Many graduate students start their programs expecting to become professors. They picture themselves teaching classes, running a lab, and mentoring the next generation of scientists. Nearly half of PhD students enter their programs with faculty positions as their primary goal.1,2
The math, however, does not support that outcome for most of them. Estimates of how many PhDs ultimately land tenure-track positions vary by field, country, and methodology, but land somewhere around 10–20 percent, ranging from as low as 0.45 percent to as high as 29 percent.3 The takeaway is consistent: The majority of PhDs will build their careers outside of the professoriate.
That leaves an uncomfortable pivot for many newly minted PhDs and was for me as well. It can be genuinely difficult, especially when so many of us tie our identity, value, and purpose to academic research: solving problems, curing diseases, and the pursuit of knowledge to benefit humanity. Stepping away from that can feel like giving up on something meaningful.
But here is what I want you to know: There are interesting problems to solve everywhere, the extent of fulfilling jobs out there is vast, and the purposes you pursued in academia can absolutely be achieved outside of it. The challenge is not a lack of options. It is a lack of visibility into what those options are and how they connect to the work you’ve already done.
This wasn’t a discovery I made easily. After completing my PhD, I was lost. As a result, I made all the mistakes: I waited way too long to start thinking about my next job, I didn’t know what non-academic jobs I could start applying to, I didn’t know when to start or how to research jobs. So, I put on my science hat and started approaching how to find a job as a research project. I ended up discovering a drive to help others in a similar situation and found a job as a career advisor in higher education.
Here, I’ll walk you through what I’ve learned through this process, the system I’ve developed, and how it can help you find a fulfilling next step.
Two Barriers to Break Through to Look for Careers
In my work as a career advisor for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers, I see two barriers come up repeatedly.
The first is emotional: coming to terms with the fact that jobs outside of academia can be intellectually and personally fulfilling.
The second is practical: understanding what those jobs are called and how your PhD skills map to them.
If you are reading this, you have probably already started working through the first barrier, at least enough to be curious. So, let me focus on the second one because this is where I can give you some practical strategies. By exposing you to fulfilling jobs, we will naturally work on the emotional barrier at the same time.
Jevin Lortie organized research skills into nine categories and indicated jobs that predominantly reflect that skill to give PhD researchers a starting place in their job search.
Jevin Lortie
After considering the struggles I went through in my career transition, as well as my work advising other graduate students, I set out to see what I could do to clarify the research-to-career disconnect. This challenge had been gnawing at me. I realized graduate students need a way to conceptualize jobs based on their academic experience and the skills they already have.
This strategy started as an infographic on LinkedIn showing lists of jobs organized around the top lab and research skills. That post now has over 300,000 views and has been saved more than 2,500 times. That was a signal I was onto something that resonated with people. So, I built it out further, refined it, got input from experts to validate the information, and turned it into a website: explorephdcareers.com.
The site can be a helpful resource in your career search. Here, I’m going to illustrate how the approach I built it around can help you find jobs connected to your research skills that interest you.
You Have Already Done More Jobs Than You Think
During a graduate program, you become a specialist in your subject domain, but a generalist in career skills.
You are:
- a Study Director when designing experiments
- a Research Coordinator when scheduling participants
- a Microscopy Specialist when collecting data
- a Project Manager when directing a team of undergraduate assistants
- a Data Analyst when compiling results
- a Technical Writer when writing a methods section
- a Grant Writer when applying for funding
In some cases, you also become a Graphic Designer if you are creating figures, a Public Engagement Manager if you are doing outreach, or a Product Manager if you are commercializing your research. You very likely wear many more hats than these. All of the tasks you completed during your PhD are jobs in and of themselves and ones you are well qualified for.
How to Start Exploring Careers Beyond Academia
As you can see, you have already done a ton of things during your PhD, so let us start exploring careers there. For this exercise, I will need you to assume you enjoyed some part of your PhD work. Maybe not all of it, but at least one aspect. Maybe you are jaded or burned out after your graduate work, and that is okay too. Try to think back on a time when you were enjoying your research.
This might be a time you felt energized during or after doing research, were excited about working on a novel problem, or were able to get into a flow state while analyzing data, writing, or doing a literature review. Make a mental note of that activity—that’s going to be the category (or categories) for you to start exploring careers.
For example, if you enjoyed Analyzing and Interpreting Data during your PhD, like performing statistical analyses, building models, interpreting results, and conveying data‑driven insights, you might consider these industry job titles:
- Data Analyst
- Market Research Analyst
- Epidemiologist
- Financial Analyst
- Data Scientist
- Biostatistician
- Computational Scientist
- Bioinformatician
- Machine Learning Scientist
- Data Engineer
- Insights Analyst
- SEO Analyst
- Business Analyst
- Quantitative Analyst
By connecting the skills you enjoy to specific jobs beyond academia, you can draw clear lines between what you enjoy doing to jobs you can start exploring. In my infographic, I broke down different academic skills into nine categories to help graduate students get started in their career exploration.
Preparing for Your Career Transition
Jevin Lortie created a website based on his LinkedIn post connecting research skills to careers.
Jevin Lortie
The next step is browsing jobs under those categories. For this, you can use many strategies, such as the infographic I created, go to explorephdcareers.com, describe it to your favorite chatbot, or search for those skills on a job search website. For the latter, I like hiring.cafe, which can use a semantic search to find jobs with relevant skills.
In this step, I want you to look through the titles and see which ones resonate with you. This is equal parts information gathering and introspection. If you’re not sure what a job title entails, read more about it. Mull over a few job descriptions and requirements.
Ask yourself–does that sound like something you’re excited to do more of, or is it something you could do but not something you’re excited to do?
Now, you might be yelling at your screen: “Okay, that’s great, Jevin, but how do I go about landing those jobs?”
I’ll share three recommendations for just that, and three related “traps” I see academics fall into related to each:
- 1. Framing
- 2. Talking to people
- 3. Expectations
1. Framing Your PhD as Work, Not Education
Once you have identified job titles that interest you, the next challenge is showing employers that you are qualified. This is where the first of my three recommendations comes in: Frame your academic work in the language of the industry and as work, not education. This is something important I learned from Angela Priest, a career guide from Alma.Me, a startup specializing in helping academics transition to non-academic jobs that she cofounded.
The first trap academics fall into is describing their experience using academic language: "I conducted a longitudinal study examining..." An industry hiring manager reads that and may not see how it applies to their open position. But "I designed and managed a two-year research project with a $150,000 budget, coordinating a team of five and delivering results to stakeholders on a quarterly basis" tells a story they understand. At first, that kind of language sounds unfamiliar to academics and adapting to it is a learning curve.
For example, if you’re interested in a Program Officer position, you could emphasize your experience evaluating research quality and feasibility, your familiarity with government funding mechanisms, and your ability to synthesize broad scientific literature. These are things you have done. We want to frame your experience in a way that doesn’t show that you could do the work, but that you’ve already done it.
2. Talking to People Who Do the Work
My second recommendation is to validate your choices by talking to people who are working in the roles that interest you. This goes by many names, such as networking and informational interviews, but I prefer coffee chat.
This is not a formal interview. It is a conversation to learn things like what the job is like day to day, what surprised them about the transition from academia, and what they wish they had known.
I wrote an article about how to approach these conversations specifically for scientists, with my colleague Ellen Dobson, who is a Graduate and Postdoctoral Program Manager at the Morgridge Institute for Research. It contains practical scripts of what to say in these conversations and how to reach out to people, but the main message would be to lead with curiosity and connection. I also created a video with more details about coffee chats here. To get even more out of these conversations, you can explore some of the regular tasks that may be common in a particular job. This information will help you walk in already knowing what the role involves so that you can ask smarter, more specific questions.
These conversations will help you confirm whether a role is a real fit, learn how to communicate in an industry, and give you a much better sense of the landscape than any job posting can.
I recommend using this strategy to narrow your list of preferred job titles to three or fewer before starting to send out applications, ideally ones that are closely related (think Data Analyst and Business Analyst, not Data Analyst and Regulatory Writer).
This leads me to the second trap academics fall into, which is applying to too many different roles. You think, “I could do any of these things, so I’ll increase my chances of getting a job by applying to all of them.”
In fact, the opposite is true. You dilute your job search by casting too wide a net. By focusing on one role or a few closely related roles, you can tailor your resume, LinkedIn page, language, and knowledge to clearly communicate that you’re a great choice to hire.
3. What to Expect During the Transition
I will say bluntly that the career transition from academia to another industry is the hardest one. Your next career move will be easier.
This brings us to our third trap people fall into, which is running into rejections in the job search process and taking it personally. This can potentially lead to self-doubt, stress, or applying to entry-level jobs that you are overqualified for, which lowers your chances of getting an interview.
There are two things to keep in mind to avoid this trap.
First, the template rejection response from recruiters is sent to almost everyone, and it is not necessarily indicative of your value. That LinkedIn post I mentioned received this exact comment from a PhD scientist:
"What a great guide! But most companies ask for experience in the field, and it becomes difficult to enter these roles. I have faced several rejections because I do not have the required experience. Do you have any recommendations?"
I hear this constantly. The rejection template is a form letter sent to all applicants, regardless of the reason. It does not mean you are unqualified. It means the process is competitive and impersonal, and the company avoids liability by giving that explanation to everyone. Avoid a fourth bonus trap of chasing more education or certifications—you are qualified!
Second, it may take more applications for this first transition than you expect, but it will still happen. Most academics I work with land roles within a few months of targeted searching after they are clear on what they want, can articulate their value in industry language, and are talking to people in their target roles.
Stepping Into Your New Post-PhD Career
Of course, none of this will guarantee you a job. At the end of the day, you will still need to prepare relevant application materials and nail your interviews. However, hopefully these tips will help get you started, and you can pursue help with these additional job-hunting skills.
The main thing to remember is that the career exploration process for PhDs does not need to start from scratch. You have spent years developing real, marketable skills. The gap is rarely one of qualification. It is one of translation. Start by identifying the parts of your PhD you found most energizing, explore the job titles connected to those activities, learn the language those industries use, and go talk to people doing the work. The path to your next career step is closer than you think.
- Golde CM, Dore TM. At cross purposes: What the experiences of doctoral students reveal about doctoral education. 2001; Philadelphia, PA: A report prepared for The Pew Charitable Trusts.
- Larson RC, et al. Too many PhD graduates or too few academic job openings: The basic reproductive number R0 in academia. Syst Res Behav Sci. 2014;31(6): 745-750.
- Xu H, et al. Visualizing detailed postdoctoral employment trends using a new career outcome taxonomy. Nat Biotechnol. 2018;36(2):197-202.
