3 ms·

40%-50% rejection is really amazing, I don't think you quite realise how tough the job market is right now. I have a friend with chemistry PhD who has - with n

by octo_t 11y ago

40%-50% rejection is really amazing, I don't think you quite realise how tough the job market is right now. I have a friend with chemistry PhD who has - with no exaggeration here - applied for at least 300 jobs with varying levels of success.

obstacle1 11y ago
A chemistry PhD qualifies you to do advanced research in chemistry -- nothing more. If anything a PhD will work against a candidate in a general industry tech role, because the assumption is they either a) failed in the academic job market for whatever reason, or b) will get bored in a non-research role and split early. Personally I'm biased against chem/bio/physics etc. PhDs who come in for development jobs because the ones I've known have had terrible, mind-blowingly bad coding practices drilled into them since undergrad and are strangely more resistant to learning best practices than those from more tech-related fields.
ryandrake 11y ago
I always thought normal rejection rates varied between around 75% (in a strong job market) to 95% in down markets, say 2007-2009. When I was looking for a job, a 40-50% rejection rate would have been utterly amazing.
fweespeech 11y ago
Its 40-50% just due to degree, based on my estimation. I've got another pile of rejections for different reasons. About 80% reject me before phone interviews, etc. Literally the only pre-interview cited rejection reason was a lack of degree.
jcranmer 11y ago
The chemistry PhD job market is generally considered oversupplied, particularly with the pharmaceutical industry in general retrenchment (see, e.g., <http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/01/07/the_phd_problem.php> http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/01/07/the_phd_prob..., and yes I do realize the age of that link, but nothing much has changed since then).

3 ms·

40%-50% rejection is really amazing, I don't think you quite realise how tough the job market is right now. I have a friend with chemistry PhD who has - with n

by octo_t 11y ago

obstacle1 11y ago
A chemistry PhD qualifies you to do advanced research in chemistry -- nothing more. If anything a PhD will work against a candidate in a general industry tech role, because the assumption is they either a) failed in the academic job market for whatever reason, or b) will get bored in a non-research role and split early. Personally I'm biased against chem/bio/physics etc. PhDs who come in for development jobs because the ones I've known have had terrible, mind-blowingly bad coding practices drilled into them since undergrad and are strangely more resistant to learning best practices than those from more tech-related fields.
ryandrake 11y ago
I always thought normal rejection rates varied between around 75% (in a strong job market) to 95% in down markets, say 2007-2009. When I was looking for a job, a 40-50% rejection rate would have been utterly amazing.
fweespeech 11y ago
Its 40-50% just due to degree, based on my estimation. I've got another pile of rejections for different reasons. About 80% reject me before phone interviews, etc. Literally the only pre-interview cited rejection reason was a lack of degree.
jcranmer 11y ago
The chemistry PhD job market is generally considered oversupplied, particularly with the pharmaceutical industry in general retrenchment (see, e.g., <http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/01/07/the_phd_problem.php> http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/01/07/the_phd_prob..., and yes I do realize the age of that link, but nothing much has changed since then).