opportunities in the industry with a PhD in the biological sciences

Graduate School
1

<p>I will be starting my PhD in the Genetics/Genomics/Bioinformatics field in the fall. I have been considering a career in academia for a long time. However, I am now considering the possibilities of pursuing industrial experiences after grad school. I have two major issues that I am wondering about:</p>

<p>1) What kind of industrial opportunities are available to students with my PhD degree (besides starting up a company), and what is life like in the research industry (pay, stress, expectations, etc). </p>

<p>2) Does a few years in the industry equal a few years as a post doc? That is, could I spend 2 years in the industry and still be in high demand for a tenure-track faculty position, or would I have to do another postdoc at a research University?</p>

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<p>You can do a postdoc in the industry, but you have to publish papers i fyou want an academic faculty position later. Publishing papers is harder in an industrial setting since a lot of things are confidential. Pay in industry is a lot better than postdoc if you're working as a scientist or project manager, etc. There's a lot that you can do with a PhD in the life sciences. I know a guy who went on to do venture capital and is now filthy rich (He got his PhD from UCSF). I think scientists in industry get paid around 60k-85k starting depending on where you work, which is much better than an academic postdoc. Some people go into consulting. I know someone who did that after getting his PhD in biochemistry from Harvard. He graduated about ten years ago. He'd gone through a series of promotions in a very prestigious consulting firm on Wall Street and is now filthy rich as well, by that I mean he's worth millions. You can do a lot. It all depends on how hard you're willing to work and how you choose to build your life. The opportunities are out there, at least that's what people tell me. Where are you gonna go get your PhD?</p>

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<p>
[quote]
1) What kind of industrial opportunities are available to students with my PhD degree (besides starting up a company), and what is life like in the research industry (pay, stress, expectations, etc).

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Obviously, instead if starting your own company, you could work for an established one, i.e. a biotech or a pharmaceutical firm. It's difficult to generalize about the work conditions as each company is different, but generally speaking, you will earn a solid middle-class salary and you will be expected to work primarily on revenue-generating (or at least potentially revenue-generating) projects, with pure science projects that don't have a clear revenue potential being relegated to a secondary consideration. </p>

<p>If you happen to go to a school with a strong general brand name (i.e. Ivy, MIT, Stanford, etc.), you may also have extensive opportunities to enter investment banking or strategy consulting. </p>

<p>I am also of the opinion that a PhD can be leveraged for a wide variety of eclectic careers. Anybody who gets a PhD clearly has a strong work ethic and intellectual acumen and hence should be able to quickly train himself for plenty of other good careers. </p>

<p>For example, one of the best software developers I know doesn't have a technical degree at all; instead, her degree is in English. And she doesn't even have an advanced degree, she just has a bachelor's. Nevertheless, she is now a highly paid and award-winning Java developer. She started off learning how to write software during her last semester in college, and then took the summer after graduation to buckle down and learn as much as she can. She then got an entry-level developer job, and there it started. She would also take on contract software jobs on the side and she tirelessly honed her skills to make her what she is today. If she can do that with just a bachelors', surely somebody with a PhD ought to have the aptitude quickly train themselves for another career.</p>

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<p>bo435,</p>

<p>I'm going to start my PhD next year at Stanford. I am entering through the Genetics program, but I got a fellowship that offers me a bit of flexibility in terms of being able to transfer into another program in the Biosciences. Also, my interests and skills/background is a little broad (biochemistry/molecular bio/computing sci), so I am in a good position at the moment to direct my education/future in many directions. My problem right now is that I need to figure out which direction is best suited for me, and honestly, I have no idea. I have had my mind set on an academic career for so long that I have not looked at any other opportunities, and now that I have, it's a bit overwhelming. For instance, I had never even associated the word "consulting" or "wall street" with a possibility for my future. I guess I have a bit of research to do over the summer! :)</p>

<p>sakky,</p>

<p>Determination and drive is definitely the most important requirement for a successful career. However, I've got to say, entering the programming/computing industry is a lot faster and a lot more open to "talent" rather than training, as compared to some other fields. For instance, there is absolutely no way that your friend could have entered an Engineering firm, without engineering training, no matter how brilliant she was.</p>

<p>Also, I don't want to be over 40 when I first start to feel stable and comfortable about my career/finances. When I mean "other opportunities", I mean opportunities that will make use of my hard work and training, opportunities that will allow me to perform to the greatest of my potentials, both in terms of talent/skill and background/experience. </p>

<p>What's the difference between investment banking and strategy consulting? (I thought consulting was FOR investment banking)....but obviously, I'm totally clueless to this stuff. :p</p>

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<p>l3monkid, great choice! I'm going to Stanford in the fall as well through the biosciences PhD program. I really liked it there when I visited. I think your background can definitely steer you to many potential career opportunities. Best of luck!</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Determination and drive is definitely the most important requirement for a successful career. However, I've got to say, entering the programming/computing industry is a lot faster and a lot more open to "talent" rather than training, as compared to some other fields. For instance, there is absolutely no way that your friend could have entered an Engineering firm, without engineering training, no matter how brilliant she was.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That's very very funny that you should say that, because there is actually much more to the story. Allow me to continue. Despite her lack of an undergrad engineering degree, her award-winning software development work experience and her excellent job rec's got her admitted to grad school at MIT (which is where I met her). After graduating, she basically had her pick of top engineering jobs because of her MIT background. She chose to go back to the software industry to be a project manager, but she could have gone to another engineering field if she so wished. </p>

<p>But the point is, yes, you can do it. If you need the training, you can get the training. Does it require hard work? Of course! But frankly, if you can get a PhD, you should be no stranger to hard work. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Also, I don't want to be over 40 when I first start to feel stable and comfortable about my career/finances. When I mean "other opportunities", I mean opportunities that will make use of my hard work and training, opportunities that will allow me to perform to the greatest of my potentials, both in terms of talent/skill and background/experience.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, let me tell you something that you may already know. The truth is, outside of a few fields such as tenured academia or certain government jobs, there is no true job security out there, because the business environment and technology change extremely quickly. For example, it was just 15 years ago when practically nobody outside of academia or the military had even heard of the Internet. Nowadays, the Internet is an indispensable tool that has created millions of jobs, but has also destroyed millions of other jobs. {For example, how many encyclopedia salesmen have lost their jobs because of wikipedia? How many traditional travel agents have lost their jobs because of Expedia and other online travel sites? How many stockbrokers have lost their jobs because of Etrade and other online trading sites?) Who knows what sorts of jobs will be available 15 years in the future? Just like my friend's job of being a Java developer and now Java project manager didn't even exist 15 years ago (because Java wasn't even released until 1995), there will certainly be plenty of hot jobs 15 years in the future that don't exist today. And surely, many jobs that exist today will not exist in the future. {For example, not too many Banyan VINES jobs these days.}</p>

<p>Hence, all you can do is develop a level of general knowledge that will allow you to quickly adapt to whatever happens in the future. That's the best way to have a successful long-term career. </p>

<p>
[quote]
What's the difference between investment banking and strategy consulting? (I thought consulting was FOR investment banking)....but obviously, I'm totally clueless to this stuff.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>First off, when I say 'investment banking', I generally mean the entire gamut of high finance. Investment banking, strictly defined, is the act of raising funds for client firms through the capital markets, i.e. the issuance of debt or equity offerings, and also advisory services regarding mergers and acquisitions (which also usually require the tapping of the capital markets). For example, when a firm undergoes an IPO in order to sell equity shares to the public, that firm will hire the services of an investment bank. Similarly, if a firm needs to issue a bond, the firm will hire an investment bank.</p>

<p>More broadly speaking, the term 'investment banking' is often times understood to mean a wide variety of financial activities above and beyond client capital-market access. For example, you have sales & trading (convincing investors to purchase a particular investment or buying/selling investments under the bank's own account), research/analysis (basically, the publishing of reports recommending for or against certain investments), investment management (investing the funds of wealthy clients), and others. Under the heading of 'investment management' are the unusually lucrative subsets of hedge funds, private equity, and venture capital. </p>

<p>Strategy consulting involves helping client firms devise appropriate strategies to maximize profits, minimize risks, or whatever the client is trying to accomplish. That may well involve *financial*strategy, i.e. when and how to issue debt/equity in order to raise capital, or whether/how to acquire another firm or divest a piece of your firm, in which case, strategy consulting overlaps with investment banking. But usually, little overlap occurs. For example, if Microsoft wants to know which features it should add to the new Xbox and how it should allocate its engineering resources to develop these features, that's really a question of technology and product development strategy, for which a consultant who has expertise in those areas can provide advice. </p>

<p>Now, to be fair, I have been discussing only the positive aspects of Ibanking and consulting above. The truth is, a lot of Ibanking and consulting engagements don't work out. Many bankers and consultants provide questionable advice while charging huge fees. For example, right now, Wall Street is in turmoil largely because of a multi-year speculative mania in mortgage-backed securities that has finally come crashing down. But of course many bankers who made millions in bonuses in the last few years by taking advantage of the mania are not going to give any of that money back. Similarly, those strategy consultants who earned millions in consulting fees by recommending that construction companies continue to expand and for banks to expand their offerings of dodgy subprime mortgages aren't going to give those fees back. Now that the crash is upon us, they don't care because they 'got theirs'. Hence these industries are clearly far from perfect.</p>

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<p>Just for the record, let it be noted that PhD biological scientists moving into I banking or strategy consulting is rare. Not rare as in roast beef, but rare in numbers and percentage. </p>

<p>It is true that you will find such rare species in the Boston, NYC and SF areas, and that grads of a handful of programs such as MIT, Harvard and UCSF have marginally better prospects, but that by no means argues that students should enter a PhD program at Harvard or MIT in order to get to consulting or Ibanking. It is true that a few PhD grads end up in all sorts of alternative careers, from publishing (who do you think edits the science journals, english majors?) to investment management. But these are the rare exceptions. IMHO, the only reason one should enter a PhD program in the sciences, especially bio, is because one loves research, and would be comfortable doing research in either an academic or industry setting. If you don't love research, you'll never survive grad school.</p>