======= Date Modified 15 02 2010 06:02:04 =======
======= Date Modified 15 56 2010 05:56:40 =======
We've had a few threads over the past couple of months on jobs and PhDs, and in particular I recall one from someone who was debating whether or not to leave the PhD off their cv, to increase their chances of getting a job. Here's my latest experience...

I just called up a civil service dept about a vacancy, which, you'd think, needs smart, highly qualified people (like me ,>) and was told that having a PhD 'shouldn't count against me'. Well thank you very much!! Glad I've been studying all these years, in the relevant subject area, to be told that the gov't doesn't value highly qualified people as employees! This made me livid, as did their obvious antagonism to my suggestion of working part-time.

It's a hard world out there, with job chances getting smaller all the time, it seems....

My husband briefly looked at job hunting away from academia years after finishing his PhD. It wasn't encouraging. He was typically told he was too highly qualified (despite being a programming-based computer scientist, and so well able to do a high responsibility software programming job), and had to persuade them to even consider him. Luckily a research opening appeared, just as he was losing one academic job. And 8+ years later he's still there, though I always wonder for the future of his job, given the current economic climate.

Good luck.

I'm going to start job searching in my local area before my funding runs out in october. After going through this process after my MSc and having no luck (no one understands my subject area when I'm not in London - even though it is highly relevant to the jobs I was applying to) I am going to completely change my CV. I am going to adapt the name of my masters to something that means the same but it more accessible to laymen. I am also going to not add the PhD, and am just going to put 'researcher'. If that doesn't work, I am going to just say I worked as a PA or something at a university for my professor.

Part of the problem is, that if the hiring manager hasn't got a PhD, then they don't want someone who is better qualified in their team.

Sue, that's shocking! No wonder local governments are so hideously inefficient, they obviously have a completely backwards policy on recruitment. To be fair though, I know my phd won't help me in the application I've made for a masters either, I'll actually have to work doubly hard to prove I'm not just some inhuman academic.

On a brighter note..... my husbands company have been recruiting recently and were super-impressed by the last person to apply with a phd. They honestly valued his abilities and wanted him even though he was from a different field. Plus, they love having "doctors" to wheel out at meetings! :p

I know that's not the case in all our fields (he's engineering), but there are people out there with a positive attitude to what we've been slaving for.

Hi Teek

This is the federal government of my country - the same government which spouts off all the time about the need for flexible working arrangements - until someone actually wants to work part-time. And about how this country needs a 'knowledge economy' - yet doesn't want to employ people with PhDs in the actual departments where they'd be useful. Not to mention I used to work for this dept, so already have experience, and now have even more knowledge and the person I spoke to knows this.

This has made me so angry all day I've been really distracted from studying. Applying for a job I don't want, just to get told this s$$t. I've done nothing but fume ever since I had that conversation. Makes me think I should not apply for anything until I'm really, really forced to...

ahh, I should get over it.

Thanks for your support. Tomorrow will be a better day.

Urgh! sorry to hear that.

I feel like I will struggle too from a toxic combination of economic decline - anti-intellectualism - and nobody wanting to hire because it might make others feel inadequate, when it shouldn't.

sigh. not looking good.

Aghhh this kind of attitude infuriates me! DAMN THEM! I have experienced something similar to this in the past when looking for part time jobs to accompany my studying. I just find it so ridiculous that people should even have to THINK about not putting their PhD on their CV because it might HURT their chances of getting a job. If nothing else, does having a PhD not spell out --I am tenacious, determined, intelligent, etc? Isn't that the type of people the work force are screaming out for? B*star*s.

realistically most employers probably have no idea what goes into completing a PhD. Many think it is another 3 year degree, with exams and coursework etc. I guess you just have to list the skills very clearly underneath the qualification e.g. communication, adapting and coping, organisational skills, using initiative etc etc

Well I work in the private sector and just about to start a new job and, in both cases, having a PhD was what set me apart from the other candidates. You just need to turn it to your advantage - for example, presentation skills from all those conferences and seminars are a huge bonus, the 'kids' (as I call them :$) who have just come straight from a degree are awful in meetings as they have no idea how to write or deliver a presentation. To us PhD types, it's part and parcel of what we do. Similarly the ability to plan and deliver a project, deal with difficult people in more senior positions, time management, thinking away from the norm ... I could go on but you really do sometimes have to spell it out that's what you're about, more than the actual content of your PhD.

Oh and, I know you're joking (I hope!), but don't leave off your PhD - a gaping hole in your CV will only spur a lot of questions and you'll get found out. They always know...;-)

Chrisrolinki, just listening to an audiobook as I work and I've just heard this quote, which has caused me to come hurtling back to your post.

"If you don't know history, you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree" (Crichton, 1999).