PhD Transition Report On-Demand

In this week’s episode…

When PhDs realize they have an interest in industry, there’s a sort of culture shock that hits once they start looking through job descriptions.

At first glance, it appears as though you have 1 out of every 10 skills an employer is looking for. However, you don’t suffer from a lack of skills or knowledge – all you need is a good translator.

During your PhD, you likely wrote grants, researched funding opportunities, performed statistical analyses, published your work, and defended it. These skills have limitless industrial applications.

There’s just a language barrier that you need to break down.

It’s crucial to present yourself in a way that potential employers value and understand.

It’s crucial to present yourself in a way that potential employers value and understand.

Here are three key strategies to help you reframe your skills and make a successful transition.

The first strategy is to highlight your applicable work experience. You may not have formal work experience as a data scientist, but your PhD prepared you. The trick is to draw a parallel between your skillset and the job requirements. You may be tempted to just list your skills – “research design” for example – but instead, you need to paint a picture for employers.

Describe how you identified research problems, developed evaluation criteria, and so on, leading to the completion of X studies and Y publications. Not only do you need to translate the value of a skill, but you need to translate the academic words into industry ones. In the example we just talked about, these are leadership skills or project management of a team of X members.

This brings me to the second strategy: literally, translate your skills. When you apply for jobs, make a list of prominent keywords. Work those into your resume or cover letter. If you go over 20 job descriptions for your target position, I guarantee you will find a wealth of keywords to inspire you. Narrow these down and compare them against the terminology you would have used to describe your skills.

How do they compare?

Are there opportunities to swap some academic terms out for industry ones? This is an important step – one that will make sure you make it past applicant tracking systems. It might sound tedious or granular, but it’s probably the most important part of showing employers your value.

The third strategy is to provide detailed job titles and descriptions. Employers aren’t always going to understand the academic terms you use and the actual work you did. You need to explain, as succinctly as possible, what you did, its value, and the measure of its value. You should include every research contract or project you worked on as a job on your resume.

Each job should have its title, duration, responsibilities, employer, and supervisor. Explain the work you did in industry-friendly terms. While the language and the terms used in industry may be different, PhDs have already learned the “language” of whatever field they specialized in, and they can easily learn a new one.

Ready to start your transition into industry? Apply to book a free Transition Call with our founder, Isaiah Hankel, PhD or one of our Transition Specialists here.

The post Reframe Your Academic Skills As Industry Accomplishments appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

In this week’s episode…

Recent statistics suggest that the average job gets between 500 and 2,000 applicants. Of those, 75% are weeded out using applicant tracking systems.

ATSs are used by 99% of Global 500 companies, 66% of large companies, and 35% of small organizations, according to a recent survey from Jobscan.

You can tell that companies are using an ATS as a gatekeeper for their application process if a) you’re filling out a resume using an online form, b) there’s an “Easy Apply” button, or c) you’re applying at a large, well-known company.

So, how can you outwit the AI that’s holding your resume hostage?

The good news is there are some tech tools that can help you turn the tables, and today I want to talk about three of them.

The first is a fresh take on word clouds, and it’s called Rewordify.

This natural language processing tool is a parts-of-speech parser. When you paste a job description into this free-to-use program, Rewordify color-codes the text.

The colors you want to focus on are gray (nouns), dark blue (adjectives), and red (verbs).

Together, these are the keywords you need in your resume and cover letter. Also useful is a function that suggests ways to simplify your language.

You’ll paste your cover letter or resume bullets into the text parser and it will highlight complex words and suggest easier-to-read language that makes it readable for busy hiring managers to digest at a glance.

Another tool is the large language model chatbot ChatGPT. You may be thinking that you can use ChatGPT to write your cover letter or even sections of your resume. If you do, you might as well not apply for the job at all.

This LLM is not capable of producing the kind of high-level responses you need to stand out in a PhD-level job search. But, it can help in two ways.

1) You can ask ChatGPT to rephrase your existing bullets to be more succinct and professional. Not all its answers are going to be gold, so don’t trust it blindly. But it can help you brainstorm ways to refresh your vocabulary.

2) ChatGPT is also an effective parsing tool for job descriptions. Simply enter: What are the keywords in this job posting?: and paste the job description – ChatGPT will do the rest.

The last tool is LinkedIn Career Explorer. A more sophisticated take on the Bureau of Labor & Statistics and O’Net career resources, LinkedIn Career Explorer is designed to help candidates find new jobs with the skills they already have.

LinkedIn compares your target job with over 36000 skills and ranks them according to a similarity score. This can give you a clear idea of how many skills you already have – down to a percentage – that make you a good fit for career paths you may not have even heard of before.

It can also help you identify soft and hard skills for the careers you’re targeting that you may have been struggling to come up with.

** For the full podcast, check out the audio player above.

Ready to start your transition into industry? Apply to book a free Transition Call with our founder, Isaiah Hankel, PhD or one of our Transition Specialists here.

The post Slay The Applicant Tracking System With These Killer Tech Tips appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

In this week’s episode…

The job market this year is in a definite cycle of contraction. 

You can see evidence that this is true every time you flip on the news or scroll past headlines online. 

Companies are responding to the Great Resignation and bracing against a recession by investing more in finding the perfect candidates. Namely, ones who are going to stick around and who actually want to work for their specific company. 

There are three trends that I want to talk to you about today. You truly cannot ignore these if you want to attract employers. 

The first is the importance of a market-driven resume. 

Now, of course, you know you need to tailor every resume you submit to the specific job you’re applying to. 

But research is showing, more and more, that employers respond favorably to candidates that address specific pain points the market is facing right now in their resume or cover letter. 

A recent survey of CEOs by Gartner revealed that growth, talent retention, and technology were areas of focus that dominated employer attention during 2022. 

That means that you want your resume to reflect that you can be a solution to the problems employers are facing. 

Under the experience section in your resume choose skills that demonstrate you can drive growth – even in a recession or with a tight budget. 

As a PhD, you’re used to doing more with less.

These quantifiable growth stories should top your list of relevant skills. 

If you want to demonstrate that you can retain talent, share quantifiable results that indicate you held onto 80% or more of a team you led in last year’s tight market. 

You can also share details about client-facing growth, such as “increased number of clients by 15% year over year in 2022.” 

As machine learning and AI gain ground, more employers want to know that their team is literate in emerging tech. 

Add these skills to your resume if you have them. 

Skills-based hiring is on the rise. 

You may have noticed that some employers build assessments into their application process now. 

That’s because they’re looking for proof to protect themselves from false claims on resumes. 

You can capitalize on their skepticism by taking steps to quantify and demonstrate your skills. 

You can share reports you’ve created, use data in your bullets or seek out certifications that demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about. 

Sometimes just offering to demonstrate that you can do what you say during an interview goes a long way, also. 

“I’d be happy to send you a sample or portfolio” means a lot more than a bullet point that claims you know how to do this or that. 

…

** For the full podcast, check out the audio player above.

Ready to start your transition into industry? Apply to book a free Transition Call with our founder, Isaiah Hankel, PhD or one of our Transition Specialists here.

The post 3 Resume Trends You Can’t Ignore This Year appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

In this week’s episode…

You might think that the skills you’ve been developing in graduate school are the ones that employers care about most. 

But you might be surprised to learn that it’s your transferable skills that employers are going to ask you to speak to during your interview. 

Transferable skills are sometimes referred to as soft skills or adaptable skills. 

They encompass all the things you’ve learned in graduate school and behind the bench that aren’t situation-specific. 

These are all the abilities that you can use from industry to industry and company to company. They are an asset no matter what career path you choose. 

Many PhDs make the mistake of filling their resume with experience that only pertains to specific fields or niche specialties – what instruments you’re trained on or which research techniques you’re proficient in. 

This is a mistake. PhDs that fail to reframe their academic skills as industry ones are the PhDs that fail to get hired. 

The first is project management. 

You don’t have to be a project manager or have an official project management certification in order to be skilled in project management. 

You’ve balanced many different projects pursuing your degree, correct? 

In industry terms, a PhD is comprised of many successfully executed smaller projects. 

And you probably didn’t just work on one project during your time in grad school.

You also collaborated with colleagues in your lab or across labs. 

That’s the second soft skill you want to be sure to mention – cross-departmental collaboration. Industry is a collaborative environment, they are looking for people who can work well with others as well as independently.

Make sure you’re including this skill in your applications. 

It’s one of the most important transferable skills employers are looking for. 

A third is business or commercial acumen. 

The word “acumen” refers to your ability to make decisions based on information. 

In this case, your ability to make decisions based on business information. 

Maybe you don’t think this applies to you. 

After all, if you’ve never worked in industry – how could you have business acumen? 

But that’s probably not true. 

For instance, during your time in grad school, you probably had to decide to use one reagent over another, one type of training material over another. 

The ability to make those decisions are proof of your commercial or business acumen.

…

** For the full podcast, check out the audio player above.

Ready to start your transition into industry? Apply to book a free Transition Call with our founder, Isaiah Hankel, PhD or one of our Transition Specialists here.

The post Add These 5 Irresistible Transferable Skills To Your Resume Right Now appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

In this week’s episode…

There are too many moving parts in your job search to trust that, when the time comes, you’ll just innately know what to say. 

And yet I talk to PhDs every day who tell me that their plan is to have no plan. To just wing it.

Some things just do not come naturally to people. 

When it comes to PhDs especially, finding a way to take credit for your accomplishments and to do it succinctly, in a way others can digest, is a challenge. 

That’s why I recommend that, long before you even have an interview on the books, you start practicing how to answer behavioral questions using the STAR method. 

You may have heard me talk about it before, but this is the secret to nailing these types of questions. 

STAR stands for situation, task, action, and result. 

This acronym is meant to help you remember the info you need to provide an informative answer and the order you need to do it in. 

The situation is the set-up to your answer. 

You’ll start by describing a previous situation relevant to the question. 

Describe a specific situation. 

Before you interview, take time to consider a few times you were able to meet a particular challenge to you or where you exceeded expectations. 

Do it now, while there’s no pressure on you, and you can then add detail over time. 

This will make it easier to tweak your response to make it most relevant to the company or the role you’re interviewing for when the time comes. 

You want to give enough detail for the interviewer to understand what was involved, but do it in no more than two sentences. 

Then comes T – the task at hand. 

What was your role in this task? 

What were you supposed to do, and what was the problem? 

Why couldn’t it be done – what was the challenge? 

Maybe you had a time-sensitive problem. Or maybe the authority you’re supposed to defer to wasn’t there and someone had to make a decision. 

No matter what the task was, there needs to be a challenge. Otherwise, the meat of your answer won’t be very compelling. 

Action is the third part of the methodology. It’s here that you’ll explain the actions you took to fix the problem. 

Provide a thorough description that acknowledges your thought process, how you reached your conclusions, and what your role was in the resolution. 

That sounds like a lot of information. But the detail you provide will showcase your real-life experience executing the skills your target role is looking for. 

Action is the most interesting and important part of your answer as far as the recruiter is concerned.

…

** For the full podcast, check out the audio player above.

Ready to start your transition into industry? Apply to book a free Transition Call with our founder, Isaiah Hankel, PhD or one of our Transition Specialists here.

The post Stuck On An Interview Question? The STAR Method Is Your Salvation appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

In this week’s episode…

There are more than 900 million users on LinkedIn, and each and every one of them – including you – get on the site for two reasons: 

One: to improve themselves or their career. They go looking for content, resources, or professional support. 

Two: to create, curate and share content in order to be more visible and relevant to companies, clients, and potential business partners. 

The platform was designed to drive engagement between users. 

Sharing and posting content on LinkedIn shows your connections and potential employers your aspirations, interests, and unique value. 

Today we’ll talk about five engagement-driving posts you can create and discuss what value they offer. 

The first is simple: text-only posts. 

The sentences in these posts should be broken up by an empty line every 1 to 2 sentences. 

White space is your friend in a post with no images, links, or PDF attachments. 

Since there’s no visual clutter in these posts, they’re a great way to shine a light on your unique insights in the form of listicles, how-tos, or an anecdote about a recent revelation (such as a layoff or a recent discovery you had during a job interview). 

The second kind of post you can share is third-party content. 

Links to articles or sharing the work of a colleague you know can demonstrate that you’re humble, objective, and value the contributions of others. 

This type of post provides you and your audience with talking points. 

When you do this semi-regularly, your audience will begin to associate you as a source of valuable information. 

You’ll become knowledgeable by proxy. 

And, perhaps most important of all, whenever a user likes something you posted, your name and the content you shared will show up in their feed for all their connections to see. 

Be sure to shorten your URLs and add an insightful comment when you share – this will tie your brand to the content and increase the likelihood of engagement. 

…

** For the full podcast, check out the audio player above.

Ready to start your transition into industry? Apply to book a free Transition Call with our founder, Isaiah Hankel, PhD or one of our Transition Specialists here.

The post Here Are 5 Examples Of A Post That Adds Value On LinkedIn appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

In this week’s episode…

As a PhD, you need to have some knowledge of business concepts in order to be successful in industry. 

You need to understand how your work at the bench translates to a company’s bottom line.

Research – even academic research – is done in a market setting. 

It has to achieve results and be profitable. 

The reason many academic labs struggle is that they are badly managed businesses. 

If you want to get hired in a PhD-level position in industry, you need to understand how businesses work and how your knowledge brings value to the companies you’re targeting. 

That means that it’s important to have, at the very least, a basic understanding of business terms. 

Employers like to slip business terminology into their interview questions to disarm PhDs with no formal experience. 

That’s why today I want to talk about four terms that you may be tested with during your industry interview process. 

First, let’s talk about supply chains. 

A supply chain is a network of businesses, activities, individuals, and technologies that are all involved in the creation and sale of a product. 

Without a good supply chain in place, a business can’t be profitable. 

Before your interview, take some time to consider how the supply chain works at your target company. 

Where might problems arise? 

Is that a problem you’re being hired to improve? 

Are there any organic questions that you can that will demonstrate you understand the part of the supply chain that the role you’re applying for serves?

Another term you’re probably familiar with is project management. 

Chances are you’re already well-versed in managing several projects simultaneously. 

In industry, however, project management is much more structured. 

It’s a process that includes specific phases such as initiating, planning, execution, and closing, all with a strong focus on the company’s expected deliverables. 

Many companies have preferred documentation processes in place, and there are different project management styles to consider (such as Scrum or Six Sigma). 

Learn about these terms – if possible, connect with someone at the company and ask questions about the project management systems they use – so you can be prepared to discuss them at your interview. 

…

** For the full podcast, check out the audio player above.

Ready to start your transition into industry? Apply to book a free Transition Call with our founder, Isaiah Hankel, PhD or one of our Transition Specialists here.

The post Employers Are Testing You If They Ask About These Four Business Terms appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

In this week’s episode…

You know that networking is a crucial part of your industry job search. 

Naturally, you expect that the next conference you attend will be a great place to start. 

You’re not wrong. 

But before you go, there are some strategies that you can use to get even more out of the event. 

First, you’ll want to research the industry players who will be there. 

Many vendors, for instance, announce which employees they’re sending to the conference ahead of the event. 

If you can’t find this information online, reach out and ask the company. 

Once you know who they’re sending, research them alongside the companies that you want to target. 

A second tip: skip the talks at the conference altogether. 

The reason is that talking to a vendor by yourself during a lunch or coffee break is nearly impossible. 

That’s a vendor’s peak time to sell products and recruit new customers – they won’t appreciate an interruption from a PhD who’s desperate to find a job. 

But if you speak with vendors during the quiet times, they will be more relaxed, less distracted, and more apt to speak to you. 

Third, you have to know what to talk about. 

When you approach a vendor, one thing you don’t want to talk about is yourself. 

Nothing makes a person shut down faster than a PhD or PhD student coming up to them and start angling for a job. 

To keep them from running in the other direction, focus on them and the company they represent. 

Why are they there – what do they do? 

Ask about their product or service. 

The idea is to give attention, elevate their credibility, and be genuinely interested. 

A very important point, and the fourth tip: Be sure to emphasize your status as an industry novice and/or student – even if you’re a professor, in a postdoc position, or are doing a TA-ship. 

If they see you as a novice or student that lacks industry experience, they may be more candid with you because they won’t see you as a threat. 

…

** For the full podcast, check out the audio player above.

Ready to start your transition into industry? Apply to book a free Transition Call with our founder, Isaiah Hankel, PhD or one of our Transition Specialists here.

The post Fool-Proof Networking Tactics For Your Next Conference appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

In this week’s episode…

You don’t need me to tell you that this is a competitive job market. 

The economy is in a cycle of contraction, and the job market is restricting along with it. 

As you look for ways to set yourself apart from the competition, you’ve probably heard that experience is key. 

And, don’t get me wrong: in a very general sense, more experience is better than less.

The difference between academia and industry, however, is that industry jobs aren’t exploiting your lack of experience. 

Today I want to talk to you about two reasons why completing a postdoc is only holding you back. 

The first is on-the-job training. 

In industry, employers will provide you with the training you need, trusting that your PhD makes you a capable and quick learner. 

What’s more, industry employers will compensate you a more-than-livable wage to start. 

Academia, on the other hand, tells you that you need more academic experience in order to be successful. 

Academia offers an abysmal salary for work that is often incredibly lucrative for the institution. 

Your academic peers and advisors say you can get the experience through completing a postdoc, an extended TA position, or an adjunct post.

 And you believe it. 

PhDs in general believe this lie. 

We take these positions and we make the best of them, thinking, “Once I get this experience, THEN I’ll be ready.” 

This mindset often results in PhDs spending years chasing one low-paying academic position after another just to get that last bit of experience they believe is missing. 

If this sounds like you, you’re not alone. 

A recent survey revealed that nearly half of the postdocs polled reported being in a postdoc position for over three years. 

One-third said that they had already completed two or three postdocs. 

Why would you want to remain in a system that tells you, even after years of experience, that your talents are not worthy of a well-paying, permanent position? 

And, if a position in industry was your end goal, you should know that the longer you stay in academia, the more you hurt your chances of landing your ideal job. 

That’s because many companies may prefer to hire PhDs straight out of grad school. 

…

** For the full podcast, check out the audio player above.

Ready to start your transition into industry? Apply to book a free Transition Call with our founder, Isaiah Hankel, PhD or one of our Transition Specialists here.

The post Your Postdoc Is A Waste Of Time appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.