not count as an activity. Desire to transition doesn’t count. Nor does playing out various scenarios in your head like “If I apply to this job, will anyone get back to me?” or “Should I reach out to this person on LinkedIn, or shouldn’t I?”. Thinking, dreaming and considering the possibilities of your transition are not the same as executing a job search. Document your progress. Write down your plans for each day of the month.

Do you have a plan? Are you following a protocol? If not, it’s time to start doing so.

What Must PhDs Do After Creating A Strategy

Have a strategy in place? Good! Now, you must grow and engage (or reengage) your network. Do you want a job that pays well? You need referrals. Networking doesn’t have to be painful. Start by growing your network. Talk with the professionals. Ask them about the projects that they are working on. Get them to talk about the challenges. About how they got into those roles in the first place. Do informational interviews. The major component of your networking efforts is following up. Consistently following up with an ever-growing list of contacts at your companies of interest.

You hate people? That’s bad. Talk to strangers. You can’t stay on government assistance programs for the rest of your life. If you want a job that pays well. And allows you to do the best possible work you can do. You must get comfortable with the process of seeking job referrals.

At the heart of any effective job search strategy is an intelligent networking strategy. The time for you to start strategizing is now.

The post Creating A Job Search Strategy appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

PhDs Are Doctors Of Learning Dec 22, 2021

Show notes

Join Isaiah as he explains why PhDs are doctors of learning and how should PhDs leverage their skills to be hired in high-paying industry roles

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

First, Isaiah discusses why PhDs are masters of learning
Next, Isaiah reveals why PhDs must communicate their ability to learn to employers
Finally, Isaiah explains where can PhDs leverage their learning skill

From This Week’s Show… Why PhDs Are Doctors Of Learning

PhDs are masters of learning. There is a huge difference between leaving graduate school with a Masters degree rather than a PhD. Masters degree are those who have mastered a field. PhD is much more. PhDs contribute to the field. They advance the field further. Less than 2% of the population has a PhD. Because adding to a field is hard. Anyone can regurgitate information. However, it’s much harder to create information. It is difficult to bring new knowledge into existence for the very first time. But PhDs have done it. You are a creator of information.

This is one of your most valuable and most transferable skills. Don’t assume that everyone can create information. Most job candidates can’t even do a book report. You spend years creating information. Months putting it together into a hundred page thesis just so five other people can read it. You chase a hypothesis till you prove it. PhDs do research and substantiate the findings with evidence. You add new information to the field.

Innovation and tenacity is uncommon. Communicate to every employer you approach.

Why Should PhDs Communicate Their Ability To Learn To The Employers

PhDs are fast learners. They learn faster than any other group of people. PhDs rigorously learn. The acronym “PhD” stands for a doctor of philosophy. Philosophy stands for knowledge and the ability to ascertain knowledge. This makes PhDs quite literally doctors of learning. Your ability to learn quickly, especially on the job, is incredibly valuable to employers. It’s also exceptionally rare. An average job candidate tries to learn a new software program or Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). Then watch a PhD learn how to use that same software program or SOP. On the contrary PhD learns at a much faster speed. PhDs don’t need to be spoon fed every detail. Employers need autonomous learning.

Speed of learning is a competitive advantage that frightens other job candidates. This fear is often expressed through misinformation like, “You’re overqualified if you have a PhD” or “PhDs are lab rats and can’t understand business” or “You can’t get a job without industry experience”. Don’t believe these lies. Industry experience can often hurt your chances of getting a job. Truly because now the employer has to un-train you on the previous company’s culture and processes before they can re-train you on their culture and processes. Communicate your ability to learn quickly to employers. Leverage it to your advantage.

Where Can PhDs Leverage Their Learning Skill

PhDs can transition into all 11 sectors of business as defined by the S&P 500 index. Positions involving information technology, healthcare, communication services, consumer discretionary, financials, industrial, consumer staples, utilities, real estate, materials, and energy. You want to be one of the highest paid R&D or Medical Directors in your field, or the most sought-after Data Scientist, Project Manager. Be it Product Manager, Principal Scientist, Senior Engineer or Clinical Research Associate in your business sector.

You need the learning skill. Methods learned over a decade will lead you to success. As a PhD, you have the value necessary to be sought after by industry employers throughout your career.

The post PhDs Are Doctors Of Learning appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

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PhD Transition Report On-Demand

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Why Is It Important For PhDs To Have Pleasing Personality

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Why Must PhDs Know About Employer’s Attention

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What Is The Real Reason Employers Are Not Hiring You

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Why Is It Important For PhDs To Have Specific Target

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

From This Week’s Show…

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

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Join Isaiah as he explains why a job search strategy needs to be created by PhDs to be hired in high-paying industry roles

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Why Should PhDs Create A Job Search Strategy

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What Must PhDs Do After Creating A Strategy

Join Isaiah as he explains why PhDs are doctors of learning and how should PhDs leverage their skills to be hired in high-paying industry roles

From This Week’s Show… Why PhDs Are Doctors Of Learning

Why Should PhDs Communicate Their Ability To Learn To The Employers

Where Can PhDs Leverage Their Learning Skill

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