What PhDs & Robots Have In Common
You're a PhD, not a robot.
You're not a manual laborer either.
Well ...you're not supposed to be.
But if you're still in academia after getting your PhD, you're being treated like manual laborer.
And the work you're doing in academia is the same work that's being done by robots in industry.
Do you really think that pushing a button on a pipette is brain work?
Do you think that setting up a gel, exposing a blot, setting up a PCR reaction, or an ELISA requires high-level, strategic mind-power?
No, it doesn't.
These and a thousand other tasks you're doing right now as a PhD, including record keeping in a dusty lab notebook or Excel file, is not where your true value lies.
Instead, your value is in your mind.
Your ability to find problems to solve, to choose the right problem to solve at the right time, to ask the right questions and design the right protocols to solve the problem, and to collaborate with and present to others to address even bigger problems.
This is your value as a PhD.
Yet, in academia, you're treated as a pair of hands.
You're treated as cheap labor.
Most academic research labs can't afford modern equipment, let alone advanced robotics that are found in industry labs everywhere, so instead, they pay half price for PhDs to do the work of equipment and robotics.
Why PhDs Are Treated As Robots
If you're a PhD, academia can't afford you.
They can't afford advanced equipment or robotics either, thanks to low levels of grant funding and a completely broken postdoc system.
By now, you may have heard that the number of postdocs in academia is skyrocketing, but did you know it's been climbing rapidly for over 30 years now.
Look at the following data from the National Science Foundation…
Of course, at first glance, this increase in postdocs could be for a number or reasons. Perhaps there are just more PhDs now. Or, perhaps there are more professorships now so there are most postdocs to feed into those professorships.
Unfortunately, however, the absolute number of postdocs is not only increasing; the number of professorships is sharply decreasing.
First, consider this: according to a detailed report by the Royal Society, only 0.45% of PhDs will ever become tenured professors now.
That's only 1 in 222 PhDs.
Now, secondly, look at the number of faculty positions over the past 29 years compared to the number of cumulative PhDs awarded (National Science Foundation)...
So, what's going on?
In a recent 4-year period tracked by the National Science Foundation, 100,000 PhDs were granted but only 16,000 new professorships opened up. That’s 84,000 PhDs with ZERO chance of being a professor.
So where do these 84,000 PhDs end up?
Unemployed, or in low paying postdocs.
It get's worse...
Nearly 80% of Life Science PhDs end up as categorically unemployed or in low paying postdocs after graduation (The Atlantic Report).
Similar data shows that nearly 60% of ALL PhDs end up unemployed or in low paying postdocs (National Science Foundation).
All of this wouldn’t be so bad if postdocs were actually paid what they are worth.
However, as the data below presented in Science Magazine show, respectively, postdocs are paid half of what they are worth in industry positions.
This is especially true for science and engineering PhDs, but also holds true for PhDs in the social sciences and beyond…
Of course, there are guidelines set up by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other governing bodies for how much postdocs should be paid. These guidelines, however, are hardly ever followed.
As a simple example, the NIH’s suggested 2017 annual salary for a 0-year (starting) postdoc is $47,484.
However, the AVERAGE salary of ALL postdocs, whether they are just starting or are in their 7+ year is only $46,142
That's less than the 0-year recommendation.
How To Get Hired For Your Mind
As a PhD, you and your mind are very valuable.
After all, only 1.6% of the population will ever have a PhD (World Economic Report).
Companies are no longer interested in professionals who can simply "master" a field.
They are no longer driven to hire job candidates who are merely able to follow directions and regurgitate information.
Instead, top companies want to hire professionals who are able to push a field forward. They want to hire innovators. They need to hire innovators.
A recent Global Innovation 1000 report showed that R&D spending has climbed steadily for the past 10 years (this trend has continued in 2015 – 2017)…
The top global companies polled indicated that they are moving away from “incremental” innovations and moving towards “substantial” innovations and “breakthrough” or “radical” innovations.
Who do you think is leading the charge in terms of substantial and breakthrough innovations?
The answer is you and other PhDs.
In today’s economy, companies know that they must hire professionals who are teachable and trainable.
Top companies care much more about a candidate’s ability to learn on the job than they do about the candidate’s business acumen prior to being hired.
When it comes to learning and innovation, PhDs are more rigorously trained than any other advanced degree holder. As a PhD, you can learn advanced business concepts on the job, but few others will ever be able to learn your PhD-level technical expertise or the scientific methodology behind true innovation on the job.
If you have a PhD, this makes you extremely valuable in industry.
You may not be worth much in academia today, but you are definitely in demand in industry.
The problem is that if you're spent most of your career in academia, you have no idea how to get hired for your mind outside of academia.
You can learn how to get hired in industry by leveraging LinkedIn and other technology tools, platforms and networks this week during a free webinar by Cheeky Scientist.
The "Leverage The New LinkedIn (For PhDs Only)" webinar is this Thursday, May 17th at 1PM EST and again at 9PM EST.
Click here to reserve your free webinar seat.
PhD Candidate: Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology
6yWait a minute, wait a minute. While it’s true that PhDs certainly aren’t treated perfectly, this article really seems to be stressing how terrible it is to be a postdoc or PhD student. This whole article starts by telling us that we’re treated like dirt. I don’t really feel like dirt at all. But I guess it’s pretty convenient for selling this webinar. The graph that shows the higher number of postdocs in STEM hasn’t accounted for the increase in population; of course the raw number of postdocs is going to be higher now than it was then. This isn’t necessarily news worth sensationalizing. And, the decreasing number of professorships doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not a good idea to be go for a professorship. There’s a lot of industry jobs, and not all the PhD students are going for professorships. These numbers shouldn’t be as intimidating as the article tries to make it for a PhD who wants to be a professor. It’s making it sound like the only thing to do after your PhD is be a professor, and you’re screwed because there just aren’t enough positions. The part of this article that rubs me the wrong way most of all is the graph about what PhD graduates are doing after graduation. This author is putting “unemployed” and “low-paying postdoc” in the same category. Postdoc is still a job that pays money, and to equate it to unemployment is just not really valid in my opinion. Does the author of this article know that most STEM graduate positions have their tuition covered with assistantships? The stiped and postdoc salary may be meager, but some other graduate programs put students into thousands and thousands of dollars in debt with tuition. And while it’s true that 23% were unemployed in 2012, this doesn’t mean they’re actively searching for jobs and can’t find any. Unemployed is probably also including gap years and other similar situations. This info could be taken right after graduation and “employed” might only refer to students who already have jobs lined up. Maybe some people haven’t even started looking for jobs yet. This article makes some good points, but telling me I have no idea how to get hired for a job outside of academia is pretty abrasive. I don’t know, I guess my point is that the author should try to be more subtle and sensationalize less if they’re going to try to convince people that their field is in the toilet. Nice try with trying to sell me the webinar, though, I guess.
Good analogy & on point description
Management Consulting | Life-science consultant | Solution oriented | Business framework | Project management | Women's health | Oncology | Creative writing | Reading |
6yInsightful! I really believe that this information needs to be propagated to all students pursuing their PhD so that everyone can make a well informed decision! Getting low pay while putting in more work and calling it the norm is just not fair, it never was! Thanks for this article and inspiration, Isaiah!
Computational Science | Bioinformatics PhD
6yActually this is a kind of compliment, right? Why not compare PhDs to cyborgs or something?
EIR @ EF| ex-IISc | Computational Biology | Multiomics | Data Science | AI
6yOzzie Coto Ishtapran Sahoo, Ph.D Tatiana Kerentseva