Career ProactivityA talk by Dr. Ashish Sahani

PhD Orientation, CBME

Congratulations!

Unemployment rate and earnings by educational attainment, 2013 (USA)

But if you are not proactive!

Industry or Academia

Industry or Academia

Some Stats

Data source: Nature jobs

Some Stats

Data source: Nature jobs

Five advantages PhDs have

• Expert innovators

• Masters of conflict resolution

• They have knowledge of knowledge

• Adept problem solvers

• Competitive collaborators

Job Search Mistakes by PhD

• Relying too much on your advisor to help find you a job.

• Not following up after first connection.

• Nobody wants to give a job to someone who is desperate.

• Not knowing your value.

• Bad negotiation skill.

• Becoming too specific to your narrow research area.

Networking and Referrals

• Almost 80% of jobs that you see online are already filled. My own example.

• Use your conference attendance to network hard.

Anand example, Abhisek example, Shivsankar example

Why a postdoc ?

• Gives you independent research experience.

• Expand Expertise and advance know how.

• Expand your academic network and collaboration potential.

• Only go for it if you are looking at faculty position.

Create a strong LinkedIn profile

• 93% of employers are on LinkedIn

• Maximum number of high quality candidates are on LinkedIn.

• When you get referred, people try to look you up on LinkedIn.

Work on your CV & Resume

• Take care of proper indentation, font size and bolding.

• Spell-check is very essential.

• Resume are for industry positions and CVs are for academic positions.

• It is your most important sales pitch document.

• Keep working over it.