Hi all,

I’ve just recently completed my PhD in a life science subject. The work was hard, and I was self-funded, which made things more difficult, but I really enjoyed working there and managed to achieve several good publications.

I’ve been reading quite a few articles on industry vs academia and a lot of them say if you want job stability or high pay you should go for industry. Iv recently been offered a position in an industry which is conducting interesting work, although the position is a research assistant one. I think the position is fair considering I don’t have much of the skillset they require. I’m just worried that I may be shooting myself in the foot when it comes to future job prospects. I want to do some post doc work but I’m worried that I may not get a position and thus end up wasting my time, or even if I do get a post doc after 2 or 3 years I’ll not be able to get another postdoc and thus be out of a job. Then if I wanted to enter industry I’ll probably have to accept a low salary position, as I could be spending those 2/3 years progressing in industry.

My supervisor has also applied for a grant for me to be a principal investigator for some work, but its outcome would be known midway throughout the year. My uni isn’t providing opportunities for work till then. Also, I’m not full of ideas when it comes to grant applications, I’m thinking if I’m not good at generating new ideas would I be suited for academia, even though I enjoy problem solving.

I’m kind of confused and I don’t know what to do, should I choose a low rank job for the sake of stability, or should I take the risk and wait. I had previously taken a similar risk after my MSc and I was jobless for a long time. Do people commonly generate novel ideas after their PhD or postdocs.

If I sound like I’m rambling it’s probably cause I’m writing multiple thoughts that have been bothering me.

Hi, I think most people have this dilemma. It's risk and reward - take the low risk / low immediate reward indutry or high risk / high [low?] reward postdoc. It's a personal decision. I went with the latter. I wasn't out of work, but I was forced to take jobs I didn't like or be in places I didn't want to be. I'm in an academic job at the moment, but the future isn't certain still. On the other hand, it's double the salary of one of my other research jobs post-PhD so I can't complain!

I wouldn't worry about the idea thing - these come later. You generate ideas from getting lots of experience and learning new techniques, collaborations etc.

In my opinion, these statements are always a bit generalized. It depends on the position and where you work.
For example on job stability/security:

There is definitely more stability in the sense that your contract is not temporary. On the other hand, I did an internship once in a company where I felt the pressure on the researchers was quite high and there was apparently a high turnover rate regarding the project leader positions. Now you may say fair enough, if your performance is bad you lose your job in academia as well, but I had the feeling that there is more understanding that projects sometimes turn out to be less promising than initially hoped ("that's science!)

Generally speaking, there is definitely more money in industry, but again that completely depends on what kind of position you have. If you are a senior scientist at Roche in Switzerland, you probably have an incredible salary, but I also see people leaving my institute and working in industry for a salary that is lower than the post doc salary at my uni.

Life sciences is a broad field, so only you will know how desirable your set of skills is for industry. If you have a lot of opportunities you might continue looking for something "better" or higher in the hierarchy, but as far as I know many Life science graduates are happy to find a position at all. In general, I don't think you have to worry about taking a job as a research assistant. It can be a good way to enter a company and if you perform well and have the necessary qualifications, you might move up quickly. They rather promote a research assistant they already know to full researcher than hiring an outsider for a researcher position. Also, higher positions require Industry experience that Uni Post Docs don't have.

Thanks for the reply guys, I decided to take the RA role, id rather be doing something than nothing