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My sibling comments miss something important: people actually do something for those 5+ years. They don't just sit on their hands. They're publishing papers, co

My sibling comments miss something important: people actually do something for those 5+ years. They don't just sit on their hands. They're publishing papers, collaborating with respected researchers, building a personal network/reputation, developing new tools and techniques, writing peer reviews, contributing to grant proposals, giving talks, teaching, etc. I.e., they are actually doing the exact job that they are now being hired to do. > Is it the ability to conduct research - methods, process, analysis, discipline? Or is it the fact that they have knowledge in that particular field? When you apply to R&D labs, you are competing against people who spent at least five years: * building research infrastructure (which includes, but is not limited to, knowledge about "methods, process, analysis, discipline"), * a concrete track record of producing publishable research, * a professional network and some amount of respect for you previous research output, and * experience designing a multi-year research project (from writing/helping write a convincing proposal all the way through publishing, evangelizing, and managing relationships with people who want to build on your work). Do you have 5+ first author publications in good conferences? Have you contributed to R&D software? Do you have multiple influential collaborators who have a high opinion of you and are likely to help popularize/contribute to/build upon your research goals? Have you written and followed through on grant proposals? If "yes" to all those things, you should apply for these research positions! Even without a phd, you are a good candidate. If all you have is a six month MOOC, or some R&D software development but no experience with the full research process, then sorry, but there are people with who have already demonstrated they can successfully design and execute on research agendas. You might still be a good candidate, but preferring strictly more experienced and better qualified candidates who have demonstrated, empirically, that they can perform the full job, is not an "arbitrary blockade". > Every time I speak to someone with a PhD at work (I work in top 10 tech companies in US), in 100% of the cases in my experience do not engage in anything related to their thesis. "people I have worked with" is a huge selection bias. IME, in CS this is almost always either a) not true, or b) a conscious choice on the part of the phd holder (and is more of a pivot than a "totally unrelated thing"; you just might not see that there's a deep connection between the thing that the person was doing before and what they're doing now).

sonnyblarney 8y ago
Tell us the name of the PhD research groups that were critical in the success of Cisco, Microsoft, AirBnB, Uber, Oracle, Salesforce, Apple, Google (Page Rank is a simple idea, not rocket science)? Maybe Intel, but then there are arguments there as well. The kinds of 'R' that PhD's are trained to do is fairly academic and pure. It takes so long for that research to meet applied reality in the competitive sense. I know that Google has made some improvements with voice recognition etc. but it's not hugely material, it hasn't changed their business one bit. I can't even think of a single important startup these days that was founded on key research. Of course these people are important, and fairly pure 'R' is important, but the world is far, far more applied than most people like to think. The kinds of 'professional' aspects you describe simply aren't necessary in most scenarios. Also - remember that a lot of what researchers churn out isn't necessarily valuable, a lot of the results are not reproducible, and that 'publishing, giving talks, having a network' are not in and of themselves hyper relevant to making progress. In many ways I feel that PhD's are to 'applied R&D' what 'MBA's' are to business - it's all very academic :)
- varjag 8y ago
  For Google that would be Larry and Sergey. There's probably untold amount of PhDs that were and are working at Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, Uber and Apple as well.
- thrmsforbfast 8y ago
  Frankly, your post isn't relevant to this thread. Major R&D research labs exist to do the "R" in R&D. Many of them are explicitly not doing research that is intended to become a new business/product. There are many models here, but the important point is that if you want to start a new business (unit), an industrial research lab is probably not a good fit. They mostly exist for other reasons. If parent wants to start a new company or business unit, he should do that. But in that case, why is he applying to industrial R&D labs? He should be applying to y combinator instead... Your post is a bit like saying that it's reasonable for a personal trainer to get a job as a doctor at a hospital because exercise is more important than surgery to most people's health. I.e., you're saying true things but kind of completely misses the point of the sorts of organizations we are talking about (research labs in large companies). (I'll leave aside the ridiculous irony that you included Google in that list... in any case, each of those companies has benefited significantly from their internal R&D orgs.)

sonnyblarney 8y ago

Tell us the name of the PhD research groups that were critical in the success of Cisco, Microsoft, AirBnB, Uber, Oracle, Salesforce, Apple, Google (Page Rank is a simple idea, not rocket science)? Maybe Intel, but then there are arguments there as well. The kinds of 'R' that PhD's are trained to do is fairly academic and pure. It takes so long for that research to meet applied reality in the competitive sense. I know that Google has made some improvements with voice recognition etc. but it's not hugely material, it hasn't changed their business one bit. I can't even think of a single important startup these days that was founded on key research. Of course these people are important, and fairly pure 'R' is important, but the world is far, far more applied than most people like to think. The kinds of 'professional' aspects you describe simply aren't necessary in most scenarios. Also - remember that a lot of what researchers churn out isn't necessarily valuable, a lot of the results are not reproducible, and that 'publishing, giving talks, having a network' are not in and of themselves hyper relevant to making progress. In many ways I feel that PhD's are to 'applied R&D' what 'MBA's' are to business - it's all very academic :)

varjag 8y ago
For Google that would be Larry and Sergey. There's probably untold amount of PhDs that were and are working at Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, Uber and Apple as well.
thrmsforbfast 8y ago
Frankly, your post isn't relevant to this thread. Major R&D research labs exist to do the "R" in R&D. Many of them are explicitly not doing research that is intended to become a new business/product. There are many models here, but the important point is that if you want to start a new business (unit), an industrial research lab is probably not a good fit. They mostly exist for other reasons. If parent wants to start a new company or business unit, he should do that. But in that case, why is he applying to industrial R&D labs? He should be applying to y combinator instead... Your post is a bit like saying that it's reasonable for a personal trainer to get a job as a doctor at a hospital because exercise is more important than surgery to most people's health. I.e., you're saying true things but kind of completely misses the point of the sorts of organizations we are talking about (research labs in large companies). (I'll leave aside the ridiculous irony that you included Google in that list... in any case, each of those companies has benefited significantly from their internal R&D orgs.)