Taking Charge: Three key things you don’t need when moving from academia to industry

‘Getting a job in industry isn’t about having all the right stuff, and then magically getting the job when you have that stuff. Instead, you just have to get out there and convince people you can do it.‘

– David Giltner

About a year ago, I stopped looking for the watch I’d had since I was 18. I’d taken it with me on a new year trip and hadn’t seen it since. After calling the hotel and turning all my bags and pockets inside out, I accepted that it must have slipped out somewhere, and was probably stuck in a seat crevice on a West Coast Mainline train, banished to a life of endless journeys between London Euston and Glasgow Central.

Fast forward to packing for the Vitae conference back in September, out came my best party shoes for the first time since new year (black and silver studded zebra-patterned heels, if you’re asking) and… inside one of them was the watch.

Firstly (whatever this says about my attention span…)I felt relieved that I’d since forgotten all about the watch so had never actually bought a new one. Secondly though, it made me think about what other things might surface if we only stopped looking so hard. So, given that the need to stop looking for ‘right answers’ sits at the heart of his 2021 book It’s a Game, Not a Formula: How to Succeed as a Scientist Working in the Private Sector, it was a real highlight to have the chance to speak to David Giltner recently to dig into this a little deeper.

David spent more than 20 years commercialising laser technologies in industry before focusing on helping early-career scientists and engineers to take control of their careers. From my first forays into the world of post-PhD careers I was drawn to David’s ‘snappy’ video resources, some of which (including his great clip ‘So, what do you do?‘) I still use in my career guidance work today. In a way, therefore, this post feels like coming full circle: picking the brains of someone who inspired me to support researchers with their career transitions.

To kick off 2024 then, informed by David’s experience and wisdom, here are three things you DON’T need, and need to STOP looking for, in order to smoothen your transition from academic science to industry.

1. The ‘right answers’

David began by explaining one of the central tenets of It’s a Game, Not a Formula:

Academic science involves doing research until you’re convinced that you have the right answer. When you reach that point, you’re ready to publish it, right? That’s basically how it goes: you keep working until you’re confident, then you defend your thesis or you publish your paper.

Sounds accurate to me. However, he then outlined why being used to this approach can cause issues for researchers adapting to industry:

In industry there are just so many questions that have no right answer. If you approach industrial work by trying to find all the right elements and get the right answer, you will never arrive at a decision, and you’ll frustrate the heck out of your manager!

Furthermore, this preoccupation with ‘right answers’ can also impact how we approach the job hunt itself.

I meet a lot of PhD scientists, David explains, who apply this kind of ‘formula approach’ to getting that job. They think there’s a ‘right answer’ to landing a job in their chosen industry, that comes in working out what extra training or certifications they need to get it. But getting a job in industry isn’t about having all the right stuff, and then magically getting the job when you have that stuff. There’s no checklist. Instead, you just have to get out there and convince people you can do it.

This idea of needing ALL the data to find the right answer rang true with me in another way, too. During my PhD, I remember thinking that if I just read enough, then at some point I would know all I needed to know about a certain career option, and I would magically have the ‘right answer’ as to whether it was for me or not.

So there we have it: the first habit to kick in the transition from academia to industry is always striving to find the right answer. Instead, you’re better spending your time:

• Taking your career research ‘off the page’. Talk to people who work in sectors that interest you, and learn nuanced views from real people rather than trying to read or analyse your way to the ‘perfect job.’
• Preparing examples from your experience that show that you’re not *that* person who will delay projects and frustrate colleagues by seeking ‘the right answer’. Note down examples of when you made decisions without perfect data, that you can use to ‘convince’ employers in your applications and interviews.

2. Certainty

David went on to highlight that ‘right answers’ are often not possible in industry because you don’t have time to be certain. You have to look for a good thing and then give it a try, he explains. And if it doesn’t work, you try something else.

You have to decide at some point that what you have is good enough, and then confidently tell the customer that you believe it will work. You’re not saying like an academic scientist might, ‘I’m absolutely certain it will work.’ You’re just saying, ‘hey, within the scope of this project and the amount of time and money we have to invest in it, we are confident that this is a good solution.‘

This struck me as a huge shift for academic scientists, to go from ‘I’ve done all there is to do on this. I’m convinced that this is the answer,’ to ‘I’m going to try to convince you that what we’ve done is enough.’ In It’s a Game, Not a Formula, David sums this difference up as the contrast between proof versus persuasion.

Again, the quest for certainty can be a stumbling block in industry. One of the biggest things that frustrates industry managers about PhD scientists, David clarifies, is that we always want more data, but we don’t have the time. The customer needs our product in a matter of months, so we need to make a decision.

However, just as with obsessing over ‘right answers’, seeking certainty can also be one of our biggest bugbears in career research and job hunting. 

At some point, when exploring our next steps, we need to stop telling ourselves that if we just collect enough data (about options, jobs, etc.) then we’ll know exactly what we want to do next and how to do it. Instead, we need to adopt the mindset of industry before we get there, and accept that we will never have all the data to make a ‘perfect’ career choice.

Easier said than done, perhaps, when overthinking and overanalysing is our default setting. Practically then, how do we go about this?

David summed this up succinctly: Quit trying to figure it out and to let the data convince you. Do enough research that you’re reasonably sure you’ve got 2 or 3 good career ideas, pick your favourite, and then work to make that one the right choice.

What David seemed to be saying here was that something rarely just magically emerges as ‘the right choice’; we can ‘lean into’ a choice to make it ‘right’ for us. Want flexible working? Maybe negotiate that once you have a job offer. Prefer project-based work? Perhaps discuss in a development review how to move your role in that direction. And if neither of those things work? Then use your first industry role to survey the scene, assess what else is out there, and work out your next move.

3. Permission from others

Thirdly, David went on to explain how what he calls the ‘formula’ mindset also relies on permission.

During a PhD, it’s easy to develop a mindset focused on looking for permission to be able to do things. It’s the way we’re shaped from the time we start school: if you pass all the classes, then we’ll permit you to move to the next level, or the next programme. If you get the grades, then we’ll give you the degree. Even in your PhD, your supervisor or advisor still determines when you graduate; you look to them for permission. This is why, David says, his focus is on helping PhD researchers to realise that they can take control of their career for themselves.

Academia follows a pattern where we seek permission to be admitted to where we want to go next. When it comes to moving into sectors beyond academia, however, this mindset doesn’t quite work. Instead of seeking external permission to explore other career ideas and network with people in industry, we need to grant ourselves the permission to do these things.

And the way to do that, as David describes, is to try to take some control back for yourself by:

• Starting with a target. Find something you are interested in, whether it’s a market, a technology, an application… Something that really motivates you, and involves solving the kinds of problems that you want to solve.
• Find companies that match that mission and find people working there. What roles do they do? How did they get into those roles?
• Figure out how your strengths and interests align with the problems that company or organisation are facing, and what you could bring to the table.
• Use trade journals to find out which problems companies intend on tackling next, what new products they’re planning to release, and where your skills and expertise can contribute.

Finally, just one last thought. All this talk of academic science fixating on ‘right answers’ got me thinking… what about those of us with humanities backgrounds? For me, part of the challenge in communicating my own PhD research on the representation of abandoned spaces in contemporary fiction was that there was no right answer. In the humanities though, that’s what we do: we take a ‘messy’ or sprawling problem to which there is no definitive answer, and we build an argument as to why our approach is valid. Like in industry, there is no ‘knowing for certain’ in the humanities; we choose an approach and convince our readers that we’re offering a decent solution. And if that’s the case, then in our abilities to manage ambiguity and convince others, I’m going to say that there’s a heck of a lot that we can bring to employers in the private sector.