12/21/23, 6:17 PM What skills can I get during a PhD to be competitive on the job market against non-PhD holders?

holders? - Academia Stack Exchange

What skills can I get during a PhD to be competitive on

the job market against non-PhD holders?
Asked 9 years, 3 months ago Modified 9 years, 3 months ago Viewed 2k times

Earning a PhD help you learn tools and techniques in your field, and lets you become an
expert in a very specific field of science. However, once you get your degree and try to enter
22 the labor market, you're competing against people who are younger than you (i.e. recently
graduated non-phd engineers) and may have actual work experience (i.e. non-phd engineers
with a few years in the market).

There are, of course, some positions in which they cannot compete, including research and
teaching position. Those are the minority, though... in most other fields it seems that holding
a PhD is not as important as (for example) work experience.

So, I would like to know:

Is work experience more important than having a PhD in the many work environments?

What skills can I acquire/demonstrate during my PhD to become more "valuable" than a
non-PhD candidate for the same job?

phd job engineering

Share Edit Follow Flag edited Aug 26, 2014 at 12:27 asked Aug 25, 2014 at 12:12
user102 Alfonso Santiago
323 1 8

Thank you for your feedback. Maybe it's because I don't know what can I do once I get the degree,
that it doesn't seems broad to me (that's the question I'm looking for an answer here). But you're
right that it's excluding academia. – Alfonso Santiago Aug 25, 2014 at 13:54

4 @earthling - I disagree; this is very relevant to "life as a graduate student, postdoctoral researcher,
university professor". The majority of PhDs end up leaving academia, so they probably care about
this very much. Given all the edits (including my own), I'm reopening the question... please flag if
you think it should still be closed. – eykanal Aug 26, 2014 at 12:16

What skills can I get during a PhD [...] ? The skills the student tries to get and the ones related to his
major. The question still seems too broad to me. – enthu Aug 26, 2014 at 13:04

1 @EnthusiasticStudent: If you look at eykanal's answer, you'll see that most skills are independent of
the major. – user102 Aug 26, 2014 at 13:15

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12/21/23, 6:17 PM What skills can I get during a PhD to be competitive on the job market against non-PhD holders? - Academia Stack Exchange

2 Answers Sorted by: Highest score (default)

This question is too broad, but I have a feeling it's a commonly asked one, so I'm going to try
to answer it anyways.
17
To address (what used to be) your second question first: holding a PhD does not make a job
candidate any more desirable for the vast majority of positions. Indeed, it can be a factor
against the candidate, as they will be perceived as more expensive. For positions where a less-
qualified candidate could also fill the role, being overqualified is rarely a good thing. Jobs that
are specifically looking for a PhD will typically state that in the requirements. For example,
"Masters required, PhD preferred" is a common one in certain parts of the banking sector.
However, for entry-level positions (data entry, lower-level analyst roles, etc), you may be at a
disadvantage.

Regarding your first question, though, you're being overly harsh on yourself. The process of
earning a PhD is significant work experience; indeed, that's your main selling point when
looking for your first job. Depending on what you did, you will have some or all of the
following experience:

Identifying, clearly stating, and figuring out how to address a problem - this alone
qualifies you to be a consultant at any large firm; this is all they do, all the time, for
different clients

Project management

Advanced technical writing - your thesis, academic publications

Communication skills - working through the peer-review process

Public speaking - presenting at conferences

Experimental design - your research project

The art of researching - the simple knowledge of how to properly find articles, sources,
etc

...

Even better, you've been doing all that for four years. You should be selling every single one
of those points as hard as you can when you move to industry.

EDIT: The above answer stands for the edited second question as well; as a graduate student,
you will want to learn all of the above if you wish to enter the workforce. More specifically,
though, almost industry positions seeking PhD candidates will apply to value the following
three above most else:

Self-starter - shown in that you got your work done

Collaborative - demonstrated through successful collaborations with other researchers

(successful = researched together, published together)

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12/21/23, 6:17 PM What skills can I get during a PhD to be competitive on the job market against non-PhD holders? - Academia Stack Exchange

Good communication - demonstrated through publications, public speaking,

conference presentations, teaching, etc.

During the PhD, aim to do those things, and during your job search, emphasize all those traits
in your resume and during interviews.

Share Edit Follow Flag edited Aug 26, 2014 at 12:50 answered Aug 26, 2014 at 12:29
eykanal
48.2k 18 118 216

2 I don't think these skills you have listed are necessarily gotten during a PhD period. A PhD student
and an engineer, both can get public speaking, communication skills, etc even during their
professional careers, BSc internship programs or even by registering in some general social classes.
Even almost every MSc student and an engineer with masters degree has learned how to do
research by attending a research methods class. The user is looking for skills which are gotten
specially by studying PhD. – enthu Aug 26, 2014 at 13:26

2 +1 for You should be selling every single one of those points as hard as you can when you move to
industry. You should always see the skills you have that others don't - and good communication
skills is no so common for most engineers (at least the ones I have worked with). – earthling Aug 26,
2014 at 13:27

2 @EnthusiasticStudent: I don't think eykanal claimed these skills were exclusive to a PhD holder.
They can nevertheless be more developed than compared to someone who just get their MSc (or
even against someone who has worked for a few years after their MSc). – user102 Aug 26, 2014 at
13:41

@CharlesMorisset Who needs academic writing/research skill in engineering industry? – enthu Aug
26, 2014 at 13:50

6 @EnthusiasticStudent - As an engineering PhD myself, and as a manager of other engineers in an

industry position, I could not disagree with you more. Engineers need to be able to not only do
work but also communicate that work both internally and externally in a clear and concise manner.
– eykanal Aug 26, 2014 at 16:24

I think the answer in large part depends on the kind of job you want to work when you have
completed your degree. You mention that you do not know the kind of job that you want to
2 work when you get out of a the program. This is unfortunate. A Ph.D. = specialization, a
mistake many Ph.D. students make is to assume specialization = job. In fact, specialization can
make it harder to find a job. If you're goal is to enter into industry than I think you have an
interesting road to navigate. The job market will be kinder to you if you have a range of skills
that you are really good at, the Ph.D. program is going to pull you in the opposite direction.
You're wise to want to understand better what it is about getting a Ph.D. that will make you
standout in the workforce, but you'd also be wise to look at some skills for your desired
positions that you might not develop while in the Ph.D. program, and look to develop those
too while you are in the program. For me these skills are computer science skills. For you
these skills might be something different.

Unfortunately, unless you are in the hard sciences, and even then specialization can be a
demon, having a Ph.D. might not mean all that much when stacked against someone with a

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Master's, wider breadth of skills and more industry experience when looking for industry job.

Share Edit Follow Flag answered Aug 26, 2014 at 21:14

bfoste01
840 6 8

I know in which direction I'd like to go, but I'm far from knowing what work I'd like to have. As I said
in the original question (not the edited one), during the first years of my bioengineering courses, I
didn't knew which were the different posibilites to work in as a Bioengineer. Luckily, I found in the
PhD something I like. And beside that, with your way of thinking you need to have your life figured
out up to when you are 40, think that I'm not able to do now (neither when I was 18 and I choose to
get in Engineering). – Alfonso Santiago Aug 27, 2014 at 7:30

@Alfonso Santiago: that's not what I'm saying at all, thank you for putting words in my mouth. ;)
What's the biotech industry looking where you want to work? Are you specializing in something
that will make it difficult to find jobs in those places? Do you want to work at. Big company, startup
or be flexible enough to do both? – bfoste01 Aug 27, 2014 at 10:27

1 sorry if I misunderstood your answer. For me, knowing what I'd like to do 5 or 10 years from now is
almost imposible. Now I'm working in high performance computational biomechanics (HPCB),
something very specific, I think, but those simulation skills can be useful in other areas too. I,
actually, don't which is the demand of "HPCB simulators" in the labour market, that's something I
should answer myself. About in what kind of enterprise I'd like to work, I think that I'm not brave
enough for a startup... but maybe my bravery would change three years from now ;)
– Alfonso Santiago Aug 29, 2014 at 7:44

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12/21/23, 6:17 PM Advice for a PhD... who is aiming for industry - Academia Stack Exchange

Advice for a PhD... who is aiming for industry

Asked 7 years, 4 months ago Modified 7 years, 3 months ago Viewed 3k times

In recent years there has been much talk of difficulties in the academic job market, and of
many PhDs transitioning out of academia into the private sector. From what I've observed, it
7 seems that those PhDs that did get private jobs experienced pay and hours much better than
what they would have gotten as academic post-docs. Of course, academic freedom, and
opportunity to publish or teach are often not as good, but those are somewhat subjective
factors.

However most PhD programs aren't really suited to this sort of thing. They are designed
(sometimes explicitly) for producing future professors. There is emphasis on teaching,
academic research (ie. stuff that you can publish and bring in the cites), writing grants (to
agencies like the NSF), and all sorts of academic-y things. These skills don't really seem like
they would sound very attractive to a private sector employer, who I assume have, contrary to
academia, some regard for making money and less for things I've listed.

Of course there are two main things the PhD has that a company concerned with profit rather
than publications would want:

Specialized domain knowledge

General reasoning and analytical skills

Everything else you could get from non-PhDs cheaper. These, luckily, are things that PhD is
designed to teach anyhow. However, there are often many soft skills I see in job ads, which
seem relevant, like:

Computer skills

Proficiency with programming languages

Experience with frameworks and libraries of commercial use (.NET, phone apps, web
administration, ecommerce)

"Works well with others"

"Good communicator"

"Can assume leadership role"

"Can supervise team of junior workers on project"

These are things that, if you want to learn while doing a PhD, sometimes you need to go out
of your way to do so. And even if you acquire a skill, how do you convince the employer that
you actually have it, as opposed to just saying you do?

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So suppose you were a PhD student, but your goal upon graduation was not to start at a
postdoc and aim for a college professorship, but do get a job in the private sector. This can
be an industrial R&D job very similar to your PhD research, or it can be a supervisory role in
an area related to your expertise (eg. fish biologist works at fishery), or it can be unrelated
except for using the same skills (eg. physicist working in finance). What would you do
differently during your PhD from your faculty-bound peers?

Does it make sense to sort of "flavor" your PhD work with things relevant to the private sector,
so you can go into your job search having developed these tangential skills more than the
average PhD would? Or is it better to just focus on research, and hope that employers will
appreciate your academic success, and see your potential if you applied yourself to their
business instead?

Someone will inevitably ask for what field, let's say biomedical -> biotech, software
development, finance or healthcare. However, I encourage you to answer in a general way,
that would apply to many disciplines; I think such an answer would be more useful.

phd industry soft-skills

Share Edit Follow Flag asked Jul 26, 2016 at 4:55

Superbest
8,185 5 36 57

See Tuning the PhD journey for Industry jobs – ff524 Jul 26, 2016 at 5:42

Also see What skills can I get during a PhD to be competitive on the job market against non-PhD
holders? – ff524 Jul 26, 2016 at 5:49

@ff524 first question sounds like the same thing, but the accepted answer is not what I'm looking
for at all (I want to know how and whether to invest in developing specific skills). Second one is
asking about competing with non-PhDs, I want to compete with other PhDs (who also want the
same industry job). – Superbest Jul 26, 2016 at 6:10

There are other answers besides for the accepted answer. Also, if you want better answers to that
question (if it is asking the same thing), you can invest in a bounty on it to attract more attention. If
you're not asking the same thing, you should edit your post to focus specifically on the aspect of
the PhD -> industry transition not addressed in that question, instead of the rather broad title
"Advice for a PhD… who is aiming for industry". – ff524 Jul 26, 2016 at 6:11

The best thing to do would be to go for a few interviews during you PhD to see what are the
industry requirements, so when you will finish your PhD you can have some background knowledge
of these requirements. Concerning computer science, they would ask you about some projects
made in different programming languages. – Nikey Mike Jul 26, 2016 at 11:58

1 Why bother getting a PhD if you just want to work in industry? The level of specialized knowledge
involved outside of academic research is much lower, and "general reasoning and analytic skills" is
vague (and not what the second list you describe, which sounds like the job skills for the manager
of a team of a software engineers, focuses on). – anomaly Aug 26, 2016 at 3:31

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2 Answers Sorted by: Highest score (default)

In general, the optimal thing for a PhD student aiming for the private sector is to quit the PhD
as soon as he or she can get a relevant job. There are exceptions if the private sector job
3 involves actual research, and some private sector jobs require the specialized knowledge of an
MS or MA degree.

Beyond the basics and the necessary theoretical knowledge, the soft skills and the relevant
technical skills are much more easily picked up while working in industry, since you get daily
practice in the specifically relevant skills. In addition, one generally gets paid much better in
the private sector than as a PhD student.

Share Edit Follow Flag answered Jul 26, 2016 at 5:41

Alexander Woo
23.6k 3 57 89

1 I disagree. You say that "In general, the optimal thing for a PhD student aiming for the private
sector is to quit the PhD as soon as he or she can get a relevant job." If someone get a relevant job
in the present, in the future after PhD it will also get a relevant job. – Nikey Mike Jul 26, 2016 at
12:02

1 I disagree with sentiment, there is a job market for pH.d's outside of academia. Many financial firms
would jump at the chance to hire mathematical PhD for financial analysing. – Repmat Jul 26, 2016 at
12:23

4 This is too anecdotal for me to make it an answer, but I had a student who had done enough
research to make a dissertation and had decided he wanted to go into industry. I talked to friends
who do hiring in the field he wanted to work in, and they thought that having a completed Ph. D on
his resume rather than an abandoned one would be be more valuable than getting into the field a
year earlier, because it would show he could stick with a lengthy self-directed task. He spent a lot of
the year he was writing polishing his coding skills and making industry contacts, and he got a good
job. – David E Speyer Jul 26, 2016 at 14:11

2 MikeyMike - at the cost of several years and $100K in earnings. Repmat - not really - most jobs will
tend to prefer a MS with a specific concentration in the relevant areas of math - the exception
being the small minority of jobs expecting actual original research. – Alexander Woo Jul 26, 2016 at
20:50

@MikeyMike: Sure, but you're sacrificing several years (and the earnings you'd have during that
time) for something that's completely useless to your future job. It's nice to get the title, but what's
the point in having gone through a PhD program if you're just going to be writing code or being a
middle-manager for the duration? – anomaly Aug 26, 2016 at 3:41

My opinion is that this is defintly possible! I work at a institute (ntnu.edu/ipk) that is very
much connected to the industry. There are different course groups, but some groups have as
1 much as 3-4 case companies for each phd student. Thats means that the student is actually
doing a lot of research on the company.

I think if you want to wprk in the industry, you should go for a phd program where they plan
to cooperatw with companies. This is either clear in the phd description or the supervisors
should know something about this.

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You could also talk extra to supervisors that have strong industry contacts. My exoerience is
that its big differences about how much professors and groups focus to cooperate with
industry.

Anyway, research with a company is mandatory in a phd if you really want to work in the
industry later. Maybe thats also what you need to motivate yourself through your phd.

Share Edit Follow Flag answered Jul 26, 2016 at 18:31

Ruben Ravnå
121 2

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12/21/23, 6:24 PM graduate school - Tuning the PhD journey for Industry jobs - Academia Stack Exchange

Tuning the PhD journey for Industry jobs

Asked 11 years, 5 months ago Modified 11 years, 5 months ago Viewed 1k times

I have just started my PhD and although I love research and everything that accompanies it
but I am put off by Academia a bit and would prefer an Industry job at the end of my PhD.
18
What can I do differently during my PhD years with this ambition in mind?

I have read "PhD Grind" by Philip Guo wherein he states that at the end, he disliked Academia
and thus his motives at conferences and other events changed from "crazy networking".
Further, he spent more summers working in companies (Google and Microsoft Research, in
his case) than with other research groups.

Specifically, should I handle the following any differently:

Relation with Advisor

How I spend my summers

Conferences

Publications

graduate-school job-search

Share Edit Follow Flag asked Jul 20, 2012 at 15:48

user107

1 I recommend A PhD is Not Enough. – Dan C Jul 21, 2012 at 6:41

Waiting for Suresh to chime in... – JeffE Jul 23, 2012 at 1:40

4 Answers Sorted by: Highest score (default)

If your goal after grad school is to get a job, then during grad school

you should do the things needed to impress the people you want to hire you and to be
10
accepted and esteemed in their community.

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Slightly more concretely, find people who now have the career that you would like to
have, and during grad school do stuff that they have done.

I still think networking is key, but now you may be networking with a different group of
people.

Share Edit Follow Flag answered Jul 20, 2012 at 17:00

Dan C
14.4k 3 47 77

I think the number one thing you can do is plan your internships appropriately. Want a job at
Google? Spend a summer there in a product group. Ditto for twitter, facebook, ebay, etc: all of
7 these companies have large internship programs open to PhD students. Not only will this give
you contacts inside the company, it will give you an idea for the kinds of problems that they
need to solve, which can (if they are interesting), inspire the direction of your research.

Share Edit Follow Flag answered Jul 21, 2012 at 19:34

Aaron
4,140 1 21 23

I think it is really critical that at each stage of academia you are thinking about the next stage
and how to get there. For those interested in staying in academia, I take the often
7 controversial view that you should do everything possible to delay getting to the tenure
review (extra time as a student and post doc). For someone interested in an industry job, it is
all finishing asap. For industry, PhD and post doc experience just isn't that valuable. With that
in mind ...

Relation with Advisor

You should tell your advisers that you are interested in industry jobs. This will help them tailor
how they market you to your colleagues. It might mean they are more receptive to adding an
industry contact to your committee or changing your topic slightly. They also might help you
finish faster.

How I spend my summers

Summers should be spent working on your PhD (i.e., trying to finish as quickly as possible)
and picking up skills useful for industry.

Conferences

If your goal is industry, conferences are no longer about meeting colleagues and selling your
research. It is about hanging out with the vendors and industry reps. Small conferences, which
are great for meeting a post doc adviser, are probably less useful.
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Publications

Back burner them. Take second authorship and let someone else spend the time writing them.
They are not going to be critical for getting you an industry job or promotion.

Share Edit Follow Flag answered Jul 23, 2012 at 11:59

StrongBad
104k 30 261 480

From my own experience:

Do well in all your courses. Those who will be hiring you in industry generally places a
5
higher importance on grades than those in academia.

Publications are still important, but not nearly as much as in academia. Having a few
papers under your belt will demonstrate that you know what you're talking about and
that your research has been reviewed and accepted by your peers.

As was stated in other answers, find out what skills are necessary in the field you wish to
enter, and master those skills. Oftentimes this will involve familiarity with a set of
techniques or understanding of a very specific field. This is significantly different from
academia. Remember, people in industry will want to hire you so you can help their
business make money. The faster you can do that, the more easily you'll find
employment.

Network, network, network. If you know specifically what you want to do in industry, talk
to everyone you can (people in your academic program, friends, relatives) about possible
leads in industry. If you don't know which field you want to enter, start talking to people
very early on so that you can appropriately customize your training to your needs.

Share Edit Follow Flag answered Jul 23, 2012 at 12:13

eykanal
48.2k 18 118 216

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