Advice from a hiring manager

Turning a life lived in academia into something else can feel overwhelming. But there are strategies that work, and more resources than you can begin to imagine. Want to see all of the ones I’ve talked about so far? Click here for the job-search archives.

A few weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of sitting down with my friend Kara, who works as a hiring manager for a small company, and picking her brain about the dos and don’ts of applying to jobs after academia.

Here’s what she had to share with me.

Don’t make her do all the work

She’s seen many applications that were “inside baseball.” In other words, these applicants assumed that she knew and understood the world they were coming from — instead of translating their skills, experience, and usefulness to this new context.

That means explaining your background in terms an outsider would understand, instead of relying on titles or job-specific rankings or arcane terminology.

That means explaining what you actually did and what you actually achieved and how those things would help the organization you’re applying to, instead of assuming that everyone knows what bench work or assistant professoring or “doing research” entails.

Don’t take things personally

Having done this for many years, Kara has seen as many searches get called off as filled. Sometimes the economy tanks and the company decides it can make do with the personnel it has. Sometimes the company’s plans change and they no longer need that position. Sometimes they’re running a search to prove to INS that they can’t hire a citizen for this position in order to help a current employee earn a green card and no one was ever going to get hired anyway. (That last one makes my toes curl, but I know it’s true.)

In other words, the vast majority of the time, people don’t get hired for positions for reasons that have absolutely nothing at all to do with them, their skills, or their credentials, much less their worth as human beings.

By not taking it personally, you’re less likely to get discouraged. Remember: Every single application is a new opportunity. Your odds have nothing to do with what’s happened so far.

Be able to explain why you’re leaving

Every candidate is going to get asked why they’re leaving their last position — it helps the hiring manager figure out if the candidate is going to be a good fit. That goes double for people who are changing careers.

Have an answer that doesn’t throw anyone under the bus. Whatever your situation, however you actually feel about it, your answer should depict you as a thoughtful, conscientious person who has a lot of goodwill for everyone you’ve previously worked with.

Explaining the change in terms of the job market, in terms of new discoveries about yourself (so long as they don’t appear to arrive every six months), in terms of exploration and excitement, in terms of wanting to apply your skills in a new arena, will get you much further.

Assume you have things to offer

No one wants to hire Eeyore. Figure out what your transferrable skills are, and be confident that those are skills not everyone has and that companies really love to see.

If you’ve successfully made it through a PhD — hell, even the coursework of a PhD — you obviously have piles and piles of transferrable skills in the form of critical thinking, ability to analyze, ability to define questions, synthesizing information, and the ability to write. If you spent any time teaching, you’ve also got public speaking, instructional design, and management.

And those are just the “general PhD” skills. You’ll also have content-related skills and knowledge, and you might well have skills related to other academic endeavors, like running conferences or editing a journal.

And on top of those, you’ve also got all of the skills you’ve developed in all the other areas of your life.

In other words, you are literally bursting with skills that employers desperately need — and that not everyone, despite the attitude of people in academia, actually have. So go into every application knowing that you have a lot to offer that company.

The big picture?

Most of all, Kara said, research the company you’re applying with, make a case for why you can help them achieve their goals through this position, and keep the faith.