"We had two openings for entry level (bs +1/2 years experience) molecular bio techs. We received over 100 resumes, over 30 of which were from PhD holders. We hired people with bs + 2-5 years experience. The overdegreed candidates didn't even get to the interview stage"

"A lot about this narrative is depressing."

Why? Why would you assume that a PhD should or would trump the actual level of experience required for a job? I'm a senior scientist with a Masters degree and 20 years of industry experience. If I need a tech, I need a tech. And I've had great experience getting BS level scientists to generate the data I need.

Not some newly minted PhD who is a bit older, and in some ways might be harder to train to the task at hand, since you have to be untrained in some bad habits.

I have had a PhD level junior scientist who actually argued with me over everything. I'm open to ideas, but I don't have the time to underline how I built this product line over 15 years, instead of getting the data that I need.

So, I evaluate candidates to the job I need done. I don't actually care if they have a PhD, if I don't need someone with a PhD to do the job.

I've heard that Coleman College is for me, and that financing is available.

Do you have a phone number handy?

I'm ready to make the one phone call that will help me overcome the curse that my PhD, 2 post-docs, and MBA have caused me.

I'm ready to say "yes" to opportunity.

THANKS COLEMAN COLEGE.

I took an informal poll, and it turns out that everybody has a high-paying, enriching, growth-oriented job.

Case closed. This thread is complete. No more comments.

mmm, it looks you are mmmm

I am a phD, I am very comfortable work for a bank. I just don;t know how to get in a bank.

"We had two openings for entry level (bs +1/2 years experience) molecular bio techs. We received over 100 resumes, over 30 of which were from PhD holders. We hired people with bs + 2-5 years experience. The overdegreed candidates didn't even get to the interview stage"

A lot about this narrative is depressing.

We had two openings for entry level (bs +1/2 years experience) molecular bio techs. We received over 100 resumes, over 30 of which were from PhD holders. We hired people with bs + 2-5 years experience. The overdegreed candidates didn't even get to the interview stage.

Coleman College offers credentials which will turn your professional career around in only 9 months. Scholarships are available.
Start a new life in cosmetology, meteorology, and hospitality industry/Indian gaming. You'll always have a job.
You'll be making more money at age 18 with no BS, MS, PhD, and p-doc, than those sorry lot will when they've finished their 3rd p-doc at age 38.

Some of the people commenting on here are Trolling or are just A-holes.

Telling people who invested their lives in a field devoted to technological development and assurances that the Gov would continue funding advanced research, then telling them all "TOO BAD GO PAINT HOUSES"?

What I have say instead is that we should develop non-pie in the sky ideas for useful application of technology and ignore our essentially unenforceable DNC agreements; look out for numero uno, not Mr Corporate Thief in business attire who never has respected Science.

You could probably add a few more to the list soon. The small company I work for, for the first time in its 25 year history, has been unable to make a contribution to our profit sharing plan. We already run on a shoestring and are barely in the black. With medical insurance rates skyrocketing, taxes on the "rich" (especially here in CA) going up,more more onerous regulations, and poor sales for 2 years in a row, I can't see us keeping our doors open another year.

Sorry, but I reject you.

my situation is worst. I am from middle east. converted from Islam to Christianity. am a technical and got masters degree. i live in south Africa. i applied for many jobs that even i am qualified to do that. some companies are Muslim owned and because I am a converted they reject me. some others see my name and my country name and they have a fear or hate and they reject me. some say you are in 40th and reject me. some says you are overqualified and reject me. some wanted reference and work experience in the country that I live in and I don't have reference and they reject me, though I worked in a reputable companies in my country. some say you are white and reject me. the white owned business people don't recognize me as white and they reject me too. if you can find me a job in South Africa please let me know. searcherj at ymail dot com. many thanks

If you look at the wages, job satisfaction and long term job prospects for skilled trades such as electricians and plumbers there is no comparison to the shmucks who continue to pursue advanced degrees in the life sciences. Sure you don't get to act elitist and condescending to others, but you get a fat pay check and get to create something. I don't see these jobs being sent overseas.

Why don't you do something useful like become a real worker? - house painter, plumber, carpenter - real stuff that makes a difference for regular people.

Don't bother just go into life science sales - Work remotely, You can plan your days your way, be your own boss, and opens up all kinds of commercial positions later on. Maybe not for everyone if you can't handle not working 9-5 in the same office every day, but for me it was the most liberating thing that could have ever happened.

Yeah, wait till after the elections when life science PhDs join high school grads for tech training classes at Community Colleges for all the great new jobs...

And this is just the beginning. Wait after the elections. Executives from banks and large corporations are selling stocks in a massive way, andvery unusual. Probably they know something we don't

Don't waste your time doing a PhD if you have no intentions to remain in academia afterwards. You are relying on landing in a PhD friendly environment which in business you may or may not find.

Once you start to get PhDs in management, things should usually become friendlier, but you tend to find many senior non-PhDs tend not to rate the qualification. Masters qualification is always useful, especially in the corporate world. Ultimately it all comes down to how you market yourself.

In the last 5 years, jobs in science/pharma/biotech have declined resulting in a surplus of unemployed PhD and MS scientists. We need to have some organization that will help MS/PhD scientists get jobs in the fields outside of their expertise with some training while working. A person who has done MS/PhD can certainly learn other skills in 1-2 years and succeed in other fields.

At My Pharma Inc. here is how it works.

BS - share a cubical
MS - your own cubical plus 10K more than the BS
PHD - your own double cubical by a window plus 20K more than the MS

MS and PHD down side - China is pumping out both PHD and MS at a record rate. At the PHD/MS level there may soon be an oversupply. Which means the you will be competing for same position with an academically oriented genius who will work for cheap.

The PhD vs MS argument goes on. Let's put it this way: At my current job, I have a co-worker my age with a PhD and I have a MS. We have almost exactly the same skills and experience and do practically the same work. We have the same title. He makes $20K more than me. Nuff said.

The PhD vs MS argument goes on. Let's put it this way: At my current job, I have a co-worker my age with a PhD and I have a MS. We have almost exactly the same skills and experience and do practically the same work. He makes $20K more than me. Nuff said.

"As Penn State University's Michael Bérubé puts it: "Everyone thinks a PhD pretty much guarantees you a living wage," he tells the Chronicle. "But I've been hearing all year from non-tenure-track faculty making under $20,000."

Wow! So there really are educated people out there who make less than me! Hope and change!

Masters, Ph.D. Whatever the fashion might be today as to whether companies want Ph.D.s in place or M.S. my experience is that you should be looking for competence and experience. A certain curiosity and cleverness and experience can go a long long way.

I have recruited a number of great people where I work simply because I buck the fashions. Right now, I'm getting some grest MS scientists who know what they're doing simply because other companies have passed over them looking to pick only PhDs. As long as I can continue pick the good ones out, I don't care what other companies do. Why shouldn't I take advantage of the trends to get the best people my buck can buy?

Masters/Ph.D. I look at them both and figure out which people are doing well and go after them.

With PhD, you have a choice: either work in the academia or non-academic sector. Unfortunately, many PhD graduates are programmed only to find jobs in the academia. That's their comfort zone because they don't have the interpersonal skills to operate in an non-academic sector.

I'm a recruiter at a major bank, and nearly all the high-paying jobs prefer a PhD. That's the new fashion. If you have a Masters, you would soon be rubbing against the ceiling.

If you look at the BLS statistics, the lowest unemployment rate is among the PhDs. There is a reason for that.

Let's not simplify the whole issue. Everything depends on how you market yourself, and PhD is suppose to help you in that. I know many people who've done PhDs in Humanities (out of all disciplines), and are making $100,000+ in consultancy. They have given up on academic careers.

I have a PhD...thats all i can say about it.
Go do something in health sciences..even an associate degree would give you a highly paid job...atleast more than the PhD adjuncts earn.
god bless all unhappy PhD people...

Pasted from GenomeWeb Daily Scan:

"A story at The Chronicle of Higher Education takes a look at the less-than-rosy financial situations some PhDs in the US have found themselves in. The article examines what the Chronicle calls "an often overlooked, and growing, subgroup of PhD recipients, adjunct professors, and other Americans with advanced degrees" — those who have applied for some form of government assistance since late 2007.
...
As Penn State University's Michael Bérubé puts it: "Everyone thinks a PhD pretty much guarantees you a living wage," he tells the Chronicle. "But I've been hearing all year from non-tenure-track faculty making under $20,000.""

Go back to med then!

College is for dummies who don't have any idea how the world works.

There are tons of jobs...in China.

join the OWS movement!

The Bilderbergs, Baines, and Carlyles are doing just fine. \
Stop your stupid whining.

They do need PhD's to work in their arms factories.

Stop robbing the public.
For everyone who joins the military, state, federal, or local government, that's more money private citizens have to pay to support these freeloaders. Ditto for the NIH.

Shut down the NIH, university funding, military, and entitlements. Start taxing the churches; they get away with murder with their political agendas.
Stop robbing the public.

Is Iraq, Afghanistan, or North Korea invading us?
It doesn't justify the waste of money. If you worked at Haliburton, good for you. This is biotech.

No wonder this poor kid can't find a job.

The Powers-That-Be screwed up the economy so bad that only people like Mitt Romney will ever benefit.

That’s very personal. The reality is a Ph.D. degree does not guarantee anything. I have a Ph.D. in chemistry with over 10 years of experience and very successful in research and project management. Now, I have been unemployed for 5 months. I know at least 6 Ph.D.s in the same situation and recently one of them accepted a faculty position in Japan. I would study something else.

Who said anything about Harvard?

Huge demand - all systems go!
Plus bridge for sale at bargain price in NY.

NEWSFLASH- Colleges just want your money!

I graduated with a BA in math/physics from a well known liberal arts college, looked for a meaningful job for couple of years, finally decided forget it, joined the Army. Strange to say I enjoyed the military life-style and finally retired as a Lt Col 22 years later. During that time I went to graduate school part-time, received 2 MS degrees (applied math, financial mgt).

For the first couple of years after retirement I was an adjunct at a large university, then was offered a position as a lecturer (non-tenure, few benefits, at about what WalMart pays I suspect). And thats where I've been for the past 6 years although I've looked for something else constantly.

It seems to me that age and/or multiple degrees is a kiss of death as far as getting a job in the corporate world is concerned.

"I envy the plumbers, electricians, computer programmers, etc. my age who can work in any city they feel like, are making as much as many 35+ year old professors start with, and are able to settle down and buy a house, get married, and start families."

I was about to say something like that. Getting an education didn't ruin my life but it did make it more complicated than it needed to be. I've worked for 3 different pharmaceutical companies and three different Universities and have had to move 13 times in the last 20 years because of constant job turmoil. Currently, I work in academia making less than I made 22 years ago. I'll still be able to retire at a decent age but I won't be the typical retired guy who travels the world and buys a new car every few years. I'll be poor and just able to survive, but only because of some family property that I've inherited. Otherwise, I'd be screwed.

I remember my Counselor in high school telling me I should go to a trade school to become an electrician, plumber, etc. instead of going to College. I thought he was being a wise ass but he was right. If I had to do it all over again that is exactly what I'd do because I'd be retired right now, just like some of friends who shunned College to be blue collar union grunts. I'd of saved a lot money wasted on tuition too.

College is overrated. If I had a kid that was College age, I'd encourage him/her to explore other options before deciding what to do.

I thought I was the only one. I have a masters in electrical engineering from Stanford University and a masters in optics from another university. I have never been able to convert either degree into meaningful work. Ten months after graduating with my second masters I finally found a job as a technician (which only requires a two year degree). I was working my way up to an engineer position at that company when less than a year into the the job our plant was shutdown and we got dumped into the job market during the 2008 financial meltdown. I went another 14 months unable to find any relevant work. Finally found an engineering position that offered no benefits whatsoever (including no health insurance), lots of unpaid overtime, working holidays, no vacation and taking home about one third to one half of what I was making as a technician before. This would have been acceptable to me if I was able to gain relevant optical engineering experience and use the job as a stepping stone to an optical engineering position at a better company but instead I was continually assigned meaningless work that gave me no optical engineering experience and that I didn't need any college education to do whatsoever. Five years after graduating I am faced with the decision if I should try to save my optical engineering career by pursuing a PhD or offering to work for free in an optical lab or just abandon my career and go through vocational rehab to try to get retrained in a field I have a better chance of making a living in. I had better prospects after earning my BSEE than I ever did after going to grad school. I regret ever pursuing a graduate degree now. I now believe it is much better to get work experience than an advanced degree.

I have a MSc in condensed Matter Physics and it took me year to get a job. The job I took was in geophysics, not related to my education. Finally/currently ended up in IT and I am hating it. When I started my education everyone in the industry said if you were a physicist then you were trained for all tech jobs. When I graduated the story changed. You had to be specifically trained as a "Fiber Optic Engineer" or you didn't get the job. No one wants a generalized specialist anymore.

Siemens just added to the number of unemployed Master's and PhD degree holders out there. They might have been able to go back to school to become a high school teacher, but high schools are laying people off.

I have a Masters of Physics and I ruined my life. After my undergrad, I was offered a good-paying full-time job at a company I did my internship with. Following the "get an education" mantra I turned it down thinking I could get better career opportunities doing what I want with a graduate physics degree or pursue a rewarding life in academia. Boy was I wrong!

Six months after graduation I find myself working minimum wage dead-end jobs, no better than out of high-school. The company that originally wanted to hire me went bust before I graduated. There are no jobs in the field of research I studied. And I hate academia so I refused to go for a PhD and jump onto the post-doc treadmill (not that a PhD in my field would have improved my employment situation anyways). Worst of all, no one wants to hire a physicist for a programming job when they get applications from real CS majors.

Long story short, I screwed myself over by digging a hole in a field that exists due to charity, and I didn't bother to get the degree credentials needed to work a Plan B career like a minor in computer science.

I envy the plumbers, electricians, computer programmers, etc. my age who can work in any city they feel like, are making as much as many 35+ year old professors start with, and are able to settle down and buy a house, get married, and start families.

Many Of my PhD customers have hard time washing and some of my Asian PhD customers teeth are falling off. I say go for that muay Thai crap now before it's all the rage.

You got to be kidding me. You from Harvard and no job..you just need to step up and be more aggressive in your findings.

LOTS of Anger and self-loathing is apparent in many of the responses; young people fresh to the field are supposed to have Idealism and vigor the rest of us can exploit!

How much do you think the "Muay Thai" poster gets paid for each "advertisement"? Looks like a good way to get a fast brain disorder to me...

You can follow the age-old advice of "follow your bliss". Perhaps no one captured this motto better than Steve Jobs:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-full-text-of-steve-jobs-stanford-comm...