How Universities can Prepare PhDs for a Changing Job Market
Creating value through private sector partnerships
By David Giltner, PhD and Ali Divan, PhD
As PhD scientists who have spent a collective 30 years in the photonics & biotech industries, and currently provide career training/counseling for PhD scientists, we have seen first-hand the enormous challenges that PhD scientists face in transitioning into non-academic jobs, as well as their struggles to adapt to the different working environment. Below we provide an overview of the problems, current state of affairs, and proposed solutions with the aim of generating discourse around this topic.
The Central Problem
Fundamentally, most universities have not adapted to provide up-to-date, actionable training and job transition services for their PhD and postdoctoral trainees. As a result, many PhD holders have significant difficulty finding relevant careers outside of academia. At present, the magnitude of the problem is difficult to measure, as there are no meaningful metrics published that address this demographic clearly. We can however, look at existing information to characterize the current state of affairs.
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Current State of Affairs
1. Inconsistent Messaging: Currently, the most typical messaging from academic principal investigators is that in order to make it as a principal investigator, all you have to do is to work hard, and do good science. What is missing from this message is a realistic assessment of the current job market, and the wide gap between the conditions in which investigators were historically hired and the current conditions.
2. Saturated Academic Market: Depending on the specific field and geographic location, tenure track faculty jobs available represent 0.5 – 5% of total graduating PhD population.
3. Inequitable Pay: Those that are not eligible for tenure track roles, continue as postdoctoral trainees ($50k/yr by NIH/NSF standards). Although an NIH advisory group has recommended increasing this number in 2024, it has not yet been implemented.
4. Deadweight Loss: Postdoctoral trainees that do not secure tenure-track roles may continue on as adjunct faculty or non-tenure assistant research professors. In these roles, pay remains low and research knowledge is underutilized. This manifests as lost opportunities to innovate, and lost gross domestic product (GDP).
5. Inadequate Career Services: The career center model has been effective for undergraduates seeking to gain employment after graduation, but has missed the mark for graduate and post-graduate demographics, a group that admittedly is not their primary stakeholder. By definition, PhDs are specialized roles, and each industry has its own culture and standardized practices. It is therefore inadequate and inappropriate for career centers to provide advising on fields they are not specialized in, nor have any experience in. Outside expertise is needed to support niche fields, and career centers are not provided with sufficient funding or authorization to bring in necessary, specialized resources. We argue that career center services may be an ineffective model for graduate & post-graduate career services.
6. Missed Opportunities: Industrial jobs are available at 10,000+ companies in US alone (much more globally), but PhDs from academia are not competitive. Consistently, the feedback from recruiters and hiring managers is that PhDs from academia are unable to communicate their value, either in writing or verbally. This is a matter that can be corrected with appropriate, specialized training, but the glacial pace of change at universities has resulted in inadequate infrastructure and inappropriate systems that fail to provide this at the scale that is necessary.
7. Negative Public Perception: Direct feedback from industrial managers and executives is that PhDs do not understand what is needed to function in an organization. As a result, many are reluctant to hire PhDs, especially for roles that involve any degree of leadership. The model for functional organizations is based on well-practiced concepts of corporate governance & management, which most PhDs would have not experienced in university laboratory settings. The university ecosystem has fostered a combination of hyperbolic call-out culture, deeply rooted cognitive distortions, and an inability to diplomatically say “no”. These cultural practices have created subject matter experts that have not learned to function or cope in larger organizations, which is a detriment to both the individual and organization. The issue is further exacerbated by the improvised and inefficient practices of many principal investigators who run their laboratories without any knowledge of or exposure to the very same corporate principles. Fundamentally, there is a paucity of professional and organizational leadership training for both mentor and trainee.
8. Cost Burden on Trainees: Because career centers lack funding and have not provided the necessary training to trainees, and PI’s also are ill-equipped to advise on transitions they have not personally navigated, many PhDs hire outside resources to train them on how to write resumes, interview, and network in ways specific to their niche field. The cost for these services is out of pocket, and the quality of these programs varies. Some programs provide high value and results-based fee structures, whereas others have been found to engage in predatory tactics and deliver services of questionable value.
“Deans of graduate schools have acknowledged the problem and demonstrate a deep desire to implement change...”
The solution
After having spoken with several decision-makers at the university level, we have identified a single role that is most in-tune with the state of affairs and most enthusiastic about making change. Deans of graduate schools, especially in the physical and life sciences, have acknowledged the problem and demonstrate a deep desire to implement change in a system that preaches progressive values but is more reluctant to change than the most socially conservative ecosystems.
The primary obstacle in implementing changes comes down to convincing university administrators to allocate funding, navigating internal politics, and finding a way to create positive outcomes for trainees without damaging relationships with administrators.
Rather than seeking to implement change at the top-level, we have observed that in addition to graduate school deans, our message resonates deeply with alumni who have experienced the challenges we describe first-hand.
Often, university alumni offices struggle to build meaningful relationships with their doctoral and post-doctoral alumni because at a fundamental level, they do not understand them and are unable to build meaningful relationships with them. These manifest as missed opportunities, which we propose addressing through collaborative efforts with university alumni offices, graduate school deans, and specialized professional services like ours.
Pilot programs to increase alumni engagement, develop shared goals, and allocate dedicated scholarships to train PhDs through our professional training services are win-win scenarios that do not require restructuring, or drastic changes at the administrative levels. These programs provide an opportunity for alumni to provide resources to others that they wished they had during their years as trainees, and to take credit for contributing to necessary institutional change. They also serve as proof of concept that these programs are effective and can be scaled to create unique value propositions for further increasing alumni donations, which can be leveraged as objective social proof and additional value in university recruitment efforts.
Be a Trailblazer
We have gained traction with our proposed pilot programs and are continuing to develop partnerships with universities across the United States. We welcome the opportunity to discuss our respective programs and find unique ways to help all stakeholders in a system that needs updating.
If you are a university dean or administrator, please reach out to discuss how each of our programs can help you take higher education and alumni relations to the next level.
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