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Mrim, B. (2020, July 3). PhD skills for industry jobs part 2: Communication and relationship management skills. LinkedIn. Retrieved November 26, 2024, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/phd-skills-industry-jobs-part-2-communication-boutla-phd-she-her-/
COVID19 has been hitting the academic job market hard!
As a recovering neuroplasticity PhD, and former H1B visa holder, I know how difficult it is to translate one's academic research achievements into a compelling story to compete for industry careers in the private, non-profit, and government sectors.
In this series, I am breaking down the top skills that industry employers seek when considering PhDs for US-based and global opportunities. In my 16 years of coaching experience, I have come to realize that most PhDs use the wrong terminology for industry jobs, or are so focused on the knowledge they are accumulating that they are not even aware of the transferable skills they are building as they make contributions to their field!
Of course, your subject matter expertise can be a tremendous springboard towards specific career paths (e.g. a PhD in linguistics is a shoe in for any data science roles related to written and spoken language processing, while a macro-economist might have to further articulate how their analytical skills will be of help to a language processing tech firm). However, beyond the topic of your research and dissertation, you are developing tremendously valuable skills. In an earlier post, I have provided an approach for how to define, translate and use industry terminology to list PhD-level research and analytical skills in industry resumes. Today, I will focus on communication and relationships management skills. In future posts, I will tackle project management skills, as well as self-leadership skills and an entrepreneurial mindset that all PhDs sharpen as they make progress towards earning their doctoral degree.
Before I dive in, it is important to note that the same skills will be named differently in different organizations, sectors, industries and geographic location. As you are looking to move beyond academic jobs, here are four core skill sets we all develop by virtue of completing a PhD, whether it is in the humanities, social sciences or in Science, Technology, Engineering and math (STEM). For each of these skills, I will include a short definition of the skill set, along with examples of what to do and not to do when listing those transferable skills on your industry resume.
I hope the insights below will help you get clearer about your transferable skills so you can emerge as a credible and qualified candidate for non-academic jobs.
Skill #2 - Communication and Relationship Management Skills.
Definition: Ability to actively listen to internal and external constituents and turn your understanding of their needs into clear, concise, and persuasive oral presentations or written outputs accessible to technical and non-technical audiences (in one or more languages).
One of the most common myths about PhDs is that we might be believed to be poor communicators, so lost are we in our theoretical thoughts and complicated concepts. Few people outside of academia realize that beyond our ability to synthesize massive amounts of information into concise and compelling written outputs (e.g. I had to summarize three years of research into a 120-word abstract for a conference), PhD constantly sharpen their self-advocacy skills, persuasive communication skills, as well as their ability to successfully motivate and hold prickly personalities accountable. Not convinced? Ask any PhDs about their experiences putting a proposal together to convince their advisor to fund their next research project, or convincing co-authors to review their manuscripts in the timely manner. How about engaging with faculty and staff in and beyond their departments to form their qualifying exam or dissertation committee while remaining compliant with all applicable university regulations? Or when, as PhD students, we supervise undergraduate researchers, or tactfully hold students accountable to the requirements stated int he syllabus when serving as a Teaching Assistant?
Some examples of transferable communications and relationship management skills for all PhDs include active listening skills, ability to collaborate with people from different perspectives and cultural backgrounds, technical and/or creative writing skills, advocacy skills, presentation and teaching skills, persuasive communication skills, adaptive communication skills to engage with technical and non-technical audiences, and when applicable, fluency in more than one languages.
How to demonstrate your PhD communications and relationship management skills in your non-academic resume.
Recruiters in non-academic jobs are less interested in the knowledge PhDs bring than in the transferable skills they have leverage to achieve measurable results. I am a big fan of the XYZ method of building resume bullet points around WHAT you did, HOW you did it, and WHY that impacted your work, the team and organization in meaningful ways. Here are some ideas and examples of how to package your research and analytical skills in your non-academic bullet points:
Humanities PhDs:
Basic: Worked with a team of archeologists to excavate artifacts.
Better: Collaborated with a team of 4 archeologists and 7 contractors to coordinate the excavation, transportation, and cataloguing of 75 new artifacts while ensuring full compliance with university regulations and funders’ requirements.
PhDs in the Social Sciences:
Basic: Conducted surveys and stakeholder interviews in English and German.
Better: Turned survey results and 65 stakeholder interviews conducted in English and German with refugees as well as local partners into job training recommendations that had been helping over 650 Syrian refugees secure and stay employed in hospitality jobs across four states in Germany.
STEM PhDs:
Basic: Taught two sections of “Introduction to Neuropsychology” per semester.
Better: Design and deliver blended learning lesson plans to help 250 undergraduate students per year understand the neural mechanisms underlying our ability to feel emotions, pay attention, remember facts and experiences, as well as adapt our thoughts and behaviors to our current context and environment.
I will go more in-depth in future posts about how to think about and build bullet points around other transferable PhD skills:
Skill #2 - Communication and Relationship Management Skills (the one you are reading right now).
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