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Career Sense is a blog for academic job seekers.
- Read full bio: Carolyn Steele (formerly our “Dr. Jobs” columnist), is a career adviser of 10 years, and a PhD candidate herself.
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PhD success story #1: A senior analyst at the Bank of Canada
Career Sense is celebrating the many thousands of PhDs who have gone onto successful non-academic careers. If you know someone who has a PhD success story they’d like to share, please contact me. For more PhD success stories click here.
Position: Senior analyst at the Bank of Canada
Program: Economics
Year of graduation: 2008
Previous experience: This is his first position.
Point at which a non-academic path was chosen: Beginning of dissertation
Primary Reason behind this decision: He loved research but didn’t have very positive teaching experiences. He found academic life too isolating and preferred a more collegial atmosphere where he could discuss issues that interested him with people committed to similar interests.
How he found out about relevant positions: Through the American Economic Association. He found professors in Economics helpful in this regard as many students in this field plan on non-academic careers.
How many positions he applied for: Over 80
What he likes about his job: The majority of his job is research in areas that he is genuinely interested in and that build on the expertise he demonstrated in his dissertation. He is also able to publish in his field. He enjoys working with very intelligent, capable and happy people.
His strengths in the selection process:
- the ability to communicate and interact with others well;
- proven competency in relevant areas demonstrated through his dissertation and publication record;
- his supervisor was well known and respected by a researcher at the Bank of Canada.
His advice to others:
Cast your net broadly and be clear about what you most want. He turned down several good jobs, including academic positions, during his job search. Because he much preferred research to teaching he held out for the “right job” which he loves and which suits his personality and strengths very well.
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It’s important to find a job that suits you, even if it means turning down good job offers. The right job is out there. Great post.