It took me about 5 years to really transition into industry. It will, of course, vary greatly by industry specifics (mine ended up being tech, but my background is in Linguistics).
My best advice to anyone in this position is: stay in academic positions as long as you can (I lectured for nearly 10 years), but take on contract work concurrently until you find your foot in the door. A PhD is not really a “get a job out of academia” degree, and it really needs more work/networking to be respected in industry.
Edit: want to clarify this:
A PhD is not really a “get a job out of academia” degree
Remember that, typically, a Masters degree is where you go if you want to stand out in industry immediately, as it tends to be a more involved version of an undergraduate degree since it will have a more defined course structure and direction vs a PhD. Universities know this, which is why so many Masters programs are unfunded (many PhD programs are also unfunded, but friendly advice: never, ever do a PhD program that costs you money).
At the same time, it tends to be easy to get a Masters on the way to a PhD – usually just some paperwork. In that sense, you may have a leg up just only reporting your Masters to certain companies. And of course, if you are in a PhD program, ask if you can sign off for the extra Masters on your way.
The PhD is unique in that it is specifically designed to require new research. Many companies do not see the value in paying more for that, though if you have a chance to show them the difference between you and another candidate, you’ll win 99/100 times.
Edit 2: this is specifically PhD programs in the US, which are markedly different than other parts of the world.
Edit 3: and of course, the adage “publish or perish” does apply in academia. But academia, in my opinion, is not the meritocracy it used to be, at least in the US. Of my entire cohort of about 25 people, 2 became tenured professors – and both of them have parents who are professors. Nepotism is rampant and probably means more than publishing in certain fields.
For industry, publishing means very little.
Not trying to be defeatist or change anyone’s views here. Just giving my 2 cents since I have been in a relatively unique situation before.
I spent most of a decade in industry doing what is generally thought of as a PhD’s job. In order to fill in some gaps, I took a ton of graduate classes on the companies dime and looked at doing a fully funded PhD. I didn’t end up doing it.
Why?
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The industry paid better than academia. So the brain drain was real. The informal training I had from PhD’s in the company was vastly superior to the graduate level training at the university. Anyone who was any good at the applied side was not in academia. The ones left in academia were a very odd group with zero applied knowledge.
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Most PhD hires failed miserably in the field. 9 out of 10 of them could not make the transition to the practical application of knowledge.
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I saw a trend where smaller companies where hiring mostly industry experienced people for the positions (like I was).
So for me the time and investment was not worth it.
One of my friends made it halfway through his PhD. He then got sick of the politics and drama and noped out.
Interesting observations. Intent here is not to offer disagreements but just comparisons to my experience:
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Yes, industry pays much better. The wage gap in academia is a huge deal and one which will not get attention until the general issue with low wages in the US is handled. That said, I make about twice as much in industry as I would have as a tenured professor in my field had I started at the same time.
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This resonates with me in that I have heard it a lot. I think every person is different, but academia has a habit of supporting a kind of pretentiousness that is not conducive to pragmatic work. I would suggest this is highly field dependent, though.
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Industry experience trumps academic, 100% of the time.
I came at it from a different path than you. I wanted to be a professor, through and through. The tenured professorship is generally unattainable, since the number of positions is nothing compared to minted PhDs. For that reason, I explored switching to industry. I ended up in a good space, but I am not at all suggesting that someone should get a PhD to go into industry.
Edit: there’s also an epistemological argument to be made about #2 (the readiness of academics for industry). A lot of industry is about very specific solutioning and methods which may even be company dependent. In that sense, it is a skill you can only get from industry.
First paragraph had me laughing. Somebody has spent a lot of time in private industry and has gotten burned a few times.
As for #2 it depends on the age of the industry. Here is the life cycle of research driven industries as I see it.
Historically in research driven industries the foundations have been started in academia. Private companies start up relying on the universities research.
Money flows into the university systems from private companies and they start producing a lot PhD’s in the field.
Next the private companies decide they can make more money doing the research in-house. They offer large sums of money to the established professors and get fresh grads at bargain prices.
Pretty soon most of the best and brightest are drained to private industry. The funding from private industry slows to a trickle and all that is left in academia is those with more social connections than ability.
For the next 30 years, private industry has great talent. Then the first first wave of PhD’s retire. The new PhD’s grads are trained by the social connections crowd.
That’s when you start to see fun job descriptions posted like:
PhD + 2 years of experience, Masters + 5 years experience, Bachelor’s + 8 years experience.
First paragraph had me laughing. Somebody has spent a lot of time in private industry and has gotten burned a few times.
Without regard for anything else you said, do you think your experience is more representative than mine?
No - you missed my direction.
The paragraph is an overly polite way of writing to avoid any semblance of disparaging the other person. As mine was clearly written as a personal anecdote there is no need to qualify your remarks as non-derogatory.
Generally I see people develop those types of phrasing habits when they have negative experiences with misunderstanding in the past. Very common with many PhD’s communicating with MBA’s, sales or production teams. A little overly verbose but carefullly respectful to avoid conflict. It’s a very good habit to have professionally but quite funny when out of context.
The paragraph
Which?
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This all sounds so weird coming from germany since here you do you bachelors degree, then your masters degree and then optionally your PhD. While the usefullness of the PhD and its duration vary between subjects (in IT it takes 3-5 years and is not really worth it money-wise if you go in the industry afterwards, while in medicine it can be done in a year or even less and is basically necessary). Also while you do your PhD you are usually employed by the government (since universities are public institutions) and paid well. A PhD earns you social prestige and prestige in the industry since - besides in medicine - nearly no one has one.
Yes. A very different story in the US. I was consistently jealous of some colleagues’ experiences in Europe.
I should edit my original comment to specify specifically I am talking about the US.
I guess everyone understands that you are talking about US phds, so no worries :)
But yeah, doing your PhD in europe may not be simpler (we have to give lectures, organize seminars etc.) but considering that you get a good pay for your research as well, it is definitely a good alternative to going directly in the industry. However, doing your phd during your masters thesis or even starting without a masters degree is very uncommon, so you usually need more time to get it.
I’m a retired programmer and the only time I faced a situation where a PhD (or Master’s) would have made any difference was when I worked for a company that was involved with defense contractors. In this situation we had a pay scale where the hourly rate at which we were billable to the client was based on our degree, something like $110/hr for a bachelor’s, $140/hr for a Master’s and $185/hr for a PhD. The fun part was that it didn’t matter at all what field the advanced degree was in, so if I’d finished my Anthropology PhD way back when it would have meant I was billable at a much higher rate and correspondingly worth a much higher salary to my employer, despite its complete irrelevance to the actual tasks I faced.
We had a number of absolutely useless employees with PhDs who nevertheless brought in a lot more revenue than I did. It turned out later that some of the PhDs were made up - they had just put it on their resumes and nobody ever checks that shit. FWIW we also had a bunch of retired Air Force colonels on staff and nobody expected them to even show up to work on a regular basis. The corruption in that sector of the economy is just massive.
Sup brahs. Listen, there’s other paths. Do admin at yer university and pivot to some kind of finance shit. Worked for me. My salary is like $230K these days.
What if I don’t want to sell my soul?
I want to pivot from tech/engineering to finance, any advice for me? Been thinking of doing an MBA but don’t want to go back to school
MBA ain’t gonna do shit for you except mark you as a sucka. Especially if you already have a PhD. Only tip is find a niche that you can fill. Mine was nonprofit accounting and asset management. And like the other guy said, learn some math if you don’t know it and learn to code. Shit, just an understanding of ODEs and dynamical systems is enough. PDEs if you want to be a quant.
This is why I’m comfortable looking into soft sciences like social work or mental health. Ain’t gon replace therapists with AI anytime soon.
oh my sweet summer child
Hm? I’m sure people are trying, and not to say AI won’t be incredibly useful, too. I just think there’s quite a few avenues to go down with it.
Idk… I find pi AI incredible and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in having a low-stakes conversation about their mental health or just to have a general conversation about what they’re feeling. I honestly don’t use it enough (like when I’m super bummed and have no one to talk to). So far, it’s always been 1000% helpful
They will, for the simple reason that the average person won’t be able to tell the difference in the short term. AI isn’t about “replacing” people in the entirety from cause to result. It’s about providing a plausible facsimile of any role such that company X makes money while relegating the actual role to a niche.
😭
Been looking for work for almost two years
PhD grads? My guys, I’m in the same situation with a flipping Bachelor of Arts in my pocket.
I recently got rejected from a shop that sells cheap and poor quality items for being “underqualified” (the listing required 0 experience and basic education so I’ll go ahead and assume this is the only rejection email template they use and it’s actually the opposite)
