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Episode 0013 Shownotes
Overcoming misconceptions, exploring possibilities, and building your career as a PhD:
PostdocTransformation show Q&A celebrating season 1
In this episode you’ll learn about some misconceptions of working in business, and which two perspectives are critical for capitalizing most on your PhD, what you can do to break into the business job market without prior relevant experience. And if you feel, you might be letting down your supportive supervisors by leaping into business, this episode is for you!
Listen to Prof. Dr. Eleonore Soei-Winkels as she shares actionable tips in this episode of the weekly PostdocTransformation show.
Subscribe to our weekly show on your favorite podcast platforms: Why? Postdoc scientists & PhD students / candidates will learn the basics for their career transition from research into business & industries AND will get to know a company that hires early career scientists!
Enroll in your free email course for your career transition into business! Especially emails no 2 & 3 focus on creating a LinkedIn profile and using LinkedIn to network for your career transition!
Misconceptions about working in business
Question number one, so I'm afraid of leaving academia. This is all I know because of the bachelor and master. And then, PhD right afterwards. Will I be bored or, you know, will I be unsatisfied or uninspired by less intelligent people?
As a professor who went right after the PhD into business, but also leaped back into academia, I have to say, I've seen lots of intelligent people on both sides, right? I've seen also a lot of dumb people, on both sides, right?
And a related question is also, oh, the ones the academics who are leaving academia are probably the second class who didn't make it to the top, and something like that. And I strongly encourage you to think about these misconceptions because you find [00:02:00] people from all walks of life, from all intelligence, from the whole spectrum in both worlds. And the challenges that they have in the business world are definitely different to the ones who are the one, the challenges in the science or in academia, right? So, it's a different pace, it's a different impact on the people who are impacted. Because decisions in business can make or break.
The projects can make or break the salaries can make or break the opportunity to earn your salary to support your families, and that means a, a decision or a challenge in business can, be much more impactful than in science where it's maybe more or less foundational and groundbreaking, but it's a long-term game. And also, maybe your contribution is just one puzzle piece, and it's hard to discern your own impact in the [00:03:00] research world. At least in my case, I knew that when I published my papers, only five people would read my papers, and I didn't think that this was a lot of impact.
And I thought that I would have much more impact in business, which I did. But then on the other hand, when I boomeranged back as a professor, I realized that I have much more impact with young, curious minds in their bachelor and also in their master thesis. They can learn from me how I think it should be based on my theoretical, but also on the practical background that I gained.
And just for the record, because maybe you don't know me, I was an IT strategy consultant in the years between my PhD of neuroscience and until I was appointed as a professor of in industrial and occupational Psychology. So in these couple of years I gained a lot of IT and business experience and which is why I'm also able to deliver [00:04:00] all my free career services by automation, email marketing, and websites and everything like that.
So, for me, this is my hobby and I love it. This is how I share my privilege of becoming a professor because this is actually a rare occasion as a mom of two children. It's hard and it's also rare, and I acknowledge my privilege and so I share that with you. If you want to think about people you are working with, then I recommend to you episode one of the postdoc transformation show because there's the question about the people you want to work for and with your supervisor, but also your colleagues and also your clients or your whoever is working with you.
Two perspectives to capitalize on your PhD
All right, so the next question would be then:
What can I do with a PhD in X, Y, z? Well, this is a question that a lot of DMs had like four or five, I think, then they had a PhD in [00:05:00] humanities or in zoology. And sometimes I create a reel or a TikTok on that. Don't think about this just from the perspective of your degree and yourself, but instead you need to think of the two perspectives, right?
From the external point of view, your employers or your potential employers aren't that interested in your degree, be it the bachelor, the master, or the PhD. But instead, they're thinking of what can you transfer from all your theoretical knowledge to make a contribution towards their real-world business problems? You need to be able to switch the perspective so that you can think of your skills as being helpful for solving the problems in their daily business. For this I can also strongly recommend to you the episode number four, which is the future of work for new PhD holders in business.
Just a hint, every semester I will record the [00:06:00] future of work again and again, because that may change after half year or another year. So, this is the episode that I also share with my own bachelor /masters’ students, so that they can always have the newest future of work episode on their mind.
Especially if you're thinking, what is your vision of life, right? Mine is, I want to build my postdoc transformation. So whatever I did after my PhD, according to my vision of life, is building it family first, right? So, I don't want to work 100% like nuts. I'm not trading off one-on-one hours, but instead I try to leverage all my skills so that I can earn money in time windows that are more convenient for my kids and me, and also according to my whole life.
Do you want to be employed or do you want to become an entrepreneur? Because if you want to become an entrepreneur, then you should also listen to the episode number 10, which is what makes the scientist a good [00:07:00] entrepreneur, right?
Don't limit yourself to your most recent degree, but instead also look into your PhD, master, but also bachelor. For me, becoming a professor of industrial and occupational psychology after a couple of years in IT was to use and capitalize on my psychology content that I learned for my professorship.
All my psychology knowledge and also my neuroscience knowledge was dead and buried for a couple of years in IT because no one was interested in that. But still I was able to reconnect and to revive that knowledge, allowing my students to understand these kinds of concepts in the face of the business challenges.
Shout-out to my PostdocTransformation Team
This Postdoc transformation show is brought to you by myself of course, but also I have a team, which is one in the background, one of my master's students, Priscila. If you are here or watching this replay. Thank you. And also, Elisa, who has been proofreading a lot of episode notes and the whole background of that. And the same goes out for David because he also read a lot of things and he had a lot of great questions and ideas, which I implemented.
And so, everything that you see behind the scenes, obviously visible in front of you was not built just on my knowledge, but also on the input of my PostdocTransformation community, especially the team. So, thank you again.
How to break into business without relevant experience, LOL
All right, next question.
I've got no business experience or industry research collaborations. How can I enter the business world? Well, yeah, that's a good question because that obviously comes from someone who is almost towards the end of the PhD and has no research collaborations, with industry partners. And if you are [00:09:00] someone in your first or second year, I strongly urge you to think about industry collabs. Okay, so as soon as possible, as many as possible. If you can't do them anymore, because you're in the last year or so, this is like the question now, then I urge you to at least do your dry research, so to speak, on LinkedIn.
So that means you should create your LinkedIn profile in a business-friendly manner so you know that it's not putting business people off, but instead of making them interested in your profile and what you've got to offer. Once you have that, you can start to research and find people who are maybe helpful for your orientation. That doesn't mean that you have to ask them right away. But instead, you can follow them and you can ask or you comment nice and smart questions comments on their posts and everything so that it's, it's becoming a warmer [00:10:00] audience for you. Okay? If this is not making sense, then I urge you to also enroll in my free career transition email course because in email number three or four, I talk about how to build a sustainable LinkedIn profile and also talk about or write about how to research your favorite employers and stuff like that.
Feeling you would be letting down your supportive supervisor?
Next question is: I'm afraid of letting down my supportive supervisors by leaving academia. Okay, I understand this. Because it happened to me. So I have a very supportive, diploma thesis supervisor. So in Germany it's not our, then when I studied, which ages me, so when I studied, there was no bachelor master system, but instead it was diploma.
And my diploma thesis was supervised by professor Dr. Sabine Windmann, and I love her. She's my hero, and we are still friends, and I'm so glad that I had her. And she always knew that I wanted to apply to the International Graduate School of Neuroscience in Bochum. And she said, well, we 'll get you in there, but just in case you don't get in there, I want you to have a safe place to land. So, I like you from your thesis. And I want you to have also funding for a PhD with me, if you don't mind. And I was like, yay. I, I mean, that was the best second offer that I could have because I, I know her, I love her and I wanted to work with her. And actually, by the time I got the admission letter from the international graduate school, I felt bad because I knew that Sabine was able to secure funding for a PhD with her. And she did that by applying personally with my information. So she got this funded for me and still I turned her down and started my PhD at the International Graduate School of Neuroscience.
And that was a hard decision, but she told me that she would find someone else and I need to have my own agenda. So I was "allowed" to go and to start with the I G S N, which was in hindsight, a great decision and I learned a lot. And you know, it, it turned out all great. And I think if you are in this position, I want you to listen also to the episode number nine: how to leave academia without burning bridges. Once you go into your career, you always have the situation where you have to make hard decisions, especially if you are a business leader, a manager.
You always have opportunity costs and you have to make the right decision for your own team, for your own whatever, right? So sometimes that means, you know, having a conflict and to anticipate a conflict. To resolve that indicates your value as a leader.
Your grad school doesn't support career transitions into business (yet)?
All right, so, the next question is my graduate school does not support any career transitions, and I'm broke, so I can't afford private career coaching. If you see that your graduate school does not support career transitions, that's kind of naive because graduate schools overproduce PhD students, so just because they haven't had supported PhD students in their career transitions, that doesn't mean that it's the right thing.
But also that means you could be the one pioneering and making your PhD besties a favor, you're doing a favor to them because maybe you can ask them whether they want that as well. And then you can, get a PhD career coach to speak at your graduate school. If you don't have anything, [00:14:00] the best I can offer to you is my free email course with 10 emails. They are sent on demand only, so just when you are interested and ready to transition in your career. This is really, a great summary of what I also teach at graduate schools. When they book me, I also look into their student CVs, job ads, and I coach them on negotiations with the employer and salary negotiations and stuff like that.
So I go much in depth at graduate schools when they pay me, but for all individual PhD students who can't afford my services, I also offer the readiness check for leaping into business.
Why singing is one of my transferable skills
My team and I we're contemplating about this: why do you sing your own music intro and outro? Okay, so one the hard answer is it's a low budget production, right? [00:15:00] So I ask a couple of befriended singers, and they literally said that they would be too much too expensive for me.
Which I agree. So, if I'm not earning money through my free career resources, then I shouldn't waste my money on that. But instead, I want you also to think about your own transferable skills and to see them from a different perspective.
Maybe you have something like this. I love the stage. I love singing. I love playing music. I love creating music. I love writing my own songs. I never became a singer. I did win prizes for when I was 16, but I don't do this professionally anymore. And from time to time, I miss the stage, but going live in my real classes and also live on social media is something that I absolutely enjoy.
And I think that singing on stage helped me [00:16:00] to Be okay on stage, right? So, I want you to think about your own skills that maybe aren't really related to whatever you want to do in your life, but maybe they can help you to be less anxious, to be bold and to leap into something that is unknown to you, but maybe which is more aligned to your vision of life.
When you follow me on social media, on TikTok and also Instagram, you'll see a funnier side than I always share on LinkedIn. And I think that humor is also something that I share. I want you to think about this as a reminder that maybe have a skill that you haven't had appreciated as such, or just put aside for a different time of life, but instead it could be resurrected and used for different purposes. Repurpose that for your vision of life.
Thanks for listening,
Eleonore & Team PostdocTransformation
P. S: What are your thoughts or even questions regarding this episode?
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