Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Advice For Getting Tech Career Back On Track
First time accepted submitter msamp writes "After the dotcom bubble burst so long ago,when tech jobs were so scarce, I went back to school and finished my PhD in Physics. They lied — there really is no shortage of scientists. Before the downturn I was a product manager for home networking equipment. Since getting the degree I have been program/project manager for small DoD and NASA instrumentation programs. I desperately want back into network equipment product management, but my networking tech skills aren't up to date. I find networking technology absolutely trivial and have been retraining on my own, but hiring managers see the gap and the PhD and run screaming. I'm more than willing to start over in network admin but can't even get considered for that. Suggestions?"
My IT department is full of people with tons of degrees doing various IT tasks.
That way your qualifications won't matter and won't get in the way
As much as I hate to say that, hiding a part of your education from resume (like not mentioning your PhD) is a pretty common method of getting employment. Of course with lower salary. They run screaming just because they think that they would need to pay more, because you had PhD. OTOH, I'd say it's more interesting to puruse academic career, where money is low, but at least people apprecieate how educated you really are. And you don't need to hide your PhD. That's just my opinion. And that's why I puruse this career :)
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
If you've been out of the field for awhile, your main priority should be demonstrating relevant experience.
Which means more school (to prove you are current) or volunteering in a relevant role (to prove you're capable).
Otherwise, you start back at the bottom. With your education level, there aren't many good horizontal transfer options.
- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
3. Profit!
Some suggestions for 2: Invent cold fusion. Transmute lead into gold. Create "death ray" and get some nation to pay a ransom. What? All those are practical physics and you're a theoretical physicist? Um... Ok... Get an entry level job as a junior web programmer and be sure to let everyone on your team know how much better than them you are because you have a PhD in physics. And insist that they call you "Doctor".
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Start-ups love over-qualified people willing to do meager tasks for nothing.
Not everybody has what it takes to make a successful business. And starting a company because you can't find a job won't help. If you can't find a job, hardly you will find clients.
There is an article posted about this on slashdot EVERY TWO WEEKS!
So maybe first you should do some research on the subject. But I give you the non-tldr version:
If you want me to hire you, you have to show me that you are worth it. How can you do that? Work on a project (open source/your own/whatever) in your spare time and bring it to the interview. Without anything to show, I'm sorry, no tech job for you.
Probably I'm just clueless about what you mean by 'networking technology'. Would it help your resumé at all, though, to show a couple of years managing the network for, say, a physics department? That's a job for which your current resumé would seem to be perfect, and it would give you ample opportunity to brush up old skills while on the job.
Extending your association with academia might just deepen the stench as far as industry is concerned. But maybe, while managing a department network, you could actually do some buying of network equipment. Physics department scales are probably not really so much larger than home. Then you'd have experience as a customer. That ought to be worth something.
Something similar happened to me. In my case, I was promoted to tech management after having been a lead engineer for years. I didn't realize what I was getting into, hated it, and bailed out after 5 months. Unfortunately, the company I was working for has a one-way track up the hierarchy, and stepping back into doing actual work is just not done, so I had to change jobs. I didn't have a ton of contacts in industry or with former customers yet, so I did the whole cold call/Monster/Dice crap shoot. With my resume showing the management experience, I got very few calls, and those that did interview me had very strong reservations about hiring me for a tech job since they wondered why I wouldn't be looking for a management role.
(Short Answer: If I actually wanted to work solving kindergarteners' problems all day, I'd be a tenured kindergarten teacher and never have to look for work again. :-) )
So anyway, I pulled the management experience off, and left the (reasonably impressive) technical accomplishments intact, and the calls started coming in a little faster. It took a while, but I got a job because of this.
This experience did hammer home how important it is to keep in touch with your former colleagues and customers. Especially if you're an IT services person like me, there's no shortage of companies you can jump to if you have someone there who remembers you and can get you an interview without going through the mess.
Side question: I was thinking of doing the same thing you were -- I have a BS in chemistry and was thinking of a Ph. D. -- is the employment situation for scientists that bad?? Given how crazy the world is now, a permanent job seems like a good idea even if I have to give up some of the salary gains.
I think there's definitely room for well trained, scientific-minded people in IT. It's not all just button pushing, and most of my colleagues over the years have had absolute crap for troubleshooting skills. Now, if only we could start a professional services company around that idea. "Anonymous Coward Consulting Group -- We're not Accenture!" :-)
Not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous. In the USA, they're frequently female and quietly but intensely crazy. Forget anything rational when dealing with them. Go around them. Get your resume' to a thinking person with actual skills, common sense and the ability to do arithmetic. That person may be able to slide you around blockage of HR. Get in as a consultant or a temp and make them dependent on you. Threaten to walk if you don't get hired.
As in most of the rest of America now, working through the system doesn't work. Adjust your thinking accordingly.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
If you've out of the game for a while, make sure to stress knowledge of network virtualization in addition to traditional/legacy networking. It's a good time as any to get in because there are relatively few people that are experienced in that aspect. It's not that it's particularly new, but new enough that most enterprises haven't completely adopted it (outside of cloud providers).
I suspect it is attitude that is as much the problem as anything. While some employers do worry about over qualification, the tone of your question says "I think I'm the smartest person in the room and I'm going to be a nightmare to manage." Even in tech soft skills are hugely important.
Thinking there was a shortage of physics PhDs shows a lack of listening and research (I say this as a physics faculty), the oversubsciption rate has been huge for ages. So I suspect this attitude (if I'm not misreading the post) has been there for a while.
So you might really consider some classes in people skills—how to interview, how to listen and work in a team. These classes can be found in many community colleges and can be quite helpful (don't dismiss the CC classes, they can be excellent). Then I'd look for an opportunity to show teamwork and make sure you check the attitude at the door when you interview.
Stop thinking that someone else has a job for you. Start creating jobs for someone else. If you're over the age of 30, your community needs you to create jobs, not take them.
You've got an interesting world of experience. Cross-industry experience no less. Start your own company -- don't let the big word fool you, it's meaningless. You'll pay far fewer taxes, you'll be able to get free and very inexpensive employees from schools, co-ops, interns, neighbours, and anyone willing to "start at the bottom".
It needn't be a big company. Just you and a physical assitant is all you need. And you want the physical assistant a) so you can shift your business into a different path to be flexible in five years and b) so you can worry about business admin stuff like client relations and invoicing and c) because someone should cover for you when you're on a beach somewhere enjoying life.
Clients don't tend to ask for credentials -- I own and run a programming company, and no client has ever asked. They ask about skills. You've got 'em.
And since it's your business, you can get just about any client by offering to do the work and not collect any money until the end. It's only a risk if you don't know what you're doing. If you do, you manage to buy a new client with nothing more than delaying payment by a month or two. That's effectively free client acquisition.
Dude, just dive in. Expect to pay $2'000 per year on accountants and lawyers, just to get it off your plate and so your government talks to them instead of you. You don't need insurance unless you're punching holes into walls -- and those premiums aren't a big deal either.
Get decent business cards, and give them to your neighbours. Each of them works in an office building somewhere. And each of their employers needs networking done at some point.
Take small jobs, they turn into big jobs. Take small clients, they turn into big clients. Take clients with bounded projects that have a start and an end. They'll become your best repeat business. Don't spend more than 25% of your typical month on a single client (with many exceptions of course).
Small business helps small business. Talk to other small business owners. Even your competitors. It doesn't hurt my business to help my small-business competitors. It just improves both of our small businesses vs the many many others. If you've got no one to talk to, talk to me.
I'm afraid I have to agree with the consensus here. The big issue is the doctorate. In my experience, very nearly the only people who will accept someone with a Ph.D. behind his / her name is a university. And universities will be wary as well, they will think you expect to go tenure track, and you've already found how limited those slots are. You would probably have better luck with the employment if you dropped the Ph.D. off your resume; that's a bigger problem IMHO than the gap.
The only alternative to the uni IT departments suggested earlier would be consulting; look for firms of consulting engineers, they like to be able to list Ph.D.s on their corporate CVs. I don't recommend going into business for yourself; that takes a vary particular mindset, and it's often a very thin existence.
The narrative you post is extremely hard to follow and makes little sense. Let's try to decipher.
You lost your job when then dot com bubble burst and went back to school. You finished a PhD in Physics. You then found out your were sold a bill of goods about jobs of people with PhDs in Physics and there is some sort of glut.
Then you have been doing some sort of project management for DoD and NASA. Now is where things get really weird.
" I desperately want back into network equipment product management, but my networking tech skills aren't up to date."
Pulling that apart, you are talking about a job more on the business side than the technology side of the business. Technical skills are important in product management, but so is a head for business. That could be one reason that people don't "get' you -- they see that you went back to school and spent time and money on getting a PhD in Physics. You didn't go back to school to get an advanced degree in CS, EE, or a MBA. You went back for Physics and now you are trying to get into product marketing. But things get a little weirder.
"I find networking technology absolutely trivial"
I really, sincerely hope this is a typo. Finding something "trival" has considerable negative connotations to it, and if you say that to a hiring manager, they are going to think you are going to be just biding your time with their "trivial" nonsense product and looking to move onto something more interesting the moment it shows up. It would be better to say that you enjoy certain challenges or explain what you find interesting rather than saying something is "trivial".
And then finally,
"I'm more than willing to start over in network admin"
I don't see that you need to move to this, you need to concentrate and present the skills you have and exercise in program/project management and previous skills to get into some sort of networking gig. But you do need to address some rather good questions a hiring manager would have, specifically:
- Why did you get a doctorate in Physics when you were interested in product management?
- What excites you about networking and product management?
I also highly recommend that all job seekers thoroughly read and use "What Color is Your Parachute?". If nothing else, it will walk you through making a coherent case for yourself of why you want to pursue a given career, and that coherent presentation is going to make hiring managers stop running and start listening more. Right now if I was hiring a job that was responsible for setting the business direction of a networking product, I'd be worried about hiring you because your record shows you actively running from the business development aspects of your career.
Your Physics degree is certainly not worthless and should not be hidden. You can most likely take on complicated problems, decompose them at a high level, aren't afraid of the unknown, etc. Also the fact that you finished your PhD means that you can stick with something, too.
I've never had a manager, in IT related positions, that had more tech knowledge than I did. They just had the misfortune of getting sucked into low-level management which I've been able to avoid. Of course, I usually get stuck with the 'project lead' moniker. Upper management is a different story; all sorts there.
With all due respect, as someone who does hiring, I will say that the letters Phd are what would scare me off. For a job that doesn't require it, it indicates that you are desperate for a job and once you find something better, you're gone. Your resume would end up deleted without so much as a phone call. Also, in my experience, people with graduate engineering/science degrees tend to be more academic and less pragmatic. There is such a thing as too smart in the real world sadly.
Google or Apple is where you would probably do well IMHO.
Move to China, Taiwan or Singapore and study Chinese. A PhD is respected a lot more there than in the US. I'm moving back in 6 months.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Science careers are extremely tough. Physics is even worse than other fields, with its obsession with youth and large number of graduates. Most physics graduates end up switching fields or working in engineering jobs in research labs. There is a shortage of scientists, but not a shortage of academic research scientists. Who do you think "lied" to you about it? Didn't you bother to look around you in grad school? Count the number of staff vs graduating students?
Trouble is, by switching out of the computer field, you also give the appearance of having burned out on computers. You have skills and experience, but it seems a little much to expect for people to just hand you a career after you made a bunch of unusual career moves.
What's wrong with your current job, though? A DoD and NASA program manager seems like a respectable job for a physics Ph.D.
There are several comments here stating that the PhD means that hiring managers are scared of those. They are - but only if it's a "pure" PhD. I've got a lots of friends in academia who haven't spent a day in the industry. They are scared witless on what happens if their grant money expires (and are without tenure), since industry is such a different world and hiring managers know that they'd be like fish out of water.
However, you seem to be in a very much similar situation as me. I completed my PhD last year. I happen to also have industry experience, including 9 years of working for an ISP, and a CCIE certificate. From my experience, it's a *very* attractive combination - to an emplyer, it means that you know what's going on in the real world and understand customers, and yet you can also look at the bleeding edge of research and maybe have some insight on how things at the horizon might affect your business in a few years - and maybe capitalize on those opportunities ahead of the curve. I know several people with similar backgrounds - in big companies they are usually located somewhere near CTOs office or similar positions, if not directly in R&D departments, but a few of them (myself included) deal with customers and their networks on a daily basis.
That pause in your resume doesn't really matter *if* you can demonstrate that you haven't been in the ivory tower of universities but can actually deal with real-world problems.
The big companies: GOOG, MSFT, FB, even twitter can recognize the value of your PhD and give you a job you'll find rewarding. You've clearly got math chops and technical chops so as long as you can communicate well you should be a strong candidate. Look for keywords like researcher, applied researcher, data analyst, decision scientist, technical program manager, etc etc. There are tons of jobs for people like you and you don't have to pigeonhole yourself as pure research (overselling) or network admin (underselling). I spent a long time in academia before finding an industry job I really enjoy that is only tangentially related to my original research expertise.
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
I went back to school and finished my PhD in Physics. They lied -- there really is no shortage of scientists.
There is a shortage of scientist, just not in the fields that are typically pursued within the hallowed halls of academia. Go ahead and do a PhD in High Energy physics, String theory, Cosmology or Relativistic physics and you'll end up like the person in the GP post. If you study, on the other hand, semiconductor physics, friction, or material physics you'll find half a dozen offers for well paid positions in industry research labs in no time.
I'm not so sure that is a good idea, either. I was told, albeit a while back, that not including any past jobs and/or education is lying. It might be a lie of omission, but the job apps I've seen, asked for all past positions and education. I'd suggest speaking to a an expert in the field before excluding things.
Hmmm.. I really think it depends on the situation. Let's take a look:
Omitting that you working as a part time drug dealer in college... hiding something
Omitting that you have a respectable Ph.D... your choice
Omitting that you helped manage the importation of underage prostitutes from southeast asia... very specific and also hiding something
Omitting your religion, marital status, sexual preference... your choice
Omitting that your Ph.D. actually came from a sketchy online university... hiding something
It appears omitting something out that could be potentially damaging is wrong. But omitting an achievement or otherwise acceptable detail that isn't the employers business is just fine.
Physics Phd's were very popular hires for High Frequency Trading firms due to their demonstrated problem solving abilities. This has now extended to some of the Fortune 500's in "Big Data" analysis teams. Stop looking at Physics jobs, and start looking at jobs which will benefit from the skill set you have developed to get your degree. You might be surprised.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
As much as I hate to say that, hiding a part of your education from resume (like not mentioning your PhD) is a pretty common method of getting employment. Of course with lower salary. They run screaming just because they think that they would need to pay more, because you had PhD.
My perspective as potential employee
I'm a PhD candidate (Computer Engineering) at a top 5 engineering school, and I would say that through the process of looking for full-time employment, the opposite has been happening to me.
Employers see the PhD and their expectations rise exponentially; they expect you to walk on water and work miracles during the interview process even though the position you have applied for only requires a MS. Ironically, an MS graduate would have an easier time getting the same job that I applied to.
Employer perspective
I do understand things from the employers' perspective. Employers are concerned about retention and not just about at the company, but at the position you applied for at the company. They worry that if they pay you below fair market value for PhD salary, that you may jump ship when an opportunity comes along for you to get a PhD salary at some other position and/or some other company. Also, a PhD can signal to the employer that you are very ambitious and really like to learn. Above average ambition and appetite/ability to learn can be a risk factor for them because you may get bored of your current position and jump ship
"Omitting your religion, marital status, sexual preference... your choice"
Technically, yes, but it's really not a good idea to volunteer this kind of information, unless it's incidentally implied by something else on your work history or work-related hobbies. So, if you were the IT manager for your local coven or organized monthly flying spaghetti dinners for the homeless, go ahead and say that, but don't simply put "member of the Church of the Sub-Genius" on your resumé. In the US it is illegal for them to ask that, and it is legally touchy for them to know that, because it opens them up to accusations of bias. It can come across as blackmail, saying "If you don't hire me, I'll sue you for illegal discrimination" or trying to curry favor with someone who has the same faith. At the least it shows that you don't understand what's appropriate information in a job application.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I suspect you're looking locally - relocate. I've even changed countries for some jobs (broaden the mind and learn a language). If you're in the States - try Canada/Australia/the UK. After that, Europe ... plenty of places would be more than happy to get a Ph. D in Physics.
....
Iran is looking, I believe
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
Learn Android programming. While this advice is well-founded in personal experience, it may also be slightly self serving.
I wrote parts of this stuff
Not sure where do you actually live, but what you are describing is simply not true here in Silicon Valley. The industry is very hot and there is a lot of competition for talent. The more, the better, so your education and experience is far from a problem. And I'm not only talking start-ups, but even larger companies.
Now with the appearance of SDN (Software Defined Networking), all your networking skills will become valuable again. It's a new market with the traditional players will fight with the newcomers and innovators.
I know because I'm exactly in that business and I can't hire fast enough.
I finished my Ph.D as an experimental physicist 20 years ago, and got a post-doc. And I managed to get a job in IT after that. A few comments on your story: (1) Physics to network technology is not a natural jump. Your resume should be highlighting all the relevant experience you gathered while doing your PhD. I did a lot of heavy coding for data analysis, big data crunching, and unix system administration on cutting edge hardware. My other option besides the Sales Engineer job I ended up taking was translating particle transport code from Fortran to C++. When I was looking for a tech job, that was the experience I emphasized, not the actual physics part. (2) As others have mentioned, you need to be talking to small shops, you're more likely to talk directly to the hiring manager, rather than a HR person. (3) As many have already said, eat some humble pie. You very obviously didn't do your research before deciding to pursue a PhD in Physics. And you haven't been pursuing the obvious route of getting some network certifications. I mean, come on, what evidence are you providing potential employers that your networking knowledge is at all current, or even still exists? And yes, the Ph,D. hurts, the problem is that they think you will want to be paid commensurate with a Ph.D. with your full years of working experience, rather than paid as a network engineer with years of experience up to when you left the field. They are worried you will get bored, consider the work beneath you, and you will either leave or become a problem employee. (5) Take some contracting work. The bar is lower, because if you don't work out they can just end the contract. And that will pad out your resume with the relevant experience. The only time my Ph.D. was a liability was in getting my first job. You need to establish a job history post-Ph.D. that shows the sort of work you are willing to do for a reasonable amount of pay, for a reasonable length of time. I kept my first technology job for five years. Then, the Ph.D. was never again an issue, it was only an asset. You might need to do contract work for a year or two to establish a similar sort of track record.
Most places I've worked would instantly toss resumes that explicitly mentioned anything like that - DOB, marital status, religion, even a photo.
Having a policy of rejecting anyone who volunteers information that could be used as grounds for a discrimination claim is apparently the safest approach.