Hi,

I obtained my PhD last month after 4 years (MRes+PhD) of research at a university in central London. My PhD was in science/engineering/computer science applied to healthcare industry.
Although it was planned for 4 years, I didn't expect this journey to be that long and exhausting. Many times during my PhD I wanted to quit asking myself "what am I doing here?", but at some point as you know there is a point of no return. So I finished despite being many times bored and uninterested. I did manage to publish in a good journal and conferences though. My supervisor was this bored-of-life prof with tenure position with an impressive list of pulications/citations and had absolutely no interest in my research. He gave me very little psychological support and almost no technical support. I was basically on my own, though at some point I was working with a post doc who was supportive on those aspects so it helped.
I also did not like my lab too, which felt as a PhD slaves laboratory with about 10% of academics and 90% of postdocs/phds doing all the research.
Anyway, I came to a conclusion that academic research was not for me because it was making me anxious not having good results and/or not knowing when you will finish (because you actually never finish as this is research...).

At this point, I am looking for a job now, but I feel utterly confused about what I want to do for the next 5 years.

It seems there is also a point of no return here, in the sense that because I have obtained my PhD, I now want to value it at its best and despite having had a not so good PhD experience, I am still looking at post doc positions even if I know it is probably not a good idea. I fear that my PhD will not be valued in industry.

There are many job offers in industry, but firms are looking for either work experiences (that I don't have) or for a PhD in some specific subfield of my general PhD field that I haven't studied (though I am very keen to learn and work on). Also, because my PhD is in a quantitative subject with computational maths, I feel lost because I could potentially work anywhere where there is analytical reasoning. I see many job titles that I will never have the chance to try in my lifetime. This makes it harder to research a job when you don't know your job title. Last but not least, the fourth year of my PhD I was truly thinking it had been a huge mistake to have accepted a scholarship that is not indexed with the inflation. I am now in this position where I refuse to apply for job that are not so well paid, especially in big cities such as London.

To sum up, I think I am asking
- for advices from people who have transitioned from academic research to industry with no other experience than a PhD thesis that was not directly relevant to the position they were applying for.
- any career or self help books that could help regarding this problem

I think you need to be a little more confident within yourself. You don't need to have all the requirements when applying for jobs. Sometimes it's a good idea to go for it and see what happens. Think of all the other skills you have learnt in your PhD that will help you in these other jobs - I'm sure there are loads.

Most post-docs don't ask for a very specific PhD at least in my field (biological sciences). They don't expect you to walk through the door with all the skills needed. So if you do want a post-doc apply for the ones you are interested in and you might get lucky.

If you are thinking about moving disciplines though you might need to get rid of your 'no lower paid jobs' mentality as if you want to work in industry with no direct experience you might need to go into a lower level and work your way up within the company. It might mean a year or two having a little less money, but if it's what you want to do it'll be worth it. Plus it's better than a year or two on no money waiting for a 'perfect' job or postdoc.

Some questions for you to help us help you:
- What technical skills did you develop during your PhD?
- What kind of fields would you enjoy applying these skills to?
- Where have you been looking for jobs so far?
- Have you actually applied to any jobs yet or do you rule them out as soon as you see they require work experience/topic knowledge?
- Have you factored in cost of living before rejecting jobs on the basis of salary? London is incredibly expensive to live in - you can find jobs in other British cities that pay £2-4000 less per year but where your cost of living is far less and quality of life is far higher. It is very much worthwhile looking outside of London and not just making a judgement on salary alone.

I wouldn't rule out other post-docs in different groups or Universities, simply because you had a bad experience n a certain lab whilst you did your PhD. There's good and bad out there, as I know from a good PhD and first post-doc experience at my PhD Uni., but a poor experience at my second post-doc Uni.

I have made the transition to industry, though there was an element of accident rather than design due to my poor 2nd post-doc experience. In my case, I fell back upon pre-PhD skills to finally find myself a job as I'd come from industry to do the PhD.

1) You need to take a look at what skills you have acquired during your PhD and elsewhere. This will give you an idea of the kinds of job you can do, both within and outside academia.

2) On applying for jobs, it's not that likely you'll find a perfect fit for your skills to that job and employers are aware of that. You thus look for a close match that will give you a fighting chance of getting to interview stage. Training for the job will probably fill in the gaps.

3) Tailor your CV and covering letter to show, whilst remaining honest, a potential employer why you might be a good fit for the job. Use language that sells you in terms of "goals" you "achieved" rather than your CV or covering letter being a bland statement of jobs you did. Team or group achievements also sell better.

4) On gaining an interview, continue to sell yourself and use positive language about your life, experiences and achievements.

5) A willingness to work is also a big plus. In the short term, be prepared to take any job you can do rather than looking for your perfect job. It is better to be employment active whilst looking for that better job rather than waiting 18 months on unemployment benefit. Even voluntary work is better than nothing.

Unless there are personal reasons why you need to stay in London, then as already mentioned I would look outside if money is an issue. I will counter that, however, by saying that the further away from London and the south east you are (with exceptions such as Aberdeen for the oil industry) , the fewer opportunities in general that exist. Even with me realising the above points, because I live up in NE England it still took me nearly a year after my second post-doc to find an industry-based job.

Ian

Thank you for your advices.

Note that I was quite pessimistic in my first post --- but I did like some parts of my PhD and I think I will see it as a good experience in a few years. But as of today it is too recent and it still hurts!

I did applied for quite a few jobs earlier when I had submitted the draft thesis. I got a lot of calls from recruitment firms but my mistake is that it was too early --- at that time I had not had my viva/corrections and did not want to accept a job before finishing completely.

Yes, I am also looking for jobs in other country/cities (eg NY, Paris, Singapore). I don't think I can live in smaller and "non international" cities... I am international and as of today still single and young (hopefully!).

It's indeed very possible that I am trying too hard getting the perfect job.

hi Funtoink
in essence your initial post does remind me of how I used to be. I think at some point, most people have gone through what you are going through, it's part and parcel of being alive, I think.

I previously had a thread about jobs and the difficulty of landing a job, and now I actually managed to get a contracted position to do a job of which has not much to do with my phd -- so to be honest I do feel lost a lot of the time -- and even though I have a job, I'm not exactly a "happy bunny"

I used to have "no-job-issues", now I have "job-issues" because things do crop up whether you have a job or not!

I also feel uncertain of myself sometimes, so I try not to think about this, don't follow my mind which will distract me from what I'm supposed to be doing (stay in the NOW, Satchi!!!)

If you ask me -- what's my biggest uncertainty, well my contract finishes in less than a year, so what do I do after that -- and what I do now to survive and to maintain my mental sanity is go DAY BY DAY, step by step, what I will do today, what I am doing today, and just go from there.

wishing you all the best and thanks for sharing
love satchi

Thank you for the lovely message satchi.

I think you have a good point, it's actually not a PhD problem, but a life problem. I may be into my post PhD life crisis... what is life? what is my purpose here?
I am also afraid of making mistakes in the sense that I don't want to wake up in 10 years only to realise that I have made the wrong career choice and what I've done is useless. Of course you can never know but still...

hi Funtoink
guess what I have transcriptions to do today :-( boo hoo
haha, well boo-boos aside, I would like to share something with you -- I was working on something with my colleague, and there was a delete button which we pressed, and it cleared a lot of the previous actions that we did in our calculations, so much until we lost everything and because the files looked the same, we forgot which was which. My colleague panicked, and she said I'm scared now. I was annoyed at her because she said she was scared -- what is there to scared about?!

Because we pressed delete, we had to retrace our actions. In doing so, we actually learnt the probably hundredth time around this time to do things correctly! So that delete button was actually good for us.

Don't be afraid of making mistakes because mistakes teach us a lot of things. In fact, they help us grow as well.

Another thing is -- never mind if you don't know what your life purpose is (at this moment!). It is ok not to know :-)

May I recommend watching this video if you have time, Eckhart Tolle's writings have helped me a lot, especially through my phd.

love satchi