Job Skills Any success when leaving PhD off resume?

[nickyrtr]

While searching for a job, a number of people have suggested that I leave the PhD off my resume when applying for positions that don't require it. I haven't tried that yet, but am considering it. The alleged benefit is that fewer employers will be scared off by the "overqualified" PhD label. The down side is, it's hard to explain what I did for a few years in graduate school without mentioning the PhD, and of course the emotional downer of hiding an achievement I'm proud of.

Has anyone tried leaving the PhD off their resume and had successful results? I'm wondering if the benefits are real, or just an urban legend.

 

[leright]

Why get a PhD to get a job that doesn't require it? You should probably be applying for jobs that require a PhD. What is your PhD in?

 

[Pyrrhus]

Why get a PhD to get a job that doesn't require it? You should probably be applying for jobs that require a PhD. What is your PhD in?

because there are no or very few jobs that may appreciate a PhD. This depends on the PhD itself and employer's attitude.

 

[gbeagle]

Who is telling you to leave your PhD off your resume?

I'm about to graduate with my PhD in physics, and that didn't seem to hurt me in the job search at all. It probably depends a lot on the sorts of jobs you are going after. I was looking at software development positions in Silicon Valley. I constrained my search to the Bay Area because of family reasons, so I don't have any first hand experience of interviewing in other job markets.

Most of the jobs I applied to said something in the job requirements like "B.Sc in CS, EE, Math, or related technical fields required. MS/PhD preferred." Not all had the MS/PhD preferred part. Though I guess if it has that wording it implies they don't consider a PhD overqualified, so this might not apply for the sorts of jobs you are pursuing.

What sort of jobs are you applying for?

Note also that at some point in every interview process I had to fill at an official application for the job that always had a section like: “Please list all educational experience” or something to that effect. Also the legalese on the application would have something stating that lying on the this form could constitute grounds for dismissal.

 

[nickyrtr]

Who is telling you to leave your PhD off your resume?

A couple of people who work in human resources suggested this. Also I had one job interview with a small company where the "budget guy" said something to the effect of ... what are you doing looking for a job with us when you could be a physics professor? They didn't hire me, though I can't be sure that's the reason.

I'm about to graduate with my PhD in physics, and that didn't seem to hurt me in the job search at all. It probably depends a lot on the sorts of jobs you are going after. I was looking at software development positions in Silicon Valley. I constrained my search to the Bay Area because of family reasons, so I don't have any first hand experience of interviewing in other job markets.

[...]

What sort of jobs are you applying for?

Software development jobs, like you, though not in the Bay Area. I am also constrained by location due to family ties, in an economically depressed "Rust Belt" city, which doesn't help. Very few jobs around here say "MS/PhD preferred" unless it's an engineering degree.

In answer to the person who asked why start a PhD program knowing it won't help get a job, it's mainly because I didn't know. Having started grad school before the 2008 financial meltdown, job prospects looked much rosier back then. In fact, I turned down a job offer to go to grad school. Also, I never imagined a PhD would be seen as a negative in hiring.

 

[ParticleGrl]

My phd is theoretical physics. I spent well over a year looking for work, during which time I played various games with my resume. For intro type jobs at engineering (I was determined to find a job where some physics knowledge was value added) companies, I had a much better response/interview rate without the phd. I left the phd off, but left "researcher" in as the job I held during the period. Strangely enough, I also had a much better response when I stripped out the various teaching and research awards I had won during graduate school.

Also, one effect to look out for- everyone outside of science thinks that its really easy to find a job in science. The zeitgeist seems to be that we have a shortage of scientists, and there are all these great science jobs going begging. They expect you to jump ship for one of these science jobs. They don't and won't believe the science job market sucks, so you are better off convincing them that while doing your phd you developed a deep passion for whatever you are interviewing for. This might be a tough sell (it was for me). The exception might be fields already loaded with phds, who better know the reality (finance).

Also, I'd suggest looking in the health insurance industry. The companies are all over (everyone needs to be insured) and they've started to do a fair amount of data modeling which requires in-house programmers and data specialists.

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

A couple of people who work in human resources suggested this. Also I had one job interview with a small company where the "budget guy" said something to the effect of ... what are you doing looking for a job with us when you could be a physics professor? They didn't hire me, though I can't be sure that's the reason.

Did you explain to them that chances of being a proffesor are less than some arbitrary positive epsilon?

 

[ParticleGrl]

Did you explain to them that chances of being a proffesor are less than some arbitrary positive epsilon?

Doesn't work- after all "everyone knows we need more scientists." You are more likely to convince them that you've fallen in love with whatever you are interviewing for. i.e. "While working on my phd, I found I was enjoying developing and debugging code more than the science I was involved in... "

 

[Choppy]

Having been on the other side of the interview a few times now, the real concern I think for a candidate is communicating their true interest in the position.

If you have a PhD and you're applying for something that doesn't require it, the white elephant in the room is whether you're actually interested in the position, or just using it as a place holder until something better comes along. As ParticleGrl said, it doesn't work to argue that the chances of getting a professor position are slim - because that still means that if one ever comes along, you'll drop that position like ahot potato.

One possible approach that can help is to style your resume so as to focus on skills and project accomplishments rather than assaulting the reader with the letters PhD and the title a complicated sounding thesis right under your name and address. You can still include the information - after all, people are going to find out about it eventually, but in some cases you can shift the focus away from it.

 

[ParticleGrl]

As ParticleGrl said, it doesn't work to argue that the chances of getting a professor position are slim - because that still means that if one ever comes along, you'll drop that position like ahot potato.

Of course, the chance of a professor position coming along is 0 (its like being worried a potential employee will jump ship to go on tour with Boston (look up Tommy Decarlo), it COULD happen but its not worth worrying about), but the average non-scientist is unlikely to understand that and probably likely to believe the opposite. You aren't going to convince them during an interview.

 

[twofish-quant]

While searching for a job, a number of people have suggested that I leave the PhD off my resume when applying for positions that don't require it.

Are these people employers, since I don't it will work at all.

The first thing that an employer will look at when they see your resume is to see if there are any time gaps. If you have a five year to seven gap in your resume in which there is no explanation, that will doom your resume.

Now, I do have a resume which I was for computer positions in which I put the fact that I have a Ph.D. near the bottom. In my programmer resume, the name at the top says Twofish and the first section is working experience and the second is education. In my quant resume, the name at the top is Twofish Ph.D. and the first section is a technical description of my Ph.D. research.

The reason I mention I have a Ph.D. is so that no one thinks that I was in jail for armed robbery.

I haven't tried that yet, but am considering it. The alleged benefit is that fewer employers will be scared off by the "overqualified" PhD label.

Don't see the point really. One thing to remember is that if the employer isn't going to give you a job at the end, then it's better that the reject you at the start of the process so you don't waste your time.

One other thing to remember is that the employer may be *right* and you are overqualified for the job, and someone else should get it.

 

[twofish-quant]

because there are no or very few jobs that may appreciate a PhD. This depends on the PhD itself and employer's attitude.

That's not true. There are lots of jobs that appreciate a Ph.D. The trouble is that they tend to be centered in a few cities (i.e. Silicon Valley, Austin, NYC) and a few industries. For me a Ph.D. has helped a lot because in every case, the person making the hiring decisions also had Ph.D.'s.

 

[twofish-quant]

A couple of people who work in human resources suggested this.

One thing to remember is that people in HR do not make hiring decisions for technical positions. HR's role is to do the initial screening, and if they trash your resume because you have a Ph.D., you weren't going to get the job anyway.

Software development jobs, like you, though not in the Bay Area. I am also constrained by location due to family ties, in an economically depressed "Rust Belt" city, which doesn't help.

Geography is a pain, but it turned out that what worked for me was to work in NYC Monday to Friday and then fly to Texas on the weekends. The scary thing was that lots of people were doing that.

Having started grad school before the 2008 financial meltdown, job prospects looked much rosier back then. In fact, I turned down a job offer to go to grad school. Also, I never imagined a PhD would be seen as a negative in hiring.

It is, but sometimes it's a good thing. After I went through several interviews by people that told me that I should looking for a job in NYC, I took the hint. One thing that on the employers mind is what happens in a year if the economy improves. If you have skills then you'll leave.

 

[twofish-quant]

I left the phd off, but left "researcher" in as the job I held during the period.

I've done the same thing. In my programmer resume, I listed "research assistant" as one of the jobs, so I could (legitimately) claim work experience. I kept the Ph.D., although it got moved to the end, because Austin is a high tech area have respect for Ph.D., and even if I couldn't sell myself as a physics Ph.D., it doesn't hurt to sell yourself as a "UTexas Austin" alumni when looking for jobs in Texas.

Strangely enough, I also had a much better response when I stripped out the various teaching and research awards I had won during graduate school.

Not surprised that this is true. It's impossible for some outsider to know the value of a teaching and research award, so including a lot of those makes you look like someone that is 1) obssessed with awards and 2) padding their resume. Something that does happen with HR people is that they get flooded with a ton of resumes from business majors that treat every minor award as if its the Nobel prize.

Leaving off awards, unless it's something that you'd expect the interviewer to be familiar with is something that you should do for even Ph.D heavy positions.

One thing about resumes is that even when you are dealing with Ph.D. heavy industries is that you don't look too academic.

They don't and won't believe the science job market sucks, so you are better off convincing them that while doing your phd you developed a deep passion for whatever you are interviewing for.

One big problem with convincing people of this is that it might not be true. I've found reading about drama and theatre to be useful in job interviews, because there is a lot of role-playing here.

That's one thing that makes interviews Kafka-que.

 

[twofish-quant]

One other thing is that resumes need to be targeted for the audience. For some jobs, you want to play up the Ph.D., and one annoyance of mine is to get a resume from someone that has taken the standard HR advice which is *wrong* for Wall Street firms. If you are applying for a job in NYC, one thing that you need is a technical description of your research which makes sense to someone else in your field.

One other thing that helps is do not think of your resume as your autobiography. Think of it as a 30 second commercial. If you think of your resume as an autobiography, then you are going to emphasize what is emotionally important to you rather than what matters to the reader. If you think of it as a 30 second movie trailer that put you in the right mind set to get rid of stuff that isn't important.

A resume is a commerical. Typically what happens is that someone gets a stack of resumes and scans through them very quickly, and you are lucky if someone spends more than one minute looking at your resume.

Something that helps writing a resume is to have you or someone else look at the resume for ten seconds, and then figure out what you remember from it. This is useful, because looking at a resume for ten seconds approximates how they are scanned in industry. The process for scanning resumes is intentionally impersonal, because you have a 100 people and one job, and you *can't* make decent decisions if you develop a personal attachment to anyone looking for a job.

Some other random things:

* include citizenship and work status and/or security clearnances

* use clean fonts with decent margins. Remember that your resume is likely to be faxed, scanned, printed, rescanned etc. etc

* .pdf is generally the preferred format. If you send your resume as an attachment, call it something like myname.pdf. If you call it resume.pdf, it's going to be a minor annoyance to the person that saves the file and has to rename it. First of all, don't want to annoy the person reading it. Second, if someone has to do something by hand, that increases the chances that someone is going to rename it something that causes it to be lost. One thing that makes the process even more Kalfkasque is that if the resume gets lost for "random reasons" (i.e. some photocopies and it falls behind the desk) no one will care.

 

[twofish-quant]

It also occurs to me that geography makes a big factor, and that there is a lot of similarities between an "ethnic enclave" like Chinatown and Little Italy and cities with "physicstowns." Even if you aren't applying for a job in Austin, Texas that involves a physics Ph.d., it's likely that the interviewer knows someone that knows someone in physics department, and things like how difficult it is to find an academic position are "common knowledge".

Off the top of my head, cities that are friendly to physics Ph.D.'s include Silicon Valley, Austin, NYC, Boston, Research Triangle NC. In China, the physics Ph.D's tend to hang out in either Shenzhen/Hong Kong or in Beijing.

 

[Mépris]

That's not true. There are lots of jobs that appreciate a Ph.D. The trouble is that they tend to be centered in a few cities (i.e. Silicon Valley, Austin, NYC) and a few industries. For me a Ph.D. has helped a lot because in every case, the person making the hiring decisions also had Ph.D.'s.

Then would it be a better idea if one would want to work in NYC, to get a PhD from a university in that area - Stony Brook, NYU, Columbia, etc - and likewise for California (Stanford, USC, the UCs, CalTech, etc) and then UT Austin for well, Austin? Instead of say, one getting their PhD elsewhere...in France or Germany or maybe Louisiana.

Also, I'd suggest looking in the health insurance industry. The companies are all over (everyone needs to be insured) and they've started to do a fair amount of data modeling which requires in-house programmers and data specialists.

Could you tell us more about your job? In which area is it? Are your co-workers all PhD graduates?

 

[nickyrtr]

Thanks for all the replies, lots of good advice in there. I especially like the idea of putting less emphasis on the PhD, without actually omitting it.

[...] One other thing to remember is that the employer may be *right* and you are overqualified for the job, and someone else should get it.

If you are talking only about employer self-interest, I don't agree. The theory is that the overqualified person will quit as soon as a better job comes along, but this is a risk for all employees. In my experience, the most common reasons that people quit jobs are conflict with superiors or due to family concerns, which have nothing to do with qualification.

If you are talking about what's good for society, you could be right in that the person who is just barely qualified for the job needs it more than someone with a PhD, but where does that leave most PhD's? If there are 1,000 unemployed PhD's and 100 jobs that require a PhD, what should society do with the other 900?

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

Doesn't work- after all "everyone knows we need more scientists." You are more likely to convince them that you've fallen in love with whatever you are interviewing for. i.e. "While working on my phd, I found I was enjoying developing and debugging code more than the science I was involved in... "

I heard that that's what experimentalists do most of their time, they don't do a lot of physics.

 

[twofish-quant]

If you are talking only about employer self-interest, I don't agree.

In several of my interviews, the employer explicitly told me that this was the reason I didn't get the job. One reason one of several of my interviewers were reluctant to hire me was that they were replacing a physics Ph.D. that had quit so that they could work for an investment bank in NYC.

One interesting thing was that in one situation, I was able to stay in touch with the interviewers and I was able to steer some business in their direction later.

The theory is that the overqualified person will quit as soon as a better job comes along, but this is a risk for all employees.

It's worse for people with high skills. People will low skills are trapped and have no other options.

Also, if someone were to ask me if I'd quit if someone offered me a tenured research professorship in astrophysics, the truth would be *HELL YES*. One of the good things about working for finance is that you don't have to pretend that you love the job, since the interviewer is likely to quit the second someone offers them a professorship.

In my experience, the most common reasons that people quit jobs are conflict with superiors or due to family concerns, which have nothing to do with qualification.

That's not been my experience. More important, it wasn't the experience of the people that were interviewing me, and even though I didn't get the job, I got enough information to know exactly why I didn't get the job.

If you are talking about what's good for society, you could be right in that the person who is just barely qualified for the job needs it more than someone with a PhD, but where does that leave most PhD's?

One thing that I tell myself is that my goal in life was to figure out the universe, and if I can figure out neutrino radiation hydrodynamics, then I can figure out the job market. It may be painful and difficult, but since I finished a physics Ph.D., I'll do what it takes to get the job done. If I have to learn something new, then I'll learn something new.

I don't mention this to employers since it sounds arrogant because it is arrogant, but I do tell myself this constantly. One other thing that I did when I was looking for work is that my job was to find a job. I got up at 8:30, headed to my office (local Starbucks), and put in a full days work until 6:00 p.m. and then headed home.

If there are 1,000 unemployed PhD's and 100 jobs that require a PhD, what should society do with the other 900?

Force us to make difficult choices.

One thing that seems to be a theme is that there isn't a massive shortage of jobs that require a Ph.D. There *is* a shortage of jobs that don't require relocation. I didn't want to leave Austin, but after spending a few years there, it was clear that there was no future for me there, so I had to leave. One thing that made this easier was that my parents were immigrants, so I figured that if they could give up their lives in China for greener pastures in the United States, then a move to NYC wouldn't kill me. My parents were willing to move half way around the world for a better life, and if I have to do the same thing, then I'll do it.

One other thing. Society ain't going to give you crap.

 

[twofish-quant]

Then would it be a better idea if one would want to work in NYC, to get a PhD from a university in that area - Stony Brook, NYU, Columbia, etc - and likewise for California (Stanford, USC, the UCs, CalTech, etc) and then UT Austin for well, Austin?

No.

The reason that I mention UT Austin is that if I'm in a situation where I think that a "physics Ph.D." is a negative, then it becomes a "degree from UT Austin" and in the Austin area, that's always a positive. It's a positive because UT Austin (and the other Texas) universities have positive reputations in the Austin area. Think particle-wave duality and it makes sense.

In NYC and Silicon Valley, everyone is an outsider so there is no major advantage in getting a degree from somewhere local. There is a *huge* advantage in being located in that area. If you are in the NYC area, and someone wants to interview you, they can call you at 9:00 a.m. and you can be in their office at noon.

Could you tell us more about your job? In which area is it? Are your co-workers all PhD graduates?

I work in a major financial firm. About two-thirds of my coworkers have Ph.D.'s, and the remaining have masters degrees with heavy work experience.

 

[twofish-quant]

One other thing that one has to watch out for is that physics Ph.D.'s have a reputation for being argumentative and unwilling to follow orders that seem stupid to them. I have to say that it's a well-deserved reputation. I am argumentative, and I *do* have problems following orders that seem stupid.

One other problem is that a lot of managers have difficulty dealing with people that are smarter than they are. For that matter, it's pretty common to have employees that can't deal with managers that are dumber than they are.

When someone tells me that I'm overqualified my first reaction is to argue the issue, but I've learned in an interview setting to shut up and listen, and try to squeeze as much information as I can out of a situation. If it becomes obvious that I'm not getting the job, I can get information, and that involves just letting someone talk. In a lot of cases, I've found that the employer is looking for someone that can shut up, take orders, and not ask any questions, and they happen to think that I would have difficulty in that situation. And they'd be right.

Also, I've had to deal with situations in which it became obvious that the employer just couldn't deal with someone that was smarter than they were. I have an "absent minded scientist" act that I use for that situation, in which I act like a clueless idiot savant that's good an crunching numbers but incompetent at anything else. I had a job in which I had to act that way for long enough, that I was going crazy so I had to quit for my own sanity.

 

[nickyrtr]

One thing that seems to be a theme is that there isn't a massive shortage of jobs that require a Ph.D. There *is* a shortage of jobs that don't require relocation.

True. I've started looking nationwide now, though moving is going to mean uprooting a spouse who already has a good job. It would be nice if one person's career didn't require sacrificing the other's, but that's not the real world.

 

[cmb]

Impossible question to answer as posed. It depends on the job and the attitude of the recruiters.

Sample jobs;

staking shelves in a supermarket - leave it off
post-grad research assistant - leave it in
technical support staff (not requiring higher education) - debatable; if the company is expanding, put it in, if it has passed its peak, leave it off.
film star - what's the role?
&c..!

I went for a job delivering wood when I was ~17 years old. I didn't really want to go to university then, and even if I had decided I wanted to get a few years money earned first as I had no support to do it. Went for the job and filled the form. It was just name, address, and any other comments/qualifications. I actually asked the guy at the place if I should put in anything and he said 'there's only been one other applicant, and he left the box empty!'. So I put in '5 o-levels' (I actually had 10, and a few A-levels)... there was no interview... the other guy got the job. Go figure...

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

I went for a job delivering wood when I was ~17 years old. I didn't really want to go to university then, and even if I had decided I wanted to get a few years money earned first as I had no support to do it. Went for the job and filled the form. It was just name, address, and any other comments/qualifications. I actually asked the guy at the place if I should put in anything and he said 'there's only been one other applicant, and he left the box empty!'. So I put in '5 o-levels' (I actually had 10, and a few A-levels)... there was no interview... the other guy got the job. Go figure...

 

[tofayelbd]

You should apply for the job where is PhD required. Various university and research organization would be good field for you.

 

[deRham]

I have an "absent minded scientist" act that I use for that situation, in which I act like a clueless idiot savant that's good an crunching numbers but incompetent at anything else. I had a job in which I had to act that way for long enough, that I was going crazy so I had to quit for my own sanity.

LOL

Worst part is I totally believe it.

 

[mathwonk]

Two fish's story reminded me of a conversation I had once with a old workmate. I dropped out of my job at the meat market in Boston to go to grad school and get a PhD in math. When I went back to the meat market to catch up with friends after about 5 years one of them asked me "where you been, prison? You look pale." When I said "no, grad school" he didn't seem to hold it against me though, and I could probably have gone back to work lugging, but I was out of shape. Indeed one of the other guys I missed seeing was doing 5-10 for manslaughter.

As Choppy said, you always have to convince an interviewer what you can do for him. I even had to interview well to get the lugging job originally. As I recall the interview went something like this:

Marcus (scowling man with enormous biceps): "How do i know you won't go back to school?"

me: "Well I might but I'll give you good work while I'm here, and I'll stay for at least three months."

Marcus: "That's mighty heavy beef, son."

me: (Lowering voice as much as possible) "I can lug it."

I lasted 2 years.

 

[gbeagle]

You should apply for the job where is PhD required. Various university and research organization would be good field for you.

The issue is that in many fields there are generally more PhDs than research jobs. That's why threads like this one appear on the forum so often.

 

[Pyrrhus]

The issue is that in many fields there are generally more PhDs than research jobs. That's why threads like this one appear on the forum so often.

My point exactly. This doesn't mean that you can't apply to jobs where a PhD is not required.

 

[twofish-quant]

Indeed one of the other guys I missed seeing was doing 5-10 for manslaughter.

Just to be clear, when I mentioned that you should avoid a gap in your resume so that HR doesn't think that you've been in prison for X years, I meant that literally. Since you are introducing yourself to someone that knows nothing about you, they don't know that you *haven't* been in prison. Because of their job, HR is naturally suspicious, they'll assume the worst about people, because sometimes the worst happens to be true.

One other note. Don't include references or "references on request". For most industry jobs, people don't trust references at all, and if they need them (which almost never happens), they'll ask.

Some other random notes about interviews

1) Tell me about your last employer? This isn't a question about your last employer. The interviewer knows that you are leaving your job because you are dissatisfied. This really is a question about emotional self-control and the ability to master corporate-speak.

2) Why do you want this job? For finance jobs, the true answer is "because you are going to pay me lots of money." In finance, this is not a question about motivation, but rather on self-presentation skills.

Also, the question of "why don't you work in a university?" isn't a question about job opportunities. Even if the employer knows that there are no jobs, he may rather hire someone that would be happier spending eight hours a day doing something totally mindless and menial than someone that is dreaming about having a job as a professor even though those jobs don't exist.

The reason that is a tough question, is that most people are not convincing when they say something they don't really believe, and if you try to convince the interviewer that you are really passionate about moving boxes and sloshing code, it's not going to work, if you don't believe it and if it happens not to be true. If you really *are* so desperate for work that you are willing to force yourself to do something that you otherwise wouldn't want to do, then that's also a problem, because if you look too desperate, that gives a bad impression.

It's incredibly Kafkasque.

What you have to do is to figure out some answer that is "true for you."

In my situation, I can honestly say that I like new experiences and as long as I'm learning something new and different, I'll be happy, even if it something that other people think is crap work. That's something I can say convincingly because it's true, and feel free to copy that answer if it's true for you, but it may not be.

One good news is that there are jobs in which the interviewer doesn't care if you are "passionate." There is a lot of contract work for big companies in which people don't care that you love your job. On the other hand, small companies tend to be "cults" that demand some degree of emotional commitment, and anything that is customer facing or service oriented involves the ability to either like your environment or to fake it convincingly so you don't scare off customers.

One final thing is that it's useful experience to be in both sides of the interview table. It's often the case, that I'm not the best candidate, and part of being on the other side of the table is that when someone tells me that I'm "vastly overqualified" or the "there is a bad fit between me and the job", I'm inclined to agree with them.

If it's a job in which I have to punch a time clock and do something totally mindless day after day for a decade and take orders without thinking or asking questions, then you'll almost certainly find someone better than me, and it would be unfair to them if I got the job.

 

[twofish-quant]

film star - what's the role?

One weird thing is that I've found my share of HR and headhunters with "outside dreams" and I usually get along well with them. Some of the most talented HH's I know are actually just doing the job to pay the bills until their film or music career takes off, and so they understand and sympathize with someone that is doing finance work to pay the bills until they can do astrophysics. It's amazing how similar the "physics industry" is to the film and fashion industries.

One other reason I ended up in NYC is that people in New York City have big dreams. In most cities if you respond to "what are your career goals?" with "I want to be CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation and transform the global economic system, and this job is just to get me there." That's a bad thing. In NYC, "I want to be king of the world" is true of most people so someone with crazy outlandish ambition fits in, including people with seemingly menial jobs.

If you talk to the janitors and taxi drivers there, you'll find a good number of them went through hell to get to NYC, and are making what would be considered a king's ransom where they came from, and for many of them sweeping the floors is part of their plan to rule the world.

 

[Locrian]

You are more likely to convince them that you've fallen in love with whatever you are interviewing for. i.e. "While working on my phd, I found I was enjoying developing and debugging code more than the science I was involved in... "

This is the correct answer!

Nickyrtr, I realize that getting to the interview can be tough, but here are some important rules once you're there:

1) Don’t leave it off your resume – it’ll find a way to come back to haunt you later, probably in the interview. Downplay it if you have to.

2) Do not say anything negative about your past education, jobs etc. Nothing. You loved your work and think highly of your education and educators. Appearing even slightly jaded in an interview is a near guarantee fail. I know when we hire we look for it carefully.

3) You’re excited about the new opportunities. Since you’ve researched what they do (you did, right?) you can explain why you think it’s interesting and hopefully convince them. Sure, it’s different, but flexibility is one of your positive traits. You’re excited about whatever new challenges they’re sending your way.

And here’s the kicker: it might turn out to be true. The cubicle job I have now is more rewarding on both a personal and financial level than anything I did in science ever was. Your mileage will vary, but the mere possibility may make you sound more genuine in the interview.

Best of luck.

 

[nickyrtr]

Locrian, thanks for the advice, that's pretty much how I already behave in interviews, and it requires no dishonesty. I really did enjoy my years cranking out code in a cubicle, and would love to do it again ... a little science twist would make it even more interesting, but is not mandatory for me to enjoy the job.

The problem is that I just don't get interviews, period, after sending out hundreds of resumes. This never happened before I had a PhD, though of course I am also a few years older, a few years out of the job market and in a vastly worse economy.

 

[ParticleGrl]

The problem is that I just don't get interviews, period, after sending out hundreds of resumes. This never happened before I had a PhD, though of course I am also a few years older, a few years out of the job market and in a vastly worse economy.

Yes, I had this exact same experience. If your current resume isn't doing anything, try mixing it up. I left my phd off the resume (but left my work experience as "researcher") and had marginally better results.

I eventually had five different versions of my resume, and I tracked the response to each from various types of work as I narrowed down my programming resume, my bioinformatics resume, etc. If nothing else, treating things like a problem to be solved kept me sane in one of the more dark periods of my life.

Also, if you MUST stay in your area and things start getting desperate, look for jobs at good/higher end restaurants waiting tables or tending bar. The pay after-tips is more then you think(especially after grad school), and there is no such thing as overqualified- they expect staff to turn over all the time.

 

[nickyrtr]

..
I eventually had five different versions of my resume, and I tracked the response to each from various types of work as I narrowed down my programming resume, my bioinformatics resume, etc. If nothing else, treating things like a problem to be solved kept me sane in one of the more dark periods of my life..

Interesting, which of these resumes finally got you an interview and a job, or did that happen through some other avenue?

Waiting tables or bartending has crossed my mind. I make enough to get by adjunct teaching at community colleges, and have a gainfully employed spouse, but I really hate being an unequal contributor to the household.

 

[ParticleGrl]

Interesting, which of these resumes finally got you an interview and a job, or did that happen through some other avenue?

I've had interviews in probably a dozen different fields. Programming, finance and insurance interviews went best, engineering went worst, in general. In the end though, I got a job because I was bartending at a tourist resort, and on a slow day was chatting with a customer who turned out to be in charge of a small modeling group at a health insurance company. He gave me his card, I called the next day, and had a job offer by the end of that week.

Waiting tables or bartending has crossed my mind. I make enough to get by adjunct teaching at community colleges, and have a gainfully employed spouse, but I really hate being an unequal contributor to the household.

When I was adjuncting, it was about 2-3k per 4 credit class. If you can find a high-end restaurant with good volume, you can make 50k+ a year waiting tables. Its not a long term solution, but as a stop-gap measure its not bad.

 

[twofish-quant]

2) Do not say anything negative about your past education, jobs etc. Nothing. You loved your work and think highly of your education and educators. Appearing even slightly jaded in an interview is a near guarantee fail. I know when we hire we look for it carefully.

There are also some "code words" to use in interviews for "I hate my former boss." One useful expression, is "It was a truly educational experience which I value." and "I prefer to talk about the future rather than the past." What ever you say, say it with a smile, and figuring out how to say something positive with a smile is part of the interview process.

One way of thinking about this is that "corporate-speak" is just a different language, and there is a *reason* for this language. The reason for this is that if you go negative, it's easy to get everyone depressed so that nothing gets done, so part of the art of mastering "corporate-speak" is to say something negative without sounding negative. Also the work-place is a place with lots of intense emotions, and sometimes you have two people that smile at each other and essentially say to each other "I hate your guts", and it's important to be able to do this without getting into a fist fight.

There are code words for "he is a great guy" and "he is a jerk." If you say "what do you think about person A" and someone replies by not talking about A, that tells you something. If you are close to someone, they will drop the corporate-language, but you aren't close to the person on the other side of the table.

There's also plausible deniability. If you are trying to hint that you hate A, and it later turns out that you will get into trouble for hating A, then you can say that it was all a miscommunication, and you never said that you hated A. Then again, maybe you *don't* really hate A, and it really was a miscommunication. This can be important when A is the CEO of your company.

If I senior manager asks you want you really think about a situation. Maybe they are sincere that really want to know that they are being an idiot. Maybe they don't. How to deal with that situation can be really challenging, so you can start "hinting", and then based on the response figure out what to say next.

If this looks obscure and baroque, it is, and part of the purpose of corporate-speak is to have sensitive conversations without outsiders having a clue what people are talking about.

Sort of like academic papers.

And here’s the kicker: it might turn out to be true.

And "I'm excited about new opportunities" is sometimes a way of saying "I hate my old job, and I'm desperate to look for anything different."

Part of the reason I like my job is that I'm fascinated by human communications and I like figuring things out. The same bit of my brain that gets excited when you give me an set of greek letters and symbols and is trying to figure out what that means, is also the same bit of my brain that gets used when you get a memo from the head office, and you are trying to figure out what they are *really* telling you.

I also like puzzles. Trying to figure how to say what I want to say with a smile is sometimes quite challenging. Trying to figure how to say something without going insane is also quite challenging.

 

[twofish-quant]

The problem is that I just don't get interviews, period, after sending out hundreds of resumes.

Where are you sending resumes to?

I've found that sending resumes to HR is a waste of time. It goes into a big black hole that no one every sees. The places that I've found to be useful is sending resumes to HH's. You can get a list of recruiting companies with www.dice.com and www.efinancialcareers.com, www.phds.org focusing on jobs in "Ph.D-friendly" cities (NYC, Silicon Valley, Austin). Talk to Dominic Connor on www.wilmott.com

Find alumni. One common misconception is that having a friend in a company will help you to pull strings. That's not true, but having a friend in a company will let you know the secret e-mail address that resumes need to go to to get read. You can also politely ask people that are posting on chat groups what those e-mail addresses are.

One other thing that kills Ph.D. resumes is work status information. If you are a US citizen or permanent residency, that information absolutely must be on the resume or else it is dead.

This never happened before I had a PhD, though of course I am also a few years older, a few years out of the job market and in a vastly worse economy.

1) You are not older, you are more experienced
2) You weren't outside of the job market, you were gainfully employed as a research assistant.

 

[nickyrtr]

Where are you sending resumes to?

I send my resume along with online job applications, and a cover letter when possible, in response to advertisements found via job search sites like dice, indeed, craig's list or usajobs.gov, or by looking up specific employers and going to their jobs page.

One other thing that kills Ph.D. resumes is work status information. If you are a US citizen or permanent residency, that information absolutely must be on the resume or else it is dead.

Good idea, I'll make sure that's in order.

 

[twofish-quant]

I send my resume along with online job applications, and a cover letter when possible, in response to advertisements found via job search sites like dice, indeed, craig's list or usajobs.gov, or by looking up specific employers and going to their jobs page.

One dirty secret is that the resumes that get submitted through a jobs page for most companies get sent into a black hole. The trouble is that the company gets spammed, and no one has any incentive to go through the resumes. The other thing is that companies web pages lie. Even when a company is firing everyone, they won't update the careers web page (since they likely just fired the people in charge of keeping the web pages updated).

Online job applications also go nowhere. If you go through a web frontend, that means that someone is trying to automate the process, which means that the people that would read your resume have either been fired or are worried enough about their jobs so they don't care about you.

The ways of getting a resume into the system

* networking through friends and alumni or anyone else you might randomly meet
* campus recruiting
* head hunters

The problem with HR, is that they don't care about you or your resume. If you submit a resume and nothing happens, no one is going to get into any trouble, so no one cares. Head hunters get a commission based on hires, so they care.

 

[SophusLies]

This thread just seems so strange to me. How on Earth can someone possibly justify having a 5-6 or even 7 year gap with no job or no school? That's an extremely large gap. I can see a year maybe 2 but that long has to throw up a red flag to someone.

 

[ParticleGrl]

This thread just seems so strange to me. How on Earth can someone possibly justify having a 5-6 or even 7 year gap with no job or no school? That's an extremely large gap. I can see a year maybe 2 but that long has to throw up a red flag to someone.

You leave your employment as "researcher for University X", with descriptions of relevant work you did. You leave OFF the phd in your education section (or just push the education section to a later page where its less likely to be noticed). No gap in employment, and no phd on the resume.

 

[SophusLies]

You leave your employment as "researcher for University X", with descriptions of relevant work you did. You leave OFF the phd in your education section. No gap in employment, and no phd on the resume.

Ahh, I see. Slick trick.

 

[nickyrtr]

One dirty secret is that the resumes that get submitted through a jobs page for most companies get sent into a black hole.

You could be right; that is certainly how it seems lately. It wasn't always that way ... my two last jobs before grad school were both obtained via online applications, and I got a third job offer the same way. This was during the period from 2001-2005 or so.

As you said, the web-based job application process is probably broken now because of resume spam, which must have significantly increased since that time.

The ways of getting a resume into the system

* networking through friends and alumni or anyone else you might randomly meet
* campus recruiting
* head hunters

Good suggestion, I'll take a second look for head hunters. I never heard of any PhD students at my grad school getting assistance from campus recruiting, but that's worth a bit of investigation too. As for friends and other random contacts, I guess that's up to fate

 

[twofish-quant]

I never heard of any PhD students at my grad school getting assistance from campus recruiting, but that's worth a bit of investigation too.

At UT Austin, the McCombs school has some excellent career services that are totally off limits for natural science students. The excuse was that MBA students had to pay an extra fee, but when asked for a quote for how much I'd have to pay in order to get access, I got blank looks.

From a policy stand point, fixing campus recruiting systems is one big thing that schools could do.

As for friends and other random contacts, I guess that's up to fate

Yes and no. There is a statistical issue in that the odds of getting a lead in a particular situation is random and quite low, but if you contact a ton of people, then the chance of getting any hit goes up and the process becomes a lot less stochastic.

One thing I did to keep myself busy was to try to mathematically model the job market, and there is all sorts of interesting effects. Your probability of getting a job is P(job|contact)*N(contacts), and since P is low, one tries to crank up the number of N.

The other thing is why you want a contact. Most people have the mistaken notion that contacts are useful because they pull strings or try to sell you in the company. This isn't why they are useful. Contacts are useful because they get your resume into the system by telling you who to send your resume to, and getting feedback as to whether that resume is being processed, so you don't need close contacts. Some random person that you've met at a conference with a business card is good enough. Also it's important to get people at the right level. If I have the business card of a CEO of a major Fortune 500 corporation, that is totally useless to me, because he won't be able to help me get a job.

Getting people to *talk* to you is an incredibly difficult challenge, so if you know someone well enough so that they'll at least reply to your e-mail, you are already doing great.

 

[nickyrtr]

One thing I did to keep myself busy was to try to mathematically model the job market, and there is all sorts of interesting effects. Your probability of getting a job is P(job|contact)*N(contacts), and since P is low, one tries to crank up the number of N.

P(job|contact) is also very nonuniform, though. You don't just want lots of contacts, you want the right ones, and ironically contacts that you make for the explicit purpose of getting a job may not have the best probability.

In my opinion, part of the problem is that the job market isn't much of a market, in the modern sense; it is woefully lacking in transparency and efficiency. Compare the process of selling a house to selling your work (i.e., applying for jobs). Before listing the house, I can check the quantity and prices of comparable properties in the area, and if it doesn't sell I can drop the price to attract more buyers.

In contrast, I can't view a list of the people competing with me for jobs in my area and the salaries they demand. Dropping my price isn't really an option either. Offering to work for less would make employers think something is wrong with you. Also, a large volume of jobs are traded "off the books" through informal networks of personal contacts.

 

[twofish-quant]

You don't just want lots of contacts, you want the right ones, and ironically contacts that you make for the explicit purpose of getting a job may not have the best probability.

I've found that you do want lots of contacts because 99% of contacts won't be useful to you and there is no way in advance to know what the 1% of useful contacts are. But that's no different from selling custom software. One thing that was useful in looking for work is to see how telemarketers work. When a telemarketer calls someone there is an extremely, extremely high probability that they won't make a sale, so they end up going through a ton of leads to make any sales.

In my opinion, part of the problem is that the job market isn't much of a market, in the modern sense; it is woefully lacking in transparency and efficiency.

I don't think that the job market is that much worse than most other markets.

Before listing the house, I can check the quantity and prices of comparable properties in the area, and if it doesn't sell I can drop the price to attract more buyers.

Real estate is a bad example. There are a lot of games involved in listing houses, and there are a huge number of inefficiencies in the system that aren't obvious. Also real estate markets are notorious for being non-clearing markets. Once a market has slowed it's hard to sell a house at any price.

One cute trick is to provide the "illusion" of transparency and efficiency. Real estate is notorious for this. So are cars.

In contrast, I can't view a list of the people competing with me for jobs in my area and the salaries they demand.

www.Glassdoor.com is useful for this. Also *you* can't see this information, but any halfway competent HR department or HH will have this information at their fingertips. They will not tell you because their job is to use any information asymmetry they have against you.

One job tip. Never quote a salary. Make the company quote a salary, and then say yes or no.

Dropping my price isn't really an option either. Offering to work for less would make employers think something is wrong with you.

One problem is that if your first reaction to not getting sales is to lower your price, this is going to be bad if you are selling the products of the employer.

Also, a large volume of jobs are traded "off the books" through informal networks of personal contacts.

There is no "on the book."

Practically all jobs that I know of in programming are traded through informal networks of personal contacts. Some of these personal contacts aren't necessarily "social" contacts, but companies tend to have close personal relationships with their recruiters, and the recruiters will have relationships with you. Also companies also have lots of social relationships with schools.

 

[nickyrtr]

One job tip. Never quote a salary. Make the company quote a salary, and then say yes or no.

Absolutely, but if you are at the point where you're being offered a salary, you already have the job.

One problem is that if your first reaction to not getting sales is to lower your price, this is going to be bad if you are selling the products of the employer.

Depends what the product is, but my first reaction is not to lower price but to improve the product. In the job market, that means acquiring education and experience that better fit employer demand. Experience is a bit of a catch-22, since you mostly get that from already having a job, though I suppose an unpaid internship is an option. As for education, I'm actually pondering a BS or MS in some sort of engineering; it's a bit weird to go back for that after already finishing a physics PhD, but who knows it might help.

A second option is to repackage the product, since a purchasing decision is often based more on the package than the substance of what's inside. That's the general thrust of de-emphasizing or even omitting the PhD from my resume. I admit that I am bad at these kinds of marketing games and find them distasteful, which is likely a big reason I don't have a job yet.

Practically all jobs that I know of in programming are traded through informal networks of personal contacts. Some of these personal contacts aren't necessarily "social" contacts, but companies tend to have close personal relationships with their recruiters, and the recruiters will have relationships with you. Also companies also have lots of social relationships with schools.

My experience was very different, though not recently. Over the years I was hired for many good programming jobs by going in through the "front door" so to speak, i.e. responding to a help wanted advertisement. Perhaps times have changed.

 

[twofish-quant]

Depends what the product is, but my first reaction is not to lower price but to improve the product.

One other gotcha is that while there are programming jobs in which the employer cares about price, those get shipped off to India. An entry level programmer in Mumbai will cost the company one fifth what a programmer in the US will cost, and jobs which are price sensitive are just not going to be done in the United States.

In the job market, that means acquiring education and experience that better fit employer demand.

That's also tricky, because you can hit the "overqualified" landmine. Also sometimes
the employer really doesn't want someone that is "too smart." I've been in situations where
I figured out that in order to survive I had to "act stupid" which I was able to do for a few months while I was looking for another job. I've also had some "Anakin Skywalker" moments in which it was clear that the person I was talking with was trying to turn me into Darth Vader.

Something to remember is that there is some inherent tension in the employer/employee relationship. What the employer wants (someone that works for free and makes the company a ton of money which the employer keeps) is fundamentally at odds with what the employee wants.

There are also tensions between the interviewer and the company. One reason supervisors hate to lower salaries is that if the people you supervise get their paychecks cut, guess what's going to happen to your paycheck.

Experience is a bit of a catch-22, since you mostly get that from already having a job, though I suppose an unpaid internship is an option.

It's a bad option. If they don't have enough money now to give you even a nominal salary, then the odds are that you aren't going to be getting any money in the future, and if they can get people to do work for free, that's going to turn into something more permanent.

A second option is to repackage the product, since a purchasing decision is often based more on the package than the substance of what's inside.

In business, the packaging is part of the substance. There are some very interesting information, sociology, psychology, and neuroscience issues here. A lot of the issue with marketing is how you can very quickly and efficiently provide relevant information to the buyer in order to provoke an emotional response.

For example, I can *say* that I know radiation hydrodynamics, but how do I *prove* that. If I just write "I know radiation hydrodynamics" then anyone can do that. You can do challenge-response, but that's hard to set up. So what do I say on a resume that proves that I can do radiation hydrodynamics?

That's the general thrust of de-emphasizing or even omitting the PhD from my resume. I admit that I am bad at these kinds of marketing games and find them distasteful, which is likely a big reason I don't have a job yet.

Like everything else it comes with practice and watching other people. One reason I've had a lot of appreciation about marketing comes from watching salesmen in action. The other thing that I've found is that marketing is socially essential. Vacuum cleaners and software doesn't sell itself, and you have to someone involves in selling the product. In one of my old companies, I had a CEO that pushed the point "Everyone is in sales."

The other thing is that marketing is a two way conversation. One thing that I learned from watching salesmen in action is how *quiet* they were. When you had a situation in which you were with a client, they'd shut up and listen. If the customer doesn't like your product, then you just sit down, have them vent, and then figure out to do.