Issue 34: My job application strat

How can I make it so they can't ignore me

🚨 NEW VIDEO DROP

An introduction to some fundamental ideas in survival analysis

📺 What’s coming up?

Code for Kaplan-Meier curves; code for proportional hazards; why is statistics hard?

📰 TL;DR

Learn all the skills mentioned in a job position so they can’t ignore me as a candidate.

In this issue…

I wanted to talk about my recent experiences as a Ph.D student who is planning to graduate in a few months (fingers crossed🤞🏽). My reward at the end of a 5-year journey is a life-long journey: a career as a statistician.

Once upon a time, I thought that getting a Ph.D would give me a huge competitive edge in the job market. This was back when I just finished my Master’s.

Little did I realize was that I just ended up applying to positions where having a Ph.D is a requirement. Instead of getting an up on my competition, it turns out I was choosing to compete with people who have even more impressive credentials.

From my limited perspective, it is a tough job market out there right now. As of now, I’ve only ever been ghosted or rejected. Part of this difficulty is trying to convince a company to hire someone who won’t be ready to work until June. Another part is having the precise statistical experience that a company wants (but might not mention it in the job description).

My headcanon is that it is, for the most part, my fault that I’m not getting responses. This is not about self-pity, but rather an expression that there is always room for me to improve.

For the most part, I have been sending the same CV/resume to all my job applications. Since I’m still a few months from graduating, I think that I have the privilege of changing strategy for a bit.

Becoming the ideal candidate

I have a dream job in mind, and I stare at its job description frequently. And I know that this particular company will be at a conference I’m attending in March.

I’ve made it my mission for the next 6 weeks to acquire as many of the skills in the job description as possible and make it so that it will feel impossible to ignore me as a candidate.

• If I already have the skill in the job description, try to add as many relevant bullet points to my CV as I can.

• If I don’t have a skill, then learn it as fast as possible, generate concrete evidence that I have the skill (i.e. via video or Github repo), and point to it in the CV

Some of the skills are highly targeted to this particular position, so I know that this is a gamble on my part. But I need a way to distinguish myself from the other Ph.Ds who will be applying for the position. The only way I can see to do that at this point in my Ph.D is to do this type of highly personalized approach.

I am so thankful to my past self for aiming to finish 90% of my dissertation requirements with two quarters left to go. I would be in a much worse place mentally if I didn’t lay the groundwork for my fifth year to apply for jobs. If you are starting your PhD or even your MS, I encourage you to start looking at jobs you want in the future so that you can prepare your materials and timeline accordingly.

Wish me luck!

Christian

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Footnotes

🧐 What am I enjoying right now?

• Severance, Season 2 right now is amazing. Go watch it and Season 1 if you haven’t started it. Or wait 4 weeks, get the free trial and then binge all of it in one amazing weekend.

📦 Other stuff of mine

• I wrote guided solutions to problems to Andrew Gelman’s Bayesian Data Analysis. It’s for advanced self-learners teaching themselves Bayesian statistics

• You can support me on Ko-fi! YouTube and Substack are by far the best (and easiest) ways to support me, but if you feel like going the extra mile, this would be the place. It is always appreciated!