PostPhDirections

Have you ever assumed the only careers open to a PhD are staying in academia or doing more R&D in industry?

In this episode of PostPhDirections, I sit down with Alexei Kazarine, a biophysical chemistry PhD who took a road most scientists don’t even know exists — the commercial side of science. A week after defending his thesis, he left the lab for good and went straight into technical sales, selling the same kind of imaging software he’d used in his own research. Three years in, he was promoted to lead the very team that first hired him, and today he coaches STEM PhDs on launching and scaling six-figure technical sales careers. He’s seen this transition from both chairs — as the PhD who jumped, and as the manager who hires them.

Alexei’s story is a powerful reminder that leaving the bench doesn’t mean giving up meaningful, high-impact science — and that your PhD already qualifies you for far more than you think.

We talk about:

• Why the biggest opportunity for PhDs is hidden in plain sight — and how most people knock on the wrong door
• The myths that stop scientists from even considering sales (“it’s selling out,” “it’s not real science,” “it’s only for extroverts”) — and why they’re wrong
• How a commercial role let Alexei reach hundreds of researchers a year, when his papers reached maybe 10 to 15
• Why, in most jobs your salary is a ceiling — but in sales it’s a floor
• Why PhDs are already “two-thirds of the way there,” and what the missing third really takes
• What makes a PhD stand out from the hiring manager’s chair — and why your job search is really just prospecting
• Why technical sales may be one of the most AI-proof careers a scientist can pick in 2026

If you’re a PhD who loves the science but has never seen yourself as a “sales person,” this conversation will change how you see your own value.

Learn more about Alma.me and our Job Accelerator Program: ⁠https://www.alma.me⁠Follow Elena on LinkedIn (⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/elena-hoffer-/⁠), Instagram (⁠https://www.instagram.com/elenahoffer_phd⁠), and TikTok (@eli_the_scientist)

Connect with Alexei Kazarine on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexei-kazarine/
Read his free newsletter, “Technically Sales”: https://alexeikazarine.substack.com

If you found this helpful, share it with a fellow researcher who’s convinced their only options are academia or R&D — and please leave us a review. It’s the easiest way to help other PhDs find this podcast. 💙

Your CV shows more training than almost anyone else in the pile. So why is nothing coming back?

In this episode of PostPhDirections, I sit down with Alona Bärtschi, who spent over 15 years in talent acquisition, including leading early careers recruiting across EMEA at Google, and now heads the Career Center for four Swiss research institutes: PSI, Empa, Eawag and WSL. When she moved from industry into academia, what surprised her most was how much researchers undervalue their own skills, like the researcher with an outstanding CV who sat in her office convinced they had nothing to offer industry.

Alona's view from both sides of the table makes one thing clear: most PhDs don't have a skill gap, they have a communication gap. And communicating your value is a skill you can learn.

We talk about:

• What a recruiter checks in the first 15 seconds of reading your CV
• Why you should list everything from your PhD, then keep only what's relevant to the role
• Why PhDs sell against themselves, and how to add estimated results without feeling dishonest
• Why junior roles and internships often get no response, and when to switch to plan B
• Why networking is a seed you plant mid-PhD, not a message you send in your final month

If you're a PhD or postdoc sending applications into silence, this conversation shows you what the person on the other side is really looking for.

Connect with Alona Bärtschi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alonabaertschi/

https://alonabaertschi.tilda.ws
Learn more about Alma.Me and our Job Accelerator Program: www.alma.me
Follow Elena on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elena-hoffer-/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elenahoffer_phd
TikTok: @eli_the_scientist

If you found this helpful, share it with a fellow researcher who's underselling their PhD, and please leave us a review. It's the easiest way to help other PhDs find this podcast. 💙

Are you applying to junior roles because you think you need to prove yourself before you can aim higher?

In this episode of PostPhDirections, I sit down with Crystal "CC" Kitanovski, a chemistry PhD who is now Principal Data Scientist at Shield Legal, where she leads data science and builds AI systems from the ground up. Her path was anything but linear, and it took 1,014 applications before it worked. Around application 250, she asked herself a very PhD question: if I spent five years becoming an expert in one thing, surely there are experts in job searching too. That question led her to Alma.me, where she became only the second person through our Job Accelerator Program.

CC's story is a reminder that struggling with the transition isn't a sign you're unqualified. It's the normal experience almost nobody says out loud.

We talk about:

• Why she applied to L1 and L2 roles as a PhD, and why hiring managers found that confusing rather than humble
• How calling herself a data scientist felt like lying, and what finally reframed it as accurate
• Why she never talked herself out of imposter syndrome, and what actually shifted once she was doing the job
• Why "we don't speak corporate" is a language problem, not an intelligence problem
• The most underrated PhD transferable skill, which has nothing to do with programming: total desensitization to failure

If the job search is wearing on you mentally, emotionally, and physically, this conversation will tell you the truth about how hard it is, and remind you there is light at the end of the tunnel and it is not a train.

Connect with CC on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/crystalkitanovski
Learn more about Alma.me and our Job Accelerator Program: www.alma.me
Follow Elena: LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/elena-hoffer-/) | Instagram (@elenahoffer_phd) | TikTok (@eli_the_scientist)

If you found this helpful, share it with a fellow researcher who's convinced the rejections mean something about them, and please leave us a review. 💙

Does your resume make your work sound smaller than it actually was?

In this episode of PostPhDirections, I sit down with Angela Priest, co-founder and COO of Alma.me. Angela has spent 20+ years on the hiring side of industry, building high-performing teams and designing the hiring processes companies use to fill them, and she has helped dozens of PhDs get hired. She knows how these decisions actually get made and how your application is really read. We talk about something we see constantly in our Job Accelerator Program: PhDs sending us resumes with the most important skills missing. Not because they don't have them, but because those skills are buried inside protocols and approaches that feel too obvious to mention. Angela walks through the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) as a way to pull that detail back out, and explains why the people reading your resume will never connect the dots for you if you don't spell them out.

The best part: you get a twofer. The same work that fixes your bullet points also prepares you for the interview.

We talk about:

• Why recruiters don't infer your skills, and what that means for how you write
• What Situation, Task, Action and Result actually look like for research work
• Why your real skills are hidden in your methods and protocols, and how a thematic analysis of job descriptions helps you surface them
• The mistake of treating the publication as your result, when the result is the finding inside the paper
• How to build a bullet point that pairs a measurable (numerical or categorical) with a real impact, in about 192 characters
• Why PhDs who have raised millions in funding or reached millions of people leave those numbers off entirely
• Why colors, icons and graphics don't differentiate your resume, and what actually does

If you have ever looked at your own resume and thought "this doesn't sound like the work I did," this conversation will show you how to fix that in an afternoon.

Connect with Angela Priest on LinkedIn.

Learn more about Alma.me and our Job Accelerator Program: www.alma.me If you want support making this transition, you can apply to work with us directly here

Follow Elena on LinkedIn, Instagram or TikTok @eli_the_scientist

✨ SPECIAL EDITION FROM THE ALMA.ME CAREERS WEEK 2026 ✨

What does industry actually feel like once you get there? In this special panel episode recorded live at the Alma.Me Careers Week 2026, Angela Priest sits down with four Alma.me Job Accelerator Program alumni who recently made the leap from academia into industry. Together they get honest about the mindset shifts, the culture shocks, the unexpected challenges and what they wish they'd known before they started.

The panel features Sophia Parks (PhD Toxicology → Project Manager in health tech), Michael Rempe (PhD Applied Mathematics → Senior Advanced Analytics Analyst at Grainger), Emory Richardson (Yale PhD → Data Scientist at PayPal) and Emily Richard (Lead Data Scientist at A-G Associates working with the Department of Veterans Affairs).

This is one of the most candid conversations of the Careers Week. Because reading about the transition is one thing and hearing it from people who just lived it is something else entirely.

Connect with Elena on LinkedIn and follow along on Instagram and TikTok. For hands-on support in your own transition, check out how Alma.Me can help at www.alma.me 💙

Are you applying to junior roles because you think you need to prove yourself before you can aim higher?

In this episode of PostPhDirections, I sit down with Emily Richard, a cognitive neuroscience PhD who is now a Data Science Lead at AG Associates, working on veteran suicide prevention. When Emily started her industry job search, she did what so many PhDs do she aimed too low. She kept applying to entry-level roles, convinced she needed to earn her place first. What changed everything was realising that her PhD, her decade-plus of research experience, and her leadership background already qualified her for senior-level positions. Once she shifted her targets, everything clicked.

Emily's story is a powerful reminder that choosing a job outside of academia doesn't mean giving up meaningful, mission-driven work and that your PhD already qualifies you for more than you think.

We talk about:

• Why PhDs almost always underestimate the level they should be targeting
• How one conversation with Angela completely reframed what Emily had to offer
• Why your academic experience counts as real work experience — even when you don't believe it does
• What skills Emily had been overlooking that actually qualified her for senior and leadership roles
• How she landed a role she genuinely loves — leading data science on veteran suicide prevention
• Why aiming too low might actually be the reason you're not hearing back
• The best job search advice you'll hear: treat every application and rejection like a data point

If you're a PhD wondering what level to target or quietly convinced you need to start at the bottom then this conversation will change how you see yourself.

Connect with Emily Richard on LinkedInLearn more about Alma.me and our Job Accelerator Program: www.alma.meFollow Elena on LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok

If you found this helpful, share it with a fellow researcher who might be underselling themselves — and please leave us a review. It's the easiest way to help other PhDs find this podcast. 💙

In this episode of PostPhDirections, I'm joined by my co-founder Angela Priest, who brings over 20 years of hiring experience across startups and big cooperates. We get into everything you need to know about the current job market — the honest, behind-the-scenes version.

We cover:

• Why uncertainty has become the new normal for employers — and what that means for your job search
• The AI shift: what "AI native" means in job descriptions and why it matters for you
• Why your data fluency is one of the most in-demand skills right now (and why most PhDs don't even realize they have it)
• The hottest roles for STEM PhDs in 2026: AI/ML, health tech, biotech & clinical research
• The #1 skill listed in 85% of job descriptions — and why PhDs often struggle with it
• How to make interviewers actually want to hire you (the unspoken criteria nobody talks about)
• Why communication in industry means something completely different than it does in academia

If you're a PhD or postdoc thinking about making the leap, this episode is full of raw, practical insight from someone who's spent decades in the hiring room.

Connect with Angela Priest on LinkedInLearn more about Alma.me and our Job Accelerator Program: Follow Elena on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

If you found this helpful, share it with a fellow researcher — and please leave us a review. It's the easiest way to help other PhDs find this podcast. 💙

What if I told you one of the most powerful tools for landing your first industry job is completely free, takes 30 minutes, and most PhDs aren't using it?

I'm talking about coffee chats (aka informational interviews – but let's keep it casual).

When I was halfway through my PhD at Karolinska Institutet, I had that constant background noise: "What can I do after my PhD? Where do my skills fit? What if I don't want to stay at the bench?"

Starting conversations with people who'd already made the jump changed everything for me.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why coffee chats are my absolute favorite free tool for career transitions
• The two main reasons PhDs should be doing these (and neither is "asking for a job")
• Three strategies for finding people to talk to – even with zero network
• The outreach message formula that actually gets responses (with examples)
• What questions to ask that can't be Googled
• How one PhD got a referral from a single coffee chat
• Why "not everyone will reply" is totally normal (and what to do about it)

Here's the truth: You can read hundreds of job descriptions about data science or medical science liaison roles and still have no idea what it actually feels like to do the job. That information only comes from real people working in industry.

Stop sitting alone with your laptop feeling overwhelmed. Start having real conversations.

Your challenge this week: Reach out to ONE person and ask for ONE coffee chat. That's it. Share in the comments how it goes!

Ready for more support? Check out our Learning Platform (48-hour free trial) or Job Accelerator Program at www.alma.me

Follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok

You got this 💙

Does your first job after your PhD have to be perfect? Spoiler: No.

If you're finishing your PhD and stressing about finding the "perfect" industry job, this episode is for you. I break down why PhDs overthink this decision, how industry actually works (hint: you're NOT locked in for 5 years), and what really matters in your first role.

You'll hear:

• Why the "perfect job" mindset comes from academic training
• How industry turnaround times work (2 years is normal!)
• A real story: PhD who pivoted after just 9 months
• What to do if you don't like your first job
• Why your first role is a stepping stone, not a destination

Your first job just needs to get you into industry. That's it. Stop overthinking and start moving forward.

Ready to make your transition? Check out our Job Accelerator Program at www.alma.me

Follow me on Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Tiktok

Is your PhD work experience when applying for industry jobs? This is one of the most common questions PhDs ask when transitioning out of academia.In this video, I explain why the real issue isn’t a lack of work experience, but a misunderstanding of what industry actually means by “experience.” Industry employers care about applied skills, problem-solving, collaboration, communication, and delivering outcomes—all of which you develop extensively during a PhD.You’ll learn:

• What work experience really means in industry

• Why a PhD is applied professional experience, not “just education”

• How PhDs already solve real-world problems under uncertainty

• Where your PhD belongs on your CV/resume

• How to frame your PhD experience in a way industry understands

If you’re a PhD student, postdoc, or academic considering a move to industry, this video will help you stop underselling yourself and start positioning your experience with confidence.👉 Key takeaway: Your PhD is work experience - 100%. You just need to frame it the right way. Learn here how

Follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram and Tiktok. And if you need more support check out our work at www.alma.me