Transitioning from academia to industry

[debateg]

I am an MD/PhD student currently applying into internal medicine residency for matching in 2013. There is a lot of talk about MD/PhD's getting job in industry, but I have yet to hear how it happens practically. Although I had a wonderful PhD experience with an amazing mentor, I have become increasingly disillusioned with the often brutal and vitriolic academic culture, my availability of free time, the abysmally low pay, and and my future job prospects. I thus am seriously considering moving to a job in industry. Unfortunately, I cannot dare tell that to any people at my institution or else they'll accuse me of selling out or betraying them (sadly, I've seen that happen).

It seems that there is a conveyer belt that leads from internship to your first academic job (hopefully tenure track). For example, I would join a residency, short track into a fellowship, finish the fellowship and do my research time, get promoted to a non-tenure track (we call it an instructor at my institution) for a postdoc, and use that time to secure a K-award (which I'm afraid will be increasingly difficult to get). Once the K is in hand, you go on a job search, get offered a junior faculty position and the tenure clock starts ticking.

When during this process do you decide to make the move to industry? It seems that jumping ship before your K-award would be foolish as you may end up completely unemployed and blacklisted from academia. However, getting promoted to junior faculty doesn't seem to be a good way to move into industry.

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[gbwillner]

I am an MD/PhD student currently applying into internal medicine residency for matching in 2013. There is a lot of talk about MD/PhD's getting job in industry, but I have yet to hear how it happens practically. Although I had a wonderful PhD experience with an amazing mentor, I have become increasingly disillusioned with the often brutal and vitriolic academic culture, my availability of free time, the abysmally low pay, and and my future job prospects. I thus am seriously considering moving to a job in industry. Unfortunately, I cannot dare tell that to any people at my institution or else they'll accuse me of selling out or betraying them (sadly, I've seen that happen).

It seems that there is a conveyer belt that leads from internship to your first academic job (hopefully tenure track). For example, I would join a residency, short track into a fellowship, finish the fellowship and do my research time, get promoted to a non-tenure track (we call it an instructor at my institution) for a postdoc, and use that time to secure a K-award (which I'm afraid will be increasingly difficult to get). Once the K is in hand, you go on a job search, get offered a junior faculty position and the tenure clock starts ticking.

When during this process do you decide to make the move to industry? It seems that jumping ship before your K-award would be foolish as you may end up completely unemployed and blacklisted from academia. However, getting promoted to junior faculty doesn't seem to be a good way to move into industry.

We get very little mentorship about getting into industry. Face it, all the people we interact with ARE in academics. I don't think that you'd necessarily be blacklisted or whatever if those are your intentions.

The issue with industry is- what are you going to do there? R&D or business management? There are very different career tracks there. If you want to run a lab in industry (let's say, drug development) your best bet is still to finish residency, do a post doc, maybe run your own lab for a while THEN jump over. Industry has its own issues- you may not get to choose what you work on, you may have your project cancelled at any moment if the company feels that it can't profit from it, etc. Also, they are pretty competitive. Why would they give you a lab and several millions of dollars for your project when you don't have a proven track record in academia already?

 

[Josh7]

We get very little mentorship about getting into industry. Face it, all the people we interact with ARE in academics. I don't think that you'd necessarily be blacklisted or whatever if those are your intentions.

The issue with industry is- what are you going to do there? R&D or business management? There are very different career tracks there. If you want to run a lab in industry (let's say, drug development) your best bet is still to finish residency, do a post doc, maybe run your own lab for a while THEN jump over. Industry has its own issues- you may not get to choose what you work on, you may have your project cancelled at any moment if the company feels that it can't profit from it, etc. Also, they are pretty competitive. Why would they give you a lab and several millions of dollars for your project when you don't have a proven track record in academia already?

Is it easier to go from academia to industry or industry to academia?

Thanks

 

[agp4]

Is it easier to go from academia to industry or industry to academia?

Thanks

Boy, that's a tough question. I've seen far more people go from academia to industry than the other way. I'd imagine it would be tough to voluntarily give up the promise of a nice salary and semi-reasonable hours (depends on the job/project/company, of course) for academia.

Plus, you've got to figure that a lot of people in industry were turned off by academia in the first place, whether it's the slow pace of research, the granting system, and/or the vagaries of the tenureship track.

 

[Fencer]

I have seen a few people going from academia into industry and back. A couple of high visibility examples are Dennis Choi (WUSTL --> Merck --> Emory, now at Stony Brook) and Allen Roses (Duke --> GSK --> Duke). Knowing both of them, they are unusual for academia. In addition to what you expect from an academician, they also have a deep understanding of marketing, management, and finances.

It is much easier to go from academia to industry. The two individuals named above left academia as Department Heads and once they had accomplished a lot within academia (i.e.: developed a story, got R01s, got tenure, etc.). It is much more difficult to get into academia from industry because in industry you move your story from product to product depending upon R&D priorities. In industry, you change your research focus the minute that you are told to do so.

 

[miz]

I have no personal experience, but would it make sense to look for postdocs in academic labs with strong industry ties as your jump-in point? Those mentors are likely to look kindly on you for wanting to enter industry. If those don't exist at your institution, would your living situation accommodate a move?

What is your area of research? I could think of a few labs at my home institution in chemistry/chemical biology which would be pretty much ideal for this; I have no idea if these labs exist in other fields.