Aaron Grade | September 22nd, 2017
Fig. 1 Why not hire a life science PhD for all your widget production directorial needs? Image via Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/p-832005/?no_redirect
Aaron Grade
123 Academia Drive
Program in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
University of Massachusetts, Amherst 00001-1111
Bob Bobson, III
Hiring Director
Widget Producers International LLC
1046 Widget Lane
Wigdeston, TX 01111
Dear Bob Bobson III,
Please accept this letter of application for the position of Director of Widget Management at Widget Producers International LLC. You’ll find that the experiences and qualifications of a (eventually to be) PhD in the life sciences are surprising – and contrary to popular belief – we are not robotic mad scientists devoid of emotion or personality.
“But life science PhD’s must be overqualified!” You might exclaim. To that I say: What does overqualified even mean? That one has too much experience? You’ll find us to be pretty down-to-Earth. In fact, obtaining a PhD humbles you. There’s nothing like having a group of tired-eyed professors glare at you while picking apart every answer you give during your PhD qualifying exam to make you realize just how little you know. To compensate for our own shortcomings, we learn to work with other people and utilize our personal skills and knowledge in a team setting to solve challenging problems.
“But a life science PhD will want to be paid a massive salary!” You might proclaim. Nope, we just want a fair salary. In fact, you’ll find us way more excited about a normal salary right out of graduate school than our non-academic counterparts. Our graduate school stipend is…well…let’s just say that your cat Fluffy (that is her name, right? Us PhD’s do our research) probably makes more in interest payments on her Widget stock options than we make in a year in graduate school.
“But I’ve heard that life science PhD’s are loners and may not work well with others,” you might be thinking to yourself. Although many of us are introverted in nature, we consistently work in teams and stand up in front of rooms to give presentations. Often our introversion is masked by our passion for the subject we’re working on. Also, we are great at team management. Have you ever tried to interview and hire twelve undergraduates, schedule them, train them in a specific protocol, and have them follow the protocol in an engaging way? It can be much like herding cats.
You may want to know why I am applying for this job rather than going into academia. After all, when many people picture a PhD, they picture a gray-bearded professor sitting at a mahogany desk gazing wistfully down from his ivory tower as he tries to think up his next genius idea. Beyond the fact that this view is far from the reality of what your average professor is like, academic jobs, once the main course for a PhD graduate, are now few and far between. In fact, as PhD awardees grow, the job market for tenure track positions lags behind. Only 26% of PhDs in the U.S. end up in tenure track positions [1]. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The world is changing and many of us find our interests and abilities are better suited to other jobs. In my case, I am excited to put the skills I’ve developed to use in a challenging position directing Widget production.
To conclude, PhD’s in the life sciences are full of passion, creativity, and a determination that allows them to continue working on a single project for 4 to 8 years without giving up. We are team players but work well alone, we can coordinate massive undertakings, and realize our own limitations and shortcomings. If you hire a life science PhD, you can rest assured that you will be getting a great employee, regardless of the PhD’s area of expertise. Thank you for consideration, I hope to hear from you soon.
Best Regards,
Aaron Grade, (eventually to be) PhD
Enclosed: Ridiculously long and convoluted CV condensed after hours of painful cuts into a two page resume.
References:
[1] Gould, Julie. “How to build a better PhD.” Nature 528, no. 7580 (2015): 22.