My Take Home Messages From the WCUB - Shrinking Academic Job Market Creates New Avenues for PhDs in America

BY: THOMAS R COUGHLIN, PHD

A lot of the academic field breeds competition because there is a clamp that you are not enough or better yet you haven’t done enough. You haven’t published enough. Your research is not enough. Your experience, your mentors, are not yet enough. 

 The difference though is that you are enough, and the feeling of not being enough is there from the competition, and the competition is created in academia because it is thought that this path is the only option. However, it’s not. And because of that, there are other choices to be made. 

Too many students do not know there are other options, and go into the field looking to be a specific type of professor, but the data does not lie and tells the story that it isn’t possible for all PhDs to make it. That you, along with everyone else, wants to be a professor, and yet only a few of can succeed. 

Key Numbers

50,000 earned doctorates a year

3,000 faculty openings a year

89% of students start PhD wanting to be professor

83% of postdocs want to professors at start of postdoc

In graphical form, here they are again with numbers pulled from an earlier article, “PhDs by the Numbers.”

Now that the there is an oversupply of academics, with PhDs and some, now years of postdoc experience, the Universities and Colleges can be more selective. They can ask for the person with the 5-year postdoc and two PNAS papers who sure, does not yet have an R01, but the position is for an Assistant Professor opening at Small-Town University somewhere America. Frankly, this is a great, but again, smaller schools can demand more from the oversupply of PhDs. 

 Similarly, due to the oversupply of PhDs, the demand for PhDs is low, however, there are careers that require PhDs that may be more enjoyable and are woven into the fabric of innovation and discovery in America that are very enjoyable. 

They are Medical Science Liaisons, Medical Writers, Pharma Scientists, Clinical Scientists, Experts, Regulatory Experts, FDA specialists, engineers, quality control, batch control, consultants solving problems that occur in this field, there are business development, office of tech transfer, careers at museums, academies, and non-profit organizations. 

There are jobs in new companies, exciting places for entrepreneurs, or more risk or more passionate people. People who ask for VC funding, or business grants. There are entrepreneurial consultants, and VCs that fund new companies that they come up with or that someone else has. 

These are NOT ALTERNATIVE careers. Academics is a small portion. These are the careers you can do anything with a PhD. The U.S. is great for pharma. It’s great for education, it’s great for academic to business idea transfer and entrepreneurs. These are all interconnected fields, and the skills in your PhD transfer nicely into these. 

Finally, as a caveat, if you’re desire is to teach at a University or College, then it is this is still possible and your PhD opens up these possibilities, and your opportunity of getting a professor position at one of these universities is higher than at a Research heavy institution. However, teaching experience will be needed to be demonstrated. 

% of PhDs doing Postdocs

40% of PhDs did postdocs overall in 2017

In Life Sciences, 60% of PhDs did postdocs in 2017

In Engineering, 40% of PhDs did postdocs in 2017

 68% of postdocs do 1 postdoctoral appointments

27% of postdocs do 2 postdoctoral appointments

4% of postdocs do 3 or more

In Academia

22% of PhDs in tenure track faculty positions

13% in non-tenure track faculty 

In Education

 49% in education 

66% in university,

23% liberal arts,

5% in community college,

4% K-12, 1% comprehensive / Regional University,

1% medical school

Industry

 12% in biotech/pharma 

12% in government

6% in nonprofit

4% in consulting

Job Satisfaction

78% people indicated that a PhD was required/preferred for their current position

80% of the total employment population is satisfied.

NETWORK! NETWORK! NETWORK

If you’ve made it this far in the article, you’ll have realized that there are many jobs for PhDs! Don’t be discouraged. Just do your homework!