Article by Dr. Nakeema Stefflbauer. Illustration by T. Stefflbauer
If I had a nickel for every high-performing academic woman who couldn’t land a first tech company interview, I’d be rich. That’s because the esteem with which PhDs are held in most societies is at odds with the lack of respect with which women are often greeted in industry —whether or not they hold a PhD. For years, I used to tinker with the résumés of fellow PhD’s in the US to help make them attractive to corporate recruiters. Fast-forward to today, and a significant percentage of FrauenLoop applicants are women with MAs or PhDs. If you’re a woman in an academic field who’s looking to transition into the tech sector, here are three things you can do to maximize your success.
Map the Jobs Ecosystem
The days of the gang-of-web-developers-in-an-open-office-with-a-manager-looking-on are long gone. These days, Agile methodologies, remote teams, data, devops, product and cloud architecture functional groups are at the core of most software development companies. New, specialist roles are being invented what seems like every year. That’s a huge advantage for the industry, but few outside of the tech sector understand that there is a broad range of professional roles. Since most EU universities are opposed to holding industry career orientations, it makes sense for you, as an academic, to use your research skills to map the tech jobs ecosystem.
Start with Google in your city or in the next largest neighbouring country and write down every job title you encounter —and the functional department it belongs to. Proceed to Glassdoor and look up the largest tech company you can find: jot down their job listings and role titles. Rinse and repeat. By the time you’ve done this for a few different companies, you’ll have a good sense of the functional departments in a typical tech company, as well as the jobs associated with them.
Prepare to “Immigrate”
“Poor but sexy” academics are often an unwittingly privileged elite. But like hopefuls moving from one country to another, you will need to learn what skills are necessary at your destination and what you’ll need to leave behind.
“As a career-changer, it’s imperative to accept the fact that employers only pay for the skills they can use.”
If you hold a PhD in molecular biology, don’t pack your CV and interviews with the minutiae of your research and publications unless the company you’re applying to has some direct connection with…biology. If you are dealing with a tech recruiter (whose function is, effectively, to gatekeep), avoid statements about how your unrelated dissertation or thesis is “all that you have been focused on.” That’s a deal-killer for landing a career change position.
However difficult it may be, you are well-advised not to expect credit for your academic prowess once you’ve left academia. You are effectively leaving one country for another. Just imagine a highly-credentialed Taiwanese pharmacist looking for a medical marketing job outside of Taiwan. It’s possible that she could learn to do the new job like a boss —but she may not be given the chance, if she introduces herself and spends precious time (and CV space) detailing only her accomplishments in pharmacy. A better strategy is to make a list of key skills your dream job requires, then map your transferable skills, giving clear examples of what parts of the job you want are similar to the work you’ve already done.
Make an Offline / Online Shift
The choice to accept a relatively junior role (and compensation) after achieving high academic goals is far from easy. But making the mental shift to re-boot your career and revamp your CV is not the end of your transformation. The internet, and with it, the job platforms and portals where you store your professional profile must shift also.
“Don’t be the aspiring web developer whose LinkedIn profile comes up under “Physicist and Lecturer.”
Similarly, don’t put an aspirational tech job title in your online CV and then submit a résumé filled with academic feats that aren’t connected to your tech dream job.
Finally, don’t be discouraged by automated rejections: the popularity of CV-ranking algorithms mean that big-company recruiters may not even see your application unless it’s stuffed with role-relevant keywords. Make sure that a high proportion of the skills listed in job descriptions are skills you have on your CV and in completed projects. Also, since universities in Europe, and especially in Germany, can’t teach all the latest, greatest collaboration software or frameworks, be prepared to work on updating your skills even after you are on the job.
Worldwide, the tech industry is growing, and it desperately needs more diversity of disciplinary expertise. Tech leaders like Dr. Timnit Gebru and Joy Buolamwini speak extensively about the risks of building AI and computer vision algorithms within a narrow monoculture. Groupthink thrives in spaces where majority opinions are never challenged. Perspectives that are informed by history, anthropology, law, psychology or other domains are increasingly necessary in building ethical, sustainable tech. So if you’re thinking of ways to save yourself from an academic future you no longer want, consider using your critical reasoning, scientific methodology, and applied research skills to prep yourself for a tech career that may suit you better. If you’ve already decided to make a career transition into tech, check out FrauenLoop.org