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Episode 0004 Transcript
What's the future of work for new PhD holders in business?
This is such an important question. The future couldn't be more exciting and open than now.
As a professor of industrial & occupational psychology I revisit this topic for my bachelor and master students every year since 2014, because that's inherent in their own expertise and in my own lectures. Most of my students become HR specialists & leaders. So, my earlier predictions have all come true. And these were not just my predictions I derived from my business expertise.
Watch me on YouTube, if you are curious, what I shared on the future of work FIVE YEARS ago (when I was pregnant with my second child, LOL), invited by the TÜVRheinland.
(I shared the stage with Frank Schätzing, and every STEMist in Germany will be excited now, LOL)
Back to 2023:
So right now, at the time of recording, we're still in quarter one of 2023 and that means that you know, we've got the third year of the pandemic turned endemic.
I can only speak for myself, but the people I see are exhausted. Work has changed them, because Corona has changed the way of working and we have been brutally trying to cope. That is essentially a human energy crisis. And that's the business side.
I can already see you nodding, that in your PhD, if you have started your PhD during the crisis or before and still are ongoing with a PhD, things have never been “normal”, right?
So, all of us, who are arrived at a certain level did a PhD without a crisis. We really had it easier than you, if you're now listening and doing this PhD, having four or five semesters of teaching in the corona semester, of doing your research or working remotely, trying to understand what your scientific identity is and everything. I get it, it was really hard.
So, how much energy do you still have to look into a future of work, where you want to live. The more you do your due diligence, the more you understand what the future of work will hold for a PhD like you. Then this (outlook) will be much more attractive and more inviting for you to leave (science). And that's why this episode is so important.
Maybe you don't know this but I want to share that with you that most of the people who are working in business, also the white-collar ones (all those creative cognitive workers who are not doing the ground work in industry who are not assembling things) are now afraid of artificial intelligence taking over & eating their jobs. And they are probably right in the sense that artificial intelligence & machine learning will take over a lot of chores that are tedious, repetitive and do not require truly creative problem solving. And most of the people who are working aren't as capable of changing or adapting to a new situation as needed, because they probably have less of a horizon to draw from.
So, with a PhD you prove that you are probably having a higher general intelligence, which doesn't mean that you can't do stupid things. What it does mean, is that you're probably having the capability of thinking things through and foresee to predict, to analyze, to draw conclusions & to connect the dots. That's an important skill.
And I want to also dive into that in more detail, but I wanted to show you that you will have a better future of work than most of the most of the workers who aren't capable of changing of adapting.
With a notepad in your hand, I want you to take stock of all your skills, and I hope that they will ring a bell that you have actually obtained them in your PhD.
Top skills in 2025
(Source: https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2020)
1) Analytical thinking in innovation.
So, if you're not an analytical thinker, and innovator, I don't know that's per se, the definition of a scientist, right? We are researching and we are creating insights.
2) Active learning and learning strategies.
I think that during your studies you have consistently proven that you are able to learn and that you are able to create your own learning strategies. Otherwise, you wouldn't have kept up with everything that you have learned up to date.
3) Complex problem solving.
All right, so who remembers all the experiments and all the variance and everything that you have to do to troubleshoot and everything? That is problem solving at its best!
4) Critical thinking and analysis.
Well, of course, we cannot just digest whatever research and leave, we have to test our hypothesis. We have to also reject false results or even fold our own hypothesis.
5) Creativity, originality and initiative.
You are the forward thinker, right? You have to come up with, new ideas you had to draw from different disciplines. To get up and do the experience in a different way with a different protocol and everything like that. So, this is you.
6) Leadership and social influence.
Now, this is maybe something where you could put a question mark, but then again, I would strongly encourage you to think of situations when you were leading a bachelor student or master student. Teaching, guiding the intern, all that is leadership. And you don't do this just by telling them, because people don't like to be told. They want to be led and that's via social influence.
7) Technology use monitoring and control.
And I bet that if you are a PhD in STEM, and you're probably using all your tech to do the experiments to monitor and to control, that's quite the easiest thing for a STEM PhD:
If you are a PhD in humanities, you might even think of maybe you do scientific communication, and for that you are using different apps to create your visuals and whatever it is. So, if you have the option to use technology, or like MaxQDA da for analyzing your qualitative interviews (hone these skills).
8) Technology design and programming or coding.
And like I said earlier in my previous episodes, I would strongly encourage you to have the opportunity to code your own experience. If you're not in STEM, that's probably hard to do.
9) Resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility.
I mean, who if not you, LOL.
10) Reasoning and ideation.
And again, that's absolutely one of our strongest virtues as scientists and researchers. So, that does sound promising, right?
And maybe if you're there, also check the episode 0002 where I share my benefits of having done a PhD as a mom, a professor and as a business owner. So, this way, you maybe have something that you can aspire to because you do a PhD at the moment.
For those, who want to listen to me in German (my mother tongue) on the topic of digital competency:
And maybe now you're thinking where did I get all these skills, I mention in this episode? In the show notes, I have all the links to these resources so that you can look them up for yourself.
And I also looked into this article to share their findings on their four most in demand digital skills in job ads as of today:
These are the 4 skills you’ll need in the workplace of the future
(Source: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/01/skills-jobs-future-workplace)
1) Artificial intelligence and machine learning.
That’s less surprising, right. Well, if you're not a PhD student in it, well, that's probably out of reach. Okay, I get it.
2) Cloud computing,
This is probably also out of reach. I mean, even I as a person who would identify as IT-affine wouldn't go into that. But you could maybe go into user experience (UX) or something like that design in the AI, ML, cloud computing area. I wouldn't do the hard coding.
3) Product management.
So, product managers are the ones who are at the hub, and the spokes are all going into different directions like sales, operations, marketing, development, architecture and stuff like that. So when a product is developed, in the pipeline, and needs to be marketed, then the product manager is the one who has all the ties in his or her hand. That's the person who needs to be highly approachable and relatable for all these different disciplines or units, functions within a company and also needs to have a big vision and also the ability to manage the whole project of developing a new product and marketing for the potential customers. So, that's essentially a huge interdisciplinary role. And it takes someone who is exactly having all these top skills that we have just listed. I've worked with people like that, and most of them are really intelligent and that's why I think that's a great thing for you.
4) Social media.
And to be honest, when you look into that article, which I will link also in the show notes, you can see that it's a digital, more conceptual, a more strategic approach of social media. It's not the social media manager or executive who handles the camera and sound etc. But it's more like the person who is like the conductor of a social media. campaign, to get the sentiment of the customer or clients and so it's more like very strategic.
So, those skills that are sought after in so many jobs out across the job board are digitally driven skills. If you say that you don't have any transferable monetizable skills, then look into developing skills into that direction.
What you essentially want to do is this: You need to become an indispensable expert and/or leader in your new role in business! Then you are too smart to be bossed around and you can advance in your career on your terms.
What are the benefits of adopting in demand skills?
1) More earnings. People who pick up these jobs will have a higher base salary, will have a better bonus based on the performance.
2) More opportunities to thrive, to be promoted. And if you are laid off, then they have a better chance to pick up a new job in that industry with the (company’s) competitor, if there are many thriving competitors.
So, that's why it's so important for you to adopt the in-demand skills. That actually ties back to the four skills that I mentioned in the job ads. And all these benefits, the earnings and also the opportunities, they are valid from the career start to end.
Okay, so the first leap will determine your ability to leap again and again and again. If you're going in the wrong direction (where there aren’t so many opportunities), then you will probably have a hard time to again leap into the right direction.
And that's why it's so important for you to think about it now, when you are still tabula rasa, when your future is still open, and not already limited, because you have leaped from a PhD into an industry postdoc. In that case, you have to explain why you should and want to go to industry or business without these research tasks.
18:08
And all of these previous skills are the ones that you can do also without a leadership position. You could do them also as a leader (later), but I would strongly encourage you to leap into a role without leadership responsibilities.
Why? Well, even if you have leadership capabilities because you have proven them via teaching, and leading the master or bachelor students within the thesis, when you leap into business, then the whole context is totally different.
And to be a leader in business or industries, you also have to have a business acumen. Business acumen is something that I seldomly see being trained at graduate school. We have all the skills that we have just discussed. Yes. But business acumen and the ability to derive the best business model to think of alternatives to respond (under financial pressure) and everything like that is really something that we probably lack (fresh from grad school). I don't want you to put yourself into a position where you can lead people based on your transferable monetizable skills, but you are lacking the contextual ability to put them in the right context of business.
And that's why the following skills are notably for your future, when you revisit this episode in two or three years, when you have more experience under your belt and you can be promoted to become a leader.
In demand leadership skills in-demand today
(Source: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/01/quiet-quitting-leaders-davos-2023)
1) Ability to nurture younger talents.
Most of the people who are leaders today are in their 30s 40s, 50s, 60s and they have trouble to connect and to work with, to lead the younger generations. Because there is such a disconnect in terms of digital capabilities, communication skills, remote, working from home, trust, and all of that. Most of the current leaders have had trouble to present themselves remotely in a way that is convincing and inspiring and aspirational for the young talents and that's why it's so eminent for current and upcoming leaders (you) to nurture these talents.
2) Leaders need to offer a purpose.
Young talents have different values than most of the older generations. So, younger generations want purpose. They want to make the right thing and not just them make things the right way. Asking “why” before “how”.
3) Personalize the digital experience.
Digital solutions are going nowhere. Instead, they will be expanded in all areas of business and industries. And the ability as a leader to personalize that digital experience to lead from far beyond on to all the different places in a global company across different time zones, in a way that the people will want to follow: that draws on the social influence.
Then they are influenced positively towards reaching the company goals. That's an important leadership skill. And you don't have to have it at the moment. But if you do have it already, then this will be probably be very helpful for you to be promoted to become a leader after two or three years in your new position in business.
And this is, why we offer you the PostdocTransformer Bundle as a monthly membership until you land your first job in business: We know, you have a tight and interdependent research schedule. To be able to carve out 2 full days for a given workshop at your grad school is not easy. Maybe your grad school simply has no such training at all.
So we bring our proven career transition and personal branding workshops to you, 24/7. You can ask as many related questions as you like! Share your screen or send us your CV, cover letter etc, so that I will answer with exclusive videos sent to your email! That way, we personalize your digital career coaching experience!
And now you're probably waiting for:
Top industries to be employed because investors expect them to thrive in the future
(Source: https://www.fastcapital360.com/blog/best-industries-to-invest-in/)
1) Biotechnology for individualized medication, therapy, vaccines etc.
2) Artificial intelligence, and I add that especially language processing, natural language processing is the one that is ChatGPT (Check out our next episode).
3) Home technology.
4) On demand services like streaming
5) Green energy, so obviously all the energy companies have had their best years ever especially during during the war. But they also had a lot of write-offs. And that's why I would recommend, if you go into the energy sector, go to the ones who are developing green energy.
6) Healthcare, obviously with an aging population in most parts of the world. We've got a health care crisis. People who are working in health care who are doing the frontline work of caring for the patients can't do this anymore. Don't want to do this, being less paid. And we have to find technology that can help to ameliorate this situation.
7) Pharmaceuticals & Telemedicine. Especially in areas where you cannot go because the distances are so far away, or there are very few people living out there. Not all countries can afford to have fully equipped locations, full hospital equipment and infrastructure at every place and that's why telemedicine will be important. And we have the ability then to get the right experts to do the diagnostics.
8) Cybersecurity. Possibly, this is a little bit far away for up for most of the PhDs.
9) Cloud computing. Again, a little bit far away.
10) Internet of things. That is not so much far away, if you look into the design of everyday things that you need to connect via the internet of things. You don’t need the hard-core IT background to provide value in these industries.
This list is actually targeted at stakeholders who have money and want to invest in industries that are probably aspiring in the future. So, these are the industries where you should want to work, where you want to be employed. And that's why I put this this together and I hope that you found value in this episode.
Connect with me in your favorite social media platform! Share this episode and show with your scholar bestie, and if you tag me, this would make my day!
If you want me to hold you accountable on your job search, then enroll in my free email course, so that you get 10 email lessons with step-by-step instructions. And you can convert these emails into your calendar appointments, so that you can work through them as you can.
So, in closing, invest in your doctorate according your vision of life.
Remember, you will manage your PostdocTransformation!
Thanks for listening,
Eleonore and Team PostdocTransformation!
P. S. How did this episode make you feel? Excited, frightened? Eleonore wanted to include this topic as she prepared this "yearly update" also for her bachelor and master students in real life. We think, this should be delivered in every lecture, so that all students can align their study efforts to prepare their future of work! Let us know, what you think!
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