To PhD or Not to PhD?

George Coe By George Coe

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen ‘PhD preferred’, while recruiting for positions in R&D and product development. 

But with so many successful people in the life science industry without PhDs, is the talent market changing? And should hiring managers take notice?

PhDs can be incredibly impressive on a CV, whether you're applying for a role in diagnostics, bioinformatics, genomics, lab equipment, anything really.

That’s why only 3% of PhD graduates are unemployed after six months of graduating.

However, more paths are emerging. Knowledge, skills and experience are being developed elsewhere as more innovative companies look to hire candidates straight from academia and internships increase.

To get some insight and pin-point this talent market trend, I spoke with Mark Kokoris, CEO of Stratos Genomics. Mark has managed to thrive in this space, building a diverse team of PhD ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’.

Have you done a PhD but wish you hadn’t? Do you prefer to hire PhDs? This is a divisive topic; I’d love to hear both sides of argument. Please read my full article and get in touch to let me know your thoughts.

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