Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Finding a Job After Completing Computer Science Ph.D?
An anonymous reader writes I recently completed my PhD in computer science and hit the job market. I did not think I would have difficulty finding a job esp. with a PhD in computer science but I have had no luck so far in the four months I have been looking. Online resume submittals get no response and there is no way to contact anybody. When I do manage to get a technical interview, it is either 'not a good match' after I do the interviews or get rejected after an overly technical question like listing all the container classes in STL from the top of my head. I had worked as a C++ software developer before my PhD but in the past 6 years, software development landscape has changed quite a bit. What am I doing wrong? Has software development changed so much in the last 6 years I was in school or is my job hunting strategy completely wrong? (The PhD was on a very technical topic that has very little practical application and so working on it does not seem to count as experience.)
Many companies are going to think you won't stay or will want too much money. You can hire a PhD from India for $1500 a month.
I'm just curious on your initial motivation for a PhD? Maybe research/academic is an option?
>technical question like listing all the container classes in STL from the top of my head
Do experienced devs even know this? I've programmed in several languages and I could never give a list of functions on demand. That's what reference material is for.
You honestly dodged a bullet with that one; any company that asks for such a thing has a damaged tech culture.
Since you didn't mention these two things, they are my suggestion. First pay a professional company to re-write your resume, I did this 3 years ago and it was night and day difference. I think I spent about $800, they also wrote a linkedin profile for me to paste there. Next research and find a good recruiting company and let them do some of the searching for you. Just know that these days the best recruiters don't charge you, they make their money from the company that hires you.
-- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
Exactly; even a master degree is shunned upon here. If you want to promote your PHD then the academic world is indeed for you, else, try to start low, you should be able to climb pretty fast.
I know it's sad, but hide your PhD. Most employers are scared of PhD's for multiple reasons: (1) they don't want to pay them what their credentials demand , (2) many hiring bosses are intimidated or feel threatened to have an underling with more education than they do, and (3) they are probably hesitant to invest in someone who is so highly credentialed for fear of losing them when a sweet offer comes around. Sad, I know. But I'd go ahead and hide the PhD. (Disclaimer: I'm working on mine now)
Surely your advisor has links to industry? Where does the funding come from? Industrial consortia? Federal sources (NSF / DOE / etc). Can you look at doing a postdoc at a National Lab so you can make some contacts? If you don't, ask your advisor for help. It is the least he or she can do for you.
I don't think resume sites are good places for a newly minted PhD to look for work. You surely did some networking while you were a student. Did you present your research at some conferences? Those are the people you should be talking to about work, not filling out on-line applications. At the PhD level you find work based on a personal network, not web-based applications (although you will need to fill those out for compliance).
It's not fair, but it's probably better to just list your master's for now.
Right now they figure you won't be happy with a junior position, but you don't have the experience from them to trust you with something more senior. Once you've got a bit of experience put the PhD back on. It will help you land more senior jobs later.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
I'm in a totally different field, but I just finished a PhD, and I'm currently in a two-year postdoc.
Why did you get a PhD? You said you already worked as a software developer before, so it's not like you went straight through school because you didn't know what else to do. You also said your thesis was on a technical topic without practical application, so it doesn't sound like you were aiming for a non-academic job.
What kind of job did you want when you started? An academic job, then changed your mind? If so, you will have to be very intentional about selling yourself to employers. Frame the PhD as giving you experience in how to do research. It's going to be the rare employer who actually cares about what you did specifically.
It sounds like you are just firing off online job applications. Have you networked? Does anyone from your department know folks in industry? Did you apply for postdoctoral positions, research fellowships, etc.? If you are just looking at standard development positions, you are probably going to be rejected as being overqualified.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Who you know and how you present yourself often counts more than just pure technical skill or degrees. You need a basic degree to get in the door most places, but BS, charm and ability to speak to others in a cohesive manner, along with general personal hygiene (amazing this still gets overlooked by some folks in tech????) will get you a long way.
Personally, I've never been all THAT good at any job in the IT field I've ever done, but I am able to present myself and stand up to at least a small audience and talk when required to.
Doing that, networking with folks, keeping in touch as they move to new jobs, etc....always is the fast track to get a job.
With you and school...start reaching back to your classmates and instructors and see who they know they can put you in contact with.
99% of the time, it is who you know, not so much what you know (unless it is brain surgery).
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Also, hide the PhD.
As weird as it may sound, this may help. You write yourself:
get rejected after an overly technical question
Advertising a PhD may come across as advertising that you think you're good. You may not mean it that way, but it will most certainly be received like that. I've performed many technical interviews and when I prepare myself for a candidate, I go over their resume (their ad). If the candidate advertises knowledge of a specific topic, he or she better know it.
The rejections you got may not have been because you didn't know a specific answer to a very technical question. Nobody knows everything. You may have been rejected because of the answer that you gave, and let me explain.
When I interview, I will make sure there is one topic with a couple of questions that I don't expect you to know from the top of your head. I will get online and get the answers if needed. I will ask the question (if we get to it) and see the response. If you get the answer right: well done, you will have my vote. If you don't then this is where the psychology comes in. I'll be looking for you to be honest. Don't make up answers, don't come up with a bullshit reply. If I get bullshit, no matter how good you were, you will fail the interview. If you bullshit me, you'll bullshit a customer, manager or anyone else when you're in the hot seat.
Don't underestimate the importance of attitude and honesty in an interview.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
You assert without proof that your research has no practical application. Were your researching how to implement LOGO in VAX assembly language or something?
More to the point, if your research was on the cutting edge of Computer Science I assure you it has practical applications. Use some of the research skills that you gained obtaining your PhD and put them to use identifying companies that have business or research interests in line with your own. Then, using LinkedIn or conference proceedings, identify researchers and engineers with interests similar to your own and contact them. Ask to set up informational interviews. See if they "know anyone" looking for new researchers. Build a network tirelessly until you have a job.
You have a PhD. You're not a programmer anymore. Accept it and don't look for programming jobs. Most organizations that are pushing the state-of-the-art have need for PhD-level people. Find them and find your niche.
Tell them you were in rehab for heroin addiction for those six years. It's more acceptable.
"12 days clean, praise Jesus!"
He's looking for a job in IT, not running for Mayor of Toronto.
I've conducted a lot of interviews (in an academic setting in the humanities), and I can say that it's risky guessing what exactly the interviewer is trying to accomplish with a question. Sometimes a question is asked neither to see if someone knows the answer to the question nor to see the content of the interviewee's answer, but to see how the person handles being asked such a question. I could see someone deliberately asking a question that he know the candidate not to know the answer to just for such a purpose, though personally I would avoid doing it as it's neither nice nor useful to stress out the interviewee even more (but I might do it in a mock interview preparing someone for a real interview).
So the interviewer might be interested to see if the interviewee honestly, humbly and politely says: "Would you like me to tell you the container classes I use the most? The others I have to look up when I need them", or if the person pretends to know the answer, or rudely bristles, or tries to weasel out of the question by changing the topic (of course it might be a bonus if the interviewee actually has a great memory and knows all the container classes; but then another question might need to be asked to gauge character).
How do you then explain the 6 year gap in your resume?
You could say that for the last six years you were a volunteer jihadi for ISIS. That would be bad, but it would cover the gap, and would not be as bad as admitting that you have a PhD.
A non-tenured adjunct lecturer became President of the USA, so there's that, too.
Openings are rare, though.
Any place that shuns someone with a masters degree is pretty sucky, I feel sorry for you. There are many companies that value people with education. Do you really think at the CTO and architect level that they prefer BA to BS, and BS to MS, and MS to PhD? Granted, fresh graduates don't get those jobs but people do work up to them. Not everyone is in the trenches forever doing coding that other people tell them to do, eventually there's someone in the company that has to actually know something, if the company is worth anything.
This is coming from someone who has been in IT for 20 years, very successfully, and has never taken any computer courses...
Get a freaking skill!!! The OP admits that the subject of the PhD is not applicable to really anything in the world. You might as well have spent 6 years of your life under a rock, because you are now the utmost expert at that tiny, inapplicable area.
Want cash and job security up the wahoo? Go pick up a CCNA book, and $500 of used Cisco gear on eBay. Get CCNA and a network admin job at a small, growing company who can't afford to pay you more than $50,000. Proceed to get your CCNP. Invest another $10,000 and two years and get CCIE. Go to "whatever the hell company you want" and make $120k+ and never worry about unemployment again.
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
-1 disagree. the best thing you have going for you right now is your phd. you committed to being a world expert in one particular realm of knowledge. I think a really fruitful path would be to look deeply into what doors that expertise opens for you. Better to do this than to walk away from the expertise and end up with the rest of the people here on slashdot.
second, follow your peers. where are all the other phds going? and what makes them qualified to go there?
I'm not surprised you're having poor luck in the general job market. the middle managers who are doing hiring will resent you for your intellect and success. this is why you get thrown the stupid questions like "name all the words in the dictionary from your head". they are tearing you down because they feel bad about where they are in their lives.
This is coming from someone who has been in IT for 20 years, very successfully, and has never taken any computer courses...
Get a freaking skill!!! The OP admits that the subject of the PhD is not applicable to really anything in the world. You might as well have spent 6 years of your life under a rock, because you are now the utmost expert at that tiny, inapplicable area.
Want cash and job security up the wahoo? Go pick up a CCNA book, and $500 of used Cisco gear on eBay. Get CCNA and a network admin job at a small, growing company who can't afford to pay you more than $50,000. Proceed to get your CCNP. Invest another $10,000 and two years and get CCIE. Go to "whatever the hell company you want" and make $120k+ and never worry about unemployment again.
+1. The key to long term success is being hardnosed about failures/setbacks/sub-optimal jobs, having long term focus, and putting yourself in a position where you can demonstrate your value and skills. But most of all, it is being pragmatic in the short term while being optimistic in the long term.
Having long term focus means picturing yourself on what you would consider a fulfilling job, and how exactly you see yourself and your job. Say, in 10 years. By focus, I mean take up a low paying job if necessary, as long as it is aligned to your long term goals. Good Example: Joining a company with a core focus on quality programming, but as a junior developer instead of a senior developer or lead or whatever else you might be expecting.
Bad Example: Joining the IT department (cost center) of say, a big manufacturing company. Might pay well in the short term, but will eventually be a dead-end for you.
Being hard-nosed means continue trying. Obviously, fine tuning or tweaking your strategy and where/how you are applying. By far, the easiest way to get into a company is through referrals. So can any of your buddies help you out? They get to make decent money through referral bonuses too. Also, is your location preference dragging you down? Again, in a long enough time-frame, say, 15 years from now, you will barely remember the extra 3 months (or 6 months or whatever) you put in during your initial struggling phase. So why bother getting demoralized by it now?
Lastly, don't get desperate to find a job. Your job and your company is as good as your boss. Use the interview process to figure out how much you like your future boss. If you boss isn't even interviewing you (rare, but happens), you probably don't want to work in that company to begin with.
And please remember - an extra 3-6 months of job hunting is way way better than making a mistake. Typically, from my experience, people take 2-3 years on average to fix a mistake (bad job, bad boss, bad company, bad growth opportunities).
I've worked with PhDs in a hands-on environment as well (apps/drivers and low-level embedded stuff). Several of them were great, and at least one sucked enough to be let go. One of them (Physics PhD, not Comp Sci) was one of the most talented low-level embedded SW Eng's I've worked with. Sweeping generalizations...