Congratulations! You did it! You finally became a doctor, honoured with the prestigious title of PhD!
Now what?
Like a record on repeat, I heard over and over again many PhD student fellows complaining and panicking about life after the PhD. I actually remember myself feeling overwhelmed about thinking what to do next! We are all aware of the fact that a tenure-tracked career in academia is not easy path: whereas talent is required, there a big role is played by the uncontrollable combination of luck and time. Moreover, tenure-track career might simply not be appealing to you, and just not fit your preferences. Whatever the reason is, you need to know that a career in academia as professor or assistant researcher is not the only option.
Before entering in the details of what other careers are out there, after PhD, I must confess that I chose to stay on the academic path. Since the first year of PhD, I knew I wanted to continue with academic research. Perhaps it was my strong admiration for the team leader position, the idea of supervising several projects at the same time, as well as maintaining and developing collaborations with other universities across the world. It felt to me always very exciting and dynamic. Yet, I remember myself considering several options at the crossroad between PhD and the next step.
Many of my senior PhD friends had undertaken very different paths: some in academia, some in same field of their PhD subject but in private companies, some reinvented themselves completely by approaching different disciplines. Yet, besides an academic continuation all the other options looked to me mysterious and impossible to approach because of my luck of information about them. Right now, thinking back, I feel that choosing a postdoc position, although desired and with no regrets, was probably the easiest choice I could have made.
At the dawn of my fifth year PhD defense anniversary, I have witnessed friends and colleagues making many different decisions for their after-PhD life. I then want to sum up here career options and transferrable skills required for the job (TS=transferrable skills). With this, I intent to raise awareness towards possible jobs, post-doctorate.
List of jobs and associated TS:
· ACADEMIC CAREER: in this scenario, the new PhD can search for a lecture, postdoc or research assistant position, to continue performing research work in his/her very same or similar fields. TS: project planning and management, deadline management, teamwork, leadership;
· OTHER JOBS IN ACADEMIA: here, the freshly graduated PhD stays in an academic environment, but leaves research behind to approach new roles:
a. Administration: this involves organizing schedules and programs for both students and teachers; assisting with enrolment and providing information on courses. TS: planning, deadline management, teamwork.
b. Fundraising: hunt for sponsors and support for research projects. TS: planning, communication skills, teamwork, meeting organization, meeting deadlines, and bidding for funding, managing budgets.
c. University grant writing advising office: supporting researcher to develop the best proposal to convince fundraising offices to sponsor it. TS: writing and communication skills, meeting deadlines, experimental planning, information management.
d. Career development assistant: accompanying researchers, students in their journey of job hunting. TS: communication skills, networking, analysis & problem solving.
· SERVICES FOR ACADEMIC AND PRIVATE RESEARCH GROUPS: in this category it falls several options that still rely on a number of transferrable skills and that are still in close contact with on-going researches:
a. Editorial publishers/editors: we all had to write reports or articles to disseminate our research among peers. We also all encountered critical reviewers/editors questioning or challenging our results. I bet we all thought what it could be like being on the other side. Well, this is indeed a good option. The ability of writing, reading critically a paper or an essay will help us review others’ research, as well as writing commentaries, short communications or transcribe interviews. TS: writing skills, text layout design, critical reading.
b. Consulting: if you like solving problems and trouble-shooting, this job can fit you well. Here the new PhD could help companies or research groups in solving issues, predicting trends and outcome of a product or the impact of an analysis. For this, it will be required to stay up-to-date with current advances in your field of expertise, and network to find clients or helpers. TS: networking, problem solving and analysis, writing and oral skills, meeting planning and respecting deadline.
c. Data analyst: if you are good at math and organizing data, perhaps you want to consider who collects, becoming a data analyst where you will process and performs statistical analyses of data. TS: problem solving and analysis, programming skills, accuracy for details, modeling.
d. Scientific illustrator: here, you will express your artistic side and help transforming scientific content into easy-to-understand- figures for scientific publication and broad public articles. TS: illustrating and drawing skills, communication, networking, critical reading, meeting planning, respect of client deadlines.
e. Museum curator: I am not sure how many people do consider this path; one of the PhD student who graduated in my program ended up working for a non-profit trust and taking care of scientific image collection, as well as helping organizing medicine oriented exhibitions. I find fascinating that a researcher can take on this job. Here, you could expose researcher to public, network with authors, do literature research and have to visit worldwide exhibition of the same kind, to improve your own. It might sound far-fetched, but in reality all the required skills have been acquired during the PhD. TS: networking, languages (for PhD studying in countries speaking other idioms than their own), critical reading, literature research, writing and oral skills, meeting organization, respect of deadlines.
· CAREERS IN COMPANY: it must be said here that as many other PhD fellows I used to think that I could have continued doing research till the salary/grants would have allowed it, because –at worse- I could have always got a job in a company. How wrong was I, I had no idea!! Taking a company in a job requires preparing CV and cover letter in a completely different way from what PhDs are used to n academia. In fact, the inappropriate format diminishes the content and the talent of the candidate, resulting in an endless amount of applications submitted without any reply. For a while, I was truly considering whether to switch to industry or not, and I tried to send out applications to a few companies. None of them ever replied. A dear friend of mine, who manages an imaging center in Toronto, Canada, and who tried for the past year and a half to change job confesses to me she send over 100 applications. But no answer. Moreover, it does not help the enormous amount of applicants there are per call. For this type of career, it is highly advisable to network with recruiters and workers already in the company of interested, to maximize the chances to be spotted. Yet, if you want to approach a career in company, few options are available for you:
a. Field Application scientist: this role aims to providing support to customers of companies with the laboratory equipment, reagents, or advice on lab-services industry. TS: troubleshooting, networking, analyzing Data, organizing meetings, travelling, languages, writing and oral skills.
b. Sale representative: this work implies being in direct contact with costumers, planning sales, hunting for clients, as expert in the product sold (most likely material, reagents that you used during your PhD). TS: budget management, organizing meetings, travelling, networking, sale and business, writing and oral skills; flexibility and persistence.
c. Company group manager: this is “broadly speaking” similar to a team leader position. You will be responsible of a unit of workers, coordinate the project and plan future directions. It might sound great because there is no urgency of publishing your research data; yet, as another friend of mine revealed to me, there is a constant overwhelming feeling for respecting client deadlines. TS: managing a team, project planning, meeting organization, writing and oral skills, dealing with clients, representing the unit, problem solving, and quality control.
Considered the long list of possibilities, there is really no restrain of career. Yet, an accurate preparation of CV and motivation letter might be required. Applications need to be tailored upon the organization standards that will receive them. For best success, it is indeed advisable to contact current employees and ask for suggestion on how to prepare the application and/or get ready for the interview. Now, the question really is “what do you want to next, depending on your attitudes and preferences.
The world is your oyster!
