This morning I had a lengthy conversation with a geospatial PhD graduate whose first job, a 12 month contract, is coming to an end.
The job hunt is not easy. Of course it isn’t – the graduate job market is the worst it has been in decades.
But this raises another question: are PhDs ‘graduates’ in the same way as other graduates?
Sadly, many employers would argue yes. For them, work experience always trumps qualifications. Faced with a choice of someone who spent 4 years on a PhD vs. someone who has 4 years of work experience, they will always pick the latter – unless there’s a very PhD-shaped hole in the organisation that only Dr Geospatial can fill.
But maybe there is a fundamental misunderstanding here: why isn’t a PhD regarded as work experience by either employers and graduates?
PhDs are hard work. They require resilience, tenacity and creativity. They solve difficult problems that have not been solved before. And today’s problems can only be solved collaboratively.
The PhD cohorts I supported at EPSRC CDT in Geospatial Systems often worked in teams and with other organisations. They developed many transferrable skills, including systemic thinking, project management and stakeholder engagement. It’s a far cry from the ‘lone researcher in a darkened room’ stereotype.
As we were talking we came to realise it was a mistake for him to present himself as a ‘PhD +1 year of work experience’. His story was a journey of many successive projects that he had managed, within his PhD and beyond, each with their own challenges, people and outcomes.
It’s easy to lose sight of valuable transferrable skills when we’re deep in the weeds. Forget the shiny tech, look at what YOU are capable of. Look at how you solve problems. Look at how you organise your work. Look at how you manage projects. Look at the relationships you have built. And look how all that can be leveraged and presented beyond your narrow subject area.
When I completed my PhD in geodesy in the late 90s, my first employer went “yeah nice” and promptly retrained me as a GIS analyst. I also became the go-to guy for coordinate systems but that was more of a side show. I was lucky to have an employer who saw something beyond the geodesist in me.
I hope yours will too. But first, you need to see it yourself.
True Horizon Coaching 