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I've been hearing the opinion (on these boards) that employers would rather hire someone with just a BA as opposed to someone with a PhD.
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My question: Would a job-seeker with just a BA be more attractive than a job-seeker with a BA as well as a PhD ceteris paribus?
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<p>The most economically rational reason that employers do this is that they will think you are 'overqualified' and will therefore be unhappy in a position that requires just a BA. As a corollary, they may fear that you are just using the job as a temporary waypoint until you can find a more suitable research job, for which you will leave the company. No company wants to invest the time in training you on company procedures only to have you quit for another job later (whereupon they will have to spend time and money recruiting somebody else for the job, etc.). These are all extra costs that companies rationally wish to avoid.</p>
<p>As a case in point, I have found that engineering students from the top schools like MIT and Stanford also have difficulty in getting jobs from certain engineering employers, especially the less prominent ones. The reason is similar to what was expressed above. Many of these employers are afraid that those kinds of students are just going to get bored at those companies and will be looking to leave shortly. Not only that, but they are afraid that they will tender a job offer (and thus hold a job open) only to see them turned down in favor of a sexier company like Google or Apple, and thus they wasted time in holding a position open for somebody who didn't take it. </p>
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Higher degrees commonly demand higher salaries, with obvious exceptions. That in mind, a savvy HR department would be wary of picking up too many applications from PhDs; as such, those applicants would definitely have to justify their increased salary more than any applicant in their "normal" pool would, something that someone with nothing but school experience past the BA would have hard time showing.
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that PhD holders who wish to leave academia tend to have a tough time finding non-academic jobs
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<p>You always have the option of simply not telling anybody about your PhD, and not demanding a higher salary. Nobody is forcing you to reveal your Phd. Lest you think this brings up an ethical issue, let me put it to you this way. Do you think that employer is telling you everything? Hardly so. So why do you feel obligated to tell everything to that employer? </p>
<p>Like I've always said: a resume is a marketing document, nothing more, nothing less. Its sole purpose is to get you the interview. That's all it is. It's not a testimonial to God. It's not the whole truth, nor is it meant to be. While you can't outright lie, you don't have to reveal the whole truth. Just like while companies can't outright lie in their advertising, we all know that they aren't telling the whole truth either. They are conveying a message in their advertising that makes them look attractive to potential customers. Resumes can be treated in the same manner.</p>
<p>The same philosophy holds in the interview. While you can't outright lie in the interview, you don't have to volunteer any information either. If they don't specifically ask you whether you have a PhD, you are under no obligation to tell them.</p>