Don’t have a PhD myself, but have worked for the feds for 30+ yrs and would be shocked if there were a large number of unfilled job openings to be had for the asking, w/ no requirements other than a PhD.
Just did a quick search on USA Jobs, for PhD. 2 hits. One GS 11 for the VA in Tenn maxing out at $77k, and one in Grand Forks NDak for the Dept of Ag. The latter has a salary range from $128-205k. Would be shocked if that weren’t highly competitive. Didn’t check, but would assume it requires some work experience.
A good number of research-related jobs for the DOD and other government entities are also hired through contractors like Booz Allen Hamilton, Leidos, etc. I know for a fact that there are many vigorous medical, epidemiological, and biological research programs going on in the military.
Ph.D’s looking to work for the government should not be discouraged because there aren’t that many openings for jobs requiring Ph.D’s. Many of the jobs that my state agency has openings for only require a bachelor’s degree. But most of us have advanced degrees, and increasingly more new hires have Ph.D’s. Hell, we have folks with Ph.D’s who are doing part-time hourly work. They got the job because they met the KSA’s and they did well in the interview.
Once I started doing my job search, I was “meh” about research. Pretty much all government jobs that require a Ph.D are looking for a hard-core researcher. Those jobs didn’t appeal to me, so I wasn’t bothered that there weren’t a lot of them.
Of course, there are some government jobs where having a Ph.D would be a disadvantage in hiring. But this hasn’t been the case in my experience. The degree may or may not confer more compensation (it didn’t for me). But if it makes your application stand out, then that’s not anything to sneeze at.
In my limited experience w/ the fed gov’t - including having been a hiring official, there are few fed jobs - especially at the higher levels - that do not get a great number of applicants. I repeat that I would be shocked if there were ANY “high ranking” fed jobs that one could “immediately” get solely by virtue of having a PhD with no work experience.
I have an MBA, but work in a company that has tons of Ph.D.s in all kinds of scientific fields that does consulting work. The trick is not to do work WITHIN the Government, but rather to do work on Government contracts at a larger consulting firm.
I was up for a scientist position at a company right out of grad school (PhD, no postdoc). I was interviewed, and apparently there was some internal strife about it, but ultimately it was decided that the postdoc (even one that was entirely unproductive) was required for the position.
I did my postdoc in industry, and am currently an industry scientist. Couldn’t be happier with how everything went.
But, the PhD closes more doors than it opens. If you decide to get off the PhD track, and would like to just do some bench science as a research associate, no one will consider you; you’re overqualified. We would never even bring you in to interview for such a position with a PhD. Fair or unfair, this is the way it is.
There are a huge world of jobs outside of the lab that a PhD in biology is vital for! I urge you to look at them. I just hired a consulting firm of PhDs to help me out with a problem.
My wife was in a biology PhD program 40 years ago, and in her department doing anything outside of academia was considered failing. (She quit because she decided she hated research work.)
There was a NY Times article a few weeks ago about how there were more STEM PhDs being graduated than openings in academia from professors retiring or new positions being opened. That article did not mention industry research even once.
This has been going on for decades, and not just in STEM. Back in the early 90s my graduate advisor created a special seminar with guest lecturers coming in to tell us about careers outside of academia because she knew there was no way we were all going to land decent tenure-track jobs. One of the first signs has been the proliferation of “post-docs” in disciplines that never had them before. Indentured servitude, basically. There is no reason for a Humanities Ph.D. To be doing a post-doc.
Did she get crap from her department for doing this? Because I bet someone doing it in my wife’s department would have.
In CS I never got any indication that industry was bad, and I’ve guest lectured at several departments talking about real world problems. And I’ve hired the students of several professors who are friends of mine and who certainly don’t discourage people going into industry.
I think there is a big divide between traditional science and CS and EE here.
As for humanities PhDs - I’d guess a post doc is a job at least. I could see it as an opportunity to write that big book or paper that will get you hired into a tenure track job.
MBA/consultant here as well. I would also recommend some of the large (or small AKA “boutique”) consulting firms. Consulting firms love PhDs because they can sell you as a SME in whatever field you got your PhD in.
But seriously though. A PhD is a lot of time and money. You should have a pretty good idea of the top companies in whatever field you got your PhD in, as well as the sort of consulting firms that advise them.
This. I have a PhD and did a postdoc, but left academia after that (and yes, I got a lot of flak for it from those in academia) and immediately landed a very interesting job where we mostly did government contract work and a PhD was required for my position. Currently, I’m self-employed and no one would use my services if I didn’t have both a PhD and a lot of experience, so that’s not really an entry-level path.
If you want to go into Big Pharma, I believe they pay a lot better than academia but the job security isn’t there.
This has been a helpful thread; thank you. My son is just starting a dual-major undergrad program which can be a front-end to a PhD or MD/PhD, so this stuff is on his mind. I will share this with him.
I will echo msmith and others: the market for a competent PhD in consulting can be big. You have to demonstrate that you can manage a project, drive to business results, and be able to work with people through change.
Yeah, when I announced that I was headed to industry, I was called into three different offices and told that this is not what I was trained to do. Meanwhile, I’ve taken a fun side project idea all the way into worldwide clinical trials to treat some pretty horrific diseases. This is something I NEVER could have done in academia. There are MANY worthwhile jobs with a PhD where you aren’t called “professor”!