Near the End of A PhD and Have No Job

StatGuy2000

Twofish-quant,

I am of the concerted opinion (I could be wrong, but likely not) that much of what is happening related to the debt-ceiling is just pure political theatre, and that by August 2 (or probably the day before) a deal will be reached between the Republicans and the Democrats in Congress.

It will be a cliffhanger, but given the importance of the debt-ceiling and the consequences of the US being in a technical default, cooler and responsible heads will prevail, in spite of all the noises from the right-wing extremist Tea Partiers within the Republican party.

Astro_Dude

Quote by StatGuy2000

I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for you. There was a time in my life where I was between jobs and it took me almost 4 months and 100 job applications before I found my next job.

The key thing is persistence. You can send your resume and cover letter to >100 jobs, and the vast majority (perhaps upwards of 80-90%) would end up being rejected., but it's the other 10-20% though that will get you in the door.

Also, just because you were rejected (or didn't get a response) doesn't automatically mean that the company has forgotten about you. Many companies keep your resumes on file for upwards to a year, sometimes 2 years, and when new positions open up will contact those who they haven't placed, particularly those with impressive credentials. I have had companies contact me almost 6 months later asking to interview me for a position that just opened up.

In the worst of times, it feels like a total waste. I understand that I'm very qualified and have more skills than most anyone my age. Heck, almost all of us on this site are in that kind of position. In the end though, it just is just maddening to think that after spending 10 years with (pretty much) no life, I *still* don't have what is needed for most positions that are interesting. I know people with humanities degrees who have gotten engineering jobs more easily.

As I've said, I know I gotta keep optimistic, not always easy though! Heck, last night, some friends of mine came up three physics/eng companies I hadn't thought of... and of course none of the three had anything that I qualify for. :(

Must keep trying though!

Quote by twofish-quant

Same here. One of the more useful bits of education that I learned was from salesmen that I worked with. The thing about salesmen is that getting rejected is part of the job, and after the first 30 rejections, you stop caring about people saying no. Some of my friends were telemarketers in college, and that's a very useful job to prepare you for the job hunt.

Something that helped me was to consider that my job was to find a job. I got up every morning at 8:30, went to my office (i.e. a local coffee house) and spend the entire day until 6:00 busy working. The other thing that I did that helped was to think deeply about my situation. What happens with a lot of people is that the demand that you do something right now means no time to think about abstract things, but in order to keep sane, I ended up thinking about economics and physics, and reading a lot of math.

I'm somewhat lucky that I have something that I can do the next few months to keep alive while I look more. I can't imagine having to work in retail again... but I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.

Quote by twofish-quant

Dark humor also helped. One thing that I did was to imagine myself being Gordon Gekko stuck the play Glen Garry Glen Ross. The weird part was that I really *was* stuck in the play Glen Garry Glen Ross.One other bit of drama that helped was the Star Trek: TOS episode "The Enemy Within." It was my inner "evil Kirk" that got me through that period.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII'M CAPTAIN KIIIIIIIIIIIRK

Quote by twofish-quant

One thing that helped me was to "be numb." If I got optimistic about something then it was depressing when nothing happened. So I just got emotion-less when I send out the resumes. Viewing sending out resumes as something like taking out the trash, helps a lot.

Most rejections I just giggle at this point. It's the ones that I thought I had the best chance at that are frustrating.

Quote by twofish-quant

Also if you get immediate rejections, that means that the companies are likely under hiring freeze so there are no jobs to be had. Something to be aware of is that right now the US economy is at the edge of a cliff, and if the US doesn't come up with a budget deal before 8/2, then we are looking at a disaster of Biblical proportions......

I'd be interested to know what the perception of this is on Wall Street. Because really, the people I know on Wall Street seem to have a much better bead on what's really going on in these types of debates.

Quote by twofish-quant

That likely means that there are no jobs at all, so even if you could walk on water, it doesn't matter.

But if there's no jobs, why advertise positions on the website??? Isn't that just a waste of everyone's time?

Quote by twofish-quant

Something else that I tried to avoid doing was to think "well if I did this other thing then things would be fine." The reason for not thinking that was that first it's not likely to be true. I'm pretty sure that bachelors with engineering degrees are getting rejection letters faster than you are. The second thing is that even if it is true, it doesn't matter. The important thing is to keep swinging at the ball, and anything that keeps you from doing that is useful.

Understood. One thing I tend to forget when I think that I should have gone into engineering is that engineers are a dime a dozen. Physics PhDs are not.

*nobelium102*

omg you are scarrrrring me,,,,,,,,,,,
I wanted to do physics and math major :(

can't you try teaching high school? (my high school teacher has phd)
Dude, i thought if you had phD you are like a professor or something

twofish-quant

Quote by StatGuy2000

I am of the concerted opinion (I could be wrong, but likely not) that much of what is happening related to the debt-ceiling is just pure political theatre, and that by August 2 (or probably the day before) a deal will be reached between the Republicans and the Democrats in Congress.

Oh. I think that too, but the problem with threatening to jump off a cliff is that even if you don't mean to do it, you might slip.

The other thing is that there are some pretty interesting game theory elements as to what is going on. You have your finger on the button of a bomb that will blow everyone up. Now no rational person would press that button, but if you know that the other person is rational, you can bargain pretty hard knowing that they won't press that button. So part of convincing someone to do what you want is to make people think that you are nuts.

Also even if they do come up with a budget deal, no one has any clue what it looks like which means that even in the best case scenario, no one that depends on government funding is hiring right now, because even in the absence of a default, no one knows who is going to get cut.

twofish-quant

Quote by nobelium102

omg you are scarrrrring me,,,,,,,,,,,
I wanted to do physics and math major :(

The world is a scary place.

Also, I don't want to dissuade you from doing a physics and math major. Part of the situation is that we have a lousy economy, but a lousy economy hits pretty much everyone, so even though you might be in a bad situation if you major in physics and math, what else are you going to do? Every other major is bad or worse.

twofish-quant

Quote by Astro_Dude

In the end though, it just is just maddening to think that after spending 10 years with (pretty much) no life, I *still* don't have what is needed for most positions that are interesting. I know people with humanities degrees who have gotten engineering jobs more easily.

One thing that I figured out when I went out into the "real world" is that getting a job involves learning a lot of skills that aren't obviously taught in the Ph.D. program. One of which is how not to go insane with a ton of rejections.

As I've said, I know I gotta keep optimistic, not always easy though!

Personally, I find that optimism doesn't work that well.

Cynicism and a taste for the absurd works better for me. Also, I found that looking for work left me profoundly angry, and a lot of the "how not to go too crazy" was to deal with the anger. It turns out that for me, anger was useful. The thing that I had to worry about most was getting so depressed that I couldn't get out of bed, but the nice thing about getting angry was that getting angry gets you out of bed.

I'd be interested to know what the perception of this is on Wall Street. Because really, the people I know on Wall Street seem to have a much better bead on what's really going on in these types of debates.

I don't think there is a consensus. Also there is an element of self-interest here. I'm a little worried that the economy is becoming too finance focus, but on the other hand, I'm obviously not going to advocate "shoot the bankers" policies.

But if there's no jobs, why advertise positions on the website??? Isn't that just a waste of everyone's time?

Because it takes time to clean up the website, and sometimes the truth (i.e. not only are we not hiring, but we are just laid off a thousand people and moving operations to India) looks bad on a website. It's an obvious waste of the time of job seekers, but then that doesn't matter to anyone in the company. Also, when a company is undergoing massive layoffs, the last thing anyone cares about is to keep the website up to date.

This is where networking comes in useful. If you know someone that works at company X, they can tell you whether company X is really hiring or if everyone there is working on their resumes and about to jump ship.

I've had bad experiences with corporate websites to the point that I don't even bother looking at them for any sort of job search. In the markets I've been in, if a company has a real job opening, they are going to be going through headhunters and the standard job search sites.

twofish-quant

One other thing about geography is that there is something that causes Ph.D. jobs to cluster in a few cities. My guess is that part of it is the "space alien syndrome." If you give your resume to a company that has never seen a physics Ph.D., then they have no clue what to do with you. Whereas, it helps a lot if you are talking to another Ph.D.

I spent about two years trying not to end up in NYC before I gave up and drank the kool-aid. I ended up loving the culture of NYC, although I can see how some people might hate it.

One of the things I like about NYC is that people in NYC think big, and they don't mind other people thinking big. In my last job search, I was talking to a company in DFW and I was telling them how I wanted to transform the entire world of finance, and they were looking at me like "well we just need someone to manage the computers."

Astro_Dude

Quote by twofish-quant

One other thing about geography is that there is something that causes Ph.D. jobs to cluster in a few cities. My guess is that part of it is the "space alien syndrome." If you give your resume to a company that has never seen a physics Ph.D., then they have no clue what to do with you. Whereas, it helps a lot if you are talking to another Ph.D.

I spent about two years trying not to end up in NYC before I gave up and drank the kool-aid. I ended up loving the culture of NYC, although I can see how some people might hate it.

One of the things I like about NYC is that people in NYC think big, and they don't mind other people thinking big. In my last job search, I was talking to a company in DFW and I was telling them how I wanted to transform the entire world of finance, and they were looking at me like "well we just need someone to manage the computers."

That's a surprising attitude for a DFW company to have since half the damned area runs on high tech. I can think of about 2 dozen companies that have big operations there.... and that's not including the gov't operations in the area.

Astro_Dude

A lot of my professors have been coming to me and telling me that even they had months of waiting after graduation. It actually amazed me at which of them are telling me that they were out of school with no options, because a lot of them are staggeringly brilliant, and much better than I am at this! :)

It's vaguely calming to hear that this is apparently normal to be in this position.

twofish-quant

Quote by Astro_Dude

That's a surprising attitude for a DFW company to have since half the damned area runs on high tech.

The curious thing about high technology companies is how with some few exceptions, they tend not to be run by technical people. Many technology companies have a glass ceiling above which geeks aren't allowed to tread. In most companies, you will find a huge amount of your time taking orders from salesman and MBA's that are totally clueless about what the company makes.

hawaiifiver

isn't that headwrecking!

TMFKAN64

Not really. The sad thing that you eventually realize is that in the big scheme of things, engineering really isn't that important to the fate of a company. Sure, you need some engineers, and they need to make *something* that can be sold... but how good it is doesn't really matter that much.

The fate of a company usually turns on sales and marketing, not technology.

twofish-quant

Quote by TMFKAN64

The fate of a company usually turns on sales and marketing, not technology.

Also sales and marketing involves convincing people to give you money and power, and it's not too surprising that people that are good at convincing other people to give them money and power end up having large amounts of money and power within a company.

GODISMYSHADOW

Quote by Astro_Dude

I'm really at the end of my rope.

For months I've applied to jobs in industry, gov't, and even academia with little to nothing in the way of responses. I've gotten on the order of 1-3 responses back, and almost all three said that they'd "might have" hired me if they didn't get unexpected cuts.

For background, I have a M.S. in physics, B.S. in Physics & Mathematics, and will soon get my Ph.D. in physics this summer. Sounds like I totally have a great resume right? Well, it turns out that I made a horrific decision in wanting to do my thesis in observational astronomy. So while my degree says Physics, much of my research experience isn't very transferable outside of academia... which I have grown to despise. I don't want to be in this environment anymore. I don't want to move 3 more times in the next six years before even having a hope of a permanent job. I want to be able to start my life... I'd love a job in industry (particularly in defense)... but I can find very little in the way of openings I even vaguely qualify for.

I don't have the vigorous theoretical background to do high-end finance, even if that would be of interest to me. I have some computational skills, but virtually everything I find computer based in jobs requires much more skills than I have (e.g. specific databases, language or engineering programs). What I do have is the PhD to prove I'm a good problem solver, and a smart driven person. I have authored many papers, can (and have) taught others how to use astro tools, and I am above average in scientific statistics. I have scripted a few basic monte carlos in Python, but that's really the extent of my coding skills.

Still, everything I find wants ridiculous requirements, and generally the response I hear back for jobs I do qualify for is "...but you don't have an engineering degree". I'm losing my mind in that I can't find very many jobs that I qualify for, and those that I do stick their nose in the air because my degree says Physics and not Engineering.

My best luck in matching my skills has come from looking at Systems & Research engineering, but I generally never hear back from those positions. I suppose mostly because they are either entry level or require knowing every engineering program the company uses. While I'm on the subject, I've never really figured out whether I should sell myself as an entry level person with a lot of skills or a qualified person with no experience???

I guess I'm just posting to figure out what the heck I'm doing wrong. I just am so darn frustrated... I feel like I've wasted my time, and I should have just gone straight into the workforce out of my B.S....

EDIT: I also try to sell my very limited experience with radios and Jackson E&M as being relevant for signal analysis and such....

You've picked a field where brilliant men are commonplace. A roommate at IIT was a physics major, but his grades weren't so good. When they returned the exams in physics class he had a "D" on his. However, this guy was well informed about everything and later landed a job designing aircraft instruments.

GODISMYSHADOW

Quote by Astro_Dude

Still, everything I find wants ridiculous requirements, and generally the response I hear back for jobs I do qualify for is "...but you don't have an engineering degree". I'm losing my mind in that I can't find very many jobs that I qualify for, and those that I do stick their nose in the air because my degree says Physics and not Engineering.

Another thought, maybe you can try civil engineering. Civil engineering is one of those jobs they sometimes let mathematicians do. They don't always ask for an engineering degree. It's a very old profession. Civil engineering has been around for thousands of years.

minesweeper

Quote by GODISMYSHADOW

Another thought, maybe you can try civil engineering. Civil engineering is one of those jobs they sometimes let mathematicians do. They don't always ask for an engineering degree. It's a very old profession. Civil engineering has been around for thousands of years.

I find this post very odd. Civil engineering is one of the most tightly regulated fields.

GODISMYSHADOW

Quote by minesweeper

I find this post very odd. Civil engineering is one of the most tightly regulated fields.

Check out the requirements for posted civil engineering job openings. Some of them do accept a mathematician.

nobelium102	omg you are scarrrrring me,,,,,,,,,,, I wanted to do physics and math major :( can't you try teaching high school? (my high school teacher has phd) Dude, i thought if you had phD you are like a professor or something

Astro_Dude	A lot of my professors have been coming to me and telling me that even they had months of waiting after graduation. It actually amazed me at which of them are telling me that they were out of school with no options, because a lot of them are staggeringly brilliant, and much better than I am at this! :) It's vaguely calming to hear that this is apparently normal to be in this position.

TMFKAN64	Not really. The sad thing that you eventually realize is that in the big scheme of things, engineering really isn't that important to the fate of a company. Sure, you need some engineers, and they need to make something that can be sold... but how good it is doesn't really matter that much. The fate of a company usually turns on sales and marketing, not technology.