4 ms·

Anecdotally, i always thought i was a resilient person but unemployment is really getting to me. i finished my phd last December, have done excellent work publi

Anecdotally, i always thought i was a resilient person but unemployment is really getting to me. i finished my phd last December, have done excellent work published really good journals in my field (and publicly well known) but i couldn't stand the insane hours in academia. my advisor took out patents on my first author work but i did't argue for the sake of my degree. I have no network because i just sat in my office and worked daily...didn't make many friends in grad school...just worked. i'm never going back to academia; rent seeking vampires. the worst part is my advisor discouraged me from looking for internships over the summer. kicked me to the curb after all of that work. now, I send out applications daily, work on 'projects', and grind leetcode. It's so hard to get an interview without any network. I'm a very disciplined person, gym in the morning, eat breakfast in the office and work until my goals for the day are met. moving back home, unemployment, and no gym removed those structures from my life. I run a lot now days but the gym was my social life. my phd involved a lot of coding, hpc work, and 'data science', i don't understand why i can't get past recruiters. it sucks being 30, doing a difficult thing, and now being broke and unemployable. my undergrad students i taught have found jobs...i don't understand. in the interviews i've gotten, it seems like if i make one little mistake, i'm out or ghosted. i wrote and app for a well-known start-up in my area and then they ghosted me. i don't get this market. i'm starting to get really scared; these past two weeks i've sat in my room silently screaming and crying...I've never done that in my life. i run by some cliffs on a hillside and have really started to wonder...because i'm not afraid. i just don't want my family to have to go through it....creeping thoughts of uselessness, wasted life, and being a burden. sorry it's fragmented and don't worry i'm not going to do anything drastic...i still want to learn to paraglide and get to the top of denali...i can't go through life without doing those. ..i think my going to find some open source projects to contribute to...i think that might be a good way of doing things. anyway a view from the other-side. sorry for the vent...i don't have anyone to talk to.

jdsalaro 6y ago
This might be uncalled for, but from your comment it seems like you could really use some input. IMHO it isn't qualifications you're lacking, but a method for "working smart" and proving you can adapt to the industry on top of being able to work hard; as you've surely noticed, the latter is seldom enough. You "don't get this market" probably because you haven't understood what the companies you're applying to are looking for, and you haven't understood what they're looking for likely because you need to recalibrate your understanding of value delivery and expectations in the industry as opposed to academia. You can contact me (info in bio) in case you want me to look at your CV, want to do a mock job interview or want other sort of feedback. In any case, stay strong! Also, https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions and https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestionsEU https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestionsEU might come in handy.
shaklee3 6y ago
I can't begin to imagine how you feel, but stick to it and you'll get some responses. It's not an easy time to find a job, so it's likely nothing to do with you.
tachyonbeam 6y ago
That sounds understandably very painful. I have some sympathy for what you're going through. My own advisor was an asshole. He referred me to an internship, and then after I interviewed and they were ready to hire me, he changed his mind and threatened to kick me out if I took said internship. You will find a job eventually. It's probably just difficult to get your foot in the door because everyone is looking for industry experience. That first job is the hardest, but the next one after that will be much easier to find, believe me. My advice would be to persist. If you're having dark thoughts, you may want to consider antidepressants. They helped me when I was down. I can vouch for escitalopram/lexapro. I would at the very least suggest avoiding that hillside if it's a trigger for suicidal ideation. Pick a safer route for the time being. Keep applying. Maybe settle for a less amazing job for the time being, just to pay the bills. Once you have a job, it will be much easier to get another job. You'll be in a better position to negotiate. You can settle for an OK job, and keep looking for your ideal job while not having to worry about making rent. If you want someone to talk to, I can be that person. I wish you the best, and as cliche as it sounds, hang in there!
jjoonathan 6y ago
> i'm never going back to academia; rent seeking vampires. That they are. Maybe not rent-seeking, but they definitely hustle hard to build a very wide pyramid and take full advantage. > my advisor discouraged me from looking for internships over the summer. kicked me to the curb Ouch. The academy is f*ed up like that, and while I'm not surprised by your story, you certainly have my sympathy. > my phd involved a lot of coding, hpc work, and 'data science', i don't understand why i can't get past recruiters I think you probably mean HR, but if there's a single party in the hiring process most likely to impose dumb filters, you're right, that's them. You've likely heard everything I'm about to say, but overcommunication is cheap, while undercommunication is expensive, so I'll say it anyway. The trick, of course, is figuring out which filters you're getting caught in. For academics looking to transition to industry, the usual problem is focusing on academic achievements too much, rather than focusing on programming skills too little. Trying to convince industry to positively value your prestigious publications is a hopeless task at the entry level (research labs excluded, of course, but those have a very high bar). You might even have to hide the academics entirely (PhD -> Research Programming). Another common problem is academics trying to sell their PhD as project management or engineering management to bypass entry level. PhDs are often exactly that, but industry never sees it that way, so don't try it unless you're getting tons of bites already. Here's the problem: everyone in industry knows (or has heard of) a PhD who always drags their feet on engineering work and instead chases novel tangents that don't add value to the actual product, unless management actively identifies this and heads it off. From an engineer's perspective, or an engineering management perspective, that person is deadweight at best and toxic at worst. You need to avoid being associated with this at all costs. 100% laser focusing on your engineering qualifications (as opposed to academic qualifications) is a start; burying the academics entirely is the extreme response. Never mention the specific problems with your PI in the interviews, just keep it general: the work/life balance and comp packages offered by academia are increasingly holding you back from (401k / homeownership / kids / paragliding & mountain climbing) and after tolerating it for 6-8 years you're ready for a change. Needless to say, don't let anyone in the hiring process see stream-of-conscious style writing. Complete sentences, proper capitalization, spelling, and proof-reading are important signals. Explicitly mentioning willingness to relocate can help, even if you've already theoretically ticked a box somewhere. > i wrote and app for a well-known start-up in my area and then they ghosted me. Hiring is astonishingly dysfunctional and rejections frequently happen for a mind-boggling array of dumb reasons that reflect purely on the company. This is far more true for industry than for grantsmanship, where people usually at least read your proposal and rationalize their choices. There's too much noise to back-propagate into your self-confidence. This is just a matter of figuring out the filters and rolling the dice enough to overcome the intrinsic failure rate. If an application process is laborious enough that it's hindering you from rolling the dice enough (writing an app might fall into this category), drop it and give them that feedback. > i just don't want my family to have to go through it.... Times are hard, transitions are tough, and you've just spent 6 years getting your blood sucked by a vampiric system that didn't even let you build up a safety buffer. There's no shame in accepting their support. > creeping thoughts of uselessness, wasted life Walking away from a research career tends to leave those, especially when people find that PhDs have a negative value on the entry-level job market. The news gets much better past entry-level, though. Both tech and communication skills translate, and people will believe it when they see it, which works against you now but in short order it will work in your favor. With the prestige of a PhD and the communications skills it develops, you will be the good foot your team puts forward, and ten years down the road, this fact and the letters after your name will give you a serious leg up if you want to keep climbing the ladder. > ..i think my going to find some open source projects to contribute to...i think that might be a good way of doing things. Probably not. I think your time is better spent trying to crack the HR filter code, working on self-presentation, and playing the numbers game. I'm missing a lot of information and it's ultimately your call, but self-doubts of the "If I just had one more resume line item" variety are vampiric in the same way that academia is: they'll suck your energy into efforts that nobody else will reward you for and there will always be one more thing to do. If you're going to do projects, at least keep them minimum-viable and focus on the most in-demand search terms you don't yet have on your resume. My guess is you've maxed your "legit coding" stat and need to focus elsewhere.

jdsalaro 6y ago

This might be uncalled for, but from your comment it seems like you could really use some input. IMHO it isn't qualifications you're lacking, but a method for "working smart" and proving you can adapt to the industry on top of being able to work hard; as you've surely noticed, the latter is seldom enough. You "don't get this market" probably because you haven't understood what the companies you're applying to are looking for, and you haven't understood what they're looking for likely because you need to recalibrate your understanding of value delivery and expectations in the industry as opposed to academia. You can contact me (info in bio) in case you want me to look at your CV, want to do a mock job interview or want other sort of feedback. In any case, stay strong! Also, https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions and https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestionsEU https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestionsEU might come in handy.

shaklee3 6y ago

I can't begin to imagine how you feel, but stick to it and you'll get some responses. It's not an easy time to find a job, so it's likely nothing to do with you.

tachyonbeam 6y ago

That sounds understandably very painful. I have some sympathy for what you're going through. My own advisor was an asshole. He referred me to an internship, and then after I interviewed and they were ready to hire me, he changed his mind and threatened to kick me out if I took said internship. You will find a job eventually. It's probably just difficult to get your foot in the door because everyone is looking for industry experience. That first job is the hardest, but the next one after that will be much easier to find, believe me. My advice would be to persist. If you're having dark thoughts, you may want to consider antidepressants. They helped me when I was down. I can vouch for escitalopram/lexapro. I would at the very least suggest avoiding that hillside if it's a trigger for suicidal ideation. Pick a safer route for the time being. Keep applying. Maybe settle for a less amazing job for the time being, just to pay the bills. Once you have a job, it will be much easier to get another job. You'll be in a better position to negotiate. You can settle for an OK job, and keep looking for your ideal job while not having to worry about making rent. If you want someone to talk to, I can be that person. I wish you the best, and as cliche as it sounds, hang in there!

jjoonathan 6y ago

> i'm never going back to academia; rent seeking vampires. That they are. Maybe not rent-seeking, but they definitely hustle hard to build a very wide pyramid and take full advantage. > my advisor discouraged me from looking for internships over the summer. kicked me to the curb Ouch. The academy is f*ed up like that, and while I'm not surprised by your story, you certainly have my sympathy. > my phd involved a lot of coding, hpc work, and 'data science', i don't understand why i can't get past recruiters I think you probably mean HR, but if there's a single party in the hiring process most likely to impose dumb filters, you're right, that's them. You've likely heard everything I'm about to say, but overcommunication is cheap, while undercommunication is expensive, so I'll say it anyway. The trick, of course, is figuring out which filters you're getting caught in. For academics looking to transition to industry, the usual problem is focusing on academic achievements too much, rather than focusing on programming skills too little. Trying to convince industry to positively value your prestigious publications is a hopeless task at the entry level (research labs excluded, of course, but those have a very high bar). You might even have to hide the academics entirely (PhD -> Research Programming). Another common problem is academics trying to sell their PhD as project management or engineering management to bypass entry level. PhDs are often exactly that, but industry never sees it that way, so don't try it unless you're getting tons of bites already. Here's the problem: everyone in industry knows (or has heard of) a PhD who always drags their feet on engineering work and instead chases novel tangents that don't add value to the actual product, unless management actively identifies this and heads it off. From an engineer's perspective, or an engineering management perspective, that person is deadweight at best and toxic at worst. You need to avoid being associated with this at all costs. 100% laser focusing on your engineering qualifications (as opposed to academic qualifications) is a start; burying the academics entirely is the extreme response. Never mention the specific problems with your PI in the interviews, just keep it general: the work/life balance and comp packages offered by academia are increasingly holding you back from (401k / homeownership / kids / paragliding & mountain climbing) and after tolerating it for 6-8 years you're ready for a change. Needless to say, don't let anyone in the hiring process see stream-of-conscious style writing. Complete sentences, proper capitalization, spelling, and proof-reading are important signals. Explicitly mentioning willingness to relocate can help, even if you've already theoretically ticked a box somewhere. > i wrote and app for a well-known start-up in my area and then they ghosted me. Hiring is astonishingly dysfunctional and rejections frequently happen for a mind-boggling array of dumb reasons that reflect purely on the company. This is far more true for industry than for grantsmanship, where people usually at least read your proposal and rationalize their choices. There's too much noise to back-propagate into your self-confidence. This is just a matter of figuring out the filters and rolling the dice enough to overcome the intrinsic failure rate. If an application process is laborious enough that it's hindering you from rolling the dice enough (writing an app might fall into this category), drop it and give them that feedback. > i just don't want my family to have to go through it.... Times are hard, transitions are tough, and you've just spent 6 years getting your blood sucked by a vampiric system that didn't even let you build up a safety buffer. There's no shame in accepting their support. > creeping thoughts of uselessness, wasted life Walking away from a research career tends to leave those, especially when people find that PhDs have a negative value on the entry-level job market. The news gets much better past entry-level, though. Both tech and communication skills translate, and people will believe it when they see it, which works against you now but in short order it will work in your favor. With the prestige of a PhD and the communications skills it develops, you will be the good foot your team puts forward, and ten years down the road, this fact and the letters after your name will give you a serious leg up if you want to keep climbing the ladder. > ..i think my going to find some open source projects to contribute to...i think that might be a good way of doing things. Probably not. I think your time is better spent trying to crack the HR filter code, working on self-presentation, and playing the numbers game. I'm missing a lot of information and it's ultimately your call, but self-doubts of the "If I just had one more resume line item" variety are vampiric in the same way that academia is: they'll suck your energy into efforts that nobody else will reward you for and there will always be one more thing to do. If you're going to do projects, at least keep them minimum-viable and focus on the most in-demand search terms you don't yet have on your resume. My guess is you've maxed your "legit coding" stat and need to focus elsewhere.