Dear Reader,
Employers don’t care about your PhD. Let’s talk about that.
Consider these two different (simplified) perspectives on hiring:
Your perspective: “I spent years earning this degree. It represents expertise, effort, accomplishment, and a huge chunk of my professional life. I want that to matter.”
The employer’s perspective: “I have a thing that needs doing. Who seems most likely to be able to do it?”
Both parties are looking at the same hiring decision from completely different directions, eh?
So, to add nuance to my initial claim, it’s more like employers don’t care about your education simply because you have it.
They care when it gives them useful information about whether you can solve the problem they’re hiring someone to solve.
Sometimes “PhD in X” is extremely strong evidence.
Sometimes it’s one useful signal among many.
Sometimes the PhD itself is almost irrelevant, while things you happened to learn or do along the way are highly relevant. (This one especially resonates with me.)
And sometimes, yeah, it’s basically a fun fact about you.
But whether an employer cares about your specific degree doesn’t necessarily tell you much about whether the job itself is worthy of you.
Because what makes a job worthy of you, anyway?
Is it that your colleagues call you Dr?
The last person to call me Dr. Polk in a professional context was someone being rude to me in a LinkedIn comment, so that’s clearly not the marker of respect we’re looking for here!
Or is what makes a role worthy of you something you have to define for yourself, in a more meaningful way? (Yes.)
- Work that uses your strengths and doesn’t demand you become someone you’re not?
- Problems you find interesting, even fun, to solve?
- Colleagues you respect and enjoy working with, at least most of the time?
- Enough money, alongside knowing you’re getting paid in line with your colleagues?
- The right amount and kind of flexibility for your life?
- Opportunities to learn without feeling like you’re bashing your head against the wall?
- Work that contributes to something you care about?
- A job that leaves you with enough time and energy for the rest of your life?
Your answers might be completely different from mine. Which is the point.
Maybe using the specific knowledge you developed during your PhD really is important to you.
Maybe you want a job where having a doctorate is required, expected, or highly valued.
Great! Put that on your list. I won’t stop you.
But don’t assume that a job is beneath you—or somehow fails to respect your education—simply because your employer (recruiter, hiring manager, senior colleagues, etc.) doesn’t particularly care that you have a PhD.
You don’t need them to value all the things you value in yourself.
You want them to value what you bring that helps them do whatever it is they’re trying to do.
And you need to decide whether what they’re offering in return makes the job worth doing.
Cheers,
Jen
P.S. Want to explore working with me? Visit my Services page to learn about options, or reply to this email and let me know what you want my help with!
Jennifer Polk, PhD
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