So You’re an Academic Who Wants to Make the Shift to UX Research

By David J. Lick & Grace L. J. Rowe

In 2016, I (David) committed the ultimate academic taboo. After a decade of training, 2 years of postdoctoral work, and more grant applications than I could count, I got a tenure track job offer. I was thrilled! I was also conflicted, because I had competing job offers from Facebook and Google. Now I had to make a choice about the next stages of my professional life. Thankfully, I had two friends who had recently shifted their careers from academia to industry that I could lean on for advice.

I (Grace) was one of those friends! I had recently made the leap from academia to industry and was happy to share my experience. Now that we’ve both spent several years in the private sector, we’re having similar conversations with dozens of friends and colleagues. We also realize that some academics don’t have anyone they can talk with about industry careers, so we thought it would be helpful to share our experiences more broadly.

Below is a collection of thoughts, insights, and advice for PhD students and postdocs considering the shift from academia to industry. These observations are based on our personal experiences, so we encourage you to seek out other perspectives that can help you choose a career path. We hope this article is a useful step on your journey.

Academic Life vs. Industry Life

The biggest point we can make about research careers in academia vs. the technology industry is that neither option is inherently better. They are different ways of working accompanied by unique benefits and challenges. Below are eight factors to consider in choosing your career path: lifestyle (1 + 2), colleagues (3 + 4), type of research (5 + 6), and resources (7 + 8).

1. Work Hours. Work hours are one of the most noticeable differences between careers in academia and industry. On a typical academic workday, you might wake up, write for a while, go to the gym, write some more, get a haircut, make dinner, and analyze data until bed. In industry, work is compressed into the middle of the day and there are norms against working after hours. The time you spend in the office feels like a sprint, but after that, you typically don’t feel pressure to continue working. Ask yourself: Would you rather have the flexibility to create your own work schedule (academia), or do you prefer the structure of a traditional workday (industry)?
2. Geographic Location. Academia and industry open up different geographic possibilities. Major tech companies have offices around the world, primarily in big cities (San Francisco, New York, Hong Kong), but increasingly in smaller cities as well (Austin, DC, Boulder). Academic jobs also span the globe, but availability changes year to year and there’s often competition for the most desirable locations. Ask yourself: Are you willing to be flexible based on the availability of positions from year to year (academia), or do you have your heart set on a specific location (industry)?
3. Meetings. Industry teams meet a lot. No really … a lot. We spend roughly half of a typical workday in meetings where we discuss projects, present findings, and make decisions with our teammates. While the volume of meetings felt excessive at first, we soon learned that meetings are where impact happens for industry researchers. In comparison, the vast majority of time in academia was spent doing research on our own. Ask yourself: Do you prefer to work by yourself (academia), or do you thrive in more social work settings (industry)?
4. Cross-Functional Teamwork. As an academic, when you do work with others, they’re often other researchers. In contrast, industry researchers primarily collaborate with other disciplines (e.g., design, engineering, product management). We often find that we’re the only research voice in the room. Ask yourself: Do you like collaborating with a small team of other researchers (academia), or do you prefer to be the sole researcher on a team made up of multiple disciplines (industry)?
5. Applied Findings. As academics, we worked on important topics and included sections in our papers describing how the findings could be applied. However, our research wasn’t designed to be applied, nor did it have to be in order for us to be successful. In industry, our teams rely on us to provide actionable recommendations based on data. Our research is meant to be applied; in fact, we’re evaluated in terms of the business impact of our findings. Ask yourself: Are you driven by the pursuit of pure knowledge (academia), or do you prefer applied research (industry)?
6. Specialist vs. Generalist: Although there are exceptions, we find that academia tends to reward specialists while industry tends to reward generalists. As Matt Might puts it, getting a PhD is like pushing against a boundary of human knowledge until it moves outward ever so slightly. During that process, you become a specialist — a person with unique expertise in one area of human knowledge. Industry researchers have general skills in scientific thinking, methodology, statistics, and data interpretation that we apply to various domains. The two of us have worked on a number of different topics since moving to industry, none of which we studied during graduate school — streaming entertainment, news, social networks, and enterprise software. Ask yourself: Do you feel committed to a particular topic (academia), or are you willing to research a number of different issues (industry)?
7. Project Lifespan. A typical industry project may take several months from inception to reporting. (Of course, there are exceptions. One of us is currently working on a 9-month study … but those are rare.) Academic projects take much longer, often spanning several years once you account for grant writing, IRB approvals, data collection, and publication. Ask yourself: Do you prefer to dedicate longer periods of time to fewer projects (academia), or do you prefer to work on more projects for a shorter period of time (industry)?
8. Access to Financial Resources. At research universities, prestige and promotion accrue through grants. After all, academics need money to buy equipment, pay participants, hire assistants, and pay portions of their salary so they have time to conduct research. During our time in industry, we’ve had access to generous research budgets. In fact, financial concerns were often secondary to doing the best possible research. Ask yourself: Have you been successful at writing grants (academia), or would you prefer to have resources provided by your company (industry)?

Transferable Skills

A common question from aspiring industry researchers involves the relevance of their skills. They typically ask something like: “I just spent 6 years in grad school … will I ever use those skills again?” Absolutely! Many of the skills developed during your academic training will be useful in an industry context. These seven have been particularly valuable for us.

1. Scientific thinking. Your ability to take an abstract topic, distill it into a set of questions, decide which questions are the most important to answer, and identify appropriate methods to answer them will come in handy every day of your industry career.
2. Methodological expertise. Although some methods are more common than others in an industry context, we consistently draw on our knowledge of experimental design, surveys, and eye tracking to provide insights for our teams.
3. Data analysis. We use our statistical training daily, running power analyses, regressions, t-tests, and other inferential statistics. We’ve also learned new techniques that weren’t common in Social Psychology (e.g., conjoint analysis, total unduplicated reach and frequency). A strong foundation in statistics helped us pick up those techniques quickly.
4. Data interpretation. It’s easy to take this skill for granted because academics are surrounded by experts in data interpretation. In industry, your teammates will look to you to help them understand the patterns and limitations of a dataset. Your ability to interpret findings will be valuable to companies that strike to make data-driven decisions.
5. Communication skills. Over the years, you’ve learned to present data in multiple formats — written reports, presentations, elevator pitches, etc. Your ability to communicate efficiently and effectively will make you a strong asset to your team.
6. Teaching skills. Since you’re often the only researcher in the room, educating your stakeholders about research is a critical component of industry work. Just as you likely taught undergraduates about the nuances of statistical significance, you’ll teach your colleagues about the appropriate application of data, methods, and theory.
7. Intellectual curiosity. The intellectual curiosity that drew you to research will serve you well as you move from project to project. The tech industry moves notoriously fast, and every shift in priority comes with new questions. Being thirsty for knowledge will keep you excited about your work and motivated to learn the new skills you need to be successful.

So there you have it — at least seven ways in which your academic training has prepared you for success in the tech industry. You might notice that subject matter expertise is absent from that list. When evaluating candidates for entry-level research jobs, tech companies aren’t often looking for specific product expertise. Instead, they look for strong methodologists and clear thinkers who can contribute to a diverse set of products. You can land an industry job with the skill set you picked up during graduate school, regardless of the topic you studied.

Preparing to Take the Plunge

Let’s say you’ve weighed your options and decided to make the shift to industry. How should you prepare? Although no single strategy will work for everyone, here are a few tips that helped us along the way.

1. Network, network, network — Talk to as many people with firsthand industry experience as you can. The more data you collect, the more prepared you’ll fell when the time comes to interview. Also, many large companies have internal referrals. While having a current employee submit your resume won’t guarantee you a job, it will ensure that someone will look at your materials. Don’t be afraid to use your network; you’ll be surprised how many people are willing to help.
2. Get firsthand experience — Every year there are more candidates competing for each open role. If you want to land a job at one of the big companies, you should find a way to get firsthand experience before applying. Try reaching out to your extended network about temporary contract roles or summer internships, which can even be a great way to transition to a full-time position.
3. Mix up your methods — If you’re like us, your academic training fell solidly in one methodological camp. For us, that camp was quantitative. When we started working in industry, however, we quickly learned that qualitative methods play a valuable role in UX Research. We spent our first few years on the job honing our qualitative skills; today, we consider ourselves to be mixed-method researchers. That’s a valuable skill to have, because it means you can use whatever method is best suited to answering a question for your team.
4. Prepare for your interview — There are lots of resources available to help you prepare for job interviews generally, tech jobs specifically, and even UX Research roles. Consulting those resources before you start interviewing will help you know what to expect. Two additional pointers: (1) Think hard about why you want to do research wherever you’re interviewing and get excited about the opportunity. Genuine enthusiasm will come across in your interview. (2) Prepare some thoughtful questions to ask your interviewers. Though it’s cliche to say that you’re interviewing a company as much as it’s interviewing you, it’s absolutely true. Besides, it’s your job as a researcher to learn about a new topic by asking questions — this is another opportunity to show you have the right skills for the job!
5. Read up — Industry research comes with its own jargon and norms. You can pick up those details just by reading about UX Research and Product Design. Here are some of our favorites that helped us before we started:

The Design of Everyday Things (Norman)

UX Research: Practical Techniques for Designing Better Products (Nunnally & Farkas)

Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems (Krug)

The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide (Buley)

Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights (Portigal)

Final Thoughts

It’s an exciting time. If you read this entire article, it means big decisions lie ahead. As you begin your job search, we’d urge you to pause and take stock. Ask yourself how you like to work and whether the fast pace of industry or the slow burn of academia is a better fit. Reflect on the skills you’ve gained and think about how you can apply them in a different setting. Most of all, take comfort in the fact that you can find an enriching and fulfilling career no matter which path you choose. Good luck!