Exploring Non-Academic Career Paths for PhD Physicists

[daveyrocket]

How do I figure out what I want to do with my life if I have a PhD in Physics and I don't want to continue along the academic career path?

My background: I obtained a PhD in physics studying theoretical condensed matter problems, focusing on applying density functional theory and extensions to strongly correlated materials. I have continued in a postdoc with the same advisor I had as a graduate student. I have several publications, most of which were well received by referees. I feel like my CV has enough stuff on it that I will not have any special difficulty getting an academic job if I want one.

I have several problems with continuing down the academic career path. The most significant of which is the fact that I don't have much of any interest in physics research. The second most significant issue is I suffer from chronic upper back pain. Being a theorist the vast majority of my work is done on computers, and that exacerbates my back pain. This has gotten worse in the past two years for some reason. I also hate how isolating research is, especially theoretical research. I've had days where I didn't have a single conversation that had any more substance than "yes I'd like mayonnaise on that." Other, less significant issues are the annoying lifestyle that's required by the academic career path and the laughable pay a postdoc gets.

I know where I'd like to end up geographically. But I don't know what I'd like to actually do, or how to even figure it out. I took a Meyers-Briggs personality test through my campus's Career Services center, and it told me I was INTP, which seems reasonable, but the top suggested careers are research in physical and biological sciences, which is obviously not helpful, and things like law which require too much more schooling. My skills are really in things like programming and data analysis, which require a lot of computer use and that’s really hard on my body with my back pain.

How do I figure out what I am really going to be interested in doing? How can I find a job that makes me feel like having gotten my PhD was a worthwhile experience? All of my research has been highly academic and scientifically motivated. In the few industry positions that I’ve interviewed for already, I’ve had to fight an uphill battle against my background to convince people that I’m not interested in academics.

 

[twofish-quant]

How do I figure out what I want to do with my life if I have a PhD in Physics and I don't want to continue along the academic career path?

Talk to other people that have Ph.D. in physics that decided not to go down academia. See what they have been doing, and then figure out what to do.

 

[Andy Resnick]

How do I figure out what I want to do with my life if I have a PhD in Physics and I don't want to continue along the academic career path?

It depends on what your motivation was to get a PhD in the first place. Most PhDs are not in academia.

 

[Locrian]

How do I figure out what I am really going to be interested in doing?

It’s very hard to know whether you will like something without actually doing the something. I can suggest things like matching your skills and looking at the work environment, but you already know that stuff. The reality is that there’s a lot of variance in the quality and rewards of different jobs even within an industry, so picking something you’ll like is no guarantee you’ll get a job you like.

Do a ton of research, take the plunge and hope for the best.

How can I find a job that makes me feel like having gotten my PhD was a worthwhile experience?

You can’t. Either you decide it was a worthwhile experience or it wasn’t. If you mean how can you get a job that made it a financial winner (the net present value of having done it is higher than not), then you’re probably out of luck anyways, as it was likely a financial loser. I’ve run numbers on several occasions and it’s tough to make a physics PHD a $$ winner over many other careers that have lower median salaries, the problem being the lost income and long distance to a good salary. There are exceptions though, and if your goal is to be one of them there’s still time.

The reality is that whether you think getting your PhD was worthwhile will be largely based on your ability to rationalize things combined with misuse of statistics. There are no studies composed of samples of people just like you to compare against, so you’ll choose studies that have no value (people in this forum do it all the time) and use them instead.

My suggestion is to save yourself a lot of time and just decide now whether it was or wasn’t worth it. Then proceed to get a job you think might be interesting and see where life goes from there.

All of my research has been highly academic and scientifically motivated. In the few industry positions that I’ve interviewed for already, I’ve had to fight an uphill battle against my background to convince people that I’m not interested in academics.

Perception is a serious problem, but one you can attack aggressively. My comments from here out are largely based on you changing careers or at least fields of research, but they will apply well to moving to industry but in the same area of study, too.

You need to make yourself sound agile. Make it clear you loved your work, and that you’re done with it. The end. You’re about to be doing something different, and you’d like to do that with them. New experiences have tremendous value to you, and hey, you love what they’re working on. You want to learn that. If you’re not doing something different with them, you’ll be doing something different with someone else.

When I moved out of actuarial work I read a great deal of threads on the ActuarialOutpost about employment. I found lots of rare but valuable gems from people who did hiring on their opinion of those with graduate degrees. The following opinions are largely wrong. But people who do hiring sometimes – maybe even often – believe them, so being aware of them is important.

They think you’re raking it in. I remember a post where a hiring manager said he didn’t hire someone who just finished a PhD in astrophysics because he felt she couldn’t possibly take the pay cut. The reality is she would probably have gotten a 50-100% increase in pay by moving from a post-doc to actuarial work. He didn’t know that, so she didn’t get the job. Make sure they know you know what you’re likely to be paid and you are happy with it (though without discussing numbers). Do not talk badly about the pay where you came from – if you need (and I’m not sure this is wise), state what you might have been making. No negativity, period. You’re not running away from where you were. You’re just attracted to something better.

They think you’re going to get bored and leave. And maybe you are, but you need to convince them you aren’t. This happens sometimes, so they often have anecdotal evidence this is true. First, decide you’re going to stay with them a while, even if you don’t like the job much, and then convince them. You like the area, have picked out a spot to live, and will be staying there a long time. You need experience and want to get it with them. You’re dedicated to the work.

They think you think you’re too good for the work. Related to the last point, and applies more the farther away from your original area of expertise you move. You have a PhD. You do not need to convince them you can solve hard problems. You need to convince them you’re willing to do the dull work that comes with any job. Of course you are – you already did tons of worthless nonsense in research, but they don’t know this. Be clear you’d be happy to file papers or make copies, or whatever the gruntwork is that comes with a different career or job.

They think you’re a stick in the mud. While most of my teammates were reasonable people, the most awful human beings I’ve ever had to work with were all in physics. I’m not the only one who thinks “PhD” and “easy to work with” don’t go together well. They already have your qualifications in your resume – a significant portion of the interview process is going to be questioning whether you’re someone they actually want to spend time around and do work with. You have to convince them.

There’s probably more, but my time is up. Honestly, the #1 problem you have in getting another job I didn't even address - your back and the difficulties it presents. 99% of your potential, good jobs involve sitting at a computer. I think this is something you could overcome if you found the right job though, there are therapies that might help.

Best of luck in whatever you choose to do.

 

[twofish-quant]

You can’t. Either you decide it was a worthwhile experience or it wasn’t. If you mean how can you get a job that made it a financial winner (the net present value of having done it is higher than not), then you’re probably out of luck anyways, as it was likely a financial loser.

If you count the amount of debt that you leave with, then it probably wasn't. In any case, you have to think about what exactly you are looking for. Something that I've found is that unless you are living in poverty, making more money doesn't help you find meaning in your life. I know people that make $1+ million/year and they don't seem happier than people that make $50K.

There are exceptions though, and if your goal is to be one of them there’s still time.

The problem with Ph.D. jobs is that if you don't think that your Ph.D. is meaningful, then you are going to be extremely unhappy. If you think that your Ph.D. is wasted, then a job that makes $200K in which your boss is an MBA that makes $500K is going to make you feel miserable.

Perception is a serious problem, but one you can attack aggressively.

If you are proud of your Ph.D., and you want to get a job in which you get to spend the rest of your life in graduate school, that's one thing. If you don't, then it seems to be that what you want is to get a job that is as far away from doing a Ph.D. as possible. Sell real estate or open a pizza restaurant.

You need to make yourself sound agile. Make it clear you loved your work, and that you’re done with it. The end.

That's great if you actually did love your work. If you've decided that you hate graduate school, and you hate anything to do with physics research, then that's another issue.

But people who do hiring sometimes – maybe even often – believe them, so being aware of them is important.

The problem with those opinions is that they are often right.

They think you’re raking it in. I remember a post where a hiring manager said he didn’t hire someone who just finished a PhD in astrophysics because he felt she couldn’t possibly take the pay cut. The reality is she would probably have gotten a 50-100% increase in pay by moving from a post-doc to actuarial work.

The problem is that if they have any sort of computational background, they probably would be able to get much more money going to Wall Street. Starting salary is $150K for a fresh Ph.D., and with five years of experience, there are people that make $300K-$500K. I know someone personally who I strongly suspect makes $1M+/year, and I've heard of people with physics Ph.D.'s that make $10M+.

Now it may be that your Ph.D. hates Wall Street and NYC. That's fine. You can say straight up, I know I can make twice as much in an investment bank, but I hate investment banking. I hate NYC. I hate investment bankers. I hate Wall Street. The problem comes if a) it becomes obvious that the newbie Ph.d. doesn't know that the opportunity exists, or b) the interview doesn't believe the interviewee.

Suppose I'm an interviewer and I ask you if you are going to leave in six months, if you find out that someone offers you $350K. If you say, you aren't, you'd better have a really good reason why not.

They think you’re going to get bored and leave. And maybe you are, but you need to convince them you aren’t.

Unless you are totally desperate for a job, I think its extremely unwise to try to convince an interviewer something that just isn't true. If you are totally desperate for the job, then you have to change your own psychology so that you *won't* get bored and leave.

They think you think you’re too good for the work. Be clear you’d be happy to file papers or make copies, or whatever the gruntwork is that comes with a different career or job.

Again. This is great. If it happens to be true. If it's not true, then you are going to have lots of acting skills, and if you are that good at acting, you should go for a career in either sales, Hollywood, or politics.

Most people are not good actors. If you try to convince someone that you are going to be happy doing X, when the true is that you are going to be totally miserable doing X, its going to be a hard slog, because most people just aren't that good at acting.

There are a lot of crap jobs in which people don't care that the workers are happy. If you go to a telemarketing company and tell them how joyful you are at telemarketing, people will think you are mentally crazy. People in a lot of fields are totally miserable, and just do something because they get paid to, so that they don't starve to death. You will get hired for these sorts of jobs if you are desperate, but since you are desperate prepared to be treated like dirt.

They think you’re a stick in the mud.I’m not the only one who thinks “PhD” and “easy to work with” don’t go together well. They already have your qualifications in your resume – a significant portion of the interview process is going to be questioning whether you’re someone they actually want to spend time around and do work with. You have to convince them.

The problem is here is that if you hate your life, people don't want to spend time around you. If you are resentful of your work, you think that your Ph.D. was a big giant mistake, and you secretly hate the MBA you are taking orders from, then you will emit this negative aura which is going to make it difficult for you to get a job.

One thing that you need to do first is to figure out what the truth is. It's terribly difficult for most people to convince someone else of a fact that they themselves don't believe is true. Some people can do it, and they go into sales, acting, law, or politics, but the odds are that you aren't that good.

Also, you have to figure out what the goal is. People that are good at acting and sales are able and willing to project an image since in the end, they get some personal thrill out of either making someone feel a certain way or getting someone to do something. I don't get the sense that this is your goal, so you have to figure out what you are trying to do.

 

[daveyrocket]

Wow this is some useful discussion. I had a lengthier reply typed up but my browser ate it.

Talk to other people that have Ph.D. in physics that decided not to go down academia. See what they have been doing, and then figure out what to do.

How do I find such people? The few that I have spoken to have gone into software engineering, which is what I would be seriously considering anyway if it weren't for my back issues.

It depends on what your motivation was to get a PhD in the first place. Most PhDs are not in academia.

How does that matter? My motivation was because I wanted to learn more about physics and my undergraduate advisor was pushing me to go. Those are both gone now.

You can’t. Either you decide it was a worthwhile experience or it wasn’t. If you mean how can you get a job that made it a financial winner (the net present value of having done it is higher than not), then you’re probably out of luck anyways, as it was likely a financial loser. I’ve run numbers on several occasions and it’s tough to make a physics PHD a $$ winner over many other careers that have lower median salaries, the problem being the lost income and long distance to a good salary. There are exceptions though, and if your goal is to be one of them there’s still time.

The reality is that whether you think getting your PhD was worthwhile will be largely based on your ability to rationalize things combined with misuse of statistics. There are no studies composed of samples of people just like you to compare against, so you’ll choose studies that have no value (people in this forum do it all the time) and use them instead.

My suggestion is to save yourself a lot of time and just decide now whether it was or wasn’t worth it. Then proceed to get a job you think might be interesting and see where life goes from there.

You are right, this made me realize that I already knew that it was not a worthwhile experience. I suppose I need to change my question to how do I recover from getting a PhD?

I don't expect to recover the lost income. I'd be pretty happy with my salary if it was around 80k. Heck, I'd settle for half that for a job that only required 20-30 hours a week of my time.

Perception is a serious problem, but one you can attack aggressively...

Thanks! That's a lot of good stuff to take into consideration. So what are the ups and downs of doing actuarial work? I've never even heard of it until now.

There’s probably more, but my time is up. Honestly, the #1 problem you have in getting another job I didn't even address - your back and the difficulties it presents. 99% of your potential, good jobs involve sitting at a computer. I think this is something you could overcome if you found the right job though, there are therapies that might help.

Best of luck in whatever you choose to do.

Yeah, I've been to a few doctors and I'm working on it, and I just got a letter from my insurance company denying me some treatment, so that's just awesome (/sarcasm).

The problem with Ph.D. jobs is that if you don't think that your Ph.D. is meaningful, then you are going to be extremely unhappy. If you think that your Ph.D. is wasted, then a job that makes $200K in which your boss is an MBA that makes $500K is going to make you feel miserable.

If you are proud of your Ph.D., and you want to get a job in which you get to spend the rest of your life in graduate school, that's one thing. If you don't, then it seems to be that what you want is to get a job that is as far away from doing a Ph.D. as possible. Sell real estate or open a pizza restaurant.

That's great if you actually did love your work. If you've decided that you hate graduate school, and you hate anything to do with physics research, then that's another issue.

I didn't hate graduate school. I didn't enjoy it either. I don't hate physics research, I'm just uninterested in doing it. What I hate is the feeling that my Ph.D. makes me less employable than I was when I had just a B.S. or M.S. I hate feeling like I have fewer options now, most of which pay worse. I hate the idea of going through two or three postdocs to finally obtain a faculty position in the midwestern US.

Also, you have to figure out what the goal is. People that are good at acting and sales are able and willing to project an image since in the end, they get some personal thrill out of either making someone feel a certain way or getting someone to do something. I don't get the sense that this is your goal, so you have to figure out what you are trying to do.

My goal is to get a job with a decent salary and doesn't require ridiculous amounts of overtime in the geographical area I want to live in. Or did you have something more specific in mind?

 

[mathwonk]

I recommend you try to do something about your back pain. It is hard to enjoy anything, or make a wise decision, when you are in pain. Perhaps more walking. Or a better chair. I also have this issue and one of my friends does too. We both carry our own prosthetics with us whenever we travel or go to a conference.

 

[daveyrocket]

Yeah, I've been seeing a back/spine specialist and have gone through physical therapy. Also I've taken up yoga, I walk my dog daily and I am taking dance lessons. I've done what I can to make my workstation more ergonomic as well. This stuff helps some but it is not a resolution. Ultimately this is a chronic condition which will probably not ever get completely resolved unless there is some sort of issue that could be resolved through surgery (herniated disc or something) but no such thing was detected on my MRI.

 

[twofish-quant]

How do I find such people? The few that I have spoken to have gone into software engineering, which is what I would be seriously considering anyway if it weren't for my back issues.

You can find Ph.D.'s in places like physicsforums.

One thing that you will find is at that some of the better software companies, they do spend a lot of money on chairs, and there is a reason they spend a lot of money on chairs. If you've impressed a software company with your programming skills, and they are willing to give you $70K for a year, then having them buy you a $1K chair that deals with your back isn't a hard thing to negotiate.

You are right, this made me realize that I already knew that it was not a worthwhile experience. I suppose I need to change my question to how do I recover from getting a PhD?

It's a hard question because a lot depends on your particular situation. A lot depends on what you liked and disliked about the Ph.D. For me, I enjoyed everything about the Ph.D. other than the fact that the salaries were low and there weren't any jobs in academia, so I ended up doing a job in industry which is exactly like graduate school only with more money and nicer people.

If you are totally burned out from physics, then that's a different situation. At that point, you might consider getting a job that has nothing to do with physics, and then thanking your lucky stars that you don't have any debt.

I don't expect to recover the lost income. I'd be pretty happy with my salary if it was around 80k. Heck, I'd settle for half that for a job that only required 20-30 hours a week of my time.

Again, it depends on your current situation. If you loved graduate school and want to be under crazy intense hyper-stress for the rest of your life, then you can make $250K/year.

I didn't hate graduate school. I didn't enjoy it either. I don't hate physics research, I'm just uninterested in doing it. What I hate is the feeling that my Ph.D. makes me less employable than I was when I had just a B.S. or M.S. I hate feeling like I have fewer options now, most of which pay worse.

It may help you to know that isn't true. One of the nice things about getting a Ph.D. is that you are no worse off than someone with a bachelor than in getting jobs. You aren't under crushing debt, which limits your options. If you had gone to law school, then you don't have the option of being a janitor or a beach bum. With a physics Ph.D. and zero debt, you do.

Also, you will find that getting a job with a Ph.D. is tough, but getting a job without a post-graduate degree is even tougher. Looking for work is a painful, brutal experience, but having a Ph.D. helps you a lot with this.

 

[daveyrocket]

Well I really hope that is true.

So what sort of careers should I research? I don't want the crazy intense hyper-stress of graduate school. I've started to look into actuarial work, and of course there is software development. Engineering positions I've looked at usually seem to have some major required qualification that I don't have. I'm not interested in moving to NY to be a financial analyst, although I wouldn't be opposed to such a position in Portland, OR. Any other suggestions of career fields I should look into?

 

[lisab]

Well I really hope that is true.

So what sort of careers should I research? I don't want the crazy intense hyper-stress of graduate school. I've started to look into actuarial work, and of course there is software development. Engineering positions I've looked at usually seem to have some major required qualification that I don't have. I'm not interested in moving to NY to be a financial analyst, although I wouldn't be opposed to such a position in Portland, OR. Any other suggestions of career fields I should look into?

I don't think you should dismiss engineering so quickly - after all, it's a *huge* field and I find it hard to believe that there is nothing there that would suit you. Sure a lot will have additional requirements, but nothing is stopping you from acquiring them.