Questions to ask at interviews part 3: Advice from experienced job hunters
Optica Ambassadors Alessandra Carmichael-Martins (Class of 2022), Linhui (Lynn) Yu (Class of 2021) and Richard Zeltner (Class of 2022)
Even armed with a firm knowledge of what you want from a job and the right questions, the job-hunting process can be intimidating. For the third and final installment of the “Questions to ask at interviews” series, we have gathered practical advice from experienced job hunters to help guide early career professionals through the process.
Advice from former Ph.D. students:
- Read up on the field of the project to make sure it is something you are curious about and would like to keep learning more about. You will be working on this for several years.
- Ask yourself where you would like to be in 3 to 5 years thinking about your professional goals, and how you think you would be able to accomplish that.
- Consider the options of an academic versus industry position early on and have a clear list of reasons to choose one or the other, even if your plans change along the road.
- Work in an environment where you can connect with your colleagues and enjoy the work and the lifestyle. Look for equity, inclusion, and diversity in your work environment.
- Ask former lab members what their experience was as a PhD in the institution you are considering joining.
- Be open and honest with your PI. Open and kind communication is key to creating a healthy work environment.
- Question your lab members and PI’s thoughts and decisions in a respectful manner to grow as a researcher and fully understand the reasoning behind them. Discussions can be very valuable to both reevaluate or reinforce a decision.
- A Ph.D. is an individual journey where different students have different skill sets, aptitudes, and experiences. Get inspired by others’ talents, but don’t compare yourself to them.
- If it is not already required, create a career development plan with a personal plan (private) and a professional plan you can share and discuss with your PI. Practice time management to balance lab and study/reading time. Set one day a week to make a plan and evaluate your progress.
- Be ready to fail. In research, many things do not turn out as expected, but it is not a failure, it is a learning process. Everyone has felt like they have failed at some point before realizing that they have succeeded.
- Have confidence in the value of your ideas and initiatives and be ready to transform them as you keep learning from yourself and others.
- No matter what the circumstances are, be respectful and know that you deserve to be respected by your peers, colleagues, and mentors.
- Be bold. Don’t be afraid to apply for awards, grants, scholarships, and fellowships because you think you won’t get it. If you don’t apply you definitely won’t get it, and by applying you will get feedback and, therefore, get better at writing these applications.
- Do not be scared to quit, or change fields or labs if the project or environment does not work for you. You should know that harder and more stressful times will come, but setting personal boundaries and limits is important for a successful Ph.D. and not worth your personal well-being.
- It is not only ok to take a break when needed but also encouraged. It is very easy to not know you are burnt out until it is too late. Try maintaining a healthy work-life balance throughout your Ph.D., and do not wait until you are overwhelmed.
- Get out of your comfort zone and have fun! Be curious, ask questions, and keep an open mind to new projects, ideas and learning in general!
Advice from industry professionals:
- Before starting to look for vacancies take some time to get an understanding of the different roles that are accessible to you – when thinking about industry, people are usually very fixated on R&D positions, but much more is available, e.g., positions in technical sales, customer service, business development, product, or project management.
- Try to get an idea of your market value in terms of salary as early as possible – proposing too low a salary is obviously something you want to avoid and requesting too high a salary might put you in a disadvantage or even disqualify you for certain roles. For large companies, levels.fyi, Blinds, Glassdoor or H1B salary base are good websites to start.
- When proposing a salary, consider that each company comes with different boundary conditions in terms of the salary they can pay – larger companies tend to pay on average higher salaries, so it is also ok to propose a higher salary in the discussions.
- Utilize the onboarding support programs/internal mentorship programs to find mentors and expand your network in the company.
- Don’t be shy to ask for feedback! Feedback is important for professional growth, but many companies don’t have a good feedback culture, leaving people having to actively ask for it.
- In case you have relevant connections – don’t be shy to reach out to former employees of a company to ask for insights if you are considering taking up a position in that company!
- It is great to have a role with exciting tasks and a decent salary – but always keep in mind that your colleagues and your supervisor will have an important effect on your day-to-day work experience – look for a good match here!
- Learn about your team and the company as a whole as quick as possible – knowing the “who is who” and the individual skills and responsibilities of each one will be very helpful in becoming productive during your first weeks and months.
- Avoid the “dream-job-trap” when applying for positions – having an idealized picture of your first job can be helpful for navigating all the different opportunities, but it should not make you blind for vacancies which are “only great”.
- Don’t be too nervous about starting in Industry – there is nothing mystical or special about it. If you adapt to the new environment and its requirements, you will thrive – as you have done before 😊.
We hope the advice in this post – and the questions presented in parts one and two– help you feel empowered on your next job search! For more career advice and resources or to explore careers in optics and photonics, visit Optica's Career Lab.
