Hello and welcome to another edition of ask Cheeky. I am Isaiah Hankel, Cheeky Scientist.
Today we got a great question from Eluze Julie: are there any specific terms or lingo that could be used in a job search engine to find PhD level work?
Great question. Now, the way the question is structured, it sounds like you're asking for general terms that can be used across websites. You might be asking for a term like Application Scientist that would help you find those positions everywhere online. Or you might be looking for certain phrases or keywords that would help you identify a number of positions. Really, what you should be looking for is very, very specific position titles and you should be looking for slight variations of those titles also.
Just to go back to that example Application Scientist very often these can be called Field Application Scientist, Field Specialist, Field Support People, Application Support Professionals. All different kinds of titles. The only way to identify what these titles are is to do your research.
Get on LinkedIn, for example, and search different companies. Look for the employees that work at those companies and dig in and see what their job titles are. Look for the way their titles are structured versus a similar company in a similar sector of industry. They might have those slight variations. Then just make a list of all the different position titles that are somewhat relevant to what you want to do.
Backing up a little bit, you have to figure out what lifestyle you want first. As a PhD figure out the lifestyle, the career, what you want your life to look like on a daily basis, and then you're going to try to fit positions to that lifestyle. To that career that you want. You have to do it I that order. Once you do it in that order you know the lifestyle you want, from there you can work backwards to identify positions that would be a good fit for you. Again, in searching these positions you are looking for specific positions. They're going to be very, very specific. Usually specific based on the company. Most companies will have entirely different titles. They all vary.
Then you should be looking to make a list of positions that are similar to each other. Slight variations to the same position. Continue to diversify from there, looking at lateral positions. These are the positions you want to target. These are the keywords you can use to extend your search. Don't forget you can go to individual company websites and look at their careers that they have open. You can look at the careers they have closed. You can go to their Wiki page and see how their corporate hierarchy is structured. You can dig in here. You can even get on a company website, go to the About page or the Contact page, call them and talk to someone in HR about how the positions are structured, what the open positions are. By doing your research you can get a good feel for what specific companies are calling certain positions and these change over time. Make sure that you're digging in, you're making a list of these and you're continuing to adapt this list.
The one final note here with this question, don't just limit yourself to PhD level work. That was a key part of the question here. How to identify PhD level work. Now a lot of companies will only require an MS degree for example. As a PhD you might think, that position's beneath me or I might be overqualified for that position. We've mentioned this before. You should still apply to those positions because what happens most often is that you'll come in, they're looking for anyone with an MS or higher, you'll come in as a PhD, you'll impress them on the interview of course, they'll offer you that position but at a higher starting point in terms of salary. Or what we've seen over and over again in our association is that certain associates go in for jobs that only require an MS and they adapt the position or create an entirely new position for you.
If you're a strong enough job candidate, if you apply to the position, go through on the interview, impress them, they'll do whatever it takes to keep you. Don't let whether or not the position says MS required or PhD required ... Apply to it anyway. They'll increase your salary. All these things are negotiable. They might create a new position for you. Hopefully this will help you identify key words and those key job titles that you're going after.
Until next time, remember your value as a PhD and start thinking and acting like a successful industry professional.
