By Amy Aines, Founder, Talking STEM, CEO of Damianakes Communications
In this article, Amy writes about strategies for effective communication to move from academia to industry with advice on how to ace the interview and navigate a new world of situations where words matter.
Landing the Job and Succeeding in Industry: What Does it Take?
Three years into her postdoc, Alexandra has set her sights on landing a job in industry. Reckoning with her desire to start a family, she envies her husband who gets nearly two months of parental leave from Google. As a postdoc, she gets four weeks. This year, with COVID 19, she’s watched colleagues secure teaching jobs only to get caught in a nationwide hiring freeze that’s left them facing indefinite limbo. Especially now, opportunities in industry look better and better.
If a career in industry is in your plans, keep reading. Your success will depend on learning new communication approaches. That’s because what works in academic situations can backfire when most colleagues don’t speak your language and team skillsets are more diverse. Success in industry also requires you to make mindset shifts and learn how to have new kinds of conversations – starting with how to talk about your work to land the new job.
How to Discuss Your Research in a Job Interview
While it may be tempting to show your technical prowess by diving immediately into the details of your research, don’t. If you are talking with someone who isn’t familiar with your field, they are likely to get distracted by trying to translate the complex concepts you are explaining. So, how can you make a great impression when you are asked to explain your work?
First, offer a high level explanation that makes your research interesting and relatable. From there, find ways to highlight your capabilities while focusing on the skills and expertise required for the position you’re seeking. Ask yourself, how can I simultaneously talk about my research and show that I have both the aptitude and ability to do this job? What mix of facts and examples help prove my point? That should be the basis for every interview conversation you have, whether it’s with HR, your prospective new boss or during a seminar.
While you discuss your research, use the opportunity to reinforce your breadth of experience. Phrases like: “Over the past three years, I’ve led a team that’s working to answer the question (describe the problem you aim to solve) and that matters because (explain the benefit to people) will help establish your credibility – and hopefully keep you from starting at an entry level bench science job. A statement structured this way will highlight your supervisory experience while giving listeners an appreciation for the significance of your field of study. Your goal is to stand out from other candidates and demonstrate why you are the right person to hire.
Make a Memorable Connection
No doubt you love your work. If you start conversations by talking about what gets you excited, your enthusiasm will show. Emotions are contagious and positive emotion makes people more receptive to what you have to say, so be sure to let your commitment to your work shine through. You also want to display both confidence and humility. Talk about what you know as a result of years of research. You are an expert. At the same time, make it clear that you are eager to learn.
To stand out from other candidates, find ways to make the things you say more memorable. Don’t just recount facts or make general statements. I can declare that “I learn quickly.” Or, I can tell you about a time when I had four hours to get an article drafted and in the hands of my collaborators for a big review meeting. As I tell the story, I can reveal my thought process and how I quickly distilled a complex concept, translating it for my fifteen collaborators to consider. A rich example, told in story format, will stand out and help make your point in a more vivid and engaging way. What else can you do to draw your listeners in and keep their interest?
Presenting an Engaging Technical Seminar
You have the opportunity to grab attention the moment you start to speak. So, invest the time to come up with opening lines that will spark curiosity. Listeners are impatient. Don’t make them wait for the punchline or recount your entire research journey of discovery. Instead, start your talk by revealing the most interesting and relevant conclusions you have reached. This will help people understand the value of your research and provide context for the details you intend to discuss later. As you share the highpoints of your work, let your personality show through to give people a feel for what it will be like to work with you. It’s just as important to show up human as it is to show up credible.
Your seminar audience will likely include a mix of people with varying amounts of familiarity with your topic. This is your opportunity to demonstrate that you are both a science expert and an effective, respectful communicator. Leave acronyms and jargon off your slides and out of your delivery. If you catch yourself slipping up, immediately translate the acronym. Similarly, adopt the habit of defining the technical terms you introduce. For example, if you reference the ‘somatosensory cortex’ then say “the area of the brain that processes touch” so you are sure everybody understands.
But how do you prove to the experts in the room that you do have deep technical depth? Include one very deep dive into the complexities of your work. Just don’t spend the entire seminar talking at this level. Before you submerge, say something like: “Now I’m going to spend a few minutes on the details of XYZ”. While that may seem like an awkward thing to do, prefacing your deep dive this way shows respect and warns the non-expert that you are about to talk over their heads. This skill will brand you as a capable communicator and an effective team member. Teamwork and interpersonal relationship skills are often the biggest shift you need to make to succeed in industry. What will it take to work effectively in the corporate world?
New Relationships Require New Mindsets
As a scientist doing research, your relationship with your peers and your organization is very different from what it becomes when you land an industry job. This move requires a mindset shift from individual to team and company. It’s about moving from ‘I’ to ‘We’ and ‘Us’.
For example, Sachin is a chemist working on developing specialty films. He’s part of a products team for a company using biology to make advanced materials. He works with Johan in sales who is eager to show a prototype to a potential customer. To Sachin, the definition of prototype is quite different from the way Johan sees it. Johan wants to share the film with the customer now and Sachin wants three more weeks to get the film ready before it debuts. Knowing how to have conversations to establish shared definitions, clear understanding and agreed upon next steps, requires strong communication skills.
This kind of conversation needs to take into account answers to several contextual questions. What are Johan’s sales goals and overall responsibilities? What revenue goals have been set for the products organization and the company as a whole? How much is riding on getting a prototype in this customer’s hands now?
Of course, scientific discovery and product development don’t always follow a schedule. When you step into an industry job, the territory requires updates to senior management, scientific advisory boards and investors. Timelines and deadlines have significant implications for the way you design experiments, conduct research and provide progress updates – especially if your company reports quarterly earnings. Even in a privately held company, the colleagues who depend on you will need to be kept well informed so they can do their jobs. Here again, your communication approaches need to consider these new realities. How do you communicate effectively with experts from other disciplines and important decision makers?
Teamwork Increases the Likelihood of Communication Breakdowns
Working in cross-functional teams will require you to hone your active listening skills and learn how to communicate to build trust. At a biotech or engineering company, you may find yourself in meetings with colleagues who represent safety, commercial, legal, marketing, or regulatory and quality functions. The potential for misunderstanding each other is high. To steer clear of mishaps, you will need to explain your ideas clearly and succinctly. You will also need to be observant and learn the art of asking questions to ensure that you have been understood.
Your success will also depend on whether you can influence decision makers and compel them to adopt your ideas. Up till now, your experience doing this has been with professors or principle investigators who reward you for your command of detail and nuance. Likewise, you have probably worked with funders who make decisions based on deeply detailed written proposals. When you are working in industry, most decision makers don’t need that same level of detail. What’s more, they don’t want it. They prefer a succinct explanation that’s tied to what matters most to them. Most scientists have not had any training in how to tailor their communication or how to build organizational support for their ideas. Fortunately, these skills are not hard to learn.
Strategize Before You Speak
Learning how to communicate effectively in industry doesn’t happen by accident. It requires conscious forethought and practice. It requires becoming more self-aware. You’ve got what it takes. You already know how to research, analyze, experiment, and observe. These skills that you have developed as a STEM graduate are the very same skills that will help you become a strong communicator – once you learn how to apply them.
The dream of many scientists is to change the world for the better. Understanding these mindset shifts and powering up your communication skills will set you on the road to success.
Author:
For forty years, Amy Aines has helped innovators choose and use words to get results. She is a communications strategist and speaker coach with a passion for teaching STEM professionals what to say to land the job and make a bigger impact with their work. Amy is co-author of the “how to” book: Championing Science – Communicating Your Ideas to Decision Makers and founder of Talking STEM, a communication skills-building program for researchers, scientists and engineers. Reach Amy at amy@championingscience.com, connect on LinkedIn or join Talking STEM on Facebook.
Editors:
Roopsha Sengupta is the Editor-in-Chief at ClubSciWri. She did her Ph.D. at the Institute of Molecular Pathology, Vienna, and postdoctoral research at the Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, UK, specializing in the field of Epigenetics. During her research, she was involved in many exciting discoveries and had the privilege of working and collaborating with a number of inspiring scientists. As an editor for ClubSciWri, she loves working on a wide range of topics and presenting articles coherently, while nudging authors to give their best.
Amrita Anand is in her 4th year of Ph.D. in Genetics and Genomics at the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston. She studies the reprogramming potential of certain key factors in the regeneration of mouse inner ear hair cells. She has been actively pursuing Science communication over the last three years as she enjoys bridging the gap between scientists and non-experts. As an editor, she wants to make science more accessible to the public and also hopes the hard work behind the science gets due credit.
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Illustrator:
Disha Chauhan did her Ph.D. in IRBLLEIDA, University of Lleida, Spain in Molecular and Developmental Neurobiology. She has post-doctoral experience in Cell Biology of Neurodegenerative diseases and is actively seeking a challenging research position in academia/industry. Apart from Developmental Neurobiology, she is also interested in Oncology. She is passionate about visual art (Illustration, painting, and photography) and storytelling through it. She enjoys reading, traveling, hiking, and is also dedicated to raising scientific awareness about Cancer. Follow her on Instagram.
Saurabh Gayali recently completed his Ph.D. in Plant Molecular Biology from National Institute of Plant Genome Research (JNU), New Delhi. Currently he is DBT RA at IGIB (New Delhi) and his research focuses on finding binding associations of Indian plant metabolites with human pathogen proteins, creating a platform for future plant extract based drug discovery. He has keen interest in data analysis, visualization and database management. He is a skilled 2D/3D designer with a specific interest in scientific illustration. In leisure, Saurabh plays guitar and composes music, does photography or practices programming. Follow him on Instagram.
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