So you’re won­der­ing what to do once your PhD is finally com­pleted? First, take a holiday. Completing a PhD is an intense and drain­ing exer­cise, and you should take some time to refresh.

Then you need to decide what career path you pre­fer. In sta­tis­tics, there are three choices: the aca­d­e­mic route, the semi-​​academic route and the busi­ness route.

Aca­d­e­mic route

Most PhD stu­dents would like an aca­d­e­mic job. In fact, I think all of my PhD stu­dents have rather fan­cied my job! How­ever, it is not an easy path, espe­cially in the first few years. The ideal sit­u­a­tion is to get a post-​​doctoral fel­low­ship, prefer­ably in a dif­fer­ent uni­ver­sity (and a dif­fer­ent coun­try) from where you stud­ied for your doc­tor­ate. That gives you some time to con­cen­trate on con­sol­i­dat­ing your research and to learn from another super­vi­sor. Work­ing in a dif­fer­ent coun­try also helps you develop a broader net­work of research con­tacts. But there aren’t many post-​​doc posi­tions around, and so it is hard to get some­thing suitable.

I am occa­sion­ally asked by other researchers if I have any good stu­dents fin­ish­ing soon as they have a post-​​doc posi­tion avail­able. In this case, I pass the infor­ma­tion on to any stu­dents likely to fin­ish at about the right time.  But these are posi­tions usu­ally over­seas, and many of my stu­dents are unwill­ing to leave Australia.

There is no harm in ask­ing the lead­ing researchers in the field if they have any research posi­tions com­ing up. If you are flex­i­ble enough to travel and are will­ing to take some­thing short-​​term, you never know where it might lead.

Often a stu­dent will need to take what­ever they can get in a uni­ver­sity envi­ron­ment for a cou­ple of years until some­thing more suit­able crops up. If there are posi­tions for tutors, research assis­tants, part-​​time lec­tur­ing, etc., then take the oppor­tu­nity while con­tin­u­ing to look for some­thing better.

Remem­ber that aca­d­e­mic jobs almost always require a strong research record. So the most impor­tant thing to do when you fin­ish a PhD is to write papers, as many as you can and sub­mit them to the best jour­nals that will accept them. The more papers you have, espe­cially if they are in top jour­nals, the more likely you will get a good aca­d­e­mic job.

After spend­ing two or three years in a post-​​doctoral fel­low­ship, you would nor­mally then aim for a lec­ture­ship at the best uni­ver­sity who will employ you. If you’ve pro­duced a large num­ber of pub­li­ca­tions in the top jour­nals, you are a chance for a lec­ture­ship at one of the top uni­ver­si­ties in the coun­try. If you have a smaller num­ber of pub­li­ca­tions, or pub­li­ca­tions in lower-​​ranked jour­nals, you prob­a­bly should aim for one of the lower-​​ranked universities. If you’re very lucky, you might get a tenured lec­ture­ship. Then you are set for life — all you have to do is keep churn­ing out papers every year for the rest of your work­ing days!

Semi-​​academic route

Often, a more real­is­tic route for many stu­dents is to pro­vide sta­tis­ti­cal sup­port to researchers in other dis­ci­plines. There are always lots of avail­able jobs in this area, as almost every research dis­ci­pline uses sta­tis­ti­cal meth­ods and most researchers aren’t trained to use them effec­tively. Apart from uni­ver­si­ties, sta­tis­ti­cal research skills are required at CSIRO and many med­ical and health research orga­ni­za­tions. Con­se­quently, many of my stu­dents end up in depart­ments of sports sci­ence, pub­lic health, finance, etc., where they can use their sta­tis­ti­cal exper­tise in applied research. You will still end up doing research, writ­ing papers, etc., but the papers are unlikely to be pub­lished in JASA or Econo­met­rica. They are more likely to appear in jour­nals asso­ci­ated with the dis­ci­pline in which you are working.

The down­side of this route is that it is hard to be pro­moted beyond a junior aca­d­e­mic as you will often be seen as sup­port staff rather than an aca­d­e­mic in your own right. Every dis­ci­pline val­ues its natives more than out­siders. Over time, you might become suf­fi­ciently expert in the dis­ci­pline to be taken more seriously.

Another draw­back is that you can’t set your own research agenda. You will always be doing what­ever the senior researchers in your group want you to do.

One ben­e­fit of this career path is that there are often part-​​time posi­tions avail­able. So if you are jug­gling young chil­dren and only want a few days of work each week, this can be a good choice.

How­ever, it is very dif­fi­cult to move from this sort of posi­tion to an aca­d­e­mic posi­tion within a sta­tis­tics or econo­met­rics depart­ment. You sim­ply won’t have the pub­li­ca­tions to land your­self a job. So if you really want to work in the sort of depart­ment where you got your PhD, then don’t take this route.

Busi­ness route

The third route is to work in a busi­ness envi­ron­ment. There is a grow­ing num­ber of posi­tions for PhD-​​level sta­tis­ti­cians in many dif­fer­ent orga­ni­za­tions includ­ing the Aus­tralian Bureau of Sta­tis­tics, large finance insti­tu­tions, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies, energy com­pa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions, etc. Sta­tis­ti­cal skills are highly trans­ferrable, and so you can have a very var­ied career work­ing in dif­fer­ent envi­ron­ments and on many dif­fer­ent problems.

As with all non-​​academic jobs, there is usu­ally much less free­dom with this sort of posi­tion, and you will find that you have to work to much tighter dead­lines than aca­d­e­mics are used to. Con­se­quently, the solu­tions you develop usu­ally involve short-​​cuts, fudges, and all sorts of things that are not found in text­books. Some peo­ple love the chal­lenge. Oth­ers find it frustrating.

It is rel­a­tively easy to move from a busi­ness envi­ron­ment to a sta­tis­ti­cal sup­port posi­tion in a research envi­ron­ment. But it is very dif­fi­cult to move from busi­ness into an aca­d­e­mic posi­tion within a sta­tis­tics or econo­met­rics depart­ment unless you have also been pub­lish­ing papers.

Find­ing a job

Con­tact the lead­ers in the orga­ni­za­tions where you want to work. Let it be known that you are look­ing for work.

Net­work. Talk to as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble, espe­cially peo­ple who already work for orga­ni­za­tions you would like to work for. Ask if there are any open­ings, and find out who to talk to about pos­si­ble job opportunities.

Also keep an eye on the job web­sites. In sta­tis­tics, the key Aus­tralian site is www​.statsci​.org/​jobs/.

Be patient and don’t give up.

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