Get out of academics and get a real job.

Happy Monday everyone (and Happy Family day to anyone in Canada who gets it as an extra day off from work!) This week I am going to do a series of five posts (including this one) directed towards people who have recently completed their PhDs and those who are getting close to finishing and contemplating their next steps, or really anyone who wants to get out of the academics game and get into the 'real world'. I am motivated to write this because I've had a lot of PhD students and newly minted PhD graduates connect with me on LinkedIn recently, many of them asking for advice. Most of those students have PhDs in physics, statistics, computer science - so that sort of made sense to me because of the industry I work in, but when Veronica Bergstrom (she's getting a degree in Psychology) contacted me, it got me thinking about the journey I took exiting academics, and how I wish there had have been someone to give me advice.  

Some of you are undoubtedly considering staying in academics and doing a postdoc in your attempt to become a faculty member, but I think that's a mistake and I'm not alone here. Here is a link to a post detailing why you shouldn't do a postdoc (https://toughnickel.com/industries/The-Postdoc-Trap-Become-Scientist), I highly recommend you read it. But the tl;dr version is this: The vast majority of people who get PhDs will not get a job as a faculty member, and this is especially true those who want to do research at a medium to large school. On top of that, academics does a great job of "teaching" you that you aren't good enough yet, and that you should feel lucky to have a job (not true, your employer is lucky to have you), any job, in academics - and that working in the real world is worse! (also not true). Most faculty members have never worked outside of academia, so they really don't know what they're talking about. Yes, there are some trade offs, and some of those will take some adjusting to, but I think the benefits outweigh the costs (and it's not even close!) Plus, unless you are graduating directly into a faculty position, the odds are stacked against you becoming a professor, so you're just delaying the inevitable.  How many PhD students does your graduate supervisor have? How many faculty positions are there? The math isn't hard to do. And those sessional instructor positions? You will get worked really hard, you'll have no job security, and you will be paid poorly.

But you might think, so what - I'll just take a few more years working as a postdoc, how much can that hurt? Well, you risk losing a lot of income, a lot of time to save a down-payment, and saving for your retirement (and compounding interest makes this a big deal!). On top of that, you risk making yourself less employable. Sounds crazy, right? But it's absolutely true. It's just easier to explain why you are moving into industry after finishing your PhD than after a postdoc.

So every day, the rest of this week, I'm going to make another post, on four different topics: 

1. You are more skilled and valuable than you think!
2. Your resume is probably awful, but here's how to fix it.
3. Working in industry is different, so you're going to have to adjust.
4. Interviews and negotiating salaries. 

I have been getting a lot of people reaching out to me recently, so if I don't get back to you I apologize. But I will do my best to reply to everyone! And to those of you that have reached out to me and I haven't responded to yet, I'll work on that this week. Please accept my apology, the last few weeks have been very busy between work, and a vacation. Feel free to touch base with me again! Towards that end though, it's generally helpful if you can identify the kind of help you're looking for, and what you're hoping I can do for you.

Have a good week everyone!

ps. Sorry for any typos or grammatical errors. I'm trying to write this with my infant son on my lap, which makes this a little tricky #multitaskingIsFake