Industry vs. academia after a PhD

I’ve been encouraged by colleagues to share my take on choosing a position industry or academia after graduating with a PhD. So here goes.

The way I saw what an academic position entailed from the perspective of a student engaged in a PhD was that it required one to have four crucial skills:

1. Management (of a lab/students)
2. Pedagogy (teaching classes)
3. Salesmanship (writing and winning grant proposals)
4. Research (self-explanatory)

After the PhD, I didn’t personally feel like I had the education in any of the above except research, and I got to know first hand what I’d previously heard stories about - that the support professors get to build the other skills was slim. I also felt that most R1 universities in the US, from what I know, do not employ a hiring process that pays particularly close attention to the first two skills. This left me feeling that I would be thoroughly unsatisfied with my own incompetency in the first three skills required were I to pursue a professorship. Indeed, in the rare moments where professors were relaxed enough to comment on their frustrations on the job, I detected a similar sentiment.

On the other hand, there were plenty of industry positions where the only important skill was the one I was formally trained in and if I needed to acquire others, I would have support from my employer as well as the time to devote.

Obviously, this was my personal choice. People have said that hearing my thoughts have helped them make both decisions and some have disagreed with parts of what I’ve said. I’m leaving this here in the hope that it is helpful to others.