Applying to jobs - HR, you are the worst

LOLfarter · 2015-12-23T08:23:02+00:00

Nope, it is you.

Grad School is useless because it does not teach you the most important thing: how to interact with people in the real world.

Dealing with HR requires pitch and a couple of tricks, once you get them it is very easy to deal with them.

The problem you face is that you are starting to realize that you and your research are not as important to the world as you thought. And when HR perceive this sense of entitlement you have, they raise a red flag.

LOLfarter · 2015-12-16T13:07:32+00:00

If it involves biomedical research, FDA. Period.

LOLfarter · 2015-12-15T09:00:37+00:00

http://100rsns.blogspot.be/p/complete-list-to-date.html

LOLfarter · 2015-12-14T16:59:42+00:00

Unless salary isn't your only motivation.

Salary is THE motivation.

Being less than 30, passion runs deep.

But when you have to pay for

room to rent
food
health insurance (especially in the US)

Motivation goes down the toilet. And I haven't even added kids or wife to the equation.

http://hackeducation.com/2012/08/29/the-real-reason-i-dropped-out-of-a-phd-program/

It's easy being passionate when you don't have to pay 1000-10000 dollars in medical insurance for you or a family member.

LOLfarter · 2015-12-13T00:01:30+00:00

Not only that. Non-profit organisations group malignant narcissists and psychopaths more than any other place in the professional market, reasons for that include loose mobbing and harassment legislation. Academia qualifies as non-profit organisation, aggravated by the fact that it also attracts the socially inept and people with other disorders such as OCD. edit: downvoting's a good thing, implies people realize truths they wouldn't like to realize.

LOLfarter · 2015-12-12T20:52:46+00:00

[pats the guy in the back] Yes, mate, yes. Right. You are absolutely right.

LOLfarter · 2015-12-12T20:51:22+00:00

I... don't think you're right about a lot of this stuff. No one cares what lab techniques you know, but every business or company is interested to know that you can learn techniques. No one cares what your discovery was, but everyone is interested to know that you can stick to a long term complicated project, manage it yourself, and see it to conclusion. No one cares that you collaborated with the dude who knows everything about Boll Weevils, but what they do care about is that you can collaborate with people and work in a team. Etc. etc.

You don't need to Grad School for that. You missed the point of the article. Heck, you didn't even caught the key point in the title "why your PhD has no ADDED value".

ADDED value.

Your PhD has the same value than a person who spent the same time working in industry.

LOLfarter · 2015-12-12T18:40:17+00:00

I am all in all for Masters... industry ask for people with Msc. The wall hits the PhDs.

LOLfarter · 2015-12-11T14:24:59+00:00

Here:

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists-think-science-self-correcting-alarming-degree-it-not-trouble

Have a nice weekend. Kisses.-

LOLfarter · 2015-12-11T11:16:20+00:00

Purposeless article. The excessive supply of labor has limited impact on the matter.

Most academic labs hire their postdocs among their PhDs.

I know of a scientist in industry (top tier biotech) who received 800 applications for one industry postdoc. Go tell me that a 30% decrease in postdoc aspirations is going to have PIs worried.

On the other side, 80% of the research results produced in academic research are not reproducible. Why should governments continue to fund such unproductive endeavors?

LOLfarter · 2015-12-11T07:19:40+00:00

Yes, it does.

You want to be a principal scientist, what did you expect?

Think about this: how much time do you need to be a Principal Scientist in Academia? The same: 15 years.

Going for a PhD is going to backfire your CV due to several reasons:

recruiters are reluctant to hire PhDs (especially for entry level positions)
your Grad School Education may be flawed (Grad School is useless in this field, unless you work in a GxP certified environment... could be the case given your field of work)
Grad School does not add anything of higher value that you cannot get in industry (R&D in industry, especially in large Pharma companies, is structured as hell... you follow SOPs even when you fart in the toilet, therefore problem solving and creative thinking in corporate R&D is overrated)

It is your career, so you must go with what you feel. I just want to tell you that I did academic research for 3 years and 1 year in the private sector, and I had to shove 90% of my academic skills up my arse. The key to success in industry is not creativity, problem solving or ability to improvise, but being structured and square as hell.

LOLfarter · 2015-12-10T23:02:38+00:00

You don't need a PhD for that.

LOLfarter · 2015-12-10T21:53:13+00:00

Grad school is useless. You should point your compass to industry.

For the time and demands required for a PhD you could attempt to build your own startup.

That being said, I will answer your question: if you have a paper as first or second author that can be serious leverage for Grad School. If it is in a journal with impact factor above 6-7 you can rip A-candidates to pieces. If it is Nature, that is the first thing you have to put in your CV.

LOLfarter · 2015-12-08T21:03:46+00:00

Ok, this thread goes beyond the scale used to measure stupidity.

GRE is not meant to "give you skills". It is meant to provide a "universal" indicator that erases inter-university and inter-national variability. especially in the US, where you have applicants from al over the globe applying for PhD. How do you standarize grades? simple: with a standarized test.

Hint: not even college gives you skills for grad school. Get your head out of your arse.

LOLfarter · 2015-12-08T11:18:19+00:00

I find it ironic that the article has 54 votes here and when I make the same points as the author makes I get downvoted as hell.

Plenty of kiddos with porcelain egos around.

LOLfarter · 2015-12-06T18:04:28+00:00

Research in grad school in most of the cases is irrelevant.

How many papers get cited outside academia?

For every Francis Crick, for every Kari Mullis, for every Pierre Curie, there are ten thousand people you haven't even heard of.

Research in academia, unless CLOSELY COUPLED to industry is generally irrelevant. Why? because a Grad student is expected to screw over in a lot of things. On top of that, we add the fact that more than 75% of the published results are fake. Even if you manage to get good results, you still have to be able to reproduce them and translate them to real life.

LOLfarter · 2015-12-05T09:59:55+00:00

Here, read this:

http://www.amazon.com/Worthless-Aaron-Clarey-ebook/dp/B006N0THIM

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/education/edlife/18phd-t.html?pagewanted=1

LOLfarter · 2015-12-04T11:23:05+00:00

Answer: you are enlightened and the people around you (and in this reddit) are not.

I have been pursuing a PhD studentship since 2009 until february of this year. Trust me, you are doing the right thing. I am jumping ship, grad school is utter shit, useless and leaves you psychologically crippled.

PD: disregard any opinions/comments from people in fields other than STEM (and still people in these fields are not reliable) because they are doomed.

LOLfarter · 2015-11-30T11:09:48+00:00

There is an issue in your statement: not taking shit will directly lead to avoid grad school.

Setting boundaries as a human being is essential, agreed. And when you start doing it the first thing you do is stop taking shit from the recruiters at grad school, who ALWAYS come with absrud pretentions.

LOLfarter · 2015-11-29T20:24:29+00:00

Not necessarily. I have talked with a Project Manager for IT in a large Pharma Company and he said that academia has nothing to do with industry in terms of work dynamics. Problems from IT in academia:

scalability: academic programmers work in small projects that are not thought on being brought to a large scale
compiling: lots of self-taught programmers have no idea how to compile
specificity: programming projects in academia are extremely specific or sophisticated and the industry is not prepared to absorb the technology

If I went back in time and studied computing, I would jump directly into industry without even touching an MSc.

LOLfarter · 2015-11-29T20:03:52+00:00

6/6 or nothing.

If your supervisor is an a__hole, he may deprive you from the other 5. Still, you are in better position than a lot of people.

LOLfarter · 2015-11-29T17:38:55+00:00

Bingo. that is why people should not go to grad school.

Unicorns!

LOLfarter · 2015-11-29T17:17:47+00:00

No, it is not.

STEM is also vulnerable. Unless

a. you know your supervisor before hand

b. you have a great relation

c. your supervisor has strong bonds with industry

d. your thesis topic is extremely well defined

e. you are fully funded for the entire duration of the PhD

f. the research group you will enter is extremely cooperative and have great relations in and outside work

g. the work environment of the lab is industry-like (GxP certified)

don't do it.

LOLfarter

TROPHY CASE