Earning a doctorate is only half of the work

The job serarch website, Indeed names five things to do after a Ph.D.

• Industry research.
• Academic research and teaching.
• Policy analysis.
• Public speaking.
• Consulting. 

The degree they describe is the Doctor of Philosophy: coursework, original research, a dissertation aimed at the field. In some disciplines the next door is a postdoc, then a tenure file.

That map is fine if you earned a Ph.D. It is a bad map if you are in a professional doctorate. A Doctor of Strategic Leadership and a Doctor of Business Administration are built for people who already have the job. The research is applied. The test is whether the practice changes, not whether a department hires you.

Do not borrow the Ph.D. costume and the fancy piece of too-expensive paper. A DSL who hunts a postdoc is usually avoiding the implementation. A DBA who only wants the title on a slide has not finished.

Five doors, and what each one means if you already work

Industry research. For a Ph.D. this is a lab, a product team, a study someone else funds. For a DSL or a DBA the industry is the organization you are already in. The assignment is the problem your research named, run on a real Monday. If you cannot point to the meeting where it shows up, you do not have an application. You have a bound paper.

Academic research and teaching. Open to you. Not the default. A Ph.D. is often required for a research post and for tenure. A professional doctorate can teach, and in many rooms it should, because the students are practitioners. It does not automatically make you a professor, and it does not require a postdoc. If teaching is the door, write the course and the student. If it is a fantasy you use to delay the job, say so.

Policy analysis. Government, a nonprofit, a think tank, an advocacy group. Useful if your findings change a rule someone else lives under. Useless as a general “I should have impact.” Name the decision-maker and the decision. Otherwise this is a title search.

Public speaking. Lectures, workshops, rooms of people who like the topic. Indeed is right that this is how you meet collaborators. It is also how a new doctor hides. A talk that does not change a practice you are responsible for is an appearance. Do the talk after the application has a result, not instead of it.

Consulting. Expertise for hire. It varies by field, and Indeed says so. For a professional doctorate the risk is leaving your own organization to advise someone else’s before you have finished the change at home. Consulting is allowed. It is not the proof. The proof is the implementation you can show.

What you write before you pick a door

One page. Bring it to The Peak our group coaching program. Do not bring a vision.

1. The degree. Ph.D., DSL, DBA, or another professional doctorate. What the degree was for: a contribution to the literature, or a change in a practice. Both can be true. Write the one you owe.
2. The Monday. Where the research shows up in the next 90 days. A meeting, a client, a class, a policy draft. If the line is “content,” you have not picked.
3. The door. One of the five, or a sixth you can describe in a sentence. Who it is for. What they can see when it is done.
4. The costume. The path you are tempted to borrow from a Ph.D. exit that is not yours. Postdoc. Tenure fantasy. Speaker circuit. Name it so the group can call it.

The calls are twice a week, 90 minutes, with other people in a doctorate. The work is the page, read out loud, with the blank lines still blank.

To learn more, schedule a call today.