Life in Industry with a PhD

Hosted by Dr. Hadas Kotek at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In October 2022, I was invited to talk with graduate students at MIT about my transition from academia to technology. The continued interest in this topic led me to publish the questions developed by Dr. Hadas Kotek along with my responses.

A lot of our discussion in this Q&A mirrors topics I discuss in What I wish I knew: A field guide for thriving in graduate studies. This field guide is designed to be a graduate student’s go-to resource for topics such as managing workload and work-life balance, creating resumes and portfolios, and applying for jobs after graduation. I even cover the taboo conversation of what to do if you want and/or need to leave academia without finishing the advanced degree.

As always, these resources are offered as a way to help graduate students navigate their time in academia and well into their career.

Q: Tell us about yourself & what you do

A: Hi everyone! I’m Dr. Alaina Talboy and I currently work at Microsoft conducting research in the data governance space. I earned my PhD from the University of South Florida in Cognition, Neuroscience, and Social Psychology. My academic line of research focuses on data literacy and informed decision making, particularly in medical contexts.

Skills

Q: What are the skill(s) you use most often in your (current or previous) job?

A: So many! This is actually something I talk about quite often with current graduate students. Several chapters of my book are dedicated to this topic as well. There are so many skills that we pick up during our time in graduate studies, though we often do not have the names or the right words to describe them outside of academia. Project management is a great example of this. If you have created an end-to-end research program, manage the resources, manage the data collection, manage the reporting and share outs, then you have done project management.

Another great example is work back planning. There are deadlines to reach at the end of every semester as well as the end of every academic year. When we create a plan to get everything done, we often start from the due date and work our way backwards. This creates a plan that helps us reach key milestones along the way. In industry, we call that work back planning.

Both of these examples are incredibly valuable skills and I use them nearly every day in my work.

Of course there’s also the research expertise, which is so incredibly valuable. I was hired because I am an expert in research and mixed methods, with a strong focus on statistics. I am also a little uniquely situated because of my personal research expertise in data literacy and data visualization. Other researchers I’ve worked with bring a different combination of research skills. Regardless of your particular combination, it’s how you present those skills and apply them to your work that will set you apart.

Q: Are there specific skills you expect a new hire can learn on the job vs skills they definitely need to have before they apply for jobs in your area?

A: This one is a little harder to answer because it is very dependent on the role to which you are taking. You should absolutely research the position and figure out what is expected of an entry level, mid-level, and senior level of [enter the job title of interest here]. Once you have that information, work backwards to figure out exactly which skills you already possess versus the skills you may need to develop. As with most answers in science, I will have to say It Depends.

Q: How can teaching skills (and the love for teaching) be used in industry?

A: I love this question for so many reasons. I believe that our teaching skills are second only to the research expertise and topical expertise that we bring to the table. Teaching people at the undergraduate and a graduate level is an entire toolbox of communication skills.

As an educator, you need to take really complicated ideas and present them at multiple levels of understanding. Sometimes you’ll need to explain something super technical in super technical language to a super technical person, and they’ll get it! Then you may need to explain the same idea to someone who has no technical knowledge. In that instance, you’ll use simplified language and do a bit more story telling.

When we teach in higher education, we are constantly translating across different levels of understanding. This to me is one of the biggest selling points for people who have teaching experience.

I also want to point out that if you ever assigned a group project, you likely have experience in conflict resolution. Conflict resolution is something you will rely on heavily in industry. Every project will likely include 3+ other people who you will partner with, and they will not always have the same point of view. The ability to solve problems and disagreements in a way that still moves the entire team towards a goal post or an end point is a valuable skillset.

A day in the life of

Q: What does a typical day at your job look like?

A: In my current role, I split my time between (mostly) being a manager and (sometimes) being an individual contributor. Most of my days are just back-to-back meetings. In these meetings, I am sharing out research recommendations that my team generated. I’m mentoring and coaching my team. I am helping leadership by providing timely research insights and points of view. A lot of my work is listening and being an expert advisor.

On the days where I have more of an individual contributor focus, I am in charge of end-to-end research programs. I create research points of view, synthesizing findings and insights from numerous data points. I look at everything from customer feedback to user research to academic literature. I develop research protocols and collect data, conduct interviews, run surveys; all the work that a scientist does to understand a problem. And then I analyze all of it, generating those powerful insights that move the product forward and really elevate the customer experience.

At the end of the day, that is what is most important to me as a user/experience/UX/product/whatever-term-you-prefer researcher. Everything I do, everything my team does: it is all to make the customers experience as good as possible.

Q: What was the most surprising or unexpected thing about transitioning out of academia?

A: The amount of free time! In industry, I work a full 40–45 hour workweek and then I log off to spend time with my son. When I go on vacation, I actually am on vacation. In academia, it felt like I was always working. Even during the winter and summer “breaks” I was working. Even though I wasn’t getting paid to teach, I was still expected to do research and participate in department things.

Q: How do you feel about your workload and work-life balance in your company? Do you come home absolutely exhausted (as we academics do lol) or there is hope?

A: I think my current work-life balance is good, though that can always slide if I’m not paying attention. Some managers are really great at encouraging their directs to take time off and actually log off. As a manager, I try to model that for my team as well. Time off is so necessary.

Prepping

Q: What do you suggest students focus on if they have 2–3 more years in their program?

A: This is another question where the answer is it depends. You have to know which role you want to apply to after finishing your degree or leaving graduate studies. You have to know what are the requirements of that role and what kind of gaps do you currently have in your resume that you need to fill before you start applying. And you may want to have two or three roles that you’re looking at. So you’re going to look at a variety of skills that may or may not already be present in your toolbox.

When I switched to user research, I needed to go and learn all of the language for this field. Even though I’m a cognitive scientist and I have over a decade of research expertise, it only lands well with my partners when I talk about it in the language that they use every day.

Every single role and industry is going to have its own language and terminology and ways of talking about different concepts. The more you’re prepared to step into that language, the better off you’ll be on the job market.

Q: If you could go back to your grad school days, what would you change about it?

A: This is hard because I am in a really great place due to the effort and time I put into my graduate studies. I feel like I was able to make the most of my time by thinking two or three steps ahead at any given point. If there was a certificate I could get along my path that required only a little extra work, I went for it. And these things added up! But they also took a toll on my personal life and health.

I guess I would try to work on prioritizing a little better. Figure out which extras were worth my time and which ones I could have walked by without another thought. Maybe that’s my hindsight coming through though!

Applications and interviews

Q: How did you find the jobs you applied for? Where did you look?

A: I started with LinkedIn and looking at people who have the same degree as me. I also looked at different companies that I thought might be interesting. A lot of time was spent talking to friends who already worked in various sectors. Granted, I had an entire career before I started graduate school so a lot of the application process was not new to me. That said, these conversations were great refreshers after being in academia for so many years. Dr. Kotek wrote a great piece (with resources!) about informational interviews.

Q: When do you recommend someone start applying for jobs in your field? How much time ahead of when they want to start the job should they start looking?

A: I would say start applying when you’re ready to make the jump to a new position. The interview process can take anywhere from a month to 6 months to a year. It is very company dependent. Also, you really want to make sure that the job you are looking at is a role that you are interested in actually pursuing.

In terms of getting ready to apply, I would say start with thinking about how to format your resume and get your application materials together. It takes a little longer than you might think, so consider starting at least a month or two before you want to send your first volley of applications. This will also give you a head start to learn the language that’s being used in that field. Again, knowing that language will help you translate your particular skill set to what those companies are looking for.

Q: What was the process that landed you your first job like?

A: The first role I landed was as a vendor. This means I worked for a company who then contracted my time to another company (Microsoft). I went through an initial intake interview with the vendor company who verified I had all the skills needed on the checklist. I then signed a right to represent so the company could forward my resume to the hiring company on my behalf. A few days later, I had a one hour interview with the hiring manager. At the end of the call, she offered me the position and I accepted!

Q: How long did it take? How many jobs did you apply for? Did you apply all over or strategically? Did you have a referral?

A: I applied to soooo many jobs. I kept track of all the tenure track positions but I did not track the industry positions. At some point, it just became a really wide net to figure out what my options were. If I had to guess, I think I applied to at least 50 industry roles in that first go.

Q: Does anybody look at your coursework when you apply?

A: Not directly. Instead, I had to showcase the skills and knowledge I developed along the way through interviews, a research presentation, and of course continually throughout my career as an industry research scientist. The expertise I developed in graduate studies is used almost daily. It’s not always subject matter expertise, but often that comes in handy as well thanks to the historical relationship between user experience and cognitive psychology. Other people may have slightly different experiences depending on their area of topical knowledge.

Q: How much would you expect a linguist/social scientist on their first job to make in your field?

A: This is so varied, and really depends on factors like expertise, industry, location, and such. [2023 caveat: Right now with the massive layoffs across the technology sector, it’s hard to know if the range I am working from is still valid or not.] I can say in my first role as a vendor right out of graduate studies, I started at $80,000/base. When I became a full-time employee (FTE), my pay went up to $140,000/base. This was in the technology sector at a major household name corporation.

Q: What benefits or other components should they negotiate for or look for in their offer?

A: Your base pay may not be the only compensation to consider. You might also have stocks, sign on bonuses, and even yearly bonuses in some cases. For me, I wanted to make sure my family had access to really great medical care and so the medical benefits package factored in to my personal decision making. I also want to mention the importance of workplace culture and work-life balance. Sometimes that really great paycheck doesn’t come in the greatest overall package. You’ll have to weigh the pros and cons and decide what meets your needs.

Q: Any final thoughts?

A: There’s a lot of information here and I know it can feel overwhelming at first. That’s ok! Try not to get too hung up on getting everything exactly right. There may be times that you flop the interview. Sometimes your first role after graduate studies won’t be the exact right fit for you. All of this may take some trial and error, and that’s OK. That’s having a career.

Don’t be afraid to reach out to people in the industry and ask for their advice. There are so many of us who are willing and happy to chat any time. Best of luck!