<p>And for Pol Scientists?</p>
<p>Is there a way how to know for sure ahead of time that a PhD makes you overqualified for a certain company / job before applying without directly asking them?</p>
<p>What if you interview and tell them you have a PhD, then you get rejected, but you apply again and don’t mention your PhD but they remember you.</p>
<p>Call and ask them?</p>
<p>Can someone explain to me what is the problem companies have with hiring people who they deem “overqualified” for the position? </p>
<p>It seems like they would be happy to get someone with great knowledge for a low price…</p>
<p>Flight risk when something better comes up.</p>
<p>Eventual dissatisfaction if they see themselves as better equipped to lead or manage than those already in that role (and probably doing the hiring).</p>
<p>do 2 master’s programs equate to a phd for employers?</p>
<p>It depends on what they are in and what the career in question is. Some jobs cannot be done without the expertise a PhD might have. On the other hand, a PhD is not ready to do jobs someone with a technical masters and say a business masters could do. They lead to different paths and options. </p>
<p>Short answer: no</p>
<p>Funny this is still going. This is from a long time ago, but I will comment:</p>
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<p>I don’t think so, because it just isn’t that simple - you CANNOT judge with much certainty at the end of an undergraduate degree who will become a good professor. Admissions is already pretty insanely competitive to a lot of programs. Truth be told, getting a tenure position at a place one can stand is really hard not because there are too many people without the requisite training but because there are too many people who are bright and willing to be productive. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, the real issue is that there isn’t enough money to go around supporting a ton of academics. Universities only need a few cheap adjunct lecturers and a VERY few tenured faculty with extensive, impressive research records to stay alive.</p>
<p>I have sometimes felt the issue is with the polarization: either you have no full time, non-temporary job, or you are a tenured professor who “won the lottery.” Well, or someone with tenure-track, also quite a lottery. I can’t help but find that there are a lot of very talented, qualified people who could have been around as productive and impressively as the ones who got tenure-track positions, but that they were shouldered out simply because there wasn’t enough to go around, and someone has to have the bad day. If there were any way to spread things more evenly, and have a large representation of positions in between the extremes, perhaps things would be marginally better.</p>
<p>I work in industry, and have a B.S. in Chemistry. Let me tell you, my company doesn’t really hire B.S. Chemist, or B.S. biologist. They primarly hire PhD Chemist and Biologist, and M.S. or B.S. Chemical Engineers. For those of us with degrees in Chemistry and Biology, we have to go to graduate school, because it only makes sense. You really can’t do anything with these degrees besides teach high school, or try to find a job in industry or government (which is not easy, regradless of the economic situation of the country). </p>
<p>I think the bigger problem is the number of useless majors that people purse in undergraduate. If you major in Sociology or Psych, or English, it should be communicated to you very early in your college education that you have to go to professional school or graduate school afte getting your B.S. There are too many people walking around with Sociology degrees, who can’t find jobs.</p>
<p>Speaking as a patent attorney with a very lengthy practice:</p>
<p>Strictly speaking, a Ph.D. is not required to carry out preparation and prosecution of patent applications in most fields. Typically a Master’s, or in some fields even a Bachelor’s degree, will provide sufficient knowledge of the relevant science to be able to understand the science involved and handle the work.</p>
<p>However, for some time, in biotechnology people with Ph.D degrees, and even postdoc experience have decided to become patent atttorneys and go to law school, such that they are available to corporations and law firms looking to hire entry-level attorneys. Since those employers can therefore get people with Ph.D. degrees, they naturally favor them over applicants without them, even though the knowledge at the Master’s level is suficient to do the work. So a person seeking such a position without a Ph.D. is simply not competitive nowadays.</p>
<p>This is also typical for those with Ph.D.s in physics.</p>
<p>In chemistry, this is a bit less crazy; not all applicants for such positions have Ph.D.s. Still, those who do tend to have an advantage over those who don’t.</p>
<p>In engineering, very few applicants for entry-level patent attorney positions have Ph.D.s; many have only bachelor’s degrees.</p>