Open Communication and Varied Career Opportunities for New PhDs

The landscape of graduate science education is changing in the United States. There are not enough academic jobs for all PhD recipients, especially in the research universities that comprise a minority of U.S. institutes of higher education. In 2017, there were as many PhD holders working in the private sector (42%) as there were in educational institutions (43%) (National Center for Engineering and Statistics, 2017). In one of her Observer columns, APS Immediate Past President Wendy Wood contrasted two approaches: a classic linear model in which graduate students are trained to go on to complete postdoctoral positions and seek jobs in academia, and a more diverse, branching model in which graduate education exposes students to potential careers in industry, government, education, law, and so on. 

Related content: See all of Wendy Wood’s presidential columns.

This alternative, more diverse model addresses the reality of the changing occupational landscape as well as PhD students’ concerns about the job market. In a study with 195 PhD students across different STEM disciplines (Sherman et al., 2021), we asked students to consider three different job possibilities—nonacademic positions (e.g., industry, government, nonprofit organization), a teaching-focused academic position (professor at a college without a PhD program), and a research-focused academic position (professor at a university with a PhD program)—and rank them in terms of what they would most like to pursue after graduation. Nearly 46% of students reported a preference for nonacademic positions, whereas 33.8% ranked research-focused academic positions highest, and 20.5% preferred teaching-focused academic positions. That is, there was a great deal of heterogeneity in what PhD STEM students desired as a career path. 

However, there was a sharp discrepancy between the careers that PhD students wanted to pursue and what they perceived their advisors wanted for them. Nearly 79% of PhD students thought that their advisors wanted them to pursue academic research careers at research universities. And students who did not rank research as their first career preference felt a lower sense of belonging in their PhD programs than those who ranked research careers as their top preference. Students reported feeling significantly less comfortable discussing both industry and teaching careers than research. 

We then conducted a survey of 301 PhD advisors at the same universities as the students. Although the faculty and student surveys were not matched (that is, we did not recruit faculty–student dyads—which would be fascinating for future research), the study consisted of experienced advisors in STEM fields, with an average of over 16 years of experience. Did the faculty members agree with the PhD students’ assessments of what types of careers they wanted their students to have? 

The answer is yes. And no. First, we asked the faculty members about their general preferences for career options for “an ideal PhD student you recruit in the future.” The faculty members indicated that they indeed would prefer their ideal student to pursue a research career. Eighty-four percent ranked the pursuit of a research academic career highest, whereas 11.1% ranked industry highest, and 4.9% preferred their ideal student to pursue a teaching-focused academic career.

But we also asked the faculty members to think about current individual students—specifically, the three most senior students in their laboratories. For each of the students, faculty indicated what they perceived the student wanted career-wise and what they wanted for the student. Here, we found that the faculty members were quite in tune with their perceptions of their students’ interests. 

The most chosen career path was research (about 50% of faculty preferred that for specific students), followed by nonacademic/industry (about 35%), and then teaching (about 18%). When we conducted analyses to determine the predictors of faculty preferences for specific students, we found that faculty preferences were much more tightly linked to their perceptions of their students’ career preferences than to their own preferences for an ideal student. In other words, faculty members are relatively responsive to their students’ career interests and supportive of a range of careers, which seems to contradict how PhD students see them. 

What causes the mismatch? 

We suspect the discrepancy in perceptions stems from pluralistic ignorance—the idea that each side of a dyad is inferring the beliefs and attitudes of the other on the basis of the external behavior they observe.

When private attitudes (“I support a PhD student in my lab who is going on to industry” from the faculty side, or “I want to go into industry” from the student side) divert from public behaviors (“research careers for students in my lab”—that is, a faculty member acting as though they expect all PhD students in their lab to go to a research university and a student acting that way as well), the mismatch can impact crucial life decisions. 

Our qualitative and quantitative research suggests that students may be uncomfortable discussing nonacademic research positions because of inferences they are making about their advisors’ private attitudes (Leong et al., 2024). Some faculty do express attitudes against industry jobs, to be sure. One student, for instance, reported the following: 

“I would feel uncomfortable and embarrassed discussing nonacademic positions with my advisor because he has made comments about prior students indicating that he doesn’t think that is a desirable career path for a doctoral student.” 

Only about 13% of the students who completed our studies expressed this sentiment. But our research team suspected that if students were informed that faculty advisors were relatively attuned to their career interests, they would be more comfortable discussing teaching and industry positions. We conducted another study with a new sample of 200 STEM PhD students. We presented one group of students with survey data showing that PhD students express interest in a diverse range of careers and that PhD advisors, when they think about their specific advisees, have career expectations for those students that closely mirror student preferences. This was termed the “Actual Norm Condition” because it was based on the actual stated preferences of faculty. 

To a second group of PhD students, we presented information about the wide discrepancy between students’ preferences and the potential careers that their advisors wanted for them: We termed this the “Perceived Norm Condition” because it was based on what PhD students perceived as the norm among faculty advisors. 

The PhD students who saw the Actual Norms reported being more comfortable discussing career options, particularly industry careers, with their advisors compared with the PhD students who saw the Perceived Norms. Informing PhD students what a sample of STEM professors actually think led them to feel more comfortable discussing varied career options. 

Developing new forms of career guidance 

Our research suggests the importance of breaking down the pluralistic ignorance that may exist between faculty mentors and the students they advise. However, an additional issue we observed, both in our qualitative research and in discussion with colleagues, is that faculty often feel less equipped to discuss industry positions because they have, understandably, less relevant experience. As one faculty participant in our research put it: 

“I am supportive of students pursuing the career that is a best fit for them. However, I know very little about nonacademic careers, so I struggle to provide adequate mentorship for a student who wants to pursue that path.” 

Recognizing this issue—and with a desire to facilitate connections between our current students and our alumni, who are traversing the varied landscape of careers now available to those with psychology degrees—we have taken a number of steps at our department at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). 

First, we created an Alumni Council of dedicated alumni working in industry and academia who can share resources, make connections, and help organize outreach events to network with current students and recent alumni. One goal of the council is to assist with career education and career opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. 

Second, a departmental colleague—with support from the Alumni Council—worked with graduate students to organize speaker series in which PhD students met with alumni via Zoom to talk about postgraduation life. One series included doctoral alumni who work at some of the largest and most impactful companies in the world. A second series included alumni who work at primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs) that focus on teaching. Each series included frank discussions about different career pathways that PhD students from our department have taken and described the inherent trade-offs that come with different career decisions. We also created a LinkedIn page for UCSB Psychological & Brain Sciences Department Alumni & Friends. This has provided a great forum for connection. Indeed, Anudhi Munasinghe, who recently earned her PhD at UCSB, used these departmental resources in her job search. She is now a senior research scientist at WGU Labs, a nonprofit education technology developer at Western Governors University.  

“I connected with alumni who had careers I was interested in and learned important skills from them,” Anudhi said about our program. “These skills helped me expand my network, which led me to my career. This was a great way for me to start my journey into industry.” 

Finally, professors and students at research universities have limited familiarity not just with industry, but also with PUIs, which prioritize teaching and make up the majority of U.S. universities and colleges. Positions at PUIs may be a better fit for students who want a teaching-focused career, but a research-focused PhD does not always enable a student to be competitive for these positions. In another initiative, funded by the National Science Foundation’s Advances in Graduate Education for the Professoriate (AGEP) program, UCSB and the University of California, Merced partnered with California State University (CSU) Channel Islands and CSU Fresno to provide STEM doctoral students with a mentored teaching experience at a PUI. Each PhD student (AGEP fellow) was paired with a professor at a CSU and collaborated with their CSU mentor to teach a semester-long course, while also participating in a professional development program that prepared them for a teaching-focused career. To date, six of the 20 fellows have landed tenure-track faculty positions, five at PUIs. Most of the others are in postdoctoral positions or are completing their PhDs and considering a similar career path. In an anonymous survey, one student on the job market commented on how the program helped their job search as follows: 

“The program introduced me to the university’s [CSU’s] expectations of their faculty, what teaching a class looks like, and how to prepare to apply to teaching positions. Learning these things helped me become more confident in pursuing these positions.” 

Easing the discussion 

Our research suggests that opening up the lines of communication between students and their advisors can begin to alleviate pluralistic ignorance and enable more honest and realistic career discussions between students and faculty. The pluralistic ignorance study described above could be executed on an institutional level if departments required individual development plans (Austin & Alberts, 2012)—where faculty mentors and PhD student mentees discussed ongoing progress and goals—and if faculty shared the openness they may have to students’ changing preferences. 

PhD advisors are undoubtedly better positioned to mentor graduate students in pursuing academic research compared to other careers. However, by engaging alumni who have pursued a range of careers and supporting opportunities for students to learn about different career paths, faculty can show their support for a range of career goals and better prepare students for the current, broad job market for psychology PhDs. 

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