Well! We all know a PhD is a significant commitment. You may have a question in your mind, “Is a PhD worth it?” Or some people want to know about PhD careers. You need to spend a minimum of three years as a doctoral researcher, with more demands made on your dedication, finances, and time.
All you need to do is research no one has done before, offer a unique contribution to the addition of human knowledge and come with a respected qualification that most of the people are unable to get. You can call yourself “Doctor.” These things possibly matter to you, and they play an essential role in defining the worth of a PhD in your eyes.
PhD Careers and Employment Prospects
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Let us start with a question: how employable are the PhD students? – and what jobs do they prefer to do? You will be amazed by how diverse the answers are.
The days are gone when a PhD holder start his/her career in academia. Well! It is not clear that those days occurred outside the minds of naïve postgraduates.
Employment Statistics of PhD
The below-listed information shows that the PhD students are employable, with most of them finding work or going on training (‘Postdoc’) after graduation.
| Activity | Percentage of PhD Graduates |
| Total employed | 85.7% |
| Part-time work | 8.2% |
| Full-time work | 77.5% |
HESA published this databased on a Longitudinal DLHE survey.
The other PhD graduates are involved in a combination of further study and work or are self-employed.
The next question people have in their minds is, “What is a Postdoc?” A Postdoc or Postdoctoral Fellowship is the next step in the academic career after a PhD. These are usually paid positions for a short term that concentrate on a particular project of research.
What can You Do with a PhD?
Nowadays, the PhD is a versatile qualification that grows a diversity of transferrable skills. Different universities support people within the doctoral programs focusing on developing employable PhD holders. It means that the job market for PhD graduates is diverse. Numerous students go on to careers in higher education; however, they include leadership positions and administration as well as academic posts. Other people take their teaching expertise and research into other fields – including public administration, industry, secondary of further education.
What Else Does a PhD Teach You? Transferrable Skills
The PhDs are highly specialized qualifications. Every project of a PhD graduate is different, emphasizing on a topic no one has done before. But it is not only about the specialization. Completing a three-year project of research means more general skills that are highly transferrable.
There is a majority of careers for the self-motivated project managers with the best skills of organization, the experience of event planning and public speaking, and the ability to communicate and analyze significant amounts of detailed information. These people are employable, and your PhD can make you one among them. Here are some transferrable skills you will develop during your PhD journey.
Project Management
A PhD degree requires to complete a 3-year extended project of research and do it almost independently. You can take help from your supervisor, but it all depends on you to manage everything.
You need to evaluate the demands of particular tasks, plan to make sure the availability of essential materials and solve a variety of issues.
Even, a self-financed PhD career includes budget management – and potentially securing extra investments for your work.
Professional Networking
Managing your PhD project can also mean handling your relationship with people. You need to maintain a healthy relationship with the supervisor and with the fellow students within your department, workshop, and laboratory.
You will need to recognize and link with the researchers working on similar topics at other institutions. If you present anything at conferences by yourself, you can have expertise in sharing data within a professional network and talking about ideas with the expert peers.
Never misled by the image of a solitary scholar: team-work and collaboration are essential parts of the modern PhD career.
Mentoring and Teaching
Another part of the typical PhD experience is academic teaching. Most of the institutions offer at least some chances for postgraduate researchers to lead classes, mentor the undergraduate students or demonstrate experiments.
It is essential training for the academic career, but it is not confined to work in the institutional sector.
Teaching experience is helpful if you are involved in working in other education branches – such as sixth form college or secondary school. Demonstrating that you can talk to your specialist about the subject knowledge is the best way to go for a PhD for these careers.
Publication
The academic publication is not a part of every PhD; however, a lot of students do have the chance to author journal articles or produce other research records.
This type of publication is entirely different to ‘renowned’ or ‘commercial’ publishing. However, some of the skills you will learn are common for all kinds of publications.
Proofing, copy-editing, and preparing a manuscript is essential to publication in all the contexts: while you are authoring an industry whitepaper, a novel, a journal article – or a site.
Public Speaking
You may consider it strange to think of research in PhD as a chance to develop your skills in communicating orally, but the discussion and presentation of your ideas will play a key role in their development.
Numerous students speak at the academic conferences at a point during the PhDs. It is an essential means of making the academic community know your work and receives feedback from experts.
Thus, you can be a proficient public speaker, having the ability to choose and shape material for the presentation, and the confidence to deliver the presentation effectively and professionally.
Research
One of the best skills you can gain as a PhD student is the ability to do research.
The work of identification, management, and analysis of a large amount of complex data is not easy. It isn’t effortless to understand the things and re-present the conclusions in a useful and appropriate format.
As a PhD candidate, you can be an acknowledged expert in doing all of the research. If nothing else, your PhD career may include professional research. Follow our website for more related content.