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You’ve heard
it before and you’ll hear it again: networking is very important for making the
switch from academia to another career. Dr. Paul Calvo received his PhD in Molecular
and Cell Biology and ended up as a patent attorney with Sterne, Kessler,
Goldstein, and Fox in Washington DC. Regarding networking, he says, “You can
never know too many people”. Dr. Calvo told a packed room how to start the job
search when planning to leave the bench.
His first advice was to be patient
because making the switch takes time. As with applying for postdocs, start
preparing well ahead of time. One of the first steps is to join LinkedIn, if
you haven’t already, and make a complete profile. Yeah, yeah, in academia we
often joke about how useless LinkedIn is but it is serious business in other
careers. You can use it to connect with people you have met, people already in
the field you want to go into, and to search for jobs. You can also use
LinkedIn and Google Alerts to notify you when jobs in your preferred area or
company open up.
Using a recruiter/ headhunter is also an
option but Dr. Calvo says to use caution in your interactions. Keep in mind
that the company that’s hiring pays them and it is their job is to find the
best person, which may not be you. Take the time to prepare so you can market yourself
as the best person for the job.
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Networking.
Because you never know who the
people you know know. (Source)
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Woven throughout Dr. Calvo’s talk were
tips about how to get into patent law. He said to contact lawyers who were previously
in academia to discuss how they made the change. Informational interviews can help
give you an idea if law is the right choice for you. Some law firms will pay
you to go to law school. Usually this means you will work for the firm during
the day and go to law school at night. Difficult? Yes. But you worked hard to
get a PhD and that was difficult too. If it helps, Dr. Calvo says that learning
law after getting a PhD is easier than learning law as most law students do: with
just a Bachelor’s degree in a discipline like English. The first step on this
path would be to take the patent agent exam and begin networking with
people at law firms.
Other posts in this series:
Unless there are weird outliers I suppose. But is there is something peculiar about a given scientist's publications that skews one particular measure of awesomeness....wouldn't someone being presented that measure discount accordingly?
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