PhD Transition Report On-Demand

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

• First, Isaiah explains why PhDs need to learn strategies to update LinkedIn and communicate their value to employers
• Next, Isaiah reveals why PhDs should focus on SSI score
• Finally, Isaiah describes the mega-valuable LinkedIn updates to communicate your value to employers

PhDs have to communicate their value to the recruiters in a language best understood by them. Social media presence is important. How you create your social media brand contributes to your value. LinkedIn is one of the largest social media platforms used by employers for head hunting. Therefore, how well you use LinkedIn strategies to communicate your value to the recruiters. How can you create the maximum impact for the least amount of changes to your profile?

Let’s say you’re just not getting results on LinkedIn. You have to make some LinkedIn updates within 24 hours. Change where it can create impact. Your LinkedIn headline is 80% of the strength of your profile in terms of key words. So, the keywords in your headline have to be 80% more stronger than the keywords in the rest of your profile. So what do we put in that area? 

Recruiters use LinkedIn recruiter, a separate LinkedIn to search for candidates. How can recruiters know if you are open to work and which job titles? There is a box you need to click to show recruiters that you’re open for a job. Click this box and put in the job title you want to be found for. If you’re not being found for any jobs, this is likely why. You’re not activated yet on LinkedIn recruiter or LinkedIn talent insights. Mention the locations you want to work. Choose whether you want everybody on LinkedIn to see if you are open for a job. It gives you a green circle that says open to work.  

Social selling score is important for social media presence. It determines your visibility. Pay attention to the four elements that make up your SSI score. Get it as close to a hundred as possible. Establish your professional brand. Connect with at least a thousand or more people. Engage with insights. When you open up LinkedIn, it takes you to your newsfeed. To engage with the feed comment once per day, at the very least post once per week. Post insights. Comment on other people’s posts. 

Connect with the right people and then build relationships.  With people in the industry you want to get into. Connect with gatekeepers, employers, the recruiters, the hiring managers, the talent acquisition specialists, proximal connections. Set up informational interviews. Network with professionals from your industry. Add value to your connections. The ratio of connection requests sent and accepted matters here. Build relationships. 

Headline is the first information a recruiter can see. Make it future-facing, include keywords for the types of positions that you want. Mention the location you want to work in. Highlight your key skills. For example, R and D scientists, molecular biologist, environmental sciences, cross-functional collaborator, functional genomics, sustainable agriculture, scientific writing yoga enthusiast. The preferred job title. The transferable and technical skills mentioned in the job description. And then something that breaks the ice.

Personalize your LinkedIn summary. Write it in first person narrative with key words and a pitch that distinguishes you. Mention why you want the job and why you’re good at it. First sentence is crucial. For example, I am an aspiring research scientist, senior scientist, a medical science, liaison, data scientist consultant, whatever the position is, who wants to get into this sector because I have experience in X, Y, Z, which makes me the perfect candidate for this role. Write a conversational paragraph, further backing up why you are a perfect fit. Compliment it with some bullet points, relevant keywords and results you’ve achieved that are relevant for the role that you want. So the first sentence, then a short two to three sentences still in the first person. Make sure to mention your email address is at the end. 

In your work experience section, add bullet points. Adding media URLs links to press releases or something that mentions your education, achievements. Enlist volunteering opportunities. LinkedIn loves it. When you do it’ll increase your visibility to employers. They look at this to see what you would do without paling. 

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

To get advanced access to the full length versions of these podcasts, as well as access to our live training webinars, exclusive training videos, case studies, industry insider documents, transition plan, and private online network, get on the waitlist for the Cheeky Scientist Association now.

The post Mega-Valuable LinkedIn Updates & 15 Example LinkedIn Headlines appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

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

• First, Isaiah explains why PhDs need genius strategy to get hired into high-paying industry jobs
• Next, Isaiah reveals how to make an effort to do the uncomfortable
• Finally, Isaiah describes the genius strategies that make PhD job search painless

Strategies are important for success. Even the PhD Job search warrants genius strategies to cut the job search in half. You may think there’s no way to get hired faster. No way you can demystify the job search process any faster. Often PhDs feel at ease in taking a back seat in the next step of their career. Sinking into that comfortable analysis paralysis that a lot of us PhDs become too familiar with in academia. Thinking is great but action is necessary. 

Playing scenarios in your head is not a strategy. You will not come any closer to the goal just by thinking. To get hired every PhD has to grow out of the mind palace. Thinking will not make you more productive. Think how to execute better. You can improve efficiency and effectiveness both. Ask yourself. 

So what are the most impactful things you can do? How can you get the biggest benefit for the minimum effective dose in terms of your time?

PhD job search needs strategy. It is not easy. You have to do things that are uncomfortable. There’s going to be a barrier to entry. Reaching out to somebody you don’t know is going to be uncomfortable. It’s somehow hard but is the most effective thing to do. Overcome the painful sense of discomfort. This discomfort is in vain since reaching out is productive and the correct strategy. And when you do anything over time, it becomes easier. Don’t neglect it’s a skill, a muscle. You have to use it. 

It becomes uncomfortable to have conversations with people if you go an extended period of time, not talking to as many people as you used to. In academia, PhDs speak a lot less compared to somebody that works at a media company. But if you were in that environment for an extended period of time, you would adapt. And then if you went back to academia you would find it really quiet. 

As PhDs you have been contributing to someone else’s career, not yours. PhDs are used to keeping somebody else happy. Much used to their current structure, framework, schedule and varying outside of that makes them very uncomfortable. 

But you have to stretch yourself in some areas. These strategies help. It will help you demystify the job search faster. 

These are the genius productivity strategies that actual PhDs have used to slash the amount of time and effort they’ve had to use in their job search. The first one burning the ships. You’re prioritizing academia. Doing something beyond that scope makes you uncomfortable. You have to realize that when you have a new goal, you have to catch your habits, rituals, daily routine, up to that goal. So burn the ships. Prioritize your job search first. Make your career your top priority right now.  

Commit to yourself. Think about spending as much time as possible on your job search. Even if you can’t take a job offer right now, just get some experience with it. Commit to  never going back to academia. So you have to commit to go into the industry. period.

Only the end  should matter. 

Focus on companies. Understand the company. Familiarize yourself with the hierarchy, the structure and  possibilities. Learn which companies can hire you. Understand the landscape.What is the job? Where’s the job title originating from the company? What else is at the company? Find the contacts, the people you need to get in touch with, whether it’s the hiring manager, the recruiter. If you understood the companies in your space, that would still be a drop in the bucket for the millions out there that will hire you. Every company has slightly different job titles. Some of them are interchangeable like the most ubiquitous ones. Many of them are unique to the company. 

Communicate your value, your speed of learning, your ability to present data effectively to the employer. These are the advantages PhDs have over other job candidates. 

** for the full podcast, check out the audio player above

To get advanced access to the full length versions of these podcasts, as well as access to our live training webinars, exclusive training videos, case studies, industry insider documents, transition plan, and private online network, get on the waitlist for the Cheeky Scientist Association now.

The post Genius Productivity Strategies PhDs Use To Make Their Job Search Painless appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

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

• First, Isaiah explains why PhDs need to create a purpose to stay strong during their job search process
• Next, Isaiah reveals why reinventing the rationale is important
• Finally, Isaiah describes how to create an inspiring purpose for your life

Purpose drives actions. What is your purpose as a PhD? How connected are you with your purpose? The rationale for why you do things is important. Purpose keeps you motivated even in uncertainties, when things get tough towards the end of your academic career. You may reach a point of disillusionment when you realize that you weren’t doing what you’re doing for the right reasons. You didn’t have a strong reason. Probably, you were chasing somebody else’s goal.

Disillusionment as publications or the title of being a doctor, may deter you. PhDs reach a point in their academic career, where they have to reinvent their purpose. You find it for the first time or reinvent it. Sometimes you feel de-energized. Feeling very lost, especially in the middle or the end of the graduate school career or in a postdoc.  After a long struggle when finally, something happens to us, we feel disconnected. You don’t feel like you have the positive impact on others that you expected. Academia is very often the land of the small. We usually have to force ourselves to feel a sense of reward from very small things. Less funding, sharing resources, getting the name on a paper, small promotion. Don’t stay content in small wins, you’re capable of so much more. 

Getting your PhD is a stepping stone to something else.

You’ve been in graduate school or postdoc for a very long time. To overcome such a daunting situation you need a strong sense of purpose. Losing the purpose doesn’t happen overnight. It is really a stacking of many things. When you are working with people for a long time things start changing. They become much more challenging. Funding goes down or attitudes sink. Relationships get strained. The mask tends to come off. You’ve been around the people that you’re working with for a long time. And, you know, at first there was novelty and you’re getting to know people and it’s fun and exciting. But then you stay there for a long enough timeline. There is friction. 

And if you’re dealing with difficult personality types, it can be even more challenging. There is a substantial drop in the number of professorships. All of these stack and make you lose your purpose. You may get to the point where it doesn’t seem to matter what you do. As there will always be something else that you have to do to  get results. Authorship of a paper or bumping your name in the authorship rank. You’re still underpaid. You still don’t have any job security and creativity. Innovation fulfillment does require a certain level of security. Know there’s no direction. It doesn’t matter what you do. You start to lose a sense of purpose. Maybe you’re feeling like that. Now, does it matter what you do? Are you still hanging onto the hope that if you get that next carrot, something is going to change.

Nobody will come to take care of you. The only way to correct that is to create a purpose. There’s things you can do practically. Whether it’s writing down a personal story for yourself, in the first person creating a vision board. Look up motivational stuff. Learn from success stories. As a PhD, you have a hard time thinking in terms of possibilities. Because you think that emotion is bad or inspiration is bad. But it’s not. You have to use inspiration to drive yourself forward. 

Use your logical mind for doing the best work possible. You are logical while data analysis or work design. But you are skeptical about human motivation. Sense of purpose empowers and motivates you. Start looking for the purpose. Create the rationale. Feed your mind stories of impossible tasks or great things that have been done.

The will that’s inside of you, drives you forward. Especially as a PhD your will power is stronger than your biology. At times it’s stronger than how much you’ve been through. Do you actually believe that you can produce a better life for yourself? Would you bet on yourself? 

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

To get advanced access to the full length versions of these podcasts, as well as access to our live training webinars, exclusive training videos, case studies, industry insider documents, transition plan, and private online network, get on the waitlist for the Cheeky Scientist Association now.

The post How To Create An Inspiring Purpose For Your Life appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

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

• First, Isaiah explains why PhDs need PhD level jobs to create impact
• Next, Isaiah reveals PhDs have to create a job campaign and follow protocol
• Finally, Isaiah describes the lean and mean guide for PhDs to getting hired in the industry 

A lean and mean guide is essential for PhDs to be hired into high paying industry careers. What does it take to get hired into rewarding industry careers? Questions are imperative. But PhDs have the wrong script playing in their head that just says, I want to get hired. This leads to a sense of failure, rejection and frustration. PhDs don’t need any job, rather they want a PhD level job. A PhD level job where you can do meaningful work, has an impact on humanity.

PhDs have a sense of imposter syndrome. Unsure if they have anything to offer outside of academia. PhDs should be compensated fairly. To have salary security. Many PhDs feel like their future is slipping away and they no longer have the joy of discovery.

Everybody has their own unique reasons for getting a job. And one of the reasons is you want to have that joy of discovery. You want to make an impact in some way. There’s something bigger that you want to do. You want to feel a greater sense of achievement, fulfillment, happiness, and you can’t do that from a place of uncertainty. 

Therefore even after PhD, there is uncertainty.

You have to design a campaign. Sketch a map out from A to Z. Trace the steps. Plan for contingencies. A job search should be a campaign. You can’t wake up randomly on a Tuesday and submit a few resumes, do nothing to make progress in your transition. Then reach out to a few contacts on Friday, hoping for magic. 

You have to catalog your job search activities in a spreadsheet hour by hour. Thinking about your job search does not count as an activity. Thinking about possibilities is not the same as executing. You have to move away from thinking about or critiquing a job search to executing. Use your documentation skills as a PhD to write down these plans.

Make a protocol and follow it. It’s time to have this strategy in place. Re-engage your network. Make a list of companies you want to work at and network. You have to start talking to people at these companies.

You want a job that pays well, allows you to do PhD level work. You need referrals. It doesn’t have to be painful. Start by growing your network. Talk with professionals. Ask them about the projects that they are working on. Get them to talk about the challenges and how they got into those roles in the first place. Do informational interviews. Craft your professional profiles. Update your resume and LinkedIn profile. Expand it to more than just a list of the academic job titles. Establish a profile and then only slightly adjust it based on the different jobs you’re applying to. Make every resume job targeted.

Execute this process again from A to Z and for a PhD level job that allows you to do meaningful work. You need to change your expectations and your thresholds. Target your resume to the job. Use 30 to 50 specific keywords from the job description. Create specific bullet points to highlight your skill and expertise. 

Prepare to present yourself as a credible and viable solution to the problem industry employers are facing. You need to practice interacting with other professionals in a very professional way. Create a strategy, document your progress, network, follow up, get referrals, have your professional profiles, your resume, LinkedIn profile ready.

Certainly during interviews reveal your value as a PhD. Talk about your ability to innovate your ability to, to learn quickly, to deal with uncertainty. 

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

To get advanced access to the full length versions of these podcasts, as well as access to our live training webinars, exclusive training videos, case studies, industry insider documents, transition plan, and private online network, get on the waitlist for the Cheeky Scientist Association now.

The post A Lean And Mean Guide To Getting Hired In Industry appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

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

• First, Isaiah explains why PhDs need to communicate their value to the employers
• Next, Isaiah reveals which skills are valued by employers
• Finally, Isaiah describes the powerful ways PhDs can communicate their value to their employers

Communicating your value is indispensable for getting hired. As a PhD you must know how to communicate your skills that you’ve gained during your PhD to employers. The biggest gap that PhDs have is being unsure how to position themselves for industry. How to communicate PhD values, skills, qualifications? It’s difficult if you are not sure if you’re valuable outside of academia. A lot of this comes down to the language that you’re using.

PhDs have a sense of imposter syndrome. Unsure if they have anything to offer outside of academia, and how to articulate it. 

PhDs are the top 2% of the population in terms of education. And you’re just comparing yourself to other PhDs who might excel relative to you in one area or another. As PhDs, we have this deficit where we are always comparing ourselves to people on top. But we only compare ourselves to that top 2%, worse. This is no way to live when it comes to yourself. Looking for the weaknesses, avoiding confirmation bias is only good for comparing data. But when it comes to you and your value in a job search, it’s not productive. 

You have to know you’re valuable and learn how to communicate that value. 

Technical skills are undoubtedly important. But those are not the only skills employers look for in their candidates. The top three desired skills for industry positions are not some niche technical skill. Rather the three skills are critical thinking, complex problem solving and decision making. They want people who can correctly identify problems and then solve that problem. 

As a PhD, you naturally excel in all three of these areas. Regardless of your background, you are an expert researcher. You are highly trained in identifying problems and finding solutions to those problems. And this is how you should explain to an employer. 

You are trained at problem isolation and then synthesis. You can come up with solutions to those problems and make a recommendation. You’ve spent so much time trying to find the answers to the world’s toughest, unknown questions. You know how to attack these questions from every different angle. You can follow a lead right through dozens of academic journal articles, book references, countless plots just to prove some minute aspect of your overall hypothesis. Adding to a field is hard. Anyone can regurgitate information. You can do that and much, much more.

True employers deeply value this for any industry role. So make sure they understand it. Make sure you can communicate that they also value your ability to wrangle uncertainty. If you have a PhD, you have spent so much of your life in the middle of uncertainty. You may at times have thrived on it because without uncertainty discovery would be impossible. Innovation would not exist. Most job candidates don’t understand the relationship between uncertainty and creation. 

You have to deal in uncertainty. Emphasize that you are very good at dealing with uncertainty and continuing to work in the face of it. Most job candidates really struggle with this. They need an absolute guarantee before they’ll work hard. While as a PhD, you don’t. You just need to know what’s possible. And know that you’re going after something that’s going to have a bigger impact on humanity. 

Uncertainty induces innovation. Lean into this ability to deal with uncertainty. In industry, your technical skills are surpassed by some robotic system. It’s going to make whatever you’re doing in academia obsolete, except for the underlying knowledge of how it works. Your underlying ability and experience dealing with uncertainty and innovating, while still learning and moving forward is important. You can communicate this on your resume, your LinkedIn profile while networking and during informational interviews, when they say well enough about me, what about you? 

Certainly during interviews you need to reveal your value as a PhD. Talk about your ability to innovate your ability to, to learn quickly, to deal with uncertainty. As a PhD your ability to handle tough situations, your history of working very intensely with very little pay and very little support and still pushing through this is your value. You find problems, and determine priority.

Tenacity is very uncommon. Convey that you’re very intelligent. You can learn extremely quickly and autonomously. You learn faster on the job compared to than others. 

PhD stands for doctor of philosophy and philosophy stands for knowledge and the ability to ascertain knowledge. You are quite literally, as all PhDs are, a doctor of learning.

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

To get advanced access to the full length versions of these podcasts, as well as access to our live training webinars, exclusive training videos, case studies, industry insider documents, transition plan, and private online network, get on the waitlist for the Cheeky Scientist Association now.

The post Powerful Ways To Communicate Your PhD Value To Employers appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

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

• First, Isaiah explains why PhDs need to stay mentally strong during their job search process
• Next, Isaiah reveals why employers don’t value mental weakness
• Finally, Isaiah describes the 3 keys to stay mentally tough during PhD job search

The PhD job search is arduous unless you have a strategy. You need mental toughness in your job search and your career. Certainly during those last few stages of getting out of academia. Showcasing a certain level of vulnerability and asking for help will not make your advisor and other thesis committees to care more. Mental weakness will get you lip service, but not anything else. It will not get you the respect that you deserve. 

Authenticity is important. But displaying vulnerability by letting others control your career, never results in success. Don’t depend on others for your career choices. Hoping that somehow people will feel sorry for you and help you is futile. This isn’t the case when it comes to advancing your career. 

In academia there’s a massive conflict of interest because as you develop in your training and you become very good at getting data. But you know are just advancing things for your PI, your academic advisors career. You constantly get pushed to generate more data. Because you are cheap labor. 

It’s the reality of the situation in academia. Everybody is vying for self-interest in a way. 

Your mental weakness is not valued. Employers are not going to take pity on you. They’re not going to go out of their way to do more than they should to hire you. Employers don’t feel bad for your situation in academia. Your lower stipend would not be a criteria for them to offer you more. If you want your worth. You would have to work hard in negotiations. 

You’re going to face rejection if you depend on humanity to be hired. They’re going to reject you and not give you a reason. Several companies have policies so they don’t give feedback for rejection.  A lot of it has to do with legal implications. There’s layoffs. Companies may let you go. Companies kill a project or restructure and you’re fired. 

You might suddenly realize that your mental weakness has led you to be severely underpaid. Barely getting more than your postdoc or PhD. You need to change your mindset and increase your mental strength. 

Mental toughness needs three keys. The first is having a can-do mindset. Take initiative for yourself. Don’t wait for somebody else to come take care of things. Realize that you can make a decision to better your situation at any time. Actively initiate the decision in the first place. Take decisions to improve my situation. This is very important for industry. This is why employers look for quantified results on your resume. Employers want translators as PhDs. Those who can take technical information, you can do research and analysis. 

Every PhD is valuable. But someone who can synthesize the results of an analysis into an actionable or a business oriented solution, and make a recommendation on what to do. That’s the kind of mindset you have to start developing. Don’t sit back, read a job, and play out the scenarios in your head. Rather take action. Don’t spend time critiquing the words than being inspired by them. You need to get to the point where you will hear a show like this, or read a book and then move on  it quickly. The PhDs that I see transition, that’s the switch. That’s the corner that they turn, the pivot that they make.

Secondly, you have to take ownership. You might be in unfair situations. You may not be responsible for the situation, but you’re responsible for how you respond to it. Take full responsibility and employers will test you on this. When they ask you behavioral questions, about a time when you had a conflict with a supervisor. Don’t blame your supervisor or talk negatively. Not, even in a passive aggressive way where they just had a different management style to me, and you’re not getting a job offer.

Take ownership of what you did. Tell them what you did to overcome that conflict. Say that you are responsible for this, but here’s what you learned from it. Here’s how I overcame it. You will be tested on this. 

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

To get advanced access to the full length versions of these podcasts, as well as access to our live training webinars, exclusive training videos, case studies, industry insider documents, transition plan, and private online network, get on the waitlist for the Cheeky Scientist Association now.

The post How To Stay Mentally Tough During Your Job Search appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

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

• First, Isaiah explains why PhDs should practice to negotiate well ahead of time
• Next, Isaiah reveals what it takes to negotiate
• Finally, Isaiah describes when PhDs should negotiate and how to deflect 

Negotiation is tricky. Orchestrate it well. The most uncomfortable part of negotiating is deflecting the employer’s attempts to get you to zero in on a number before they give you a written offer. There is immense discomfort in deflecting because we haven’t practiced negotiation. PhDs don’t negotiate. We don’t want to play games. 

Negotiation is not a game or a trick. It is a transferable skill, a communication strategy. Prepare for negotiation well ahead. During the course of the interview this stage may come sooner. And then all of a sudden everything becomes urgent. But you really have to go deeper into how the conversation progresses, what the scripts look like? Get comfortable, don’t be surprised. 

So many of us learn very topically to give the response. I will consider any reasonable offer. But get overthrown when the initial deflection is not respected. 

You might have to deflect dozens of times, 30 or 40 different times in a series of conversations during a panel interview. Initial deflection may not always work. Recruiters have responded that they can’t move ahead in the interview without knowing the number. Would you just give in or agree to a number or give a range? Just because you are so terrified that they could withdraw the offer or shut down the entire interview. 

Book learning negotiation is not as effective as practicing and getting comfortable. Behaviorally getting into the situation, having to feel the uncomfortable feelings and going through that over and over again until it becomes okay. That’s what it takes to negotiate. Failing to negotiate proves devastating to both your income and your career. Negotiation is a norm in the industry. You are expected to negotiate. You’re more likely to come across as unqualified, desperate, easy to replace if you don’t negotiate. 

Deal making is a key transferable skill. Those at the top of any company have mastered this skill of networking. Negotiation and deal making are two skills that will drive you to the top of industry. And so as you stay in industry on a long enough timeline, those two skills, they’re the ones that will matter in terms of being promoted. 

Be ready to deflect prior to having a written offer. Most PhDs erroneously believe that negotiation only comes into play later in the interview. Never bring up salary or concrete numbers until you’ve received the written offer. Know that the entire hiring process involves negotiation. During every interaction with the company, you should be building a case for why you’re the best person for their open position. Increase your perceived value and create leverage for later salary discussions. Be aware that the company will try to negotiate salary with you by giving you a written offer. Any number you provide in this context will hurt you.

You should never negotiate without a written offer because you have no leverage. You should prepare to deflect early attempts. So every attempt without a written offer, you may have to deflect dozens of times to the same person. Deflect, don’t be uncomfortable. Or you will not get your worth. Keep the discussion relaxed and conversational. If you find yourself getting uptight, take a step back mentally and relax. Get back to a calm place. Practice deflecting by answering a question with another question approach. 

Ask questions with curiosity in a conversational way. It puts the impetus on the other person to decide. They’re trying to get numbers and do calculations. Recruiters will ask you about your salary expectations. Deflect by saying I haven’t thought about this much yet. I’m more concerned about learning who I’ll be working with, learning more about the team. If you go right into negotiation, you’re talking about money, it’s going to make you look greedy and weaken your negotiation position. Stay focused on the team. Everything you want to learn. 

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

To get advanced access to the full length versions of these podcasts, as well as access to our live training webinars, exclusive training videos, case studies, industry insider documents, transition plan, and private online network, get on the waitlist for the Cheeky Scientist Association now.

The post How To Deflect Comfortably When Employers Push You To Negotiate Verbally appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

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

• First, Isaiah explains why PhDs need to add a note to their LinkedIn connection request
• Next, Isaiah reveals how PhDs can add value to their connection request
• Finally, Isaiah describes the three types of professionals PhDs must reach out to on LinkedIn 

LinkedIn connection request is the first step to networking on LinkedIn. But how do you connect with people on LinkedIn? How do we specifically reach out to the right people? How can we get them to accept our connection request? You must also know about the kind of obstacles that LinkedIn creates to throttle us from reaching out too much. LinkedIn has to create a better user experience even for the person on the other side. Hence, it creates some obstacles.  It is a good practice to send a connection note to the industry professional instead of merely sending a connection request. 

Not everyone has the same level of patience. Especially if they don’t have a PhD and they don’t understand your condition. Often they may not have the time to respond at all. Don’t focus on yourself. Focus on them. A lot of PhDs write a whole paragraph about themselves and their technical skills. 

The reason is because we wait until we’re desperate for a job.

Stop focusing on yourself. You need to add value to the other person even in your LinkedIn connection requests. The only way to avoid desperate messages is to do things correctly when there’s low pressure and you have plenty of time to do it. When you can take a step back and focus on the other person, you can add value. How can you add value ? There’s a variety of ways to do this. It depends on the type of person you’re reaching out to. You can show appreciation as a colleague. Appreciation is the best value you could add to somebody who just got into their first industry role or their first promotion.

You can compliment their work, congratulate them on their career progress. You could ask them for their personal opinion or advice. So in an unsolicited fashion, give them a chance to give you advice. You can also offer to introduce them to somebody you do know with a shared interest. 

Your LinkedIn connection request must have a rationale. And that rationale has to be specific for the person.

There’s three types of people you should be reaching out to at every single company you’re interested in. You should be reaching out to the gatekeepers directly. Hiring managers, recruiters, the internal recruiters, talent acquisition specialists, HR or human resources. So on LinkedIn, search the company and its employees. You can go to the filter section and you can search certain terms under job titles, to see who the gatekeepers are., Search human, to find human resources or resources. For hiring managers, search hiring or talent for talent advisor, talent, acquisition specialist. Those are the gatekeepers. 

Then there are the decision makers. These are people that are beyond middle management. So they’re above senior or principal level roles, executive or director roles. Look for an operations manager or a COO. And then finally look for people in proximal positions. They’re in the position you want to get into or similar.  Focus your efforts first on the people, especially those that have PhDs that are in the roles you want to get into or in similar roles. Remember they get employee referral bonuses. The average is $2,000. If they refer you and you get hired, there’s something in it for them too, but they’re not going to do extra work for you. Alternatively, somebody that’s at the executive level or gatekeepers, they are not interested in your appreciation. Their most valuable resource you can add is time.

Many people go on LinkedIn maybe once a week, once a month. So it can take a while for them to connect. And LinkedIn does not allow you to reach out again after your connection, unless you have some InMail credits. Don’t be discouraged if they don’t accept your connection request because they likely are not going to even see it. They likely did not see your message. So send a connection request and an InMail beyond that.

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

To get advanced access to the full length versions of these podcasts, as well as access to our live training webinars, exclusive training videos, case studies, industry insider documents, transition plan, and private online network, get on the waitlist for the Cheeky Scientist Association now.

The post The Best Note To Send With Your LinkedIn Connection Requests appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

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

• First, Isaiah explains what is LinkedIn SSI score 
• Next, Isaiah reveals why it is important for PhDs to update their LinkedIn 
• Finally, Isaiah describes the factors that influence LinkedIn SSI scores and strategies to increase it

The LinkedIn SSI score is imperative for getting hired into top-paying industry positions. As a PhD, you may be looking for a job. You may have even increased your activity, but employers are not reaching out to you. Not the spam messages from external recruiting sharks but messages from hiring managers or internal talent acquisition specialists. If they are not reaching out to you even when you have a PhD. There is clearly an issue. The problem is most likely your SSI score. 

SSI score is your social selling index. It is determined by four unique factors. As a job candidate, you have to sell yourself. You have to emphasize on your skills and why you are the best candidate for the job. Your resume and  LinkedIn  should show how sellable you are. You have an industry SSI rank and a network SSI rank. The most important number is your current social selling index out of a hundred. If you have only 200 or less connections, SSI score is not really high. The SSI score is not the same as your visibility score for LinkedIn, but it is a very strong indicator of it. 

As a PhD student, who’s about to defend or a postdoc unemployed, you need to have confirmation bias. You need to sell yourself as the best candidate for the job. If you have a LinkedIn profile then it’s visible to employers. They use LinkedIn recruiter or LinkedIn talent insights or even regular LinkedIn to find you. If your profile is not ready, the employer clicks a box so your profile won’t show up again. 

You’re limiting your options. Incomplete profile shows you are not ready in the job search process. As PhDs or postdocs you have worked with undergrads or junior staff.  And you can tell just by what they say that they are unprepared. You know exactly where they are in their training. It’s the same for your unprepared LinkedIn profile. Employers can tell you are not ready. They live and breathe on LinkedIn. Recruiters do six to seven different interviews a day, and they spend all of their time on LinkedIn. They can instantly tell where you are in terms of your readiness, where you are in your job search. How qualified you are based on your progression from moving from that academic mindset set to the industry mindset. It is better for you to delete your profile altogether. Take your LinkedIn profile and LinkedIn networking seriously, if you plan to be hired in industry.

The big key here is to go from the academic mindset to an industry mindset. 

Polish your LinkedIn profile. Make it job ready. Send a strong message to the employers that you are ready for the transition from academia to industry. Establish your professional brand. A complete profile also paves way for networking. You will find the right people to create a robust professional network. Number three is to engage with insights. Number four is to build relationships. 

You can establish your professional brand by filling out as many LinkedIn profile section sections as possible, and as robustly as possible. LinkedIn profile should be  keyword centric. Use as many job relevant keywords specific for the sectors of industry you are trying to get into. Also, focus on keyword connectedness. 

Continue to iterate this. Don’t try to do it all at once. Do a little bit every day. Your visibility will dramatically increase. After that start networking. You have to start connecting to people in industry overall. And with people in the sectors of industry that you want to work in. The more focused the sector and the more contacts within that sector. These will escalate your score for the component of finding the right people. But LinkedIn is very big on ratios. So, if you have connected or pressed the connect button with a hundred people today and only five of them connect back in the next seven days, that’s a problem. But if you do it with a hundred and say 60 connect back with you. It’s a much better ratio.

You must start connecting with people that are in the industry you want to get into well, before you need a job offer. Start now, do not wait to do this. 

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

To get advanced access to the full length versions of these podcasts, as well as access to our live training webinars, exclusive training videos, case studies, industry insider documents, transition plan, and private online network, get on the waitlist for the Cheeky Scientist Association now.

The post What Is Your LinkedIn SSI Visibility Score And How To Increase It appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.

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

• First, Isaiah explains why PhDs dread coming up with quantified results on their resumes
• Next, Isaiah reveals how PhDs can reinvent their professional brand on their resume
• Finally, Isaiah describes how PhDs can communicate quantified results on their resumes

A resume is your marketing document. A good resume is not enough to get you the job but a bad resume can keep you from getting hired. The number one problem, and the top solution that comes up most consistently for PhDs is correctly formatting the bullet points on the resume. You may be facing many struggles, if you’re trying to get hired into your first job or for your promotion. These struggles can be narrowed down to correctly formatting these bullet points. As a PhD, you understand the nature of limiting factors in any equation. You know that there is a weakest link in any chemical reaction. 

Incorrect formatting of bullet points in the resume is the number one issue. And I am going to fix it for you today. Staying in academia for long causes changes to our psychology. We get a wandering eye for other career paths hoping that might fulfill us. Eventually, in academia, we realize we’re not having the impact that we thought we were going to have. So, we look for a vehicle to have that impact. The vehicle being our career. 

Tenure is dying. We see ourselves underpaid and underappreciated. But we hope for a better life when we see that other people are living a more fulfilling life. As PhDs we work hard, are intelligent. So it’s easy to feel like we haven’t achieved anything. You need to know the job titles to make bullet points impactful. You don’t know what other job titles are out there until somebody puts them in front of you. How do you search for something when you don’t know the keyword to search for it? And so we get this wandering eye. We start looking for other careers that are available. 

Learn how to how to position ourselves for an industry job!

So, how do we reinvent our professional brand so that the employers see this brand, which is our resume. When the employers see your resume how do they recognize that there’s value? How do they find that profile in the first place? If they’re scanning through it among thousands of resumes uploaded online. What can you do to grab their attention? 

And it comes down to communicating results. It’s not the result or the answer that matters as much as the process. Employers know that PhDs know how to communicate results. You should be communicating results on your resume. And how you write your results that appear appealing to an initial gatekeeper who does not have a PhD is more important. 

Many PhDs opt for lower jobs. You are confronted with the overwhelming process of getting a job outside of academia. And you don’t understand that process.

Get to that limiting factor which holds you back. That factor is understanding and communicating your value. In academia, we don’t make claims over any results. Everything’s very passive. You want to avoid confirmation bias in academia. This is the exact opposite of what you want to do in your industry job search. You want to have extreme confirmation bias. You want to say, I achieved this. I did this. And it resulted in this. Even if many people were involved, it doesn’t matter. It’s a resume. It’s a persuasive marketing document not a peer review timeline of your study. 

Quantified results are numbers. The number of reports or documents of any kind that communicate your expertise in an area. You will be spending a lot of time creating maybe figures for white papers, several types of reports. They’re based on the company’s culture or brand. That’s a result that matters in business. Number two, resulting in X number of poster presentations on ABC topic. Number three, resulting in X number of publications, including a publication in a reputed ABC journal. Results with transition language, as evidenced by, resulting in, as demonstrated by that’s, how you end the bullet point properly.

** for the full podcast, check out the audio player above

To get advanced access to the full length versions of these podcasts, as well as access to our live training webinars, exclusive training videos, case studies, industry insider documents, transition plan, and private online network, get on the waitlist for the Cheeky Scientist Association now.

The post Why PhDs Dread Coming Up With Quantified Results On Their Resumes (& What To Do About It) appeared first on Cheeky Scientist.