Event: How to be a competitive job candidate

For our Hiring Manager Panel event on July 22nd we invited hiring managers and recently hired employees to discuss how to stand out as a PhD applicant. The panel was a lively conversation and was attended by nearly 100 students and Post Docs. If you weren’t able to join us, here’s a quick recap of what you missed:

Panelists Included:

  • Rudy Bellani - Co-Founder, CEO, Oystir
  • Jenna Sullivan - Manager, Translational Research at inviCRO, LLC
  • Stephen Towers - Senior Medical Director, Health Science Communications, Healthcare Consultancy Group (HCG)
  • Alex Teixeira - Incoming Consultant, The Boston Consulting Group
  • Matt Staron - Sr. Scientist II, AbbVie Bioresearch Center Inc

Key Insights from the Panel:

  • There are two things to include on your resume that “give the biggest bang for your buck”: an executive summary that tells your story in 2-3 sentences to indicate your qualifications and headings that highlight your skills that fit specific job qualifications (e.g., leadership, teaching)
  • Different careers look for different things on a resume. For example, consulting companies often focus on numbers and results.
  • If you’re missing one skill a company needs but you have four others along with other abilities that show you are a good fit (such as leadership experience) then you may still be a competitive candidate.
  • Online resources for job-seeking PhD’s include Drop-Out-Club, Oystir, and Indeed.
  • During interviews or luncheons, good conversation starters to demonstrate your engagement can focus on local life (“Where do you get lunch around here?”, etc.).
  • During the interview, do not suggest that you are looking to move up from that job immediately. If you are applying for a job focused on benchwork, don’t say that you want to quickly leave to work in management. Discussing long term career plans is still valuable, especially in high turnover industries such as consulting.
  • When networking, focus on building a few quality connections rather than a multitude of brief interactions. Writing key details of information about your interaction with that person on the back of their business card can help you when you follow up on these connections in order to maintain them.
  • For foreign job applicants, larger companies are more likely to sponsor you, but smaller companies may as well if your skillset is rare.