Achieving your PhD arguably is the single most rewarding professional achievement you will be granted in your life time. So, what next? In a country where only 6% of grants are funded, that streamline career path they show us in the glossy brochure on open day doesn’t seem quite right years on. I always thought I was going to run my own biochemistry lab and cure cancer. Instead, I established Peak Scientific – A Gas Generation company in Oceania from the ground up. Being a woman, with no engineering, finance or MBA, I repeatedly was told I wouldn’t survive in industry, in a ‘man’s world’. I now get asked, on an almost daily basis, how to transition from academia and succeed in the ‘dark side’ of industry, given my unconventional career path, gender and perceived ‘inexperience’. With a PhD, you unknowingly have most of the skills that the big wide world is looking for, it is a matter of understanding your transferable skillset and how you can utilise these to build you ‘alternative’ career path. In this ‘Thriving in Science’ session, I share my experience and real truths including: • Transferrable skills all employers want • Invaluable alternative training • Dealing in and with industry • Managing critique and setbacks of going against the grain • How to learn and embrace the challenges of choosing your own adventure

1. 'How can you use your
PhD outside of
Academia?'
Dr Nicole R Pendini

2. All about everyone’s
favourite topic: ME
u Adelaide, SA, AUS
u Difficult primary school - final year
u Wanting to save Dolphins and the
environment
u Was Vegan for 2.5 yrs (before it was popular
on Instagram).
u Young achievers Australia (business) and NYSF
(science) – coin flip of preferences for Uni :
economics or science?
u Lost my best friend at 14 to diabetes and my
aunty at 31 to melanoma.
u Work experience = ’Science’ won.

3. Vision vs Actual
Life guard
Retail salesHigh School
Undergraduate
Honors/ Masters
PhD
Fellowships
Ass. Prof
Prof
Own Lab
Find the cure to cancer
Post-Doc
Success/ earning
Time
Distributor
Fortune 500 company
SME – own ideas/
entrepreneurial

4. Enough about me –
lets get you awake
and thinking
u How can you utilise what you have
already learned from your university
training out in the ‘real world’

5. Skills that
employers want!

6. Transferrable skills
all employers want
u Sales – everybody is in the business of selling
something.
u Communication – not just liking cats on
Instagram! Ability to connect, listen, ask
intelligent questions and follow up.
u Adaptability – Change with task to project,
ability to switch FAST.
u Foresight – hypothesize, forecast, predict
with accuracy.
u Data – ability to digest lots of information,
process data and provide results in tight
deadlines.
u Your PhD has already taught
you all of this!!!

7. Invaluable alternative ‘training’
So, you’ve got a PhD – that don’t impress me much.
u Sales – retail, supermarket, telesales, sales
training (not just product) is invaluable.
u Tutoring/ interns/ students: realise how much you
do/ don’t know.
u Seminars / webinars: (no- not those property make
$1M in 3 months ones) LinkedIn, this as example
u Networking: A stranger isn’t going to give you your
$1M grant/ career opportunity – we are human and
need ‘connection’. Eg: Free expos Eventbrite

8. Dealing in and with industry
u Not a sheltered, protective, structure micro-environment you may be use to
of the University circuit.
u People won’t understand you, won’t respect you and will discard your ideas
simply because don’t have time/ experience in that industry sector on your
side.
u You won’t be surrounded by like minded people who understand your pitch.
Even if you stay in academia, you will be required to engage with industry.
u Learn the industry ‘jargon’
u You are going to be a ‘threat’ to others
u ‘Manning up’: Ladies – reality is, its still going to be hard on you in ‘typical’
male industries even with higher qualifications. Deal with it and prove your
worth.

9. Managing critique and setbacks of going
against the grain
u If looking to switch, be prepared for negative
backlash from your current supervisor.
u Expectation, if you have a job and to keep it, is to
work over you 38.5 hpw.
u Easier now more than ever to receive criticism
u The ones commenting are typically threatened of
you.
u Keep positive, forward thinking, problem solving,
solution offering people around you.

10. How to learn and embrace
the challenges of choosing
your own adventure
u Everyone is busy, own agendas,
pain points, struggles.
u You have to become ‘selfish’ and
be comfortable that this is
allowed.
u You can’t help others if you aren’t
100 % yourself (eg: O2 mask on a
plane).
u Know when to hold them, when to
fold them – get out in time
u Be prepared: Use your skills: have
plans B, C, D and even E, F and G

11. No one says no to
FREE
u Volunteer
u Work experience in an area you have
never done. Incorporation of a new
task into your work
u Conference organising / active society
member
u Facilitate / review how a colleague
performs their work and offer to assist
u Take on students
u Take inventory – update professional
social accounts

12. Take home
u Look after you.
u Complaining energy is wasted energy, harness into productivity and output.
u Be content that others will not operate at your heightened level.
u Not everyone is going to agree or understand you.

13. If I can help…
u LinkedIn Nicole Renee Pendini
u Email: npendini@peakgas.com
u Phone: +61 452 239 477