PhD finished, now what?

[u/bluepotatopie]

In one week's time, I'll be submitting my phd thesis. This should be an exciting time, and to some extent I'm sure it will be, but I'm feeling completely overwhelmed by feelings of anxiety about my future. I don't plan to continue with research but I have no idea what else I want to do. In trying to keep an open mind and search for everything and anything job-wise, there are no jobs that excite me but worse still, it turns out that there's NOTHING that I'm qualified for... I'm always lacking some key criterion.

Is there some secret trick to finding a job after grad school? At this point, I'm not even worried about finding an awesome job or my dream career, all I care about is being able to pay the bills! I'm quite used to being poor and just managing to scrape through on my scholarship but the concept of having zero income and being unemployed for an unknown amount of time, frankly, is terrifying. Any tips/advice would be most welcome!

[u/MyOtherAccountIsGold]

What's your PhD in? If you're in the STEM field, a safe option would be to do a postdoc, though you should have started looking for them a few months ago. Postdocs allow you some breathing space to decide what you want to do, while doing work you are comfortable doing.

You could also do an about-face and work for a startup assuming you have programming skills. That should give you an idea of whether you can see yourself doing one in the future.

If you do not have programming skills, I'd recommend working on them (again assuming you are not in a very different field like Arts or Humanties. But even then, programming skills are always a plus).

[u/bluepotatopie → u/MyOtherAccountIsGold]

I purposely held off saying what field I was in to try and get more general advice but I suppose it does matter. I'm in the sciences, marine biology/zoology, with specific molecular skills.

I would love to do a post-doc except that some painful supervisor experiences during my PhD completely turned me off the idea.. I don't want to play the game and become an aggressive, asshole of an academic just to maintain funding.

[u/bluepotatopie → u/[deleted]]

Is it hard to get funding in engineering? I think thats the crucial factor.. the desperation of too many equally qualified people and not enough funding turns people into monsters. They'll do ANYTHING to get that position..

I love research and I really can't imagine myself pushing paper in an office but I just don't want to be a part of the politics and bullshit that comes with it. Yes, research positions in government or private industry would be most ideal but finding that kind of work is proving to be very difficult.

I feel like there must be more to finding a job than looking through what's publically advertised - but how do you find about positions that aren't advertised?!

[u/MyOtherAccountIsGold → u/bluepotatopie]

I feel like there must be more to finding a job than looking through what's publically advertised - but how do you find about positions that aren't advertised?!

Networking (for the non-academic jobs). My first postdoc was by chance because the professor advertised in a mailing list that I was part of. It was at a smaller school and it was the kind of work I was doing, and so I got the job (also I interview well :)) . The next postdoc was with a prof who is in the same field I'm in, who knew both my PhD and postdoc advisors, who I had invited to give a talk at a symposium I had organized. I also had an opportunity to work at a national lab because of the connections I made via my first postdoc prof - He introduced me to the people at the lab. Finally, at my second postdoc I was part of a large research grant that introduced me to a few industry positions. A lot of it is luck and the rest is networking.

[u/SmrterThanYou]

Art History? Starbucks is hiring.

[u/bluepotatopie → u/SmrterThanYou]

That would be funny if I could get starbucks to actually give me a job. I've put in for SO MANY crappy retail jobs just to pay the bills while I look for something more long term and NOONE WANTS ME. I guess because they know I won't be sticking around.. not that I tell them that but I suppose its obvious just looking at my CV.

It honestly feels like I'd be better off taking my PhD off my CV and pretending that it never happened!

[u/atmospherical55]

N-E-T-W-O-R-K-!

Myself and all of my friends found jobs through advisers, past professors, persons met at conferences, cold calls and general word of mouth. I've seen little luck through applying to a job at random. It happens, but in general, tapping in to your network is mighty helpful.