Hello all :)

I've just had a sleepless night and really need some advice. As a quick fyi on my current situation, I was made redundant from a job in the game industry and took the chance to apply for my PhD. I had been working towards this application since my second year of undergraduate taking jobs and experiences that would help me form my thesis idea. So I had a few years out as I believe I couldn't study an industry without experiencing first. I had times of unemployment as well.

I have been very fortunate to gain a fully funded PhD from a redbrick university, starting in September with the management school. I thought that this was what I wanted, but as more job offers come up, I am starting to doubt myself. My main concern is that it's another 3 years with no guarantee at the end for a job. I'm 26/27 now and have spent my time since ma graduation struggling to get permanent and full time jobs, I thought I finally had something with my last role, but was made redundant. I am just tired of feeling stuck and want to move on with my life, and I'm scared if I choose the PhD over a job, I won't move anywhere in my career and be back at square one. Yet I know how lucky I am to get not only my own research idea accepted but also funded. I just don't know what to do and wondering if anyone else had a similar experience.

What kind of thing would you ideally like to be doing in 5/10 year's time?

In general terms, a PhD is only a specific requirement for an academic career. Many PhD grads who don't get an academic position can flounder when it comes to entering into the non-academic job market, either due to failure of employers to recognise the skills gained during the PhD, or a failure of the graduate to explain and market their skills properly. The fact that you already have industry experience would be likely to mitigate this in your case as you already have an idea of what industry is looking for, and would be perceived to have relevant 'real world' experience.

Some PhD topics do lend themselves to being more widely applicable outside of academia and across fields, so you might want to hedge your bets and choose a topic/approach that gives you the maximum number of options afterwards.

Overall, be aware that few industries offer any kind of stability these days, and there is a good chance that whether you go down an academic route or not, job changes every few years may well become the norm.

Thank you very much for your reply!

The end goal is to stay within academia after the PhD, hopefully crossing over into industry (I know, optimistic!). I'm just scared of being back to square one, jobless at nearly 30. I've already been turned down in the past for being over qualified with my ma.

This is a valid fear. I currently have a job, but finding my next one is not proving to be easy. It's hard to find jobs that specify they want a PhD, and then it's hard to meet the rest of their esoteric criteria so I don't hear back from them, or I fail at interview, and I don't hear back from the ones that only require A-levels or a BSc either...

I'm 32. I'm tired of short term contracts in places I don't want to be.

If you want to a role in academia then a PhD is a great idea. If you want a career in 'business' then a PhD will not open those doors.
I have to say only a fool of a hiring manager would turn someone down for appearing over qualified. Similarly as a candidate it would be foolish to think a PhD gives you the required qualifications (ofc - unless the role specifically requires a PhD).
Obviously it all depends how high in your company/industry you wish to progress, those at the senior levels tend to have higher levels of education because they have a high level of drive/commitment/ambition/intelligence etc
As an example, I am on the leadership team of my company (i.e. one below Director level) of the 8 at my level - all have at least a BSc, 2 have Msc. But a degree is not a requirement let alone a PhD. From what I can remember in the last 25 years I have only come across 2 people with PhD's, one painted my lounge and the other was a Business Analyst.
For anyone staying in business, do a PhD because you want to - not because your career will accelerate.

Not really, people do it because they think the person won't stick around for long or will be bored. They are probably right.

IMO - that is the managers poor leadership - not the qualifiation level of the employee.

If you want someone for a specific role for a few years, you tend to want to them to stick around, so there's not much point in hiring someone that's going to be bored is there? Boredom leads to low productivity and mistakes.

If you just want to hire good people and you don't mind if you end up promoting them or transferring them elsewhere after a few months, then being overqualified doesn't matter.

Hi TOL.. I think you are referring to the extreme i.e. someone over qualified (with a high level of intelligence) for a menial/easy role. I am referring to 'appearing' to be over qualified for the role - to reject someone purely on their qualifications.

Not everyone who has great/high qualifications wants a challenging role or has the experience for the role or wants the stress and responsibility that come with certain positions. Anecdotal - my decorator has a PhD in Pharmaceuticals (and worked for a Noble Prize winner). He loves painting - is he over qualified? Looking purely at his qualifications then yes he probably is. But he is a great painter.

What ever role I am trying to fill - be it low/simple or senior/complex - I interview candidates based on their attitude, experience and qualifications - in that order.

I agree with you, maybe we are talking about two different things.

Ok, what about if someone appears over-experienced for the role? Would that be a reason you may not give them a job?

If they appeared over qualified I'd want to understand what their motivation for wanting the role was - I'd want that even if they appeared over/under/perfectly experienced for the role. I wouldn't discount them purely on too much experience. I have worked with people who have "downsized" their roles due to pressure etc

I turn down CV's without interveiwing for (generally) these reasons: I need a specific skill and it's not on there. A poorly written CV - if you can't be bothered/have the ability to write 2-4 pages that is your personal advert then you lack the required attention to detail I look for. A lot of different jobs in the past 5 years - that just rings alarm bells.

Thanks, that's interesting to me because I applied for a particular role recently that I had the skill set for and more than enough experience for but I didn't get an interview. I've now seen that it is been re-advertised so they obviously didn't get the person they were looking for.

As this was a team leader role from the same uni that I recently graduated from my PhD from, and considering I spent two years in a team manager role prior to starting my PhD, I put it down to being both overqualified and over-experienced. I guess it's not easy to predict why hiring managers make these decisions.

Oh well, their loss is someone else's gain. At some point I hope...

Did you ask for candid feedback? I always say why I turned down a candidate - that doesn't mean A.they like it B. the agent communicates it.
You could try dropping the hiring manager a polite email sayng "I recently applied for xyz position, unfortunately, I was unsuccessful but I would really appreciate you giving me some feedback so it will hopefully be of benefit in future applications".

No I haven't tried that. A lot of jobs I'm applying to state they that they can't give feedback at the initial application stage, only after an unsuccessful interview. But I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask.

If a PhD is necessary/beneficial/detrimental depends also on the field. To me, management is one of those fields where I can't see any special necessity. The company experience is way more valuable. You can of course just do it for the PhD experience itself...

One German Biology professor wrote ones in a column in the labjournal that he generally does not recommend his students to do a PhD unless they really want to work in academia. In terms of a company job, the only thing you would get from a PhD is being four years older. There are of course exceptions but very often these exceptions published really good. However, most PhD students will end up with an average publication list and then you'll have a hard time....at least that's what I experienced with all colleagues who applied outside of academia so far. A PhD is required for many higher positions in companies but there are just not so many of those. Companies don't need hundred of team leaders and often when they search for a team leader, they rather promote somebody that already works for them. I recently saw job adverts from Roche (or was it Bayer?) that even specified that people with a PhD need not to apply....

The soft skills of a PhD are valuable as long as there are few people with a PhD. At several of these career day events, HR people told that soft skills are generally something that is a bit overrated by grad students. It is nice to have but at the end of the day, employers look for people with specific skills and a personality that fits to the team. There might be people who got hired because of general PhD skills but I am pretty sure that this is a small minority. If you think about how many people get their PhD nowadays it is just not that special anymore. If everybody has a PhD, no one has... :)