PhD Career Stories

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Are you one of the people who feels shy about using LinkedIn? Do you know about its potential but still hold back, in fear of having nothing worth sharing? You are definitely not the only one, and today’s guest has some wisdom to share! Join our host, Elisabeth Reithuber, for an inspiring talk with Ashley Ruba, a psychology researcher turned UX researcher and career coach.

Ashley is a psychologist by training, holding a PhD in Developmental Psychology from University of Washington, a field where she also did a post doc, before jumping into the world of user experience (UX) research. Today, she works as a human factors engineer at the medical technology company Arthrex, in Florida, USA, while also juggling a career coaching program for academics, After Academia.

Today, Ashley tells us all about how she used LinkedIn and other social media to pivot from academia into a completely different industry, her path to get to her current job, and how the way people resonated with her words inspired her to make a second career out of helping PhDs advancing their careers. She also tells Elisabeth about the skills that were transferable to her new job and the things that she had to, instead, unlearn.

Among other things, Ashley advises you to pick a career niche to focus on, emphasizes how important a branding tool LinkedIn is, and gently nudges you to lose your inhibitions in order to connect with people who will help propel you towards your dream job!

For the transcript, please click here: https://phdcareerstories.com/pub/aruba

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Do you feel stuck? Do you tend to procrastinate taking the next steps in your career? If you want to find out why this happens and how to move forward, you should listen to today’s conversation with Dr. Marie-Hélène Pelletier and our host, Dr. Tina Persson.

Marie-Hélène is a trained psychologist who holds a PhD and an MBA from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Throughout her career, she has had a prominent role within several organizations and publications in discussing important topics such as workplace mental health and leadership resilience, having authored an upcoming book on the topic, titled "The Resilience Plan”.

In this episode, in an almost coaching-session-like fashion, Marie-Hélène and Tina discuss common situations and cases they have found while helping people with their careers. They converse about how to move from thinking into action, practicing self-compassion, and gradually training exposure to stress in order to build resilience.

Marie-Hélène also emphasizes the importance of looking inward and grounding ourselves in our own values, despite external expectations. By the end of the episode, you will have heard advice about managing expectations and nurturing and investing in your brain - a sample toolkit that can help you “take the one first action” towards your next goal!

For the transcript, please click here: https://phdcareerstories.com/pub/mhpelletier

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Has your academic path lacked solid mentorship and support? Do you feel that, in order to move up, you need management skills that weren’t passed on to you during the PhD? Well, Flávia Sousa has “been-there, done-that” and in today’s episode she tells our host, Tina Persson, how she is working on making it easier for you!

Flávia Sousa holds a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from ICBAS, in Portugal, and is currently a Senior Scientist at Adolph Merkle Institute, in Switzerland. Her current goal is to become a full professor, and she is also the founder of her own company and passion project, LYRIS, which is focused on providing mentorship and courses for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers.

During the episode, Flávia talks about her drive to help other academics succeed in the less science-focused parts of their jobs, and how LYRIS came to be. While exploring her personal experiences in international environments, she and Tina talk about the most important skills for the future, such as language learning, teaching skills, and the ability to manage people.

Flávia also shares how crucial it is to choose a country where you will be happy even outside of work and a supportive supervisor, but she also highlights that, most of all, you should “enjoy life!” through it all!

For the transcript, please click here: https://phdcareerstories.com/pub/fsousa

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Are you feeling frustrated and unproductive in academia? Do you feel compelled to quit and completely change your career? Join us for an inspiring episode hosted by Tina Persson, featuring Gry Wester, a fellow PhD Career Stories listener who transitioned from academia to consulting.

Gry holds a PhD focused on health inequality and population health ethics, and she was a lecturer in bioethics in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at King's College London for nearly five years, after which she pivoted careers. Today, she works at the consultancy company IQVIA, in London.

In the episode, Tina and Gry reminisce about early coaching sessions and important topics they brushed on back then, such as persistence in the face of the grueling job-search, and then dive deeper into Gry’s self-discovery journey, as she shares the mindset shift that propelled her into the consultancy world. They reflect on the initial challenges of Gry’s first job as well as the key working style differences that made her realize she was a better fit for the corporate world, rather than academia.

Gry also offers you valuable tips on career shift, highlighting the importance of networking, maintaining your personal well-being during the job search, and learning to let go of perfectionism. At the end of the day, you have to “trust the process!”.

For the transcript, please click here: https://phdcareerstories.com/pub/gwester

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Are you a recent or soon-to-be PhD graduate trying to figure out the next steps? Have the events of the past few years gotten you interested in Science Communication? In this episode, you will hear from Katharina Schwaiger, who has been in a very similar spot!

Katharina holds a PhD in Biotechnology from the Technical University of Graz and currently works as a science communicator at the Austrian Center of Industrial Biotechnology (ACIB), a position she took on while still finishing her PhD thesis!

In this episode, Katharina tells our host, Elisabeth Reithuber, how she became interested in pursuing a career in science communication after working on a SciComm project at ACIB and also after witnessing the disconnect between the scientific community and society, during the pandemic. They talk about Katarina’s experience juggling her new position with the final stretch of her PhD, and about which PhD skills can help you be a great science communicator…and which skills you might need to learn on your own!

Katharina’s warm advice touches on themes like finding your inner drive and learning to ask (for guidance, for a job…). Don’t forget, “sometimes, you have to feel the fear” and do it anyway!

For the transcript, please click here: https://phdcareerstories.com/pub/kschwaiger

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Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you realized the need for a fresh job title that better aligns with your responsibilities and skills? In this episode of PhD Career Stories, join our host Elisabeth Reithuber as she sits down with Martin Trinker, the Director of Business Development and Fundraising at the Austrian Center of Industrial Biotechnology (ACIB) to explore the intriguing journey of creating a new job position from scratch.

Martin's journey exemplifies the potential that lies in identifying gaps, embracing diverse skill sets, and creating one's own path in the professional world. Discover how Martin identified a crucial need and forged his unique position, combining his PhD in biotechnology with a background in economics. As the conversation unfolds, Martin shares valuable advice on networking, continuous learning, and adapting to new challenges.

Don't miss this episode full of inspiration and invaluable insights. Tune in to PhD Career Stories to hear Martin Trinker's incredible journey from a biotechnology PhD to a leader in business development and fundraising.

For the transcript, please click here: https://phdcareerstories.com/pub/mtrinker

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You might have always wanted to be an academic, but what if your academic research brought up a groundbreaking technology that you knew could dramatically revolutionize industrial processes? Would you choose to stay in academia or pivot to industry and bring your idea to market? Well, it is possible to do both!

This episode’s guest, Simon Rittman, shares with our host, Tina Persson, all about his experience with founding a company while still holding a position in academia.

Simon Rittmann is the CSO and co-founder of Arkeon, a biotechnology company focused on alternative food production technologies. Additionally, he serves as the Principal Investigator at the Archaea Physiology & Biotechnology group at the University of Vienna, where he also shares his passion through teaching.

Simon and Tina discuss the crucial steps and the strategic planning that go into building a start-up as an academic, highlighting the importance of finding the right people to help bring one’s entrepreneurial vision to life. Further in the episode, they delve into the personal qualities needed to take the leap.
They also talk about the concept of a dual career, how to keep “one foot in academia, one foot in the industry”, the motivations behind that choice, and how to manage both.

With Simon’s advice, you will learn that you can have the best of both worlds, if only you are flexible, open to personal growth and pick the right business-minded people to complement your scientific skills and build a great team! Stay tuned!

For the transcript, please click here: https://phdcareerstories.com/pub/srittmann

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Are you curious why soft skills are crucial for your career growth?
Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting out, this podcast is your gateway to practical tips, real-life examples, and expert insights that will help you harness the full potential of soft skills.

In today’s episode, our host Tina Persson will have a roundtable discussion with our guests Patricia Carvajal, David Morrow, Antonio L. Andreu (Toni) and Alex Gardiol from EATRIS.
EATRIS is a non-profit, European research infrastructure for translation medicine that focuses on improving and optimising preclinical and early clinical development of drugs, vaccines and diagnostics, and overcoming barriers to health innovation.

Join them as they talk about soft skills and reveal why they hold the key to unparalleled success in any professional setting. From effective communication to taking risks and being able to adapt, these hidden gems go beyond technical expertise, empowering you to thrive in the job market.

Remember, in the competitive job market, it's not just about what you know but how you apply it. Soft skills make the difference, so let's dive in and elevate your career to new heights. Stay tuned!

For the transcript, please click here: https://phdcareerstories.com/pub/eatris

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Are you feeling left behind, questioning if your traditional methods are outdated in this era of AI tools? Do you grapple with ethical concerns when utilizing ChatGPT for specific tasks, feeling a sense of cheating? Or do you proudly embrace ChatGPT as your go-to solution for all your needs? Tina Persson and Joel Baker explore the importance of striking a balance between these approaches and bring together their insightful perspectives on these thought-provoking topics.

Joel Baker is an English coach from World English Coaches. His personal journey of learning Spanish ignited a passion within him to assist others in achieving their goal of fluent English communication. Joel specializes in coaching leaders and executives and through his coaching, he has successfully guided and supported over 500 individuals in achieving their goal of fluent English communication.

In this episode, Tina and Joel discuss how you can make use of ChatGPT for your needs but with certain limitations. They also dive into the do's and don'ts of incorporating ChatGPT into your application journey, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a human touch throughout the process. Last but not least, they emphasize the significance of staying up-to-date with the latest trends, while also cautioning against excessive reliance on AI tools that may hinder your personal growth.

Get ready to ignite your curiosity and delve into an exciting episode that explores the burning questions surrounding the integration of AI tools like ChatGPT into our lives. Stay tuned!

For the transcript, please click here: https://phdcareerstories.com/pub/jbaker

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Have you ever stepped out of your comfort zone and excelled in something that you thought was not your cup of tea? This is one of the topics out of many that Tina Persson and Bryan Quoc Le share with us in this episode.

Bryan Quoc Le is a food scientist, food industry consultant, and author of 150 Food Science Questions Answered. He earned his PhD in 2020, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, and ended up starting and growing a food consulting business shortly thereafter. Bryan has been working with well-established companies in the food industry such as Blue Diamond Growers, The Good Food Institute, TurtleTree, Black Sheep Foods, and many others.

In this episode, Tina and Bryan talk about how adversities in life change our paths, and how Bryan with his can-do attitude “made lemonade” when life provided him with lemons. They talk about curiosity, resilience and much more.

Listen to this episode and get inspired by Bryan’s journey.

For the transcript, please click here: https://phdcareerstories.com/pub/qle

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Are you looking forward to pursuing a postdoc career in the USA? Are you living in Europe, but dreaming of a long-term career in the USA? Are you looking forward to pursuing a postdoc career in the USA? Then this is an excellent episode for you as Tina Persson and Thalyana Stathis extensively discuss the application strategies for a postdoc position in the USA.

Thalyana Stathis is the Associate Director of the Office of Career and Professional Development for postdocs and PhD students at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in NYC. As a career advisor, she supports hundreds of students and postdocs in each stage of their career planning. She also directs workshops for career exploration and navigating the job market for all academic and non-academic career paths.

Tina and Thalyana talk about the common mistakes that many PhDs do when applying for a postdoc application. One of the great tips from Thalyana is about how to use your current network to reach out to your future research lab/company. Thalyana also provides many tips regarding the different visa options.

If you have any questions about how to apply to postdoc positions at MSK, how to contact faculty members you are interested in working with, or how to learn more information about different labs at MSK, please feel free to email Thalyana Stathis at stathist [at] mskcc.org or connect with her on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/thalyanasmithvikos/).

Listen to this episode to know more about this in detail.

For the transcript, please click here: https://phdcareerstories.com/pub/tstathis

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During your PhD, have you ever thought if the world actually needs your research? Would people want to use your product?

In this episode, Tina Persson and Sajni Haria discuss the entrepreneurial mindset that PhDs can train themselves with if they start thinking of the bigger picture of commercialising their research. Sajni also reminds us of how PhDs do not just have an academic skill set but also a vast set of transferable skills that can help them translate their research.

Sajni holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Birmingham and currently is a Business Development Manager at the National Institute of Health and Care Research. She supports the Life Science industry to navigate the UK’s clinical research ecosystem whilst providing her business acumen.

Sajni also talks about how she transitioned from a doctoral researcher to a Business Development Manager where she helps to push research technologies forward, and finds opportunities for implementing these technologies in the real-world setting by fostering collaborations, thereby improving the quality of life of patients.

Listen to this episode to know more about Sajni’s insights.

For the transcript, please click here: https://phdcareerstories.com/pub/sharia

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’I really never knew how I felt in the lab, what does it really mean [for me]?... I’m a creative person, I love to meet people [and] I realised that being in the lab can be quite lonely’, Sara asked herself during her time as a PhD candidate.

In this episode, Tina Persson, the founder of PhD Career Stories, interviews Sara Andersson, who tells us about her PhD journey and how she became a talent advisor at Mpya Sci & Tech.

Sara finished her PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences at Uppsala University where she gained experience as a manager, problem-solver and critical thinker. During her PhD years, she learned in detail about the pharmaceutical industry and she also chaired the doctoral committee which tremendously helped her to understand the skills and the challenges faced by a PhD candidate.

In this podcast, Sara also shares how she got her job as a recruiter and how this fits her previous experiences. Since Sara herself has travelled the path of a PhD, she understands the applicant’s journey, which allows her to help, advise and recruit graduates in the science and technology fields.

Do you want to know more? Listen to this interesting and insightful episode. Enjoy!

For the transcript, please click here: https://phdcareerstories.com/pub/sandersson

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”[On average,] one farmer commited suicide every 30 minutes in India”, Aditya Parekh remarks as he talks to our host, Tina Persson. This fact is what changed his mind and sparked his interest in changing that reality. He knew he wanted to help them.

In this episode, Aditya shares his journey and challenges in the academic transition from Oncology and Molecular Biology to Sustainable Farming in the School of Design at Anant National University, India.

Aditya followed his gut when it came to making major career decision after his Postdoc. During his later half of PhD and while pursuing his postdoctoral research, he developed a consuming passion for changing the high number of suicides committed by Indian farmers. Aditya trusted his gut and made a unique transition to Sustainable Farming as an Assistant Professor. His goal is to connect the student community with farmers and sustainable farming practices, to help the farmers with diverse solutions, and to create awareness of their situation. Alongside, he also finds motivation to help young researchers in their career journey, through talks and meetings. If you want to know more about his challenges and this unconventional transition, make sure to listen to this episode!

For the transcript, please click here: https://phdcareerstories.com/pub/aparekh

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In an age of misinformation, it has become essential for science to reach the public audience in a transparent manner. As a graduate in science, have you ever thought of communicating your science with the world? In this episode, Santoshi Devadas talks to Priya Rangan, who tells us everything about her journey to becoming a scientific communications specialist.

Priya holds a PhD in Biology of Ageing and has 11 years of experience working in academic research and pharmaceutical settings. She transitioned to science communication because she is passionate about it. Priya wants to translate what scientists are doing in a way which makes sense to people who are completely outside of it.

”...I do believe that scientific communication is a field that is going to change a lot of things within academia, within industry …and the general public, [who] I think are the most important of all.”, says Priya.

At the end of the interview, Priya advised our listeners on the job hunt:

Set up your LinkedIn profile as well as you do it for your resume.
After meeting people either in person or online, send them a message explaining why you want to connect with them, rather than merely sending them a connection request. Make a connection with them.
Prioritise your mental health and know that your life is not just the lab or your job, it’s also everything else outside of it.

If you want to know more about how Priya aligned her life and career goals, while pursuing her passion, listen to this episode! Enjoy it!

For the transcript, please click here: https://phdcareerstories.com/pub/prangan

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At the end of the interview, Priya advised our listeners on the job hunt:

Set up your LinkedIn profile as well as you do it for your resume.
After meeting people either in person or online, send them a message explaining why you want to connect with them, rather than merely sending them a connection request. Make a connection with them.
Prioritise your mental health and know that your life is not just the lab or your job, it’s also everything else outside of it.

If you want to know more about how Priya aligned her life and career goals, while pursuing her passion, listen to this episode! Enjoy it!

For the transcript, please click here: https://phdcareerstories.com/pub/prangan

PhD Career Stories is on all major Social Media channels. To receive more content regularly, follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and our Website.

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Am I fit for a PhD? My experiments are going nowhere. Will I see the end of this PhD? I only have academic experience, how will I find a job in the industry?

Have you ever been in these situations? Our guest Marisa Pereira had asked herself these same questions, but today Marisa has successfully completed her PhD and transitioned to the biotech industry as a Project Manager. She also is the co-founder and owner of pic.cell, a unique company that designs textiles inspired by microscopic images.

In today’s episode, Marisa shares with us the highs and lows of her career path. She addresses how she overcame the snags during her PhD, how she started her brand pic.cell, and how - after 2 years of Postdoc experience - she landed in the biotech industry. Throughout the episode, Marisa shares many tips not just to survive but also to thrive while doing a PhD.

Last but not least, Marisa shares a vital piece of advice “....enjoy the journey. PhD is only a part of your life. In the end, what is interesting, is the knowledge that you [gained] as a professional but even most important as a person.”

If you want to learn more about Marisa’s story, listen to this episode now.

For the transcript, please click here: https://phdcareerstories.com/pub/mpereira

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Sometimes life hits you hard, and then you have to make new decisions you hadn’t imagined making. Previous goals and ambitions can evaporate, especially after enduring something emotionally, psychologically, and/or spiritually harrowing. Our guest Andrew McKee was tested by tragedy, on top of career confusion, when he entered an MD/PhD program but realized midway he wasn’t on the right track. He decided to quit his PhD and embarked on a journey of experimentation and self-discovery.

Today, Andrew has 20+ years of experience in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics and healthcare sectors. He is the CEO and founder of Headland Strategy Group, a consultancy firm with offices in the US and Asia and specialising in growth strategy for therapeutics and diagnostics companies. Andrew has previously worked for McKinsey and Company, Google, Genentech and holds biomedical engineering and MD degrees from Duke University. He also is a published writer and holds patents licensed to industry. He is a husband, a father of 3 children, and a professional saxophonist.

In today’s episode, our host Tina Persson welcomes Andrew McKee. They talk about how Andrew, even after quitting his PhD, made such an impressive career. They discuss music, art, entrepreneurship, and the importance of networking with people from different walks of life. He also gives insights into his life and about his life mentors who advised him to take a leap of faith.

On the cusp of a critical life decision, one of Andrew’s mentors “...encouraged me that if I take time to reflect and get still, I probably know more than I realise [about what I should do].”

If you want to learn more about Andrew’s successful journey, including different ideas for facing major life challenges, make sure to listen to this episode.

For the show transcript, please click here: https://phdcareerstories.com/pub/amckee

PhD Career Stories is now on major social media channels. To receive more content regularly, follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and our Website.

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Have you spent so much time thinking through career choices that you could make but ended up making no decision at all? Sounds familiar? This is called analysis paralysis, which is very common among perfectionists.

In this episode, one of our PhDCS team members, Santoshi Devadas, had the pleasure to interview Isabeau Iqbal who helps ambitious perfectionists in higher education. She guides them to overcome analysis paralysis and move forward with their goals.

Isabeau is a certified career and life coach with more than 20 years of experience supporting academics and faculty members in their professional growth. In addition to her career services, she also has her YouTube channel where she regularly shares tips and tricks with her audience.

During the interview, Isabeau provides us with approaches to network efficiently, job searching strategies and ways to better know your values. She also shares the importance of knowing your strengths. Check out the episode resource section to find the links to the strengths assessments mentioned.

In the end, Isabeau left three main takeaway messages:

Take the initiative!
Network!
Get to know your values and strengths!

…” these seem quick tips but they require time investment from your side”... said Isabeau.

If you want to learn more about ways of overcoming your indecisiveness and taking the next step in your career, this episode is for you!

Enjoy it!

PhD Career Stories is now on major social media channels. To receive more content regularly, follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and our Website.

Episode Resources:

Free - VIA Character Strengths Survey: https://www.viacharacter.org/
Free at present - Standout by Marcus Buckingham: https://www.marcusbuckingham.com/
Free - High5: https://high5test.com/
Paid - CliftonStrengths Assessment: https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/252137/home.aspx

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In the end, Isabeau left three main takeaway messages:

Take the initiative!
Network!
Get to know your values and strengths!

…” these seem quick tips but they require time investment from your side”... said Isabeau.

If you want to learn more about ways of overcoming your indecisiveness and taking the next step in your career, this episode is for you!

Enjoy it!

PhD Career Stories is now on major social media channels. To receive more content regularly, follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and our Website.

Episode Resources:

Free - VIA Character Strengths Survey: https://www.viacharacter.org/
Free at present - Standout by Marcus Buckingham: https://www.marcusbuckingham.com/
Free - High5: https://high5test.com/
Paid - CliftonStrengths Assessment: https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/252137/home.aspx

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In this episode, Tina Persson talks to Mark Herschberg about how to learn to become an entrepreneur. Mark’s recently published book “The Career Toolkit, Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You” gives deeper insights into this topic.

Mark has a diverse background ranging from Physics, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, and Cryptography, to extensive business expertise. His wide experience has enabled him to launch and develop new ventures at start-ups and Fortune 500s. In addition to this, Mark also annually teaches in the Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program, famously known as MIT's “career success accelerator”.

During the conversation, Tina asked Mark about who is an entrepreneur, how to train to become an entrepreneur, and what are the challenges in it. Mark addresses these questions and many more such as describing types of entrepreneurs, the required mindset, and how to find business opportunities.

Finally, Tina inquired about his three top tips for starting a company:

Create a supportive business network in different fields.
Look for a co-founder, make sure you are compatible, and make written agreements.
Don’t worry about being right. Just try not to be wrong. It means that when you build a product, you should keep other possible options around as long as you can, and at the lowest costs possible.

Is being an entrepreneur the next chapter in your life? If so, you cannot miss this episode!

Enjoy listening!

For show transcript please click here: https://phdcareerstories.com/pub/mherschberg

PhD Career Stories is now on major social media channels. To receive more content regularly, follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and our Website.

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Finally, Tina inquired about his three top tips for starting a company:

Create a supportive business network in different fields.
Look for a co-founder, make sure you are compatible, and make written agreements.
Don’t worry about being right. Just try not to be wrong. It means that when you build a product, you should keep other possible options around as long as you can, and at the lowest costs possible.

Is being an entrepreneur the next chapter in your life? If so, you cannot miss this episode!

Enjoy listening!

For show transcript please click here: https://phdcareerstories.com/pub/mherschberg

PhD Career Stories is now on major social media channels. To receive more content regularly, follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and our Website.

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In this episode, Tina Persson interviews Niba Audrey Nirmal, a science communicator. Niba is dedicated to hosting and producing science videos related to plants, skincare and cosmetics. If you are curious, you can find Niba’s work on her YouTube channel NotesByNiba.

During the interview, she shares her career path and talks about her decision to not pursue her PhD further. She also tells us about the factors that drove her to follow a career in Science Communication.

In addition, she openly talks about her confidence levels in pre- and post-academia times, her journey in searching for a job outside academia and finally she shares her networking strategies.

At the end of the conversation, she gives some important tips for all graduates:

Do not isolate yourself! Be communicative with your support network (family, friends, etc) and ask for help when you need it. They are there to help you!
Every time you have an informational interview with someone related to your career interests, ask them to recommend three other people from their network so that you can build your own network further.
A steady workload does not mean you are not doing enough in your career.

Are you making a transition from academia?
If so, you should definitely listen to this episode and take these tips with you.

Enjoy this episode!

PhD Career Stories is now on major social media channels. To receive more content regularly, follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and on our Website.

TRANSCRIPT Tina: So hi, welcome. This is Tina Persson with PhD Career Stories, and I welcome Niba. She's the guest here today. And who is Niba? Well, she is based in San Francisco. She has done research on tomatoes in Brady’s Lab. Then she was a PhD student in Benfey Lab at the Duke University, where she studied the gene network in stem cells. And at that time, she also explored her spare time in activities and interests in photography, in fashion and in cosmetics and created Notes by Niba on how to create beauty using biology and science. And today, Niba has her own YouTube channel and her Instagram. Welcome, Niba.

Niba: Thank you so much for having me, it's been a really great journey. Now I'm kind of like a science video host and producer. You can find all of my stuff on Instagram,Twitter, TikTok, but I actually produce stuff for a lot of other places too, so excited to talk to you guys a little bit about Science Communication and the kind of things that people don't tell you when you're leaving graduate school, and kind of the the pros and cons of that choice.

Tina: The pros and cons of what to do, because today you work on Science Communication, you are a content writer and you are a video producer. And I am a bit curious here. You started off as a researcher. And then you took a very deliberate decision not to continue your graduate studies to become a PhD. What initiated that process? I'm super curious to learn because there are so many PhDs that are scared not to finish their PhD.

Niba: Yeah, I think honestly it was a combo of many things, but I think ultimately for people watching it comes down to: does the PhD really fit what you want to do with your career, and are you still in a healthy place in doing your PhD? The research shows abysmal rates for pretty bad mental health consequences of being a graduate student. My experience was in the United States, so I can't speak to all places, but it seems to be kind of a worldwide thing. For me personally, it was kind of an amalgamation of multiple factors. I had some personal life issues happening and at the same time COVID kind of like just struck. At the same time, my Youtube had been kind of like discovered by a couple of people, and none of those discoveries actually lead to anything at that time at least, but it kind of gave me some confidence of like “alright, maybe I'm not just like sitting on my bedroom floor and talking to my phone and maybe this actually is something”. I realized that was something I really wanted to do, just like make videos about science not just science in, you know, plant stem cells but also like “how does cosmetics work?”,” why is it that your makeup with SPF comes off faster than your makeup without SPF?”, “how does clear lipstick turn into a color when it's on your lips?”, things like that that just kind of show how science can be used in all the different ways. There's tons of skin care science people out there, and it's kind of adding my voice and my aesthetic and my kind of branding to that and as I was kind of like making all these videos and COVID was happening, I realized that, you know, I don't think that this PhD is something that I need anymore for my career and that was like a very weird moment because up until then I was like very set on “I'm going to be a professor”. I had thought that I was going to be a professor since I was 17 years old. And all of my life had been leading up to that moment and there is this weird kind of like sense of you haven't, you're not good enough if you decide to leave, which is obviously not true. Like you've made it to the program, there's not much more you have to do, except you have to do the work. But, you know, it's a pretty long process. You're not being compensated fairly, which can disproportionately affect certain groups. There are some people who, you know, have their parents’ help in buying them a house. And then there's other people like me who have to like, you know, just pay money just to rent, to exist, you know. So all these little disparities really come out, especially when you're making like three or four or five times less than what you should accurately be getting paid. And, you know, people think it's like a whole sellout. “Oh, you left just because you wanted some money?” No, I also wanted to survive. You know, I wanted to like go to the grocery store and not pick something that was $0.50 cheaper just because I had no money. It was ridiculous. And so since I no longer needed my PhD in order to kind of achieve my goals, I was like “Well, why am I here?” And at the same time, a lot of personal things happened. I made a really long video about that. It's on my channel if you guys want to check it out. But the essence of it and a slight trigger warning to people who are experiencing any kind of death or mental illness at this moment. My mom was diagnosed with cancer and not given a very great outlook. And so it kind of put a lot of things in perspective for me. I think COVID did that for a lot of people too, just like, you know, what is the point of life? Why do I want to be here now with kind of like the great resignation?

We see a lot of people questioning: Why am I sacrificing so many things for a job? You know, I don't think anyone should have brand loyalty for a place that they're working at because they don't have any brand loyalty towards you. My job starts treating me badly. I'll quit the next day. I don't care. Like, that's fine.

But you don't get to do that in a PhD, so you don't have these kinds of options available to you. But leaving was definitely the right choice. It was a really bleak time to leave. But in between, you know, COVID and everything, being on fire. This was before we had any vaccines. She was diagnosed in March 2020. So then I flew back in April 2020 and then spent the next like three or four or five months just working really hard, sleeping next to my laptop at night because I was just constantly trying to figure out what I was going to do?

And I was like, you know, I could choose to take on a lab tech position or just a general lab position because I have those skills. But at the same time, that's not what I wanted to do anymore. So I was like “Well, we may as well jump sectors because everything else is on fire, my life is on fire.”

So may as well do that. And I think for people now, if you're choosing to consider leaving, you have a lot more time to consider: Where do you want to go? How can you get there? What kind of people should you talk to to figure that out? Because when you're in grad school, you're just surrounded by mostly professors and other grad students. So how will you know if something that you want to do outside of grad school is worth it?

Tina: That's a fantastic story you have and also traumatic. I'm curious, I want to go back a little bit because I'm curious, what decision did you take when you decided to start your graduate studies? What drove you to the beginning?

Niba: Yeah, I mean, I had been researching all four years when I was an undergrad in Siobhan Brady's lab at UC Davis, and it was incredible. Like, I worked there every single summer full time. I was there, I think I joined for like three or four months, maybe like two months even after I started college. And it was a really supportive, wholesome lab environment. And obviously researching when you are an undergraduate is very different from researching when you're a grad student. But I just didn't really have a sense of what academic culture was like more broadly speaking. And I thought I had, because I had spent four years, you know, researching. And in those four years I was doing kind of like: I love the experiments, I love the people, I loved the culture of the lab, which I later learned was not the norm. We had weekly picnics. People would go climbing together, our PIs would throw parties every time a paper got submitted. There was like a guaranteed party every single quarter where we would just go to her house and eat some food and hang out and, you know, just chill.

And then I realized that's not quite what every single lab does. And not everyone is best friends with their fellow grad students. And I think also I left behind a lot of my support system when I chose to go from California to North Carolina. And in North Carolina, I just felt like I did not fit anywhere.

I was struggling with some traumatic things that had happened, like my senior year of college, but at the same time I didn't know anybody and I just felt very weird being an Indian person when the majority group was white and then the majority group was black, and then the majority group was like international Latin people. And I just didn't fit into any of these things. I didn't know a single other American born Indian person. And our experience is very different from people who are international. And it came out in all these little ways, you know, people like questioning me when I wore a bindi, which was just something small. I don't mind answering it, but it just never happened to me when I was in California. One time I had a person like telling me to go scrub my skin. And that was just like a random person on the street. But I had never experienced anything like that in my life up until that moment. And that was really shocking. And I still think about it like years later, like I was so dumb.

I know that that has no bearing on who I am as a person or who anyone is as a person. It was just weird. And I remember there's this really weird moment where I drove across the States to get to grad school, and the day that I arrived in the town, there was a KKK rally happening in downtown Durham. And it was so bizarre. And I think the rally ended up not happening because there were a lot of people who showed up to counterprotest. But just the fact that that even was a possibility, just like scared me so much. This was 2017 when Trump had just won the election and everyone was like showing their Confederate flags everywhere. And I just felt so scared. I had never felt so scared because of my own color up until that moment. Even like post-9-11, I have like no memories of 9-11 whatsoever, but it was just really bizarre. And I think the lack of community was really weird and my lab in grad school was really great. Everyone like my PI was really supportive and really understanding, but I was the only graduate student. Everyone else was a postdoc and married and did not hang out outside of the lab and it just kind of lent itself to a weird like “Oh, I didn't know that this is how certain labs were.” Everyone was really nice. But I think between like my project content continuously just failing as they always do and the environments being different. Yeah, it was just bizarre.

Tina: Yeah, you didn't have a support system. When I listen to you, you came to a new place, you didn't have any support. This is just a very speculative question. If you had stayed in California and done your PhD there, you know, started your graduate studies there, do you think that would have made any difference?

Niba: I think it would made a huge difference. But I also think, I don't know, I feel like I learned a lot going to another state. I learned a lot about myself and about a lot of issues. And I don't know what I would have chosen if I could go back in time. At the same time, I look back at this whole experience, I'm like, “Wow, I am so resilient and I worked so hard.” And even though now I'm not working as a scientist in the lab, it's still a really useful experience that helps inform every aspect of my life. And even if you choose to kind of divert entirely out of the science sector, the scientific method can be applied to absolutely anything, whether that's like training your dogs or working out or figuring out a nutrition plan. That's kind of the beauty of the scientific method, and I really like that about it, that you can apply it to absolutely anything and it can still be a useful thing. I think a lot of people are considering, you know, leaving, but then they consider all that time spent a waste and that's not quite true.

Tina: Your point is something I'd like to strengthen, because that's something I hear often that I can't leave science, or you finish a PhD and you do a postdoc and then “Yeah, but I can't change career because everything I've done will be for waste.” And I would say “Oh, it's not so waste.” That's what you feel because you have learned a lot on the way. So what do you think this waste thing comes from, Niba?

Niba: I think it's a bit like sunk cost fallacy and also just, you know, the kind of the people you're around. And there's also this sense of like if you're in your sixth year of your PhD, you may as well finish because it's just one more year. I think I left it like an opportune time because I was in my third year. So it was one more year than a Master's, but it wasn't like, you know, year seven or something. And I was like almost on the verge of being done. And, you know, for people who are on year six or seven, I think it's a really hard decision because you are so close. But I know people who've left in, you know, even like their fifth year or sixth year and like they don't regret it. I think it's really telling that everybody who leaves academia doesn't come back. That's a really interesting statistic.

Tina: That counts for me too. I didn't come back. I don't want to go back either.

Niba: Yeah, no, I don't want to be treated so awful. I don't want to be told I'm dumb all the time. Like the moment I left, I had this weird, like, realization that like “Oh, wait, I'm actually really smart versus like the entire time I was in grad school”, I continually felt like the stupidest person in the room all the time. And I mean, a large part of it was just because I just felt so, like, stupid already. I had a really tough time reading papers and stuff. Reading papers was really difficult for me. And now that I'm out of grad school, I read like two books a week and they're usually like one of those is like a science book and one of them is (unclear).

Tina: Yeah, you are a science communicator. That comes for me to Niba. I'm not a good writer at all, so I need a content writer. So if I start writing and I think it must be perfect, it must be grammatically perfect, then it's stuck. I don't get the words out of my brain, down in my hand.

Niba: Perfectionism is hard.

Tina: Exactly, it takes me back. But if I just blurb it out and send it to my content writer and she corrects it and says “it's fine Tina, it's fine”. Okay. It wasn't that bad. But then I get it back and I realize “Oh God, she has changed a lot.” But then I think it's more like a collaboration. It's not my job to be perfect, and then I can be creative in writing because I have someone that could do that job for me. And I have dyslexia as well. This creative mind having that can make it hard to write. So thank you for sharing that Niba. For those of you who listen here to what Niba says, it's not a failure to leave academia. If you don't like it, it's a choice you make and it's a decision. And there are successful careers beyond academia that you can start. Because if you think, iif you work in a company or in any other organization for two or three years and you decide to take another career step or a new journey, you would never look back and say it's a failure. You just say “it's a new career, a direction”, don't you?

Niba: Yeah, you bring up a good point about the copywriter, though. I think in grad school you're so limited by your funds and like how many things you have to do that you don't have the ability to delegate portions of your life that allow you to live the life that you want to live. And it's so not fair. Like, if we were paid, if grad students were paid, postdocs, everyone in academia is paid commiserate with their experience. I think they would have a much better quality of life and much lower mental health problems. Some of the things I started doing when I left grad school. Like you mentioned, you have a copywriter. I work with an editor to almost help me kind of like refine my ideas whenever I have to do a really big grant proposal or submission for a big like fellowship or something like that.

And it's an extremely affordable thing and I think I probably could have afforded it in grad school, but like little things like that, getting help with. Her name is Andrea Davis. Her thing is called My Scholary Pursuits. I highly recommend checking her out for editing services. But on another note, you know, I also no longer do my own laundry. I pay $20 a week to get it all washed and sorted and folded and done for me. And it's a small expense now because it's only $20 a load. But in grad school that would have been $80 a month. I would have had to really think about that. And I don't know. I think all these little things, some people will say like “Oh, that's just really materialistic” and like “You should just do your own chores.” And I'm like “Should I? Should I?” Because I do a lot of things and my time is really valuable. And in grad school your time is even more valuable because you're forced to do all the stuff and you're supposed to do other things and you're supposed to just find time to rest and you're supposed to find time to do all your chores and shopping and balance like a very small budget. That's ridiculous. It's ridiculous.

Tina: You're bringing up something here, you know, which I think is sort of a mindset you also can't get in academia, that we can do everything and we should do everything. So at least when I was an assistant professor, you write your articles, you do your writing, you're going to be a mentor, you're going to be a supervisor, you're going to do the teaching. You do basically everything. You don't buy services. When I'm coaching professors today, you know, they want to get these big grants and now we're talking about huge, big grants. I say “Don't do it on your own. Buy this service so you get an editor. You need feedback on your application, you need someone to help you with your presentation. You need presentation skills. Those are skills you should buy.” And you know, they say, “What, should I really do that?” Yes, you should do that!

Niba: Yeah. It halves your time and it also halves the amount of energy that you have to put in. You know, sometimes I will just write up like a really bad, terrible outline and it's just a bunch of clauses. I don't even bother putting it into paragraph format. It'll be like a couple of bullets here, a couple of bullets here, a couple of bullets here. And my editor will help me arrange things, make sure it flows, and then I start writing. And overall the process just takes up so much less time and less energy. It's way more efficient. I see the same kind of complaint with coaching services, and like productivity coaching or career coaching. People will question: why do I need this thing?

And looking back at my kind of like giant career sector jump, I had the privilege of working with a Duke career counselor and she was so instrumental in helping me navigate academia. She was very persistent in making sure that I updated my LinkedIn. She looked over my resume, she looked over my connections and helped me find companies. And these are all things that I had a huge privilege and access to because the Duke provided these services for students for free. But, you know, in hindsight, looking at all the things she did for me, especially with like, you know, looking over my cover letters and looking over my resumes, she made such huge, huge changes. I'm like “Wow, that would have been a lot of money if I actually had to pay for it.” And luckily, it just so happened that Duke had really great services. But, you know, not every single place has that. And maybe you're just not in a location that has that. So, you know, coaching might be something to look into.

Tina: You know, this is something that I'm fighting with as a career coach to convince PhDs that the money you paid me, you will get back in your first salary.

Niba: Yeah, I think it's just so hard to tell when you've been, like, unfairly paid for the last seven years.

Tina: And I say, you know, you have been unemployed now for four or five months. You know, that's expensive. So thank you. And I also would like to do some advertisement: Listen to Niba here, if you have a hard time writing your thesis and you need help to structure it, I know colleagues at Tress Academic, they help a lot of graduate students to finish up their thesis in a very efficient manner. So just please check their web page because they do a tremendous job.

NibNinat's a stressful time. You might as well not do it alone.

Tina: Don't do it alone, don't do it. The professors shouldn't do it alone, PhD students should not do it alone, ask for help and buy services to help you. Now, I'm coming into something here. Things you don't know you need. Things you need but you need but you don't learn it, if you put it that way.

Niba: Yeah. I mean, oh God, LinkedIn is really one of the biggest ones. I had no idea how much the outside world used LinkedIn. Wow. It's just constant. And each sector uses it a bit differently. Since I'm in Science Communication, you'll find that my LinkedIn is extremely thorough and detailed. But one of the first things you should do if you are considering like leaving or even if you're graduating, you should definitely just keep your LinkedIn updated. Don't have like the basic cover image, don't have like a general photo of a person. Put your face on there, put a description of what you do, your skills, things like that. Connect with people. And number two is you really have to leverage connections. Every single person I talked to, I did a ton of informational interviews when I was kind of switching sectors because that's what my career counselor told me to do. So I was like “Okay, I don't know what I'm doing.” She was totally right. I did like an obscene number of informational interviews. I asked everyone of them, “How did you get your job?” And every one of them was like, “Well, I knew somebody who had worked here before”, or “I knew someone who worked here now”, or “I knew somebody who knew someone who worked here”. And out of all of those, like 160 or whatever interviews, only one person had applied to the job and gotten the job. And I was shocked. I was like, this is such a bizarre statistic. It seems kind of unfair in a lot of ways, but even academia is based on like, you know, your networking and who you know and things like that.

And so I realized, you know, if I wanted to get a job, I shouldn't be applying for jobs, I should be networking with people. And that was a much smarter way of going about it. And I think that was really instrumental in my kind of foray into Science Communication. I chose to actually decline the first few jobs that were offered to me because they didn't seem like they were commiserate with my experience and they weren't in line with exactly what I wanted to do. And I was like, well, if I'm switching sectors to do something I want to do, I may as well do something I actually want to do. And so I realized freelancing might be a better move for that, because then I would get to work on very specific projects and it was actually amazing. I made my graduate student salary in three months, just in freelancing, and I was like “Wow, I should have started this way sooner.” I should have started this in grad school. Yeah. And the big thing is really just to talk to people, to leverage your LinkedIn. Every single job I applied to, I would like look up the company on LinkedIn and then I would search - do I know anyone or do I know anyone who knows somebody? And then send them an email asking: Can you connect me? Can you let me know? And I got so many jobs that way, so many connections that way. And you know, it's not just like using this for work, but a lot of times when I was asking people to let me know about their experience, it was helpful just to learn about the industry, to learn about the different positions that were there, learn about like marketing versus being, you know, someone who specifically works in sales, things like that. All these little tiny little differences you don't know about unless you've worked in the position or you've worked in the industry. And obviously coming from academia, you're not going to completely know what the industry is like.

Tina: What you used here is what I usually call a hidden job strategy. It's just referral and networking and discovery calls. And that's the way to go. Because if you look at statistics, if you contact 100 people, you have ten interviews and you have one or two jobs.

Niba: That's a much better statistic than most people get, just for the record. I have a friend of mine who's been unemployed since she graduated in 2018 and I keep telling her, you have to reach out to people. You have to reach out to people. She's submitted over like 600 job applications just within 2022 alone, and still has not gotten anything in the realms of like jobs that she actually wants to take. And I'm like “You have to talk to people. I don't know how else to tell you this. Like you've got to speak to a person, get them to talk to you.” Oftentimes you'll find that perhaps, you know, you talk to a person and they say, oh, this job is filled. But we actually have something coming up quite frequently.

When I was freelancing, I would just talk to people and be like “Oh, you know, this is something I'm doing. Like, you know, let me know if anything comes up, if you have any work.” And they'd be like “Oh yeah, actually we have some work. We haven't put it on our website yet because no one's gotten around to writing the description, but if you want it, it's yours.” And I was like “Oh, okay.” And that happened like time and time again. Maybe like once a month.

Tina: Yeah. And as a freelancer, all jobs, it's always about, you know, calling people. I can offer that. But most importantly, you ask “What do you need?”. Because if you start to ask “What do you need?” and “What kind of people are you looking for?”, “What do you think you're going to recruit?”, then you can add “Why do you like your job?”. And you learn a lot by doing that. And then you start a very interesting dialog and then people start to like you. Because I can tell you that what Niba is saying makes sense. You can work with recruiters in the same way because I remember when I worked as a recruiter (unclear). I remember them because they just have, you know, Tina, you know, they flattered me a little bit. You know the market, what's your stomach feeling? And, you know, they did that on a regular basis and they were very, very nice. And then suddenly one day I just had something and then boom, I had that candidate on my head. I give a ring and check. So it is this kind of building, you know, your social skills, you know, emotional IQ, I would put it. And your relationship building skills, because networking doesn't necessarily have to be relationship building, but that is what you are doing Niba, that is what I can hear between the lines. Yeah.

Niba: Yeah. I think a lot of PhD students don't realize how many skills they have because there's this tendency to look at the job application and say, “Oh, I don't meet like 100% of these skills” or “Oh, I don't know if I have like seven years of project management experience”. Yeah, you do! You've been managing so many projects, are you kidding? And I don't know, a lot of people, especially women, especially women of color, especially immigrants, we have a tendency to see this list of requirements and say, “Oh, we probably don't fit”. I like never even bother to look at requirements. Like once I know I've fulfilled 50% of them now I'm like “Whatever I'm going to apply, see how it goes.” Recently, there was a job that I liked. Did not qualify for at all, and I was like “Let's just shoot my shot. I'm going to pitch myself, see what they say.” They actually ended up giving me an interview and telling me that they were really impressed and I'd given them an idea that was not entirely in line with their job and they were really impressed by that.

There's nothing you have to lose if you apply to a place that doesn't, you know, you don't fit 100% of those things. And you have to remember, tons of people are doing that and you're in competition with them. You've got to have a bit more confidence. All these like, yeah, way too many people coming out of academia don't have confidence in themselves because for the past seven years they've just been giving amazing presentations about work that they've been pouring their heart and souls into. And then the moment after the presentation, like, seven professors raise their hand and they're like, actually, let's rip this apart real quick. It's just so bizarre.

Tina: It's over-perfection, and you have been criticized so much. I just recently talked with headhunters and I said “What is an ideal candidate, an attractive candidate?”. They say, you know, if you have the basic skills, up to 75% basic skills, the rest is your passion, engagement and your willingness to learn in the new job. So if we have two candidates, that one is a perfect fit from the skills. And one 75%. They always take the one and promote the one, you know, being most interested, showing the most passion. And I think this is something that you listeners should take with you because this is what you say Niba, by doing these discovery calls, by talking with people, you show your engagement, you show your willingness, and that's much more important than being perfect.

We are coming to an end of the podcast here and I would like, you know, as I always do. Three tips you would like to give your fellow graduates and PhDs, or you know, lecture professors listening to us here. Three tips. If you want to either quit your PhD, just leave or you finish, and you are looking for something beyond academia. What are your three tips to them?

Niba: I would say the first one is something we kind of touched on is really don't try to do it alone. If you are, you know, in a place where you're surrounded by friends or a partner or something like that, just, you know, let them know “Hey, I'm going to be doing my dissertation” or “Hey, I'm going through a really tough decision right now. I'd love to get some support, whether that is through, you know, maybe you can do the dishes a little more or maybe like I don't have to be in charge of groceries this week”. Kind of like laying out things that might be helpful for you. Maybe not everyone can read over your thesis because they don't have the expertise.

But, you know, a friend might be able to, stop by and give, like, I don't know, some apples or something as a snack. And that helps a little bit with a little, you know, just a little bit of motivation and food and things like that. Really kind of like laying out the ways that people can help you makes it a lot more likely for them to help you. And it's not your responsibility to feel like a burden if you're asking for too much. If it is too much, the other person will tell you, it's their responsibility to say, you know, I don't have time for that or set up a boundary, if they don't have that. That will be my first one.

My second one is, we kind of talked a little bit about informational interviews and networking. But in academia, you know, the network kind of ends in a lot of academic circles. So in order to leverage the most out of the contacts you do have in a sector that you want to go into or perhaps the company that you want to go into, I would highly recommend ending each interview with, you know “Thank you so much for your time. This has been super insightful. Based on our conversation today, can you recommend three different people that I should reach out to? And would you be comfortable with me giving your name as a referral to these people?”. And more often than not they'll say yes, they might even offer to, you know, introduce you over email. And I would say that's a really great way of keeping the conversation going, especially if you're trying to break into a new sector or a new company, because how else are you going to make those connections?

You know, like conventions and conferences are going to happen again soon, hopefully. But until then, you have an online way of meeting more people. And then my third tip would be, this is kind of like a nerdy way of looking at it. But if you think about kind of a graph of like, your x-axis time and your y-axis is work, and say your equation is Y equals five and you're doing a steady amount of work and you're not like growing higher and you're not dropping low, but you're doing a steady amount of work. There's this tendency to feel as though you're not doing enough and you're not growing and you're not pushing your career and stuff. That's absolute nonsense. Like you're still completing all the stuff you're currently doing, that is still growth. Because if you integrate all that area under the curve, you're growing all of that onto the experience that you've already had before. Just because you're not actively trying for a promotion or you're not applying for grants or whatever, doesn't magically mean that you are not doing enough. You're still maintaining all these things that you're doing. You're still doing all the administrative tasks of being an adult, which takes up so much time. I think there's this tendency to be stressed about something and then you add more stress by being stressed about the stress, and that doesn't serve anyone, that just doubles your stress for no reason. Maybe this is a very mathematical way of looking at both of these concepts, I'll admit that. But I was journaling about this the other day, and when I thought of it that way, I like draw these graphs out and I was like “Wow, like I'm still accomplishing so much, even though I'm not, like, applying for this promotion or I'm not like throwing myself into a new initiative or whatever”. It's still all that area still there. Why would I stress about something when it's just going to add onto the stress for no reason. Being stressed about it that you can't change. There's still going to be a problem, but at least you can stop beating yourself up about it because that's not going to really do anything. And at least if you reduce the stress, you might find yourself in a position of being able to have more energy, or being able to think of a solution for it, versus before. You can't do that as easily or as well because you're under so much pressure and stress.

Tina: Thank you very much Niba for your tips. So this was Niba, NotesbyNiba. Thank you very much for being a guest on the channel here. And this is Tina Persson, PhD Career Stories. So don't forget to follow us on Facebook. You'll find us there. You'll find us on Instagram and on YouTube. And we also have a very brand new web page. So don't forget to check that, because we have over 100 podcasts for you to be inspired. Have a great day!

Niba: Thank you so much.

Tina: Thank you very much. And thank you so much, Niba.

View Details

In this episode, Tina Persson interviews Grażyna Żywot-Ciecierska and Ola Samuelsson, who are co-founders of a global company called GE Hunter. They are experts in headhunting, recruitment and client advisory.

They have 20 years of international experience in finding talents for the pharma, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), medical, industrial and more sectors.
Ola Samuelsson specializes in roles within Finance, Supply Chain, IT and Manufacturing, while Grażyna Żywot-Ciecierska’s expertise are roles within General Management, Sales, and Human Resources.

In the interview, the guests talk about the headhunting process such as identifying the most suitable candidates to the right companies and positions. This involves a well-structured process where candidates are coached to identify their interests and motivations. Finally, they match what candidates are looking for with the client’s expectations and vice-versa.

At the end of the episode, they share important tips for PhD candidates who are looking for jobs:

Be passionate about your interests.
Be motivated.
Be yourself.
Be social and communicate frequently.

Are you in the job searching phase of your career?
If so, you should definitely listen to this episode and take these tips with you.

Enjoy the interview!

PhD Career Stories is now on major social media channels. To receive more content regularly, follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and on our Website.

TRANSCRIPT Tina: Hi and welcome, this is Tina Persson, founder of the podcast PhD Career Stories. Welcome to this episode, it is indeed a very exciting one because I have two guests here and you know what, they are headhunters, real headhunters from Europe. We have Ola Samuelsson sitting in Barcelona, Spain, and we have Grażyna Żywot-Ciecierska sitting in Poland. So very welcome to my podcast!

Ola: Thank you very much.

Tina: So, do you know what, I have followers here and I know from them that they are very curious about headhunters. So my first question is how did you end up in the headhunting business?

Ola: Well, I have been in the business now for about 10 years, which is much less than Grażyna and my colleagues. Still I always had some kind of interest for this business and that (unclear) experience as being a candidate. And being a candidate to recruiters, I actually had many times a bad experience. There were times when I was approached and nothing happened and sometimes I was approached. We had an interview and I was quite excited and this was a very interesting project and then - silence, nothing happened. So I have always been thinking before I joined GE Hunter “this is an interesting business”, but also “we can do much better”. I think there's a lot of room for improvement, and I still think there are many players that are very professional and do a good job, but still there are also many who don't do the job as it should be, and I think that also contributes a bit for some bad reputation or skepticism towards the industry.

Tina: I think that's a wonderful drive you had actually because I remember, from those who listen here, I wasn't recruited about 15 years ago and that was my drive into the business, I applied for a job and I've felt misunderstood and they didn't come back to me, they didn't give me feedback so that also drove me into the business a long time ago. You have been in the business Ola for how many years?

Ola: Yeah, a bit more than 10 years, we started GE Hunter in 2010.

Tina: And Grażyna how did you end up in the business?

Grażyna: Thanks for this question because it's always good to have some kind of reflection on how things started. Actually I had the dream to combine my education and I have graduated from oriental studies. So I wanted to combine my general interest in people with my education, which means how can I maybe help people, how can I support people, how can I share my knowledge on some cultures to people. So I was very lucky because at my first professional job, I was actually becoming a junior recruiter at that time where I had the chance to recruit people from Europe to work in arabic companies, in the Gulf countries. So that was a time when I understood how this job looked like and I could combine my interest in people with my background related to cultural differences and sharing this knowledge with people. So from the very beginning, I was very lucky, because that was my job which I'm very happy to continue these days as a senior headhunter. Starting as a junior recruiter now, it's time to be a headhunter.

Tina: But I understand that when you started as a recruiter you were also an adviser and helper basically, because people that were curious to work in the arabic culture, they got the advice from you.

Grażyna: Well that's why I think I was extremely happy because it was like a dream job for me. It was a combination of applying my knowledge from my studies and sharing my expertise, helping people to understand how to work, how to live in different cultures. You know, for us Europeans, it's not so easy to work and live in the Arabic countries or any other countries which differ so much from ours. So I was kind of an adviser for them but I was also a recruiter which also brought them this new opportunity to start a new job, start a new life. So for many of them, it was like a life story that they had such an opportunity to work for a couple of years in such a different culture. I remember, I was very happy because that were my first matches. I was matching the clients, that time it was one of the biggest aluminum production companies, with engineers who decided to start a new employment in a different country, a different culture. It was a great first job I had.

Tina: And I guess that the candidates were also very happy to have you there to support them in the new job, because isn't this part of your job today as well, to inform and help the clients in the new position?

Grażyna: Yes that's what I have been doing as a recruiter, now we also do it as headhunters because we have to match, we have to understand the candidates motives and expectations to the clients requirements profile, but also culture of the organization. So this kind of matching between the two is absolutely part of our job these days. That's most important, to really address it during our projects, during our communications with clients and candidates.

Tina: Some of the listeners here are from STEM. They are highly qualified, they have a PhD background and when they end up in a recruitment process, they feel a little bit of what Ola said: I apply and I never hear anything. So they say they get some sort of feeling they don't like recruiters, I think it's the business, it’s not okay, they feel misunderstood in this recruitment business. But the experience I had myself was that, yeah, we did actually a lot of jobs as well as to match clients and then help the clients to get the job, help them in the interview, help them to understand to meet the expectations. Is that your experience as well, is it the way you work as well?

Grażyna: Absolutely, yes, we at GE Hunter try to work as a kind of a coach for the candidates, try to prepare them when needed, at the same time, of course, we are advisors to our clients, just to also prepare them to what is expected, what are the expectations and what really the market is offering. Because it happens that the clients are having some kind of debrief of a person who does not exist. We have to very proactively and in some kind of a partnership also provide the clients with our views on how the market works, and in a sense they can also change the expectations.

Tina: Yeah, you are experts of the labor market, aren't you?

Grażyna: Well in a sense for some certain sectors yes, we believe that we are not experts for each sector. We as a company, we are quite specialized, we mainly work for pharmaceuticals, medical devices, for FMCG companies, so we're not experts for all markets, but within these sectors we believe we should be experts, we should understand what are the trends and how we can help both candidates, but also companies to find and match (unclear).

Tina: It seems so. So to help the listeners to understand your business, what does actually a daily day look like for you guys? When you wake up in the morning and you get to work, maybe it's not so fun now, you are sitting in your flats maybe, but what does your day to day look like?

Ola: There are two parts: there are of course this day to day, we have projects that are about matching the right candidate with our clients. The other important part is to understand what happens in the market, to research and investigate the market, to understand the trends, so we know how it looks today and how it will look tomorrow. That's the only way we can support our clients.

Tina: I'm curious, how many interviews do you do per day?

Ola: It varies, we could have five or six interviews in one day, or we could have zero. It depends on the situation, how many projects we do and so on, but then of course the interview is important. It's where we really try to understand who this candidate is, is he a good match? If we have too many (interviews) we can lose a bit of focus throughout the day, so we try to not have too many.

Tina: I understand that. Our followers are curious about what you actually do, what does a classical head hunting process look like?

Grażyna: Well, maybe it’s important to say that we are assigned for certain projects. And then the process is very well structured and it's divided into certain steps, certain weeks. First it starts with creating strategy. A strategy where this kind of ideal candidate - I'm sure that this subject is interesting, who is an ideal candidate - but in general we try to think, to make a plan where this ideal candidate for a certain project can be currently employed. So first we start with this kind of preparation or we can call it brainstorming. Then we assign a team, because we have a team of researchers who specialize in certain steps of these activities. So this team of researchers is then contacting the candidates by starting approaching. At first maybe identification of certain candidates which would be on our list of interest. So we prepare a target list of the companies, we prepare different strategy documentation, which is a part of the process. So in week 2, we start approaching candidates, and here is where everything starts because you have to start your dialogue with potential candidates, and all these dialogues and talking to candidates, understanding their interests, gives you a broader and broader pool of contacts you are connected with. At the end of the process, which for us lasts around 4 weeks, you should simply have a group of candidates who have been already interviewed by us and who are motivated and interested in the job opportunity we are having. So that's a very intensive 4 weeks time and maybe just to give you some additional information, we use to approach a really big pool of potential candidates. And it depends on the kind of project and how specific it is, it can be 15 to 18 people who we approach during this journey of the project.

So quite a big pool of candidates which, as we said, at the end should select the 4 to 5 best matching candidates. Best matching in our view. Quite intensive process, very rigorous, very well structured.

Tina: It is an intensive process and I see you have the numbers to get these 5, 6 candidates to approach.

Do you have any advertisements or you work by looking up to people, you got to LinkedIn or you use your referral network? What is your process here?

Ola: We don't use any advertisement, we only work with what we call “direct search”. The main pot goes for our network, our recommendations. Additionally, we also do online search. Depending on the project, we can get a limited number of candidates working for a limited number of companies, then we can ask the candidate directly if they are interested.

Tina: So to clarify for the listeners, let's say I am a company and I'm looking for a Regulatory Affairs Specialist. I am in a field where I'm looking for someone that knows RNA or DNA, a very specific experience. Then I would say that most likely you have to approach these 5 companies, who in Europe particularly work in that field.

Grażyna: That's exactly how it works and that's what we call a true headhunting, when we really have these 5 target companies where we can find these potential candidates. We of course will then also search for candidates who have previously worked for these companies, not only these 5 because maybe it's not enough. This is the way headhunting looks like. You have a target list of companies and you approach what we call “passive candidates”. Candidates who are not actively looking for the job, who are not advertising themselves, they are not in any portals, they are not actively looking for the job, they are passive candidates and we simply try to tempt them.

Tina: Yeah, and now we come to that, headhunting and recruitment, because headhunting is really what you guys do, whereas recruitment they can also very often advertise for the (unclear), so active candidates can find it. Some of our followers are sitting at universities: do you have top companies/organizations that contact you and say “we need someone in Physics with very good skills at algorithms”. Would you then approach universities? Has that happened to you?

Grażyna: Yes, it depends on the brief we have and we have noticed more and more often that especially pharmaceutical companies and medical devices companies, they are interested to also assess the profiles of candidates who are currently employed at universities and do not have commercial or business experience. But it's mainly related to medical functions. Kind of limited requests that we are having for that kind of profiles, but yes we are starting to have an increase, but a bit limited.

Tina: That's good to hear. As a coach, I say to PhDs “maybe you are not the target for headhunters at the moment. But if you enter the industry and you get a job in a pharma company or small biotech company and you get attractive skills in that company, then you will be a target for headhunters”. Would you agree on that, am I giving correct advice?

Grażyna: Absolutely, when the candidates already get some business experience on the business side, then they will be first on the target list to be approached by headhunters.

Tina: Meaning that it is not the first job that is important but what can come afterwards.

Now I'm curious, what do you consider: what is an attractive, outstanding candidate?

Ola: The first question is if such a candidate even exists. Our client always has requirements for the candidate, and the candidate ideally should match all the requirements. However, very few candidates match all the criteria. I'm not sure we ever had a “perfect” candidate. We try to build a kind of a partnership with the candidates. We talk with candidates relating to the project but we also talk with them for the future. It is also important that the candidates are motivated, interested and prepared. If we have an interview discussion, we would like that the candidate has done the homework. We would like to know that they understood the client and so on. Otherwise, it is very much about you having to be yourself. There is always a weakness and that is fine. If the candidate tries to pretend something, that's not a good solution. Be yourself and then it is a question if there is a match or not. You don't have a bad or good candidate, it is a question of existing a match or not.

Tina: You are saying some very good things. When I'm coaching, many of my clients are super afraid of showing they have weaknesses. They ask “how I can hide them” and I say they should not hide them, because when you start the work it will come out anyway. There is no perfect candidate, it is always how you handle things. Then of course, for certain jobs, if you have a weakness, maybe it's not the ideal job for you, but there are other jobs in which you fit better. Thank you for that answer, many will be relieved to know that there is no perfect candidate. Grażyna, would you like to add something?

Grażyna: Yes, because I'd like to add something that for me, personally, is very important. There are some candidates who also have a strong belief, strong interest or strong passion for something. And it happened to us, just to give you one example, we had a candidate who was not matching to the brief. He was very junior compared to the brief we had. But his attitude was extremely exciting because he was passionate about the job, he was extremely passionate about the job, and he really tried to do his best to convince us headhunters that yes, he's not in the brief but he can do the job. And in this precise case, I remember that we decided to recommend a candidate who was not in brief, and there was a big gap between what the client expected and what the candidate possessed. However, we decided to do it and do you know what happened? He got the job. He got the job because the client saw what we also had seen. Yes, he doesn't have full competencies. But he has such a strong motivation, such a strong belief that he can catch up during the journey, that he's the one who has something extra, because of this motivation, of his passion. So I also would like to highlight this fact that, for us headhunters, but also for our clients, the attitude, this motivation, maybe passion for a certain subject, certain functions or certain element of the job, is as important as other competencies match. I just mentioned this one example but I think we have a couple of examples in our professional experience in which the person was not matching but still got the job.

Ola: Yes, I would like to highlight that passion is a very good factor. You may be missing some hard facts, but if you have the right passion and motivation, that's very important.

Tina: And I like to hear that. It is important to clarify this for listeners, that you need to meet at a certain skill level, but then passion comes. If you have 2 candidates and one of them sits very heavy in the chair, not really being super motivated, but has all the skills. And then you have another candidate that does not have all the skills but is super eager. Then you will probably take the super eager one.

Ola: True.

Grażyna: We could also say that candidates should be brave, we can encourage candidates to be brave. If they really want something, it's good to try to get it.

Tina: Another question: I'm curious - why are companies using you as headhunters? Why do they need you?

Grazyna: Well there are different reasons for why we are needed, why headhunters are needed. One of the reasons could be that there are some confidential projects, such as the projects where we are assigned to search for (to be honest) replacing a person that is currently employed. For these types of searches, an external partner is very much needed, so that's why we are assigned. That's one of the situations when we really can help because of the situation. But I think in the majority of cases, it is that - as we already said - searching for the right person needs time, needs focus, needs a lot of actions. It needs a lot of interviews. I think we are best suited to - after, of course, understanding the culture of our client, understanding the brief - we are best suited to tempt candidates, to approach candidates, to start this dialogue with them, to finally - at the end of this process - present the best of the best. The best matching four or five candidates. So I think that we can very often work as the ambassadors of the client. We don’t like to be treated as GEhunter as an external partner. We are working very much in partnership with the client and as an ambassador. We just simply do the job which cannot be done by them because we are simply experts. During our process we can really identify the best hunts. I think that’s why they need us. Just one example from our experiences: In many companies, there are internal recruitment teams, which work on behalf of the client by themselves. It happens to us quite often that after the job that was done by them, we have been assigned, we have been asked to search for the person. Very often, we notice that a three months project conducted by the internal person, was not so successful because it was not so well targeted, there was no strategy where exactly that person could be found. In our dues, it was not so intensive. We see that the number of people identified/contacted was very limited compared to what we used to do during our processes. That also proves that in many cases, it’s really crucial to have this external ambassador to support.

Tina: You became experts. You do this full-time. I can just share with you and also with our listeners: I worked as a headhunter and that’s only five years ago. I jumped in a little bit and it just recalls back to me that we want these three people and from these two companies. And we can’t do the job. I contacted 80 people and I placed three. So, it’s really hard work. But it’s fun. It’s hard work to be a headhunter.

Ola: I think, for companies and people in general and the rest we meet so that the work is done, it’s not just “Well, we need to find them”. We said it before when we start a project, it is a huge planning work needed to really understand what we are looking for and to set a strategy on how to find this. As Grazyna said, it happens from time to time that the clients say: “We do it ourselves. We have internal.”. And then, many times they are simply coming back after a while and they say “Well, it was not so easy.” If a company comes to ask tomorrow and says “We need this”, I mean we can present five CVs the same day, but it is about finding the right one. Our clients want the best of the best. When we start the search process, we probably find a very good candidate on Day 1 or Day 2, but when it is a question to continue and to continue and to continue, to really be sure “Now we have covered this, now we have found the best one”. Maybe it was the first one. But maybe it was not.

Grazyna: Maybe it was the first, yes, sometimes it is the first one.

Ola: From what I said from the beginning and why I became interested in this industry: Maybe I also thought at that moment “this is not so difficult”. But now I also learned: it is a lot of work. It is clear: there is a need for headhunters for many companies, absolutely.

Tina: And I agree with you guys, because I would say that you both, you do an amazing job. And since I had the job, I know: It’s a lot of effort behind it. And it is - as you said - it’s a collaboration. You can have the best candidate or the best matching candidate as number one, but it is also about convincing the company. And the team in the company that that candidate actually is the best one. And another amazing thing is that when you realize that their expectations - we can’t find those clients. They need to change the profile: If you change the profile, if you do this - then you will have him. That part of the headhunting - at least I found it - was extremely fun. You know, being in the middle of it.

Grazyna: But then of course you have to have clients that really like to work on this partnership basis. To be very honest: there are also clients who are really interested in building such partnerships, but there are also some clients who are not so flexible. They just have a brief and they just want us to go in line with the brief. Of course, as all companies, we have some clients we like to work with most, because of this approach, because of this openness that they have or do not have. That’s maybe also worth mentioning that there are different cases. Every case is different.

Tina: We are coming to the end of the podcast here, but I hope that you listeners here know when I am sitting listening to you and we should do so, it is so clear that you love your jobs. I hope that you are listening to this podcast and realize how complex headhunting is. It is not that we just take someone and put them here, it is partnership, its quick, its many candidates, you said it is up to 100 candidates in a pool, you have a lot of interviews, and you are reviewing, you are planning and targeting, so I really hope you listen to this here. Maybe you PhDs say “Wow, that’s a job here I like to have, sounds to be an exciting job” and I can tell you, yeah, for the right person it is an exciting job, but before ending here, I would like you to share with our listeners, we can start with Ola and then Grazyna here, 3 tips to become an attractive talent today on the market. Ola, would you like to start: 3 tips on how I make myself attractive.

Ola: I think we have covered that a little bit here. I think it is very much about having passion and motivation and it is also very important to show that. Then of course the formal qualities are needed. Also, again we were talking about the partnership which means be in touch with the headhunters. Network with the headhunters and stay in contact. I think that is also a good thing, and then of course I think it is very much about openness, honesty, don’t pretend, something you are not. I think it is a little bit of repetition of what we already said.

Tina: Networking, partnership, be honest, trust them and be yourself. This is what Ola said. Now we hear what Grazyna says.

Grazyna: Well, I have to in a sense repeat, but I will start with passion. Build your passion and be yourself when communicating with us, don’t pretend you are somebody else. Also be in contact with us, be responsive. I mean you never know what we are offering today or tomorrow, so respond to our contacts. I think that would be it.

Tina: And now I come to my followers here, they are probably wondering now: how do I find Ola and Grazyna in GE Hunter? How can they contact you?

Ola: They are very, very welcome to contact me and Grazyna. We have our website, gehunter.com, where our contact details are. So we are looking forward to all listeners to contact us!

Tina: So you hear that. They want you to contact them. So don’t be shy and with that I will say thank you very much Ola and Grazyna for this wonderful interview with you here. It was absolutely a pleasure and I hope for you followers here now, for PhD Career Stories, listen to this podcast carefully because now you have got some 10 million dollar tip that you can contact headhunters! You go to their webpage and there you have an email and then you probably send your matching resume explaining what you are looking for. That’s how you do it. And then networking, be yourself and there is nothing like a perfect candidate. So, thank you very much, this was Tina Persson from PhD Career Stories.

Ola and Grazyna: Thank you for having us.

View Details

Kathleen Champlin graduated with a doctorate in Contemporary American Literature from Ball State University in Indiana (USA) in 2015. Currently, she is an online writing tutor with Pearson's Smarthinking and a copyeditor for several companies.

In this episode, Kathleen will provide an example of a disabled PhD's career transition in the humanities. From her story, you can learn how her disability impacted her academic and professional paths and how she was able to overcome the many barriers that came up along the way.

Kathleen will also share how her love for the written word has been a driving force throughout her journey and how she hopes to contribute to a world without ability barriers.

Enjoy listening!

TRANSCRIPT My name is Kate Champlin. I have a PhD in literature from Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, USA. I’ve trained in online college teaching, but I’m currently an online writing tutor and copyeditor. My story is unusual for two reasons: I’m changing careers post-PhD and when I went to graduate school, I was already deaf.

A little background: I started losing my hearing when I was around 18 and lost it completely when I was 24. I’ve got a genetic disorder that makes benign tumors grow (among other places) on both hearing nerves. I was diagnosed in the summer before I started college. I went through about 6 years of college as a person with progressively worse hearing loss and 7 more years of college classes and dissertation work as a deaf person. I also started my first real career search 5 years after I went deaf. My previous jobs had either been assistantships from the colleges that I attended or jobs that I had as a teenager. American Sign Language is a common language in the USA and Canada. I’ve taken classes in it, but I never really learned the language. My preference is written English.

Meanwhile, I’ve always loved English literature classes. I took advanced English classes in high school and signed up as an English major without hesitation when I first went to college. After my senior year, I was invited to teach and earn a Master’s degree at Pittsburg State University. I enjoyed teaching, and I realized that I wanted to teach college classes professionally. I needed a PhD to teach college classes so, at that point, a PhD seemed like the natural next step on my career path. At the time, I’d known for several years that I’d eventually lose my hearing and, by the time I enrolled at Pittsburg State, I knew I was going to lose my hearing within the next couple of years. I reached out and asked several people if I’d be able to teach online classes when I had my doctorate. They all told me that online classes were the future of education, and that there would be a market for online teachers by the time that I got my degree. Unfortunately, the prediction turned out to only be sort of true. I’ll discuss that more when I talk about my career change.

People ask me how I overcame my disability but, the truth is, I have no choice. This is the body and the life that I have, and I have to live the best life that I can with them. I’ve had support from my family, the schools where I studied, and many people that I’ve met professionally, and that’s been wonderful. I’ve had the opportunity to join the workforce after I went deaf, and that made my survival possible.

My first experiences at college were interesting, and my disability only added a little bit of difficulty. I had fairly normal hearing for my first four years of college. For my last two years as a hard-of-hearing person, someone hooked me up with CART captioning, a system where a court reporter listens to classes or conversations and types them on a computer screen. It can either be done remotely through the internet or the reporter can attend the class. I used the first method while I earned my master’s degree and the second method while I got my PhD. There have been times when the equipment or something else failed. One of my captionists got a computer virus an hour before one of my classes, and I had to miss the class. One of my teachers told me that she didn’t want the captioning to disrupt her classes, and I took that as a sign that she didn’t want me in her class at all. So, when she did things like walk away from the CART microphone to write on the chalkboard – which was her way of trying to help me but which actually made it harder for the captionist to hear her – I didn’t say anything because I didn’t think she cared whether I could understand the lectures or not. It took us months to straighten that out. Never talk about disruptions with a disabled student or a disabled client. Ask them what they need instead. In the unlikely event that there ever is a disruption, you can discuss that with them later.

After I went completely deaf, I continued to use CART captioning in my classes. My teachers at Ball State were great about this and also great about making sure that I understood. We’d have entire conferences where I spoke and they typed whatever they needed to say. I also had conversations with people who wrote down their half of the conversation in a notebook. Nevertheless, my biggest problem was isolation. I’d attend workshops and miss out on group conversations or encounter people who were intimidated. People would say “I wish I could talk to you” in the middle of conversations. I also taught online classes (English composition) because I had trouble communicating with the students through CART captioning. There was a slight delay to the captions, so I was interrupting students to ask if there were responses. It got to be a real barrier and online classes eliminated that.

When I went on the market, things got really interesting. After I graduated, I wasn’t eligible for CART, and CART is very expensive. Suddenly, I realized that I wasn’t sure how to request accommodations from people who hadn’t already agreed to work with me. I tried using the notebook face-to-face, and people took that as a sign that I could only teach online classes (which was true but limited my career search). I had phone interviews, and people would get nervous because of the pauses for the captions. I could tell, because I noticed them talking more to fill the silences. I already had one part-time job at that point, but I was afraid that no one else would hire me. All in all, I think many people let the verbal communication barrier become more of a problem than it needs to be. They assume that because I have to ask for clarification or I’m slow to answer, I don’t know the information that they asked for – and that is not the case. I’m fully trained in English, in disability studies (the topic of my dissertation), and in teaching. There is a communication barrier and, because of it, I sometimes let myself sound less confident than I should. I know that people take slow speech and lack of confidence as signals but, if they look around the signals, they find my expertise and my work ethic. That’s true about my value, and it’s true about a lot of other people on the job market with communication issues.

I eventually learned to look for the employers who are willing to do unusual things because of my needs. My audio and captions actually failed in an online interview once. It turned out that, in addition to the problem with the captions, my computer had muted itself without my permission. I ended up speaking my half of the interview while the other person typed their questions. I really, really appreciated their flexibility. I’ve also learned to get people I know to recommend other contacts. A job counselor told me that if you can take people through a typical day, they’ll understand that you can do the job in spite of the communication barriers. He also noted that we (personally, in that conference) didn’t have any communication issues, but that’s because of really great translation software that I recently found on the internet. Finding technical ways to remove barriers is not a perfect solution. Finding people who are open to the idea of disabled employees is.

At the moment, I’m planning a slight career change. Although I enjoyed online teaching, there are budget cuts throughout the college teaching market (at least in the US). I’m not the only one who’s had trouble finding a niche in that market, and communication in the classroom would still be a barrier. Many schools in the US also won’t hire teachers to teach only online classes, and I hadn’t anticipated that when I started my PhD. I found a job as a writing tutor through one of the websites where higher education jobs are posted. That was the job I got before I got my PhD. The tutoring company is owned by a producer of college textbooks, and it’s a lot like working in a college writing center – except that it’s online. So far, it has lasted longer than many contract jobs teaching online classes do in the US. We’re also international. The company has contracts with a few colleges in Australia/New Zealand, at least one college in Canada, and at least one college in the Caribbean.

I find that fascinating, because I grew up in the years before the internet really existed. There really is a global community online now, and it includes amazing possibilities both for hearing people and for deaf people. American Sign Language users can contact each other through Zoom and sign to each other remotely – instead of relying on written communication. People who prefer written English, like me, can send messages through email and also contact people all over the world. Programs like Google Meet include captions, so I can do face-to-face meetings through them. I also recently found a very useful speech-to-text translation software online. It’s called AVA. I use that in programs like Zoom that don’t always generate their own captions and also carry a copy on my phone. It allows me to participate in face-to-face conversations even in daily life. All that took was someone who understood computer coding and understood accommodations. I’ve read that the software was created by a child of deaf adults. They knew coding and also knew about a community need. There are also more remote jobs opening up, along with more chances to contact companies across geographic lines. I look forward to exploring that more in the future. In fact, I’m already beginning to, since the jobs that I’ll mention are all remote and are in very different areas of the US.

In 2020, I applied for a remote internship with an education company based in Georgia (in the southeast USA). The company creates teacher education courses aimed at elementary, middle, or high school teachers – about things like virtual (Zoom) field trips and building robots in the classroom. The idea is that the teachers learn those skills and pass them on to their students. It was unpaid, but it offered practice at social media marketing and more practice at curriculum design. I really wanted that. I ended up proposing a course on making classes accessible for students with disabilities. My boss agreed that the topic was especially important because of the pandemic. In the US, most classes were moving online, and that often meant that teachers who were unprepared to deal with online classes had to manage them anyway. I saw some news stories about students with certain disabilities getting left behind in the mad rush to put school online. That first course led to my boss extending my contract, twice, and also paying me. Later on, since she liked my unpaid work at pointing out small issues with her online courses, she offered a contract to copyedit her first book. It was a great book about grant writing specifically for teachers. In the US, teachers often need to use their own funds to purchase classroom supplies or find funds for projects like building robots in the classroom. My boss also contracted me to check her courses when she moved them to a new website. That meant copyediting but also things like checking formatting and making sure that links worked. Some sources on the internet just vanish after a few years. Have you ever noticed?

Lately, I’ve made contact with another copyediting business in Vermont (which is in the northeastern USA) and with a foundation related to the Indiana School for the Deaf (which is in the Great Lakes region of the USA). I haven’t received any contracts from them yet but, hopefully, they will remember me when they need copyediting work. My dream job is a permanent position in publishing or a non-profit that publishes. I earned a PhD in English partly because I believe that the written word can help to change the world. I still do believe it, and I want to be part of that change – whether that means editing ground-breaking fiction or choosing ground-breaking articles for a newsletter. I look forward to working my way toward that goal.

It hasn’t always been easy. I’ve felt at sea. I’ve wondered if I would ever get a job, and I’ve also felt like the only disabled PhD out there. I wanted to tell everyone else that they aren’t alone, and I am hoping other people will reach out and share their stories. I know disabled people can have major problems both on the career market and in colleges. I’d love to see a world where disability isn’t an issue for any qualified job candidate and where all employers are willing to be flexible. That would mean people being willing to work with my need for written English, employers being willing to hire American Sign Language translators at a moment’s notice (for people whose first language is American Sign), employers automatically assuming that websites must be accessible to screen-readers [which is a software that reads the screen for blind users] etc. That’s a world totally without ability barriers. I look forward to working toward that goal too.

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In this new episode, Adriana Bankston tells us about her career story. Adriana is a Principal Legislative Analyst at the University of California Office of Federal Governmental Relations in Washington, DC, where she serves as an advocate for the university with Congress, the administration and federal agencies.

Adriana grew up in a family of scientists, which made her interested in pursuing a research career. She earned her PhD in Biochemistry from Emory University and later on she managed to transition into science policy through a number of volunteering opportunities. While exploring the several options, she became interested in academic training and the connection between science and society and got involved in organizations that work on training the next generation of scientists. Along the way, she held some leadership positions where she built her brand in science policy coupled to training activities and got involved with non-profits that advocate for early career trainees. This has opened a new avenue to her to connect federal policy to university research and training the next generation of scientists. And made her realize that it is a path for her!

Finally, Adriana shares key skills and qualifications that one needs in science policy:

Be used to fast-paced environments.
Prioritize projects and be able to shift from one to another.
Look at how you might be able to impact policy in real time by responding to agency requests for information or contributing to legislation.

Interested in policy and science? Listen to this episode to get insights into policy roles and skills for a career path in science policy. Maybe it will also be a path for you? Enjoy listening!

The interviewed author expressed their personal views and not the views of their employer.

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In this episode, Tina Persson interviews Rachel Kindt. After a PhD in Biology and a postdoctoral fellowship, Rachel dove headfirst into the biotech world, working her way from the lab bench to the corporate boardroom over her 20+ year career. Leveraging her scientific training and acquired - some might say improvised! - business savvy, she led drug development teams and built high-performing organizations. Rachel is known as a master facilitator, dedicated coach and mentor, and keen thought partner in scientific leadership. She is now coaching, consulting and co-authoring a book of career advice for scientists.

Rachel tells us about her exciting journey and career path that took her from a bench scientist, to leading a research collaboration, to being a leader and project manager in drug development.

Project management is a focus topic in this interview. What is a project manager? What are the skills required for a project manager role? How to grow as a project manager and how long does it take to be good in this role? What managerial titles do we have today? And what is the difference between a project manager, a program manager and a team manager?

All these questions - and much more - are answered by Rachel.

Finally, Rachel closes the episode sharing three tips for people applying for project manager roles:

Learn the language of project management.
Look at what you have done that is already project management.
Focus on the people’s aspect of the work you have done versus the technical aspect.

Listen to this episode to get inspired by Rachel’s journey and her valuable tips for a successful project management career path.

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João Graça holds a PhD in Biosciences from Cardiff University and currently works as an R&D Project Manager for LIPOR, the entity responsible for waste management in Greater Porto (Portugal). His current projects mostly concern the valorisation of bio-waste to high-value products. João has been involved in the creation and coordination of Smart Waste Portugal Young Professionals (SWYP). This group, currently with 80 members, aims to create work and knowledge sharing networks between professionals working or interested in the circular economy. Prior to his current role at LIPOR, João has attained different positions in the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Industries including Biological Scientist at LIG Biowise (UK), Early Stage Researcher at AstraZeneca (UK) and Research Intern at Anacor Pharmaceuticals (USA). In addition to the PhD, João also holds a BSc in Biosciences from the Catholic University of Portugal and a MSc in Biochemistry from the University of Porto. In this episode, João tells us about his career story and professional journey, holding several roles in different Life Science fields and different countries. He talks about the reasons that led him to do a PhD, as well as the opportunities and challenges encountered along his path.

He closes the episode sharing valuable tips:

If you are not 100% set on an academic career, find an industry experience as soon as possible.
If you are considering a PhD position, make sure you have an affinity with your supervisor and future colleagues. It is also important to be fine with working conditions, infrastructure, resources and city.
Participate in work groups of your topics of interest.
Do not be afraid to contact researchers or interesting entities to get to know more about their work and to work in collaborations.
If you are finishing or have just finished your PhD and are set on breaking from academia, first explore what career options are available, get information and talk with professionals from different areas. Define the area to pursue and develop the requirements to break into that area.

To know more about João’s story and the opportunities in the Life Science fields, please listen to this episode.

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In this episode, Tina interviews Lauran Fuller. Lauran is a mother of three, an entrepreneur, and a doctoral student. For the past 7 years, she has owned and operated a dessert bakery in southern Oklahoma. She wants to take the lessons learned along her journey and educate others. She is particularly keen on self-development and work-life balance, as prioritizing her family has posed its own challenges along the way. Focus and determination drive her every step of the way, as her educational pursuit has not slowed her entrepreneurial spirit.

Lauran talks about her experience being an entrepreneur and a mother at the same time. Having her own business has given her the flexibility to successfully manage her family. She closes the interview with valuable tips to women having entrepreneurship and leadership career goals:

Nail down your passion and your desires
Design a life that fits that
Pursue it- Don’t let anything stop you and stand in your way
Make sure you decide what to do and how to do
Find the community that supports your decisions and directions.

Listen to this episode to hear more about a good example of a woman entrepreneur who successfully maintains her work-life balance, managing doctoral studies, a bakery and 3 kids!

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In this podcast, Tina Persson interviews Bärbel Tress. Bärbel is a Research Career Expert & Advisor. Her main expertise is to advise young researchers how to successfully conduct and complete their PhD studies, how to apply for academic jobs, and how to improve research performance and efficiency.

Bärbel has a PhD in Landscape Ecology from Roskilde University, Denmark. She worked in academia for more than a decade, as postdoc, researcher and lecturer at universities in several European countries. She co-founded TRESS ACADEMIC in 2007 together with her partner. The company helps researchers acquire the complementary skills they need to succeed in academia. Bärbel also co-founded the SMART ACADEMICS Blog which helps young researchers with PhD completion, getting published, and career tips.

Different time points in the PhD journey are discussed in this interview together with the required actions. What to do and what to think about from the first day of signing the contract, at half-way through, the last year of the PhD, when 6 months are left, when one month is left and lastly the D-day: the defense day.

Bärbel finally closes the interview sharing five valuable tips that help PhDs to successfully complete their PhD studies.

1- Enjoy the ride

2- Keep the end in mind

3- Define your objectives early on

4- Start writing early on

5- Work on the relationship with supervisors

Listen to this episode for valuable advices from two career coaches with a lot of expertise in accompanying PhDs along their PhD journey.

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In this podcast, Tina Persson interviews Adam Sierakowiak with a focus topic: the career transition into the pharmaceutical industry. Adam is a medical advisor at MSD since 2018. He has a master's degree in biomedical sciences from the Karolinska Institute, where he later pursued his PhD in neuroscience.

Adam discusses the importance of learning the local language, of communicating the transferable skills as well as of knowing the industry language. He also talks about the importance and the need of networking. A good example on how to be memorable while approaching someone is also given in this episode. Different roles or job titles are found in the medical sector, but what do they really mean and which one suits us most? These are questions addressed in this podcast.

He finally closes the interview sharing three valuable tips for a successful career transition:

1- Network and learn industry language.

2- Highlight your personal skills instead of technical skills

3- Don’t give up

Don’t miss this episode. You will definitely enjoy it!

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In this episode, Tina Persson interviews Elena Itskovich and Ofer Yizhar Barnea. Elena has a PhD in stem cell biology from the University of Cambridge. She volunteers for ScienceAbroad and has hosted the macadamia podcast. Ofer has a Ph.D in Human molecular genetics. He has served 6 years as an officer and ran a RnD team of physicists and mathematicians. In parallel he is a co-founder of a company that has been growing and evolving for 3 years now.

The main topics discussed in this podcast are the importance of networking and digital presence. Listen to this episode to learn about how to grow your network both online and offline. Important tips for PhDs are to start the networking process early and to leave the comfort zone to be able to expand their network.

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Dear listeners, it is with great joy that we welcome you to our new home and to episode 101 of PhD Career Stories. After a year-long pause, we return to podcast publication with a fresh and functional website, in which you can find our entire podcast catalogue conveniently organized in relevant categories.

We believe that storytelling is a powerful way to connect with others and to find one’s own path in career and life. We believe that our new website helps us fulfill our ambition of becoming a storytelling channel, where everyone can participate and share their journey and experience, so we can learn and grow with each other.

In today's episode, PhD Career Stories co-founder Tina Persson will share with you insights from our journey that resulted in this new beginning, and update you on our plans for the future.
Enjoy Listening!

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Welcome to episode 100 of Phd career story, where we have a round table discussion with 9 members of our team.

In this episode we talk about the impact that Phd career stories have had on Phds around the world, based on comments we have received. We also talk about what we have learned from Phd stories and working as a team in the last 3 years.

This is the last episode for now, but we will be back in 6 to 9 months with the new beginning.

Stay healthy!

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Welcome to a new episode of PhD Career Stories. In today's podcast, Dr. Rui Cruz tells us about his career path and how he went from doing a PhD in biomedical sciences to starting up his own company, called Connecting Biotech. He also shares with us valuable tips and lessons he learned along his journey.

Looking back, I view my PhD as a process of self discovery, a process that allowed me not only to recognize my limitations and strengths, but it also allowed me to work on those weaknesses and strong points.

To know more about Rui’s story, please listen to this episode. If you also have a story to be told or if you know someone willing to share his story, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Enjoy listening.

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Welcome to today episode where Dr. Evelina Kulcinskaja tell us the story of her transition from academia to industry. Evelina received her PhD in biochemistry at Lund University in 2015. After that she did a 2-year post-doc at the University of Nottingham, UK, doing research on biocatalysis. She now works as a lab manager at a pharmaceutical company, taking care of day-to-day operations in a laboratory that does analysis by mass spectrometry.

Evelina will also share with us some reflections on her journey, as well some useful tips and tricks for researchers in different stages of their careers.

”As a PhD student, I learned lots of transferrable skills, such as compiling and sorting information, written and oral communication, negotiation with your supervisor, team work in the group, as well as a broad range of laboratory skills.”

If you are curios Evelina’s story and get some tips, please listen to this episode. If you also have a story to be told or if you know someone, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Enjoy listening!

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Welcome to a new podcast in PhD Career Stories. In today’s podcast, Dr. to be Natalia Bielczyk shares her journey from her homeland Poland to the Netherlands and the different steps she took to become an entrepreneur. Natalia is just about to get her PhD in Neuroscience at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behavior in Nijmegen. In 2018, she launched a foundation, Stichting Solaris Onderzoek en Ontwikkeling, that offers free consultancy to early career researchers interested in self-development or search for new careers in industry. Furthermore, in 2019, Natalia established, Ontology of Value, a company that helps researchers to develop careers beyond academia. She also wrote a book entitled “What is out there for me? The landscape of post-PhD career tracks.“ Natalia brings us to a journey of self-discovery and recalls how she navigated herself from academia towards the open job market to finally become an entrepreneur.

Academic CV: https://www.nataliabielczyk.com/archive

Stichting Solaris: https://stichting-solaris.github.io/

Ontology of Value: https://ontologyofvalue.com/

Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082YCHJHP

To know more about Natalia´s journey, listen to this episode. If you also have a story to be told or if you know someone, please don´t hesitate to contact us.

Enjoy listening!

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Dr. Ulrikke Voss has a PhD in medical sciences from Lund university, and and has been working as a postdoc and associate researcher at Lund university for 6 years. She just decided to quit the academic career and start her new journey, both mentally and physically. In this podcast, she shares her story and the first steps of the preparation of her adventure.

Ulrikke is currently a blogger, where where she shares her curiosity and love of science, describe a life in academia with reflection, and humor describe falling and regaining her footing. She also has started her youtube channel where she will share the interviews with amazing scientists while walking in the nature.

If you are curios Ulrikke’s long journey, please listen to this episode.

If you also have a story to be told or if you know someone, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Enjoy Listening!

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In this podcast, Tina Persson, the founder of PhD Career Stories has an interesting interview with Dr. Laura Pozzi, who is currently working as a Scientific Writer for a Swedish Biotech, Atlas Antibodies, in Stockholm. Her role involves content creation and scientific marketing communication. Laura received her Ph.D. in Life and Biomolecular Science at the IRCSS-Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research, Milan in 2011. After her graduation, she joined the Neuroscience Department at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, where she worked as a postdoc until 2017. Her research interest focused on the identification of the molecular aspects of brain disorders.

If you are curious about how Laura stepped out of academia and started a new career, please listen to this episode. If you also have a story to be told or if you know someone, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Enjoy Listening!

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Dr. Naresh Thatikonda, a senior scientist at Cobra Biologics shares his story and about his transition from academia to industry. Naresh did his undergraduate study in India and continue his education in Sweden. He has a PhD in Biotechnology, from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. His plan was to pursue an academic career but after PhD, he changed his mind and started his career in industry.

If you are curious about Naresh’s transition from academia to industry , please listen to this episode. If you also have a story to be told or if you know someone, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Enjoy Listening!

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In this episode, Dr. Sabine Englich shares her career story from the perspective of a coach and tells us about the essence of developing a satisfying career. Dr. Sabine had been a science manager in the Max Plank institute for over 20 years. After retirement, she started her coaching career and currently she is helping young PhDs to fulfill the transition from academic into the professional life.

To know more about Sabine’s story, please listen to this episode. If you also have a story to be told or if you know someone, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Enjoy Listening!

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This is the second episode of Dr. Francesca Capellini, in which she will talk about the importance of networking in order to broaden your career opportunities.

In her first podcast (#91) Francesca shared with us her career steps that led her to her current position at the italian non-profit organisation Fondazione Umberto Veronesi and how she developed her passion for science writing and science communication. If you have not listened to her first podcast, don’t hesitate to do so.

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Welcome to this new episode where Dr. Francesca Cappellini shares her experience about her career path as a scientist. Dr. Francesca Capellini is working as a researcher for the non-profit organization Fondazione Umberto Veronesi, she is also a scientist writer and a science communicator. In this episode, she talks about the common mistakes done while applying for a job or position as well as how she prevailed over those. Would you like to know how she overcame her circumstances? Listen to this episode.

If you also have a story to be told or if you know someone, please don´t hesitate to contact us. Enjoy listening!

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In this podcast, Tina Persson, the founder of PhD Career Stories has an interesting interview with Sven Totté, who is a Management Consultant using the knowledge and the skills gathered over 25 years in different commercial and leadership roles in a large variety of industries. He is passionate about improving companies’ performance through organizational and business development, often enabled by innovative technologies.

Finding, engaging and keeping the right talent is according to him the most important key to success, hence his deep understanding of the Future of Work including trends like the gig economy.

His favorite missions are to build sharper customer experience, implement innovative value-adding services and shape happier teams.

If you are curios about gig economy and its definition, please listen to this episode. If you also have a story to be told or if you know someone, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Enjoy Listening!

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In this episode, Dr. Svante Hedstrom will tell us about his story and about his transition from academia to industry. He will also share with us some reflections on his journey and how important it is sometimes to leave our comfort zone. After his PhD, Svante followed the path of “least resistance”, which was postdoc-ing. With time he realized that it was not the best path for him and thus decided to leave academia. He is currently working as a chemistry specialist at a private company in Sweden. He will also tell us about how it is to work outside academia.

To know more about Svante’s story, please listen to this episode. If you also have a story to be told or if you know someone, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Enjoy Listening!

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This is the second episode of Dr. Ben Hartwig, in which he will talk about resilience and will share tips on how to stay resilient and how to deal with stress.

In his first podcast (#85) Hartwig shared his story and the lessons he learned during his PhD. So if you have not listened to his first podcast, don’t hesitate to do so.

Ben is a German scientist, entrepreneur and actor. He studied genetics at the Max-Planck Institute in Cologne, specialized in Epigenetics and toured with Germany's biggest improv theater, Springmaus, for the past six years. He has performed, directed and created close to a thousand shows on five continents. Three years ago, he founded his own company Neuroblitz to combine science and applied improvisation in workshops, speeches and seminars.

In this episode, he shares four relevant tips.

The first tip is to surround ourselves with people who believe in us. The second one is to ask better questions. The third tip is to see the things for what they really are and the last one is Ecotherapy and to be our own doctor.

To learn more about Ben’s tips, please listen to this episode. If you also have a story to be told or if you know someone, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Enjoy Listening!

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Dr Kate Evans, Founder and Director of charity called Elephants for Africa, shares her story and tell us how her passion and interests in elephants shaped her career.

Kate is an award winning behavioural ecologist and conservation biologist who conducted

her PhD ‘The behavioural ecology and movements of adolescent male African elephant in the Okavango Delta, Botswana’ through the University of Bristol. With over 20 years of experience as a field biologist throughout Southern Africa on a variety of species, she has a solid understanding of the challenges of large mammal conservation, the complexities of conflict and the importance of stakeholder relationships.

Kate is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Exeter and a member of the IUCN African Elephant Specialist Group, Elephant Specialist Advisory Group and the Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre.

If you are curios how Kates interest shaped her career, please listen to this episode. If you also have a story to be told or if you know someone, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Enjoy Listening!

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In this podcast, Tina Persson, the founder of PhD Career Stories has an interesting interview with Dr. Martin Blaser, who is a postdoc coordinator and co-founder of the Max Planck PostdocNet. He studied food and nutritional science in Giessen and continued his doctoral study in microbial biochemistry at the University of Marburg (2007). He continued his academic career as a postdoc and project group leader at the MPI for terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg until 2017. During this time he also was a postdoc representative. After spending over 10 years in academia, he took his first step out of academic system and became a career coach, a postdoc coordinator at the Justus Liebig University Giessen and a co-founder of the Max Planck PostdocNet.

“Really the problem is that you focus on the academic track and a lot of people are really having biased idea that they can stay. Which isn't supported by the evidence in reality so much.”

Martin Blaser.

If you are curios how Martin step out of academic career and started a new career, please listen to this episode. If you also have a story to be told or if you know someone, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Enjoy Listening!

For complete show notes and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com.

You can also find us on social media:

www.facebook.com/PhDCareerStories

www.twitter.com/PhDCareerPod

www.instagram.com/phdcareerstories

www.linkedin.com/company/phd-career-stories

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In this podcast, Dr. Ben Hartwig shares his story and lessons he learned during his PhD. Dr. Ben Hartwig is a German scientist, entrepreneur and actor. He studied genetics at the Max-Planck Institute in Cologne, specialised in Epigenetics and aside he toured with Germany’s biggest improv theater, Springmaus, for the past six years. He has performed, directed and created close to a thousand shows on five continents. Three years ago, he founded his own company Neuroblitz to combine science and applied improvisation in workshops, speeches and seminars.

If you are curios how Ben successfully combined his analytical and creative side together, please listen to this episode. If you also have a story to be told or if you know someone, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Enjoy Listening!

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Sonia Jaeger is German-French psychologist, psychotherapist, and PhD.

She has been living a location independent life as a digital nomad for the past four years while working as an online therapist, providing online counselling to expats and other globally mobile clients in German, French, and English.

After finishing her PhD she decided to take a break and travel the world. However, instead of returning home afterwards she decided to start an online private counseling practice and has been traveling the world ever since.

In 2018 alone she went to (and worked from) 12 different countries, from Australia to Europe all the way to Latin America. Currently, she has not only started to mentor other psychotherapists who want to work online but also facilitates workshops that broach the issues of mental health while living globally.

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Matt Hotze graduated with a doctorate in Environmental Engineering from Duke University in 2008 and he is currently Administrative Director at Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment Engineering Research Center.

From his story, you will learn how almost failing the GRE exam brought him to the managing position he has now and how to apply business principles in academia and life.

Matt also shares his experience with the dual-career challenge that many PhD couples face after their graduation and offers good advice on how to find a job and keep a relationship at the same time.

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In this episode Pearl Osirikeshares her story and some of the most important lessons she has learned during her PhD so far. Pearl is a biochemist with an interest in drug discovery and infectious diseases. She holds a first-class degree and a masters degree from the University of Benin, Nigeria, where she also serves as an Assistant Lecturer. Currently, she is a second year PhD student of Molecular and Cell Biology of Infectious Diseases at the West African Centre for Cell Biology and Infectious Pathogens at the University of Ghana.

Pearl is passionate about teaching and research and she is excited to share her story to motivate and inspire others.

To learn more about Pearl’s story, please listen to this episode. If you also have a story to be told or if you know someone, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Enjoy Listening!

For complete show notes and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com.

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This is the second episode of Fabian Taube, in which he will share five tips on how to survive outside of academia after an academic career.

In his first podcast Fabian shared his story transforming from academia to a specialist in preventive medicine at the Swedish Armed Forces Center for Defense Medicine. So if you have not listen to his first podcast, don’t hesitate to do so.

Bellow you find the title of these tips:

1-Sort out the pros and cons before accepting a certain position.

2-Let the organization know your big advantage.

3-Make contact and collaborate.

4-Make yourself and your coworkers satisfied.

5- If you aim at becoming a leader you should first question your purpose of wanting to become a leader.

To learn more about Fabian’s tips, please listen to this episode. If you also have a story to be told or if you know someone, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Enjoy Listening!

For complete show notes and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com.

You can also find us on social media:

www.facebook.com/PhDCareerStories

www.twitter.com/PhDCareerPod

www.instagram.com/phdcareerstories

www.linkedin.com/company/phd-career-stories

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PhD Career Stories podcast marks its third anniversary!

We can hardly believe it ourselves, but we are extremely proud that for three years we managed to bring you every two weeks a new inspiring story from our speakers and share with you our thoughts about PhD life and - importantly - the life after it.

We are also happy to say that we are not going to stop - our team is continuously growing and new exciting projects and ideas are waiting to be realized. So stay tuned and keep us in your podcast subscriptions!

To celebrate, one lovely summer evening a part of our team sat at the virtual round table to discuss one of the hardest topics in career development - how to stay resilient during the career transition?

Tina Persson offered for this discussion the questions that helped to unfold the concept of "resilience" and brought interesting notions and personal tips from the team members Michele Manzo, Jo Havemann, Subbu Surrendran, and Natalia Stolyarchuk:

Why do so many PhDs stress out at the end of their PhD?
What is an academic “bubble” and how does it prevent PhDs from looking beyond their thesis?
What could help PhDs to be more confident and resilient in the process?
How - and why - shall we talk about failures?
Why digital platforms such as FB and LinkedIn are still so unpopular among PhDs?
Why is it so hard for many PhDs to just stay between jobs?

Listen to the episode to know what came out of it!

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

www.facebook.com/PhDCareerStories
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In this episode two member of PhD Career Stories podcast team, Alice and Nika, talk about their experience during PhD, earned skills and their career after PhD. They also talk about how they joined PhD Career Stories podcast.

Alice is currently working in the healthcare organization in Sweden and She believes her PhD skills like “science communication” helped her to get to her job.

Alice also shares what she has learned during coaching seasons by Tina Persson; “It helped me not to be stuck at some point and think a bit forward to see that one experience doesn't build all your personality…”.

Nika is going to start her new career path as postdoc at Columbia University in New York City. She believes one of the major skills that she learned during her PhD is scheduling meetings from all over the world with a time difference.

In this episode you can also listen to Alice and Nika ‘s tips regarding job interview as both have gone through many job interviews before getting their dream jobs.

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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Michalina Lewicka-Yammine's passion for Neuroscience evolved during her master degree at the Jagiellonian University and her exchange studies at Uppsala University which led her to a PhD degree at Karolinska Institute in Developmental Neuroscience.

After graduation, her passion for marketing got her engaged with three startups and establishing her own consultancy firm. At Karolinska Institute she worked as a course leader and later as a project manager at the Alumni Office.

Throughout that journey Michalina gained many new experiences as well as gave birth to two children, and found her way to balance between being a mother and delivering and performing at work.

Nowadays, Michalina is raising two kids, running a freelance consultancy and has a full-time job as a product manager at Spiber Biomaterial - all powered by the stamina and resilience gained from motherhood.

Connect with Michalina on LinkedIn.

I'm still having my own company and doing some small projects. On the side I’m working fifty percent for a biotech company and fifty percent on maternity leave. As I said, don't give up! Try it! And see if it's for you and if you don't like it, try something else and try from a different angle – try to find your balance and what suits you the most.

Dr. Michalina Lewicka-Yammine, mother, freelancer and product manager at Spiber Biomaterial.

Transcript

Welcome to PhD Career Stories, the podcast about career paths inside and outside academia. My name is Rui Cruz and I am very happy to introduce Michalina Lewicka-Yammine to you.

Michalina works as a Product Manager specialist for a biotech company located in Sweden and in today's podcast she will tell you how she transitioned from her PhD in Developmental Neurosciences to the world of marketing.

During this process, Michalina started her own consulting company and worked in different startups, while at the same time she gave birth to two children.

Michalina will share with us important insights on the demanding challenges of being a mother while having the need to deliver and perform at work.

Michalina's story shows us that with resilience, stamina and support from people around you, it is possible to have a healthy balance between career development and motherhood.

We hope that her story will be inspiring to you and that you enjoy this episode of PhD Career Stories!

Hi my name is Michalina Lewicka-Yammine and I would like to share with you today my career story and how I got my PhD and why.

I'm coming from Poland and during my master thesis in Krakow I decided to go for a student exchange and that was basically my first step to start thinking about the research projects.

I have to say I really enjoyed my time in Uppsala (Sweden) after one year exchange I decided to stay and take an internship project at Uppsala University where I shared my passion for science with three really nice people and basically due to them, due to Dan and Daniel who were my supervisor and colleagues who were following me during the project, I re-discovered that I would like to do a masters degree to take a PhD.

I graduated in June and searched for a PhD position... Now I know that June and July in Sweden are not the best months to get in touch with anyone. In September I was pretty frustrated about it but then it's kind of be up and start going and I had some interviews.

I was lucky and happy to secure a place in Ola Hermanson group at the department of Neuroscience in Karolinska Institute and that's how I started my ride and with the PhD life in December 2013 if I'm not wrong.

I have to say it has its ups and downs but I was really lucky I had a boss who let us experience science and really struggle ourselves, it was a bit more “lets you swim” approach if you need guidance he will try to help you but he will not really tell you what to do which makes me learn a lot and let me experience, troubleshoot and don't give up.

I acquired a lot of skills, really valuable skills, I had also great colleagues in my group and as well as the neighbouring groups who were really open for discussion for troubleshooting together. I was really lucky that I met people who were really inspiring.

We made a lot of cool things together we were involved in some association, PhD associations, we were teaching. I enjoyed teaching a lot.

I made a PhD in development of neuroscience based on stem cell and biomaterials which was pretty cool because during that time there were people not only from karolinska institute but also from KTH which is a technical university as well as Linköping University so I had a bit of more discussion between scientists, researchers as well as engineers who are working with a different biomaterial which is really cool way to perceive the projects and communicate with people who talk all the same thing but in a different way.

The big advantage will say was about to travel. My boss always send us for some conferences and had a really good network.

Which allows me to build my own network which I found it really valuable later on and not only for your future career but also for choosing or finding your options deciding what would you like to do after the PhD.

As every PhD I had my ups and downs.

I have to say that I had some doubts like “Is it really for me?” but I'm one of these people who acts if I started I really want to finish it. I don’t like unfinished projects.

Overall I have to say it was really good time I learn a lot.

And it was definitely valuable even the down parts where project didn't work out and something went been totally wrong and you discovered it after few months of work and it's basically worth nothing differently teach I am kind of being more persistent to decide. Okay something didn't work but many other things went as planned.

It was very happy by the end. I would say the solution ends up really good

Meeting people from different backgrounds, different groups and different cultures help me not only to build up my friendships but also my research and continue with my research.

It helped me to build my social skills, networking skills and communicating science it was really important and still is really important for me I was involved in a nonprofit organization which helps communicating science to the general public'

we had several events around Stockham city to show them what really researchers do and how daily work works and how the research that is perceived at Karolinska institute could be implementing in their live because I think it's a pretty big gap between what we do as researchers and whqt general science knows about research.

It was a lot of fun, a lot of extra work which was not really counted as my PhD time but it was definitely a really valuable lessons, going for meetings with some kids to elderly people and talking about stem cell research about development in neuroscience to them.

As by the end of my PhD time I wasn't really sure what I would like to do. I have seen one position that a professor who was presenting at Karolinska at one of the meetings, she said that they are searching for a postDoc and that sounds pretty cool.

I applied, I went for interviews in London and the plan was to move out in March, April to London to start a PostDoc there.

Overtime plan had to change and had to be changed because in January I discovered I'm pregnant and in one way it was really a blessing I was already married for over two years and we wanted to have kids. However discovering that you're pregnant while moving out to a different country that's your project doesn't really include maternity leave for the first year changing a country where you're not really cover by the social benefits for the first year was a bit tough choice to do but for me being a mother was really important so I decided to stay in Sweden.

I continue for a short time in my old group of projects just two or three weeks before the due date I stopped working as a researcher.

And I went on maternity leave but then I decided that well to kind of keep an eye open and see what I can do that if really academia is a choice for me.

I was really lucky because my husband open a company at that point and they wanted to market a bit around and he asked me if I could help them to share some information on social media so I said looking into that taking some courses online searching for some tips in reading and I discovered that in fact marketing it's not such a far fetched form of neuroscience. In marketing you use a lot from neuroscience and knowledge that we obtained

Like high tracing is really commonly used for advertising and following human brain and things and total behaviour changing this is all based on the research, purely neurobiology research.

I really liked it and I started up by doing the marketing for xxxx and I had to say that it went very well.

They get a pretty good coverage after being a year on the market as a company they were covered by a NewYork Times.

They get really good funding and it was a really cool way to work with a team at the same time being a mother.

I work mostly from home I basically did a lot of things on my phone while breastfeeding or having a walk with the kid.

I discovered that even though before I was really good multi tasking I had good time management and I was pretty adjustable in the sense of being able to adjust to the situation Being a mother teach you that in a different dimensions and so after my maternity leave mission to lay I continue working for a small start ups and helping with marketing and trying to find a way to revive markets research in which platform they could set up and work with.

I worked a bit too with a customer service support which is really good because it helps to see that stuff which for us is really clear and obvious they are might be not as easy to see for the other in the sense that maybe for me the bike is red but someone else see that the bike is lila or pink. Sometimes it's really hard to get on the same page with the customer and to understand them from a different perspective.

After working in a small company I decided to apply and be a teacher back at Karolinska institute and teach a marketing course.

That was pretty cool experience I worked for two years having a marketing course and a project management course as well as a practical placement courses.

That was Master level courses

It was again really resourceful, a good way to apply my knowledge and testing it out in a different field as I said before I like teaching during my PhD time and teaching by yourself, being in charge of the course about the budget and financing it's a totally different difficulty but you have to handle with.

It was really interesting, however after a while decide to move out with in Karolinska and go to Alumni office and try to see how we could get the alumni more involved and more visible for the benefits of Karolinska and it was again a really cool team, a really good experience.

Learning the structures of a big organization such ad Karolinska It was really beneficial for me to see how many different coins have to get together so how many different balls have to the jungles at ones and some parts of departments can take decisions.

Which is totally different when I was working in small companies, small start ups really have like five max ten people team versus a hundred people who are management who have more regular meetings it's not like we just write what's happened, let's talk...

I have to have a meeting with more structured way due to the size of the organizations.

I became pregnant and we bought a house at the same time, the houses a delay and it's going to come at same time as my second baby, it’s a baby boy.

Two months before my due date I get a phone call from them from my colleagues I was collaborating with during my PhD time,testing to biomaterials and she told me that their companies trying to go public and start selling and they need someone to help them up with a marketing.

When we talked on the phone and she was describing the position I was “Gosh this is my dream job”. It is marketing, doing marketing for a biotech company. For a product which in fact I know really well because I was involved in the early stages of the research and partly I feel like I'm definitely want to go and talk with them so I did.

It was a bit funny because when I entered I was like two months in due dates.

So it definitely could see it I was pretty huge at the time and my belly was sticking out much more in front of me.

I Didn't say much in the beginning and it was basically me who brought it up to the table telling them that yes the positions sounds good I would definitely be interested however yes my due date is soon

We decided to all have a moment to think about and we talk to each other a week after. I was really thrilled that they decided to give me a phone call with the suggestion that they're interested and they are flexible for me to start working soon after my delivery but I could work out from home.

Help them up from a more distance things or bring the kids with me to work and I think this is a brilliant way because we are nowadays living in Sweden at least me I'm living in Sweden and I think Sweden is very open for having kids, for having kids at work and for females working with a kid in an office it's not a big surprise and maybe some people still feel this with weird but many people don't see it as a problem and I end up pretty lucky to be in a company which says it’s okay this is totally okay with my four months old baby discovering the voice and kind of giggling on a side when we are having a conversation and discussion.

It’s definitely hard for me to juggle my maternity leave together with my work plus having a ‘four and a half years old which is full of ideas and active little girl which is definitely cannot stay in one place and play she's too active for that. It was also pretty tricking in the sense that I had to unpack the house, furnished the house and try to set it up and find time for myself.

Which is definitely not so easy I thought that having one child definitely change my world and teach me a lot. Change my understanding of being a flexible and time management. But having second one basically you have to learn it again from scratch you have to experience it in a different way.

Because the responsibility increase as you progress in your family life as well as your career.

So the flexibility has to increase in some way too it is definitely hard, especially for me for a person who likes to have few plans, structure and doesn't like surprises.

Having two kids is full of surprises.

Definitely work and motherhood can coexist.

And you can have it all and there are moments where everything under the plan.

If it feels like whoa, it's just too good to be true and know that soon something is going to go down or can go wrong.

And this could be like a easy thing that it's a flu season and then one of the kids can get sick or bring a virus and the little one just have a running nose but you get a forty degree fever and you can’t move.

You don't really have an influence on that.

I'm really happy and really thrilled that I have a partner,l friends and family who are really helpful.That can really rely on.

And so this is not only my duty and my skills to juggle with all. We share responsibilities really well with my parents and my partner of taking care of the kids and taking care of the house or helping each others and a daily basis.

I think this is a huge blessing for me.

I know everyone don’t have this on a daily basis.

I read some studies that forty three percent of highly qualified women decide to leave the carriers for having kids and I think that definitely does not an option for me I'm too active person, I always do a few things once.

As being a full time my mom at home, It's not really my thing I would definitely get a bit frustrated I mean I need things which are more stimulating and more pushing up from behind and challenging a bit more.

As much as I love my kids and I love spending time with them.

I need the kind of more intellectual stimulation, some kind of me time.

That's why I always try to stay updated with museum, theater, cinema. Try to read maybe now I have not so much time for reading but I switch to the audiobook and I’m listening at least in the way when I drop the kids to preschool, or driving to work or taking the bus or the train.

And so it's really really good time which you can use it for this kind of stuff.

I have to say that at first when I was signing up the contract and it was like literally six weeks before the due date I was really afraid of how it's going to end up because how the little one didn't show up today, I was a bit afraid if he has a colleague or maybe I have a post partum depression or maybe I would not feel well or you know there's a tones of thought running in your head especially when you are pregnant and you see everything pretty black.

But in the end I was really happy at all clear it up well.

My son is an amazing baby, a really happy baby. I started to work in february mostly from home.

Nowadays we are going more and more to the office and try to be at least once or twice a week in the office, having more personal meetings with my colleagues and discussing about product launch, the website and updates and things like that. I work a lot by night and this is again pretty good that I'm an evening person.

I am not a morning, I don’t like to wake up in the morning, so in the morning I just rather do things on autopilot and in the evening when the kids are sleeping in that house is basically under control and I have time to sit down and focus and continue with my task and fulfill my duties as an employee.

I definitely can say that especially nowadays with all the digital media and digital appliances which you can just take along with you and you can reply to email on the playgrounds when the dotter is playing and the son is sleeping in the pram.

You can keep an update with your website and keep in touch with your company and colleagues. It is definitely possible to have it all.

Having family and having jobs at the same time. It's not easy and sometimes it's a bit messy, complicated and overwhelming but in the end I think this is a life it's not really easy peasy.

There are times up and down, I have to say that overall I fing my life really satisfying even though it is challenging but as I said before, I like challenges I definitely enjoy it

more when it's more.

I prefer the challenges than have it a bit boring.

I think this is for all of the females who are thinking like well should I try it or should I not try. I would prefer to try something and say okay this is for me or this is not for me than just sitting and thinking about what would it be if

So if you have a doubt about being a mother and having a career life, Give it a shot!

It's always better to say and okay I tried it didn't work out than to be later on fifty or sixty and thinking it would have been so cool if I would have done it like that twenty years ago.

I don't like speculation, I think that's kind of my research nature coming up in it.

I prefer to have facts so.

I tried it and I see if it works or not.

In many ways I think work is the center of our lives.

Even though from my family is super hard for me. I wouldn't be able to provide for my family if I wouldn't have my work too because I need the balance between family time and work time which is a bit of my own time.

Which is the time I can really plan and predict because when you're at home you cannot predict with two small kids which is really resourceful you cannot plan your day.

I definitely learn a totally new set of skills even though I was good in time management and I was pretty flexible. I learned it in a new dimension because the life taught you a lot of things in a different time and maybe not times which you have definitely not plan it and it could be from illness to day off at school because they have some planning or schedule and so you have to deliver the unexpected.

Juggling few balls at the same time it's pretty, it’s really challenging.

The work life balance is hard I still managed to find some time for myself.

When my daughter was two I started dancing again I like dancing this is my thing, that's relax me.

I joined a group which is started class and we are dancing modern Jazz.

We were lucky because we not only compete on a national level, we got to the second place in Sweden we went for the international competition competed for Sweden and got a third place which felt really cool especially for me because I'm Polish and I was dancing in the Swedish national team and we get a third place

It felt pretty weird also showing that the workplace nowadays it's so open, it’s so multicultural people moving and changing, adjusting to different situations.

I think we all should have our dreams and hopes in some way try to follow some plans but also take all the punches that comes on the way trying new possibility not to be close mine but pretty open to new options and suggestions.

Because I think if I would just chose just a career or just the motherhood I will feel excluded from the outer part.

I can see that at least for now I can say for myself it's definitely possible and it was definitely possible for my mother, she kept her career and two kids in the home when I had really caring parents and the small of the cake at home and she managed to succeed in her career so I think that especially nowadays when the world get more open for that working mothers. That it's even easier and it's a pity not to try.

I'm still having my own company and doing some small projects. On the side I’m working fifty percent for a biotech company and fifty percent on maternity leave

As I said, don't give up! Try it!

And see if it's for you and if you don't like it, try something else and try from a different angle – try to find your balance and what suits you the most.

Take your life in your hands and then don't give up if it doesn't work out.

Just try something new.

Moving to marketing after PhD in neuroscience wasn't maybe to most obvious choice I soon found it a great choice and great solution for me especially nowadays when I work as a product management and biotech company where I can combine my research knowledge, my scientific skills combined with the marketing skills and try to communicate the product to the scientist which are our first customers, I find it really cool I find it is a good reason to wake up in the morning and continue it.

And that is it for another episode of PhD Career Stories.

As always, we would love to hear from you. You can contact us by commenting on our blog, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter. If you like what we do, please subscribe to our show on iTunes or Spotify. So that’s goodbye for now, but we will be back with a new story for you in two weeks time.”

Key words: motherhood, maternity, career balance, family life, private life, PhD, marketing, neuroscience, teaching, alumni.

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Anne Schreiter advocates for researchers and scientists. At the German Scholars Organization she and her team offer guidance and programs to help PhDs on their career path – in academia and beyond. In this episode Anne talks about why she believes in planned coincidences and what question turned out to be the tipping point for her career.

Anne holds a PhD in Organization Studies and Cultural Theory from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, and spent a year as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California Berkeley. She studied Communication in Social and Business Contexts and Sociology in Berlin before embarking on a year long adventure in China.

Today she lives and works in Berlin again.

You can connect with Anne on LinkedIn and Twitter. She shares posts on science policy, leadership topics, and occasionally also on the odd and curious.

Whether you want to become a professor or do something else, it helps to make yourself visible and heard. And after a while you won’t have to chase opportunities, but instead they will present themselves to you.

Dr. Anne Schreiter, Executive Director at German Scholars Organization e.V.

Transcript

Hi, I am Paulius Mikulskis from PhD Career Stories. It is my pleasure to introduce Anne Scheiter. In today's podcast Anne gives tips how to set yourself up for a successful career even when you do not know where you want to be in 5 or 10 years.

Hi, my name is Anne. I hold a PhD in the social sciences and have been working in the non-profit sector for the last 4 years. Today I’d like to share two pieces of career advice that have proven true for me on my professional journey thus far.

Number one: Answer the question how much you are willing to suffer for a career in academia.

Asked by a career counselor shortly after I finished my PhD, this question really hit me. It triggered me to actively question my career and life choices and forced me to figure out what I really wanted - because, quite frankly, during my time as a PhD student I never really thought about the next career step. I somehow drifted into my program and later into the great opportunity of being a visiting postdoc at the University of California Berkeley. I guess I really loved the atmosphere in academia, I loved the exchange with tremendously smart people, and the flexible lifestyle. But soon the doubts crept in, and this crafty question made them very obvious. I wasn’t so passionate about my research that it outweighed the disadvantages of an academic life, such as instability, a narrow job market, moving around a lot, you name it. I wanted to live in Berlin, I felt that I wanted my work to have an immediate impact, and I was more interested in hands-on tasks. However, for many PhD students and young postdocs such as myself back then, academia is the only path they’re familiar with - even though statistically, academia is the alternative career for PhDs. Questioning my priorities in life helped me to make an informed choice. Once I knew that the hardships of an academic career were not for me, I could then lead my energy towards pursuing another path. If however a career in academia is the right thing for you – go for it! But make it a proactive and informed choice. I can also highly recommend the TED talk by Ruth Chang on how to make hard choices.

Advice Number two: You don’t have to know what you want to do in 5 years – but you can set yourself up for lucky coincidences.

I am currently executive director of a non-profit that supports scientists and researchers who want to pursue a career in Germany – either in academia or in other sectors. My team and I do that by offering career coaching, facilitating career workshops, and developing and managing programs that fill gaps in the current funding landscape, for instance a leadership academy for academics, or a boost fund that supports independent and flexible research for postdocs. We’ve been building a network of PhDs, who work in all sectors, and are able to connect them with those researchers who are about to take the next step in their careers. I really like this job because it combines many things that I enjoy doing, while interfacing with a diverse intellectual community.

5 years ago, after having talked to the career counselor at UC Berkeley, I would have never guessed that I’d do what I do today. However, in retrospective the outcome wasn’t all pure chance and luck.

During my PhD studies I also worked as a research assistant. Back then I learned that I really enjoyed organizing workshops for fellow doctoral students, I enjoyed being an advocate for young researchers as representative on the university board, and that I was good at building and fostering networks. I felt more at home giving talks and managing people than evaluating data and writing on my own. That didn’t change while doing my postdoc.

After I decided to look for a job outside of academia, I started to gather information on how to transition into another sector. I found resources in the United States, but hardly any in Germany. So I set up a blog about career topics and experiences for job searching beyond academia in German. Gaining traction with online visibility, I then conducted a bunch of informational interviews on life beyond academia, and landed some side hustles moderating panel discussions and writing. At the time, I was also working part time organizing a leadership program for students at a non-profit called Common Purpose. I got this job in Berlin after doing quite a bit of homework on how to build a CV and letter of motivation that appeals to the world outside of academia. Importantly, I highlighted my transferable skills and strengths, demonstrating what I could bring to the table in a non-academic sector with an academic background. There was trial and error in this process - before landing this job, I was rejected for positions I thought I was qualified for, but not having the right work experience wasn’t really helping that much.

However, only a few months after I got my foot in the door of my first non-academic job at Common Purpose, I received a call from a headhunter asking if I was interested in a leading position in a research management-related non-profit. As a sociologist with hardly any work experience in the sector, I was not at all used to getting this kind of call. Apparently someone working at the organization had suggested me as a potential candidate after talking to me at a conference and following my blog. I was curious and went through the application process. I honestly thought that I wouldn’t stand a chance of getting the job due to my lack of experience. But to my surprise, I did get an offer. I was intimidated at first by this new role – I’d never led a team before, never was responsible for the finances of an organization, or raised funds other than my own stipends. However, I quickly realized that my previous training had prepared me at least enough to learn these skills on the fly, and I find myself constantly learning on the job. This is a „transferable“ skill I carried with me from academia into my new role – analyzing problems, solving them in real time, quickly adapting my thinking to new information – that comes with PhD training regardless of the specific field. More important than the hard skills are communication and problem solving skills, the ability to deal with uncertainty, as well as understanding my target group of young academics.

To sum it up, whether you want to become a professor or do something else, it helps to make yourself visible and heard. And after a while you won’t have to chase opportunities, but instead they will present themselves to you. And by the way, I have no idea what I’ll be doing in 5 years. But I look forward to finding out.

I hope you enjoyed the podcast. Feel free to contact us on all the usual social media channels, have a great rest of your day and see you in two weeks!

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Dr. Déborah Rupert was born and raised in France where she did her undergraduate studies in physics. Her passion for blending physics and biology brought her to Sweden where she did her PhD in Biological Physics. During her PhD, she reached very close to burnout and informed her supervisor she wanted to quit science. After few months of recovery, she started the PhD again with a very different mindset and a wish to use her personal story to prevent other scientists from burning out.

Déborah decided to become a professional coach and designed a career switch strategy where she worked 80% as an application scientist in a tech company while training herself as a coach. Today, Deborah is a professional coach certified by the international coaching federation, ICF. She supports science innovators with knowledge and tools designed to take care of their mind and protect them from burnout. She is an active member of the international coaching federation where she acts as a coordinator of the west Sweden chapter and is part of the Swedish ICF research forum.

Personal website: deborahrupert.com
Linkedin Profile: linkedin.com/in/deborahrupertphd
Instagram: deborahrupert.phd
International coaching federation: coachfederation.org

So this is my mission now, I’m trying to convey this message of personal self-care within academia, which is a closed bubble world where burnout is still a taboo and seen as a sign of academic failure. We have to learn to see beyond the cliché of the non-stop working and stressed researcher and realize that creativity arises from a place of peace of mind.

Dr. Deborah Rupert, Coach for Mindfulness in Research

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Fabian Taube studied Environmental and Health Protection, Chemistry and Education during his Bachelor and Master study at the Umeå University in Sweden and in 2003 he received a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry. After that, he continued experimenting with different subjects and had two postdocs - one at the Department of Chemistry, Environmental and Biogeochemistry and another at the Dept. of Teacher Education in mathematics, technology and Natural Sciences.
He also worked as an occupational hygienist at Sahlgrenska University hospital and from 2012 he is employed as a specialist in preventive medicine at the Swedish Armed Forces Centre for Defense Medicine (SWE CDM).

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

www.facebook.com/PhDCareerStories
www.twitter.com/PhDCareerPod
www.instagram.com/phdcareerstories

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In this episode, the founder of the podcast Dr. Tina Persson talks about two of the most important qualities you need to have during the job search. If weeks of unemployment have turned to months for you, if you feel that you do not have the required skills and there are no jobs, this podcast is for you. Tina, being the professional career coach and recruitment specialist in the present and the Assistant Professor in Molecular Biology in the past, provides a unique perspective on this issue and gives valuable advice. For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

www.facebook.com/PhDCareerStories
www.twitter.com/PhDCareerPod
www.instagram.com/phdcareerstories
www.linkedin.com/company/phd-career-stories

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Anastasia Moiseeva is a life coach, mentor, teacher and a life-learner. In 2005 she moved from the cold far-away Siberia to the Netherlands to pursue a master's degree in Urbanism. In 2013, she defended her PhD in Urban Sciences and Systems at the University of Eindhoven.

Her way after receiving the PhD degree was not straightforward: after working less than a year as a coordinator and analyst in the ABN ARMO bank and then refusing several high-profile positions in academia, she landed a challenging position as a tutor in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in Rotterdam (EUC) in 2016.

Today. she dedicates all her time and energy to work on her own project "Urban Life Coaching", which aims to help current and former PhD students to get control of their project, to get out of negative thought spirals and find balance by focusing on the right things in life.

In this interview, she reflects upon her own journey from a master student to a life coach and tells how life coaching helps to overcome various difficulties like finishing a thesis, finding a dream job, or reconciling personal and professional lives.

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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Aoife O Dwyer was born and raised in Ireland where she did an undergraduate degree in Genetics and Cell Biology, followed by a PhD in Immunology. Two weeks after her PhD was awarded, Aoife moved to Melbourne, Australia in search of her first Medical Science Liaison job. Today, Aoife still works full time as a Senior Medical Science Liaison in Melbourne, Australia. In 2018, Aoife published "Medical Science Liaison - The Ultimate Step by Step Guide" and founded MSL Consultant to help PhD graduates transition from academia to a medical science liaison position in the pharmaceutical industry.

In this podcast Aoife tells about why she almost quitted her PhD and where she found motivation to stay and finish it. She also shares with the listeners what challenges she encountered on her first MSL position.

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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Data Scientist is often called “the hottest job of the 21st century”, but what makes it so attractive? And how can a PhD-graduate transition into this field?

Chris Armbruster, a PhD graduate in Sociology from the Lancaster University, spent two years at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy studying the emerging R&D and innovation landscape in Europe.
Later he has moved “from innovation research to doing innovation” and first worked on rolling out digital infrastructures for the Max Planck Society, and then dived into start-up life in a variety of roles encompassing digital technologies, customer-centric business models, and product development.
Today he is a Director of Community Development at The Drivery - the mobility innovators' club in Berlin, which goal is to push for innovation in the mobility sector, e.g. autonomous driving, electric kickscooters.
His key mission is to cover the shortage of talent for Data Science & Artificial Intelligence, more specifically for roles in Data Analytics, Data Science, and Machine Learning in Europe.
He writes a blog on Medium about Data & AI field and professional opportunities and drives the “10,000 Data Scientists for Europe” initiative, which we can be found on Eventbrite, Meetup, and Facebook.

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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Elvira Ganic is back for another uplifting episode and this time she shares her best tips and tricks from her job hunt experience when transitioning from academia to industry. Amongst other things, she explains why a growth mindset will help you succeed and also make the journey more enjoyable.

Elvira received her PhD from the Stem Cell Center of the Lund University. After her defense, through the career coaching sessions with Tina Persson and the long job searching process with 27 interviews, she landed on the position of the Regulatory Affairs Specialist at a pharmaceutical and medical device company in Malmö in Sweden.

Want to know more about Elvira? Listen to her inspiring story on how coaching changed the way she sees herself and her skills: #068: Elvira Ganic Story.

"The other thing that was also defining for me was getting over this feeling of failure. I remember getting my first rejection. I found it very difficult and of course you feel like you failed and you wonder what you could do better, you take it personally."

Dr. Elvira Ganic, Regulatory Affairs Specialist

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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We are joined by Chris Humphrey who is a project manager and careers consultant, and the founder of the popular careers website Jobs on Toast. Chris originally completed a PhD in Medieval Studies at the University of York, before leaving academia for a career in the private sector. Over the past 15 years Chris has worked in the areas of technology, transport, financial services and sustainability. Today he works as a project manager for a leading sustainable bank.

Chris is passionate about helping people with their careers and personal development. He has given numerous careers talks at universities in the UK, Ireland and the US, and has taken part in live Q&A events on The Guardian’s website, and for jobs.ac.uk. In 2012 Chris Humphrey founded Jobs on Toast in order to raise awareness amongst Masters students and doctoral graduates of the abundant career opportunities outside of higher education. His motto is 'If I can do it, you can do it’!'

In this episode, Chris will introduce the range of careers that are available to PhDs in the financial services sector. He will also provide some tips and tricks for how to break into this line of work.

'You don’t need to have a finance degree to get a job in the finance industry - certainly I didn't!'

Dr. Chris Humphrey, Project Office Team Leader and Careers Consultant

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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The job search period that comes after the PhD hardly can be called “fun”, “exciting” and definitely not the one “to enjoy”. It is the time when you question your achievements, re-assess your skills and talents, restlessly scout job-boards hoping to find a “fit” to your unique set of skills, attend exhausting interviews, and, inevitably, face numerous rejections before you get that one job.

In our new podcast, Elvira Ganic argues that shifting your perspective can make this process bearable and even joyful. Elvira received her PhD from the Stem Cell Center of the University of Lund. After her defense, through the career coaching sessions with Tina Persson and the long job searching process with 27 interviews, she landed on the position of the Regulatory Affairs specialist at a pharmaceutical and medical device company in Malmö in Sweden.

In this uplifting episode, she tells what she learned on that way - how coaching changed the way she sees herself and her skills, what the transferable skills actually are, how to stay open-minded when looking for a position and why the transition period is an important life phase that you should fully enjoy and learn from it.

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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Today you will have a chance to get to know Kajsa Hallberg Adu, who was born and raised in Sweden and nowadays lives and works in Ghana.

Kajsa Hallberg Adu is a lecturer in Communications, Leadership, and Political Science at Ashesi University. She holds a PhD degree in African Studies (University of Ghana) and a Master degree in Political Science (Uppsala University, Sweden).

Her research interests turn towards the future as she studies youth in Ghana and beyond, student migration, labor migration, knowledge societies, social media in the classroom, social media in elections, the intersection of internet freedoms and democratization, uses of augmented reality and decolonizing the academy. Outside of her academic career, Kajsa is a blogger and activist.

In this episode, she tells what can help when you want to quit the PhD program, how activism and teaching are excellent companions to research, and what beckons after you have completed your dissertation and finally could sleep properly again.

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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In September 2018 Tina Persson attended the annual Max Planck alumni meeting in Berlin and had a chance to speak with the professor for Applied Mathematics and Physics Dr. Magda Schiegl.

Magda Schiegl made her PhD in Theoretical Plasma Physics at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in 1996 and then had a long career in the financial and energy industry. In 2009 she decided to come back to science and teaching, but this time, instead of theoretical plasma physics research, she chose the practical field of Risk Management and Applied Mathematics. She got a professorship position at the University of Applied Science in Cologne and later moved to Landschut, Germany.

In this interview, Magda reflects upon how her experience as a PhD influenced her career and shares a tip on how to combine interests for the industry and practical problems with the passion for scientific research and education.

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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Dr. Ali Al-Sawalmih is the director of the Marine Science Station (MSS) Research Institute in Aqaba, Jordan and a researcher on Marine and Coastal Sciences at the University of Jordan in Aqaba since 2012. He has prior 5 years of experience in Germany on Marine Calcification at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces (MPIKG) in Germany. Dr. Al-Sawalmih earned the MSc degree in Physics at Stuttgart University / Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research (MPI FKF) in 2004, and PhD degree in marine materials at the RWTH Aachen University and Max Planck Institute for Iron Research (MPIE) in 2007.

“For one who wants to be a researcher first before becoming a director or a manager being organized can save time, can make your work perfect and it can make you avoid mistakes as much as possible.”

Dr. Ali Al-Sawalmih

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Fulvio Caruso received his Ph.D. in Electronic Engineering in Palermo, Italy with a focus on hybrid inorganic-organic materials for photonics and optoelectronics applications. He joined industry in 2016 when he moved to Lausanne, Switzerland to start working at Novagan, an EPFL start-up company specialised in the nitride technology. In March 2018, Fulvio joined ABB Semiconductors in Lenzburg, Switzerland where he is currently working as a Process Engineer in the metal/PECVD production area for high-power semiconductor devices.

When the PhD refuses to be a pure executor and starts looking both on the detail and the big picture, those are the elements that the industry really would need. And these are the skills that PhDs have acquired during their time at university.

– Dr. Fulvio Caruso, Process Engineer at ABB Semiconductors

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Girish Kedar was born and brought up in Mumbai, India. For his higher studies, he moved to Sweden in 2009 and since then he studied and worked in different European countries like Sweden, Germany, and The Netherlands. He holds pharmacist degree from India and PhD in Neuroscience from Vrije University, Amsterdam. After a big struggle in finding the right job in the pharma industry, Girish came up with a plan B -- he started his own business and founded The GLOVERK Consultancy, which is based in Amsterdam and provides services to the pharmaceutical and medical device industry. Along with Europe, GLOVERK also has an office in Pune, India.

Girish is also a student ambassador in Vrije University and an independent Career Coach for PhD and Post-Doctorate candidates.

In this episode, Girish contemplates about mistakes he made that complicated his job search and shares advice on how to avoid them. He also describes how the personal strengths he developed during his PhD helped him in the hard task of starting his own business.

“Throughout PhD career, everyone thinks only about two options: either academia or industry. But I believe, PhD is way beyond that -- PhD prepares you for an even harder and better journey, where you can build up your own empire”

Dr. Girish Kedar, PhD in Neuroscience, Entrepreneur, Career Coach

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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The career path of the guest of our today’s episode is anything but conventional. Dr. Andrew Quitmeyer studied Engineering and Film Making during his master’s degree. The trip to Galapagos deviated his direction and led him to pursue a tailor-made PhD degree at the crossing of Digital Media and Field Biology.

Today Dr. Quitmeyer describes himself as a hacker and adventurer, studying intersections between wild animals and computational devices. His academic research in “Digital Naturalism” at the National University of Singapore blends biological fieldwork and DIY digital crafting.

He runs “Hiking Hacks” around the world where participants build technology entirely in the wild for interacting with nature. His research also inspired a spin-off television series for Discovery Networks called “Hacking the Wild”.

The Digital Naturalism Conference is his largest initiative so far, and is leading him to start his own permanent Art-Science Field Station Fab Lab.

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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We are joined by Dr Per Olof Arnäs who is a logistics researcher, podcaster, public speaker, blogger and entrepreneur with an - as he puts it - unhealthy interest in the digitalization of transportation.

Per Olof has been working in, around, and with the logistics industry since the late 1980s, both as a professional and as a researcher. He has a MSc in Mechanical Engineering and a PhD in Logistics from Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. He has also worked as a developer building sustainability tracking systems for the freight industry. Today, he is back as a senior lecturer at Chalmers after a long time in industry.

Apart from his research, Per Olof is also a podcaster and a keen social media enthusiast. His first podcast (Logistikpodden, in Swedish) is one of the the largest logistics podcasts in Sweden. Together with Lena Göthberg, he also runs the show Podgeek, a podcast about podcasting (in Swedish). During 2018, he will also launch his first international podcast, Logistics Rocks.

What is the feeling when you put your hand on the doorknob and enter your workplace? Do you feel happy or not? If not, you should look for something else.

Dr Per Olof Arnäs, Senior Lecturer, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

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Welcome back Joakim Muschött, ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC) and founder and CEO of Skifta Utveckling AB. In episode episode #58, Joakim explained how career coaching can assists you in making the choices that best fit to your personality, to identify your expertise and skills and how to match these to your next career step. In his book on the topic “Courage” (Swedish: Mera mod!) he goes into details on how to face your fears and dare to step outside your comfort zone.

Johan Bertil Muschött today interviews his father on what it takes to be brave and why its necessary for a successful career change.

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In this episode, the founder of the podcast Dr. Tina Persson discusses the question that every PhD faces sooner or later in his/her academic career: “Should I make a postdoc or not?”

Tina, being the professional career coach and recruitment specialist in the present and the assistant professor in the past, provides the unique perspective on this issue and gives valuable advice.

“In academia, we are trained to work hard, long hours, and tend to be very critical about our own achievements. That mindset must be re-evaluated to following: I can learn, I am not afraid to fail, I can ask for help, I like feedback, I can say “I don’t know”, and I contribute to a team.”

Dr. Tina Persson

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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We are joined by Joakim Muschött who is an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC) that has coached leaders at all levels in Sweden and internationally. Amongst other things, Joakim is the Founder and CEO of Skifta Utveckling AB – a company that train leaders and specialists to think straighter and thus helping them to perform better.

Joakim holds a bachelor within dramatics, musicology and law and has been working as a theatre producer, restaurant manager, translator, travel agent and a financial assistant. Recently, he fulfilled one of his dreams - he published his first book on the topic “Courage” (Mera mod! : bejaka din rädsla och våga mer).

In this episode, Joakim converse with his son Johan Bertil Muschött about the method coaching and how you as a PhD student or PhD can benefit from professional coaching. He also talks about the different occupations and how they differ and what services you may expect as a coachee.

"Coaching is a method for helping others grow and develop."

Joakim Muschött, ICF Professional Certified Coach, Sweden

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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Karin Bodewits studied Biology in the Netherlands and is a PhD graduate from the University of Edinburgh. She founded the career platform NaturalScience.Careers. She works as an author, speaker and seminar leader for a range of communication topics. She is the author of the novel ‘You Must Be Very Intelligent — The PhD Delusion’, published by Springer Nature. The novel is a humorous but tragic story about PhD life and it has been discussed by quite a few prominent magazines and newspapers, such as Times Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed and Chemistry World.

[…] none of the things I'm doing today, and I really love doing them, has ever been my big big dream. Point being - you don't have to have a dream!

Karin Bodewits, WriterEntrepreneurSeminarLeaderSpeakerScientist

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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Dr Priya Revathikumar is an Indian researcher with a pharmaceutical technology background that moved to Sweden in 2010 to do a Master’s project at Karolinska Institutet. Her interest for immunology and the brain led her to a PhD in Medical Sciences, which she finished in May last year.

Today, Priya works as a Failure Investigation Engineer at the molecular diagnostics company Cepheid AB.

In this episode, she shares her story on how she turned obstacles into opportunities while making the transition from academia to industry as well as some do’s and don’ts to consider along that path.

"There are a lot of people out there who really are willing to help people from academia to make the transition to industry. Reach out to these people and ask for feedback."

Dr. Priya Revathikumar, Cepheid AB, Sweden

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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Maria Perreira is a Portuguese researcher with a biochemistry background, who moved to Sweden in 2011 to do a Master’s project. Her interest for stem cells and regenerative medicine led her to a PhD in Stem Cell Biology, which she finished in December last year. Very early in her PhD, she realized that a career in academia did not suit very well with her personality and interests, and she started looking for opportunities to switch to the industry. Today, Maria is a research scientist in a pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk.

In this new episode, she shares some tips and tricks on how to facilitate the transition from academia to industry, as well as some advice on how to navigate the selection and interview process successfully.

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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In 2011, after his PhD in Marine Microbiology at the Max

Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Dennis Fink started a company on science communication (get back to episode #20 to hear more!). Six years later, he changed his path again to become a social media expert at one of the biggest biotech companies.

In this episode, he tells about the tasks of a social media campaign manager and the skills required for this job. He also shares his thought of why it is important for scientists to be active on social media.

“As a scientist, you should not be scared about the use of social media. Actually, contrary to this, you should use social media, you should use career networks, because it will make your life easier, especially, your professional one.”

Dr. Dennis Fink, Campaign manager and social media channel expert at QIAGEN GmbH, Germany

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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Today marks the PhD Career Stories' two year anniversary - hurray! Of course we want to celebrate this great occasion and for this we have prepared a special episode featuring the team behind the podcast. With the excellent guidance of the Founder Tina Persson, we discuss matters such as 'Why do we think this podcast is so important? What learnings and insights have we gained so far? What are we expecting from the future?'

Press play and hear all about it!

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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Two years into his PhD studies, Matthias Antonin realised that he needed a plan B. Although doing a PhD at first seemed as the most logical step after his undergraduate studies in biochemistry, he now found himself more enthusiastic when brainstorming opportunities to found a company, than when performing research. He therefore signed up for economics and psychology studies at the distance learning university FernUniversität in Hagen. A transition that later on landed him a job within sales and marketing at Roche Pharma.

In this episode, Matthias will tell you about his journey from being a PhD student to working at the Startup Program Marketing & Sales of Roche Pharma. He reflects over the differences between distance-based and campus-based studying and the importance of networking outside of the academia to land a job in the industry.

Keep an open mindset and if opportunity doesn't come to you, create your own opportunity.

Matthias Antonin, Marketing & Sales Trainee at Roche Pharma

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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Luca Forcucci is an artist and scholar of Swiss and Italian citizenships based in Berlin. His research observes the perceptive properties of sound, space and memory exploring the field of possibilities of the experience. In this context, he is interested in perception, subjectivity and consciousness. Since twenty years, the research observes also his own nomadic situation, as well as his work in various global contexts (Brazil, China, South Africa, Mozambique, USA, Europe and Switzerland). He considers the eyes and ears of the beholder in such contexts as integrally part of his thought. A great influence is the late American avant- garde composer and musician Pauline Oliveros and her concept of deep listening expanded to all what is humanly possible to listen to.

Forcucci achieved a PhD in Music, Technology and Innovation from De Montfort University in U.K., and a MA in Sonic Arts from Queens University of Belfast. The research was also conducted at the University of the Arts of Berlin, INA/GRM (Institut National d’Audiovisuel / Groupe de Recherches Musicales) in Paris while investigating at Bibliothèque Nationale de France François Mittérand. He is regularly invited to lecture in universities (University of Limerick, USP São Paulo, UFRJ Rio de Janeiro, URC California, UdK Berlin, ZhDK Zürich, EPFL Lausanne, SIVA Shanghai). He has an extensive background in architecture.

The artworks are presented worldwide on a regular basis (Festival Multiplicidade Rio de Janeiro, Red Bull Station São Paulo, 30th Biennale of Sao Paulo with Mobile Radio, Akademie der Künste Berlin, Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon Pittsburgh, The Lab Gallery San Francisco, Venice Biennale with Swatch Art Peace Hotel, MAXXI: Museum of XXI Century Arts Rome, Rockbund Museum Shanghai, House for Electronic Arts Basel, Museum of Fine Arts Le Locle). The compositions are released on Universal, Crónica Electrónica in Porto and Subrosa in Bruxelles. Forcucci have been nominated in the arts at The World Technology Summit in New York, and was the first artist in lab in residency at the Brain Mind Institute at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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Johanna Dutton is the Biomedical Engineer that after 10 years in industry decided to return to academia to pursue a PhD. She is also the Founder of Think Likely Resumes Service, a service providing do's and don’ts on how to design a CV or resume for industry as well as interview coaching.

In this podcast Johanna will share her best tips and tricks on resume writing. We will learn how we can make our application letter and CV stand out and why it’s important to demonstrate other skills than the academic ones. She will also provide key points on what to include as well as exclude from the resume in order to convince the hiring manager or recruiter to meet up for an interview.

You need to be able to show that you have other skills and abilities that make you a competitive candidate.

Johanna Dutton, PhD Graduate and Founder of Think Likely Resumes Service

About Johanna Johanna earned her BS in Chemistry from the University of Connecticut and an MS in Analytical Chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She then worked as an analytical chemist for almost ten years at Eisai before accepting a position as a formulation scientist at Novartis Vaccines, now GSK Vaccines. Currently, Johanna is a PhD Candidate in the Joint Program of Biomedical Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State. She spends some of her free time reviewing and editing resumes for students that want to transition from academia to industry.

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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Martijn Bijker was born and raised in the Netherlands where he did both his Masters and PhD in immuno-oncology. In 2007 he moved to Sydney, Australia to start his postdoc at the Garvan Institute and 4 years later transitioned to the pharmaceutical industry where he consecutively worked as a Medical Science Liaison (MSL) with Abbott, AbbVie and Amgen.

He quickly realised that like him, many other PhD/Postdocs struggled to find good information to prepare themselves for the transition from academia into the pharmaceutical industry. This inspired Martijn to found his own career and coaching company.

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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We are very happy to welcome Lina Tengdelius back to the show, this time to provide us with a tips & tricks-themed podcast on how to find a job after a PhD. In this episode, we learn more on how to structure our CV:s in the best way, what to write in a motivation letter and how to perform successfully in job interviews.

Dr Lina Tengdelius holds a MSc in Chemistry and a PhD in Materials Science with specialisation in Thin Film Physics from Linköping University, Sweden. She recently transitioned from academia to a role as a Consultant Manager at Dfind Science & Engineering. She works with recruiting people with a science background and reads a large number of CVs from PhDs every day.

"If you can’t motivate why you want the job more specifically than writing that it sounded interesting, maybe you don’t really want the job?"

Dr Lina Tengdelius, Consultant Manager at Dfind Science & Engineering, Sweden

For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the podcast, visit www.phdcareerstories.com. You can also find us on social media:

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In this episode, Tina Persson interviews the associate professor Erik Alexandersson from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Alnarp (SLU).

Erik has a background in plant molecular biology, and he is currently studying the interaction between potatoes and pathogens, as well as potato defense mechanisms both in the laboratory and in the field. He is also leading a project on biofortification of cassava. Half of the time Erik is the director of PlantLink - a collaboration between Lund University and SLU to strengthen plant research in Southern Sweden. For a couple of years, he had also worked as an in-house editor at BioMed Central publisher in London before he decided to come back into the academic career.

Erik will reflect on his career choices and discuss with Tina how the series of life events may lead to the dream job and what you need to sacrifice for it.

“Dare and make the step, and move between environments, and going between countries. Because, I think, you learn and develop so much from seeing different systems. So if you have the possibilities, do not hesitate. Make a move!”

Dr. Erik Alexandersson

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Dr Magnus Eneberg defended his PhD thesis Beyond the Product - Enabling Design Services in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises at Lund University in 2015. After working as a controller for a couple of years, Magnus returned to academia by studying theory architecture and design management. The latter led him into projects that had a focus on innovation with a design perspective. Currently, Magnus holds a position as a researcher, lecturer and project manager at KTH - The Royal Institute of Technology, in Stockholm.

In this episode he will tell you about his journey from being a PhD student to working as a service designer in a public organization within healthcare. Magnus reflects over the differences between academia and the “real world” and how one can translate ones academic skills to the skills one need to work in a company or organization.

Becoming a PhD student gave me the opportunity to explore not only the subject area of design, and innovation, organization learning, but also myself. Digging into the ontology and epistemology - it was great time to look at how I view the world, to put words on who I was or who I am.

Dr. Magnus Eneberg, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

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Our guests today are the Max Planck Alumni Irene, Maria, Sneha and Arnold, whom we met at the 2nd Max Planck Symposium for Alumni and Early Career Researchers in Berlin in early September last year.

In one of the breaks, we got the chance to sit down with these inspiring people to discuss the importance of keeping in contact with peers through your alumni association. We also talk about how events such as the Max Planck Symposium for Alumni and Early Career Researchers can broaden your horizon on possible career opportunities after a PhD and also help build a network that bridges academia and the industry.

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In episode #44 of PhD Career Stories, we are very happy to welcome Professor Wolfgang Nellen to the show. Professor Nellen was born in 1949 in Velbert, Germany, and has during his academic career worked in USA, Germany, Jordan, Japan, Sweden and Indonesia.

As of June 2015, Professor Nellen holds a Johann Gottfried Herder Fellow of the DAAD and is currently working as a Guest Professor at Brawijaya University in Malang, Indonesia.

Listen to his fascinating life story in which he generously shares his experiences and thoughts on moving on from student to professor and how that changes your duties.

Interestingly the interviews were like a traveling circus. It was almost always the same applicants but each time one less, this one had won the previous position. Even though we were competitors it was a rather relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Everyone was quite positive that he or she would make it sooner or later. This is probably very different today and much more tuff.

Professor Wolfgang Nellen, Guest Professor at Brawijaya University in Malang, Indonesia

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In this episode, Johanna Havemann will talk with an expert in scholarly communication and publishing Jon Tennant. He will tell us why he has decided to join the Open Science community, what are the main challenges on the way to alter the traditional publishing system, and share his tips how to contribute to the open access culture being a PhD student or a young researcher.

Jon finished his award-winning PhD at Imperial College London in 2017, where as a paleontologist he studied the evolution of dinosaurs, crocodiles, and other animals. For the last 7 years or so, he has been a fervent challenger of the status quo in scholarly communication and publishing and became the Communications Director of ScienceOpen for two years in 2015. Now, he is independent in order to continue his dino-research and work on building an Open Science MOOC to help train the next generation of researchers in open practices. He has published papers on Open Access and Peer Review, is currently leading the development of the Foundations for Open Science Strategy document and is the founder of the digital publishing platform paleorXiv. Jon is also an ambassador for ASAPbio and the Center for Open Science, a scientific advisor for Guaana and ScienceMatters, a Mozilla Open Leadership mentor, and the co-runner of the Berlin Open Science meetup. He is also a freelance science communicator and consultant and has written a kids book "Excavate Dinosaurs".

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In episode 42 of PhD Career Stories, Anestis Dougkas returns for a tips & tricks-themed podcast. In this episode, we learn more on how you can prepare for an international career and become part of the global workforce.

Dr Anestis Dougkas is the researcher that take on the daily challenges in order to create a healthier world by making nutrition accessible. Currently, he is a Researcher in nutrition, health and eating behaviour at the Centre for Food and Hospitality Research at Institut Paul Bocuse, Lyon, France. He graduated from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece with a four-year B.Sc. degree in chemistry with specialization in biochemistry and food chemistry. He then continued his studies and received a M.Sc. in food science and nutrition and a Ph.D. in nutrition, within the Nutritional Research Group at University of Reading, UK. His Ph.D. work focused on the associations between consumption of dairy products and the risk of obesity. Specifically, he undertook epidemiological research and human dietary intervention trials, which investigated the effect of dairy on appetite regulation. In 2011, he got a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship at Food for Health Science Centre, Lund University, Sweden.

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Gizeh Perez Tenorio is an Associate Lecturer within experimental oncology and Online Facilitator in the Open Networked Learning courseat Linköping University. She also collaborates with Didacticum as PBL tutor where her key interest lies in incorporating technology to some of her courses, to support her colleagues in enhancing their digital literacy.

In today’s episode, Gizeh shares her career story and how she, after studies in Cuba, Sweden and the United States landed her current position as an Assistant Lecturer in Experimental Oncology at Linköping University in Sweden. Welcome Gizeh!

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Listen to her exciting story on how she landed her current position and what her experiences on “the other side” has taught her about the recruitment process. In this episode, Lina also shares her views on how to market yourself efficiently when looking for a job in the Life Science industry.

Tina helped me realize that the personality traits that I had considered to be problems for most of my life could be my greatest strengths, and that I should look for a job that suited my personality instead of adapting my personality to a job that didn’t really suit me.

Dr Lina Tengdelius, Consultant Manager at Dfind Science & Engineering, Sweden

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Alex Rutherford is a freelance data scientist and entrepreneur with a PhD in Physics from the University College London. He has subsequently undertaken post-doctoral work in complexity science and computational social science using computational techniques to understand why ethnic violence breaks out, how large groups of people can work together remotely and how constitutional reform takes place. His work has been published in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences and has been covered in the New York Times and Nature among others.

Alex worked as a data scientist for the United Nations in New York for several years applying computational techniques such as natural language processing and network analysis to aid and inform the development and humanitarian work of UN agencies and NGOs. This has included field work in Mexico, Jordan and Brazil, collaborations with numerous blue chip companies, presence at high level UN events and a handshake from Ban Ki Moon. Alex has lived and studied in Coventry, London, Damascus, Boston, Dubai, New York and Silicon Valley and speaks passable Spanish and Arabic.

More recently, Alex is the founder of Data Apparel, an organisation selling custom, ethical clothing that uses the power of data and visualisation to promote empathy and debate among global citizens. He is an active Twitter user and blogger. More information and contact details can be found at alexrutherford.org.

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When attending the third Max Planck Career Fair at Harnack-Haus in Berlin earlier this fall, we got the chance to talk to Katrin Franke, Professor of Computer Science and Head of the NTNU Digital Forensics group at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

In this episode, we talk to Katrin about her decision to pursue an academic career and the reason why she moved to Norway. We also get to hear her thoughts on networking and how important it is to build a culture of sharing.

Getting a PhD is only level 1 in Super Mario. At level 2, we need to reorientate ourselves.

Dr Katrin Franke, Professor of Computer Science at NTNU, Norway

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Welcome to a special episode of PhD Career stories. Our guests today are Yorick Peterse and Maria Eichel, whom we met at this year’s Max Planck Symposium for Alumni and Early Career Researchers (#MPSAECR) in Berlin, Germany. At this symposium, Maria and Yorick conducted a workshop on Mental Health and also wrote an article about it on the blog of the Max Planck PhDnet entitled The Mental Health of PhD Candidates.

Today, Maria and Yorick will tell us how “normal” it is to encounter mental health challenges during a PhD, which sounds rightfully alarming. There are numerous preventive and coping measures that can ease the situation. Some of these lie in your own hands, some are – and should be – offered to you by the research institution. Let’s hear it from the experts, welcome Maria and Yorick!

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When attending the third Max Planck Career Fair at Harnack-Haus in Berlin earlier this fall, we got the chance to talk to Dr David Alich who works at Capgemini Consulting as Principal for Insight & Data. We talk to David about his decision to leave academia, what he wished he had known before he started his PhD at the Max Planck Institute and how he landed his current position at Capgemini.

I was always asking myself this question: Are you working to live or are you living to work?

Dr David Alich, Principal Insight & Data at Capgemini Consulting, Hamburg

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Prateek Mahalwar is originally from India and completed his PhD under the supervision of Nobel laureate Prof. Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany. During this time, he studied the cellular mechanism of pigment pattern formation in zebrafish. Beside his PhD research, he was involved in several initiatives with Max Planck Society (MPG) stakeholders as the spokesperson and deputy spokesperson of the Max Planck PhDnet in 2015 and 2014 respectively. He has represented the MPG at several internal and external initiatives like Opencon (a global open science initiative), Early Career Researchers (ECR) advisory board member at eLife, science policy meetings with Science Europe and Open Access Ambassadors program at MPG.
He has been an entrepreneur as well and co-founded two start-ups in parallel to his PhD studies. Currently, he is working as Manager Strategy - Life Sciences at Ernst & Young in Frankfurt. His work includes advising biotechnology, pharma and MedTech companies on investment, product commercialization and digitization topics.

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Dr Susanna Bächle is a scientist with a background in Immunology and Virology. Originally from Germany, she has lived, studied and worked in Germany, Australia, Sweden and the US. After graduating with a PhD in Medical Sciences from Karolinska Institutet she moved to Boston (US) to pursue a career at the interface of science and business. At the moment she works for Addgene, a scientific nonprofit organization that aims to accelerate science by facilitating sharing of materials and information. She is passionate about science, innovation, entrepreneurship and global health.”

To me a career path is not a line, it really is a zigzag, and often enough a random looking or even 'lucky' turn to a new job was determined by a meeting, a follow-up email, a networking event which seemed unimportant at the time but ultimately make up the many small necessary steps for shaping your own 'luck'.

Dr Susanna Bächle, Outreach Scientist at Addgene

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Michael Gralla returns for a Tips & Tricks on Career Building, to shed light on what else is important to work on despite your scientific skills. In episode 26 you can hear what motivates him and why he is currently pausing his PhD for is own human capital company.

Linkedin: in/michaelgralla
Website: fby – Find the Best in You.
Twitter: @michaelgralla

My three tips: 1) Become an expert in a discipline unrelated to your PhD project. 2) Get out! 3) Be brave.

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Anestis Dougkas is a Researcher in nutrition, health and eating behaviour at the Centre for Food and Hospitality Research at Institut Paul Bocuse, Lyon, France. He graduated from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece with a four-year B.Sc. degree in chemistry with specialization in biochemistry and food chemistry. He continued his studies and received a M.Sc. in food science and nutrition and a Ph.D. in nutrition, within the Nutritional Research Group at University of Reading, UK. His Ph.D. work focused on the associations between consumption of dairy products and the risk of obesity. Specifically, he undertook epidemiological research and human dietary intervention trials, which investigated the effect of dairy on appetite regulation. In 2011, he got a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship at Food for Health Science Centre, Lund University, Sweden. His research interests are within the area of protein and appetite regulation, obesity prevention and sustainable diets. He is a member of the Nutrition Society, American Society for Nutrition and the Association for the Study of Obesity and alumni of the European Nutrition Leadership Platform.

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In episode 31 of PhD Career Stories, Jenny Zie tells us about her journey from marine research to career coaching and what she has learned along that path.

Jenny Zie finished her PhD at Stockholm University in 2014 and since then worked as a researcher in industry and with competence development at the Swedish Government Offices (Regeringskansliet). Now she is working as a career coach at Uppsala municipality (Uppsala kommun).

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In episode 30 of PhD Career Stories, Åsa Burman returns for a tips & tricks-themed podcast. In this episode, we learn more on why shifting focus from what you are working with to how you are working will increase your productivity. In addition, we are presented with different productivity tools and how you can apply them to your own work situation.

Dr Åsa Burman has a broad background and professional experience from business, academia, and social entrepreneurship. Amongst other things, Åsa is the Founder and CEO of Finish On Time - a company that helps graduate students, postdocs, and other academics to finish their academic work on time and feel well during the process. So far, over 1000 PhD students, supervisors, professors and researchers have participated in conferences and seminars organised by Åsa and her colleagues Johanna Clausen Ekefjärd and Henrik Levinsson. Earlier this year, she also published her first book: Bli klar i tid och må bra på vägen: Handbok för doktorander (Natur & Kultur, 2017) which is to be translated into English during next year.

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Professor Alfred Orina Isaac is a Pharmaceutical Scientist with a specific interest in Neuroscience. His research is focused in neurotoxicology and neuroprotection mechanisms in the brain. Currently, he is studying the neurotoxicity of Khat in a mouse model; and also the neuroprotection capability of naturally found compounds against neurotoxic drugs e.g. Melarsoprol. His long term goal is to start the first institute for brain research in Kenya and he has published a book entitled, “Scientific Writing for Students and Young Scientists”.

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We are joined by Dr Åsa Burman who has a broad background and professional experience from business, academia, and social entrepreneurship. Amongst other things, Åsa is the Founder and CEO of Finish On Time - a company that helps graduate students, postdocs, and other academics to finish their academic work on time and feel well during the process. So far, over 1000 PhD students, supervisors, professors and researchers have participated in conferences and seminars organised by Åsa and her colleagues Johanna Clausen Ekefjärd and Henrik Levinsson. Earlier this year, she also published her first book: Bli klar i tid och må bra på vägen: Handbok för doktorander (Natur & Kultur, 2017) which is to be translated into English during next year.

In addition, Åsa holds a PhD in Philosophy from Lund University and has also conducted research as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. After finishing her PhD, she started working as a Management Consultant at McKinsey & Company and then continued to work with social entrepreneurship. As of a few years ago, Åsa has returned to academia and is currently working as an Assistant Professor in Practical Philosophy at Stockholm University.

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A year ago, [Tina] talked to Michele. At that time, he was a PhD student looking for a job in industry. […] “I have a feeling that you have a lot of energy; would you like to share what you have learned with other people so that you will make life easier for them? Because, you see, I have a dream and a vision to start a podcast.” And Michele said, “Why not? I would love to! I don’t know how to do it, but I can probably learn.”

To learn how this story continued to where we are now just click and listen...

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Michael Gralla is a PhD student at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden and also a Leadership Consultant and Career Coach who has just started his own company: fby – find the best in you.

During his career, Michael has never followed the given path. With a Master in Nutrition, he switched fields to get a PhD in Molecular Biology. During his PhD studies, Michael repeatedly guided fellow PhD students and postdocs in career related questions and helped them organize their next career moves. Furthermore, he holds an executive position in a German travel agency start-up.

Due to various reasons, Michael is pausing his PhD right now to start his own company. As his passion lies in people and team development, he started fby – find the best in you – a leadership consulting company. Michael's constant interest in broadening his network and meeting people to discuss talent development-related topics has given him the opportunity to team up with experts of different areas covering leadership.

"In her TED talk in 2015, Emilie Wapnick introduced “multipotentialites” – a type of personality that easily gets interested in different areas. Multipotentialites quickly consume a new field of interest. By repeatedly doing so they become fast learners, adaptable and innovative."

Michael Gralla, CEO and Founder of fby – find the best in you

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Sara Borniquel started her career as a scientist in Spain, before moving to Sweden in 2008. At Karolinska Institute she combined a postdoc position -leading a pre-clinical study about immune-inflammatory diseases- with two internships at KI Innovations AB and Stockholm-Uppsala Life Science. Since 2014, Sara has held several positions in industry including project management, marketing, and business development. Today she works as freelance consultant for Life Science companies, as recruiter (Rekryteringsspecialisten AB) and marketing & sales consultant (innoFund Innovation Funding Advisors) among others.

Sara holds a BSc in Biology and a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and has completed her education with various courses in Business and Marketing.

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Sam Dupont is a Researcher and an Associate Professor in Marine Eco-Physiologist at the University of Gothenburg and an Honorary Assistant Professor at the School of Biological Sciences, Hong Kong University. His main research topic is on the effect of global changes on marine species and ecosystems.

He currently has about 150 publications in journals including Nature, PNAS and TREE. His work aims at revealing the mechanisms behind species and ecosystem responses to environmental changes and at developing the needed unifying theory for large scale projections.

"To study without passion was never an option for me and I early decided that all my decisions should always be based on passion, not on potential jobs, not on potential positions.”

Dr. Sam Dupont, Associate Professor at University of Gothenburg

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Thomas Thestrup was born in New Jersey (USA) and has lived and worked in the USA, Australia, Germany and Denmark. He holds a MSc in Biology and Biotechnology from the University of Copenhagen and a PhD in Neurobiology from the Max-Planck Institute of Neurobiology and Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. Today, Thomas is an Associate at Sunstone Capital, an early-stage Life Science and Technology venture capital company investing in European start-up companies with strong potential to achieve global success in their markets.

"By networking, networking and networking, and assessing your dreams, your feelings about what keeps you excited, you will eventually find people that can help you take the next step, at least, that helps a lot."

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Dr Amanda González-Bengtsson is a Public Relations Manager at Stockholm University and her passion is to promote science and make it known in society and to stakeholders. In episode 22 of PhD Career Stories, Amanda returns for a tips & tricks-themed podcast. In this episode, we learn more on how we can start preparing for a career after a PhD already in graduate school.

"You have only failed if you don’t keep trying."

Dr Amanda González-Bengtsson, Public relations manager at Stockholm University

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Dr Filippo Guarnieri earned his PhD in theoretical physics in 2014. He is currently working as a postdoc in theoretical physics at NORDITA in Stockholm, Sweden and is the chair of the Max Planck Alumni Association. In this episode, Filippo will share his story about his transition from academia to entrepreneurship, which he is presently undertaking.

"Many PhDs aim to transition outside of academia. However, many PhDs also prefer to procrastinate this transition, further venturing into academia. Procrastination may provide additional time to better develop your transferable skills and find your mission in life, but may also come with a price."

Dr. Filippo Guarnieri, Postdoctoral Fellow at Nordita

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Dr Dennis Fink changed his career path in 2011 after his PhD in Marine Microbiology at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen. In this "PhD Career Story” Dennis tells about his path from scientist to science communicator and which skills you can use from your PhD if you would like to become self-employed.

"You can use a lot of your PhD skills, even if you leave academia. Networking is the key to success!"

Dr. Dennis Fink, CEO & Co-Founder of mediomix GmbH in Cologne, Germany

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Gunes Ozhan earned her Bachelor’s degree from the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Middle East Technical University in 2003.

Shortly after, she was admitted to the Molecular Biology Program of International Max Planck Research School in Göttingen, Germany. She received her PhD in 2009, with her thesis on the molecular evolution of embryonic development in arthropods, which was conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen.

After working as a postdoctoral fellow at the Biotechnology Center of TU Dresden and gaining experience in signal transduction and the zebrafish animal model, Dr. Ozhan was offered a PI position at iBG-izmir and moved to her hometown Izmir in 2014, to achieve her vision of establishing an independent lab in a top-notch biomedical research center in this lovely city.

Upon her return, she has been successively awarded Reintegration Fellowship of TUBITAK, EMBO Installation Grant, L'Oréal Turkey For Women In Science award, Academy of Science BAGEP award and Turkish Academy of Sciences GEBIP award.

Dr. Ozhan is a molecular and developmental biologist and made valuable contributions to our understanding of Wnt/β-catenin signaling regulation at the plasma membrane. At iBG-izmir, she explores the tight regulation of Wnt signaling that will reinforce discovery of novel drugs and its roles in adult zebrafish brain regeneration.

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In episode 18 of PhD Career Stories, Dr Umesh Gangishetti describes his transition from a PhD student working on Drosophila Embryogenesis to become a senior scientist conducting clinical studies on Alzheimer's disease.

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In episode 17 we have Dr Amanda González-Bengtsson who is a Public Relations Manager at Stockholm University and her passion is to promote science and make it known in society and for stake holders.

She tells the story of how she managed to get a lot of job offers after the PhD just by actually doing all those things that career advisors tells us to do. She hopes that all of you can benefit from listening to the podcast and that you will achieve great things in your life.

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In episode 16 of PhD Career Stories, Fatma Guettou shares the story of her transition from academia to industry and gives us a few tips and tricks on how to successfully complete the journy.

Fatma is a structural biologist with a PhD in X-ray crystallography from Karolinska Institutet.

After completing her PhD, Fatma moved to Munich for a postdoc position in the field of cryo-electron microscopy. However, she soon made a career transition to the industry and is currently working as a crystallographer at Medivir.

Fatma is involved in drug discovery projects where her main responsibility is to understand how proteins and drugs interact. The structural information generated by X-ray crystallography is very useful for the design of new and improved drug molecules.

In this “tips & tricks”-themed episode Fatma will share 4 tips that she found useful throughout her career pathway.

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In episode 15 of PhD Career Stories, Jo Havemann returns for a “tips & tricks”-themed podcast on why it is crucial to be aware of your audience when writing about your research.

Dr Johanna Havemann works as a trainer and consultant in Science Communication for Universities and research institutions in Europe and Africa (access2perspectives.com). Follow her tweets about #scicomm and other topics of interest at @johave.

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In episode 14, the PhD Career Stories founder Tina Persson returns for another “tips & tricks”-themed episode. In this podcast, Tina shares her experiences on how to get started with self-assessments and why it is important to grow your understanding about who you are and what you want and expect from your professional life to land your dream job.

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Dr Johanna Havemann works as a Trainer and Consultant in Science Communication for Universities and research institutions in Europe and Africa (access2perspectives.com). She obtained her PhD in 2009 from the Max-Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany. Her working experience covers NGOs, Science startups and international institutions including UNEP. Follow her tweets about #scicomm and other topics of interest at @johave.

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In PhD Career Stories episode 12, we welcome our special guest Sarah Blackford, Academic and Science Career Consultant and author of Career planning for research bioscientists. In her “tips & tricks”-themed episode, we learn more on how we can get started with career planning.

Sarah Blackford is an academic career consultant with over 15 years' experience of delivering career support to PhD students and early career researchers. Qualified with a master's degree in career guidance in Higher Education, Sarah is a member of the Career Development Institute and a founding member of the network Careers Advisers supporting Researchers in Europe (CARE). She is the author of Career planning for research bioscientists and much of her advice and resources are available on her blog biosciencecareers.org.

Career Planning for Research Bioscientists

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In this episode, Tina Persson and Maria Sjögren look back at the first 10 episodes of the show and talk about some of the highlights during 2016 as well as what's in store for 2017.

We also announce our special guest for the last episode during 2016 to be published on December 23. Our Christmas gift to all of you listeners out there! Please visit our site phdcareerstories.com to subscribe to our show, read the show notes, and get in touch!

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In episode ten of “PhD Career Stories”, Tina Persson returns for a another “tips & tricks”-themed episode. In this podcast, we learn more on how we can prepare ourselves for our next interview.

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Dr Ania Gruszczynska completed a PhD in sociology at Aston University in Birmingham, UK in 2009 and has since worked in a variety of project management roles in higher education sector. She is currently working as an IT project manager at Birmingham City University where she is responsible for software projects and developing good project management standards.

In addition, she is a qualified coach and brings her understanding of post-PhD transitions into her part-time coaching practice (phdcareercoach.co) where she supports people who have big goals such as finishing a PhD or transitioning into a more fulfilling job. She is also a keen runner and a yoga fan, and tweets about her passions at @akgruszczynska.

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Paulius Mikulskis is a Computational Chemist with a PhD in Theoretical Chemistry from Lund University, now working as a Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham. In this “tips & tricks”-themed episode, Paulius shares two tips which he found useful in his job search.

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Samer Yammine has a PhD in Cancer Epigenomics from Karolinska Institutet. He is professionally passionate about design, user experience, innovation and business development and has extensive experience in problem-solving and creative solutions within the biotech sector. Nowadays, Samer have one foot in academia as a project leader at the Unit for Bioentrepreneurship at Karolinska Institutet with the main task to develop graduate courses for PhD students and the other foot within biotech industry and the startup world as Director, Co-Founder/CTO of Karmagenes.co and Chairman, Co-Founder/CTIO of CelFIT.co

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In episode six, Philipp Gramlich will show you that there are many more jobs out there for you to put Tina Persson's inventory from episode four to best use. He will bring in his experiences from industry, academia and as co-founder of NaturalScience.Careers along to enrich the "landscape" of jobs you will see in front of you.

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Kyriaki Liadaki finished her PhD in Immunology at the University of Thessaly, Greece, and then continued postdoctoral studies at Harvard Medical School and Karolinska Institutet. In this episode of PhD Career Stories, Kyriaki tells her story on how she came to make the life changing decision to leave academia and become a Math/Science Teacher at a bilingual school in Stockholm.

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In episode four of “PhD Career Stories” Tina Persson returns for a “tips & tricks”-themed episode. In this podcast, we learn more on how we can prepare ourselves for our next career move by making an inventory of our skills and rewriting our CV:s.

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Michele Manzo started his career change in April 2015, after completing his PhD in Applied Physics at KTH in Stockholm, Sweden. In this episode of “PhD Career Stories”, Michele tells the story about his journey from academia to industry, which lasted almost a year. We learn how Michele, after a few hundreds of applications and with a little reverse engineering of the job hunting system as well as the willingness to completely reinvent himself, was able to land his current position as Electronic Design Engineer.

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The second episode of our new podcast “PhD Career Stories” features Maria Sjögren, the researcher who left academia to become a change agent and digital evangelist. In this “tips & tricks”-themed episode, we learn more on how we can take control of our online presence and manage our digital reputation.

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On this very first episode of our new podcast “PhD Career Stories”, Tina Persson talks about her career story and how her experiences inspired her to start this podcast. We learn how Tina, after 20 years in academia, finally found her dream job as an Professional Academic Career Adviser and Coach supporting PhD students, researchers and professionals to find career possibilities.

PhD Career Stories: Recent Episodes

PhD Career Stories Team