Can you go straight from PhD to industry? The answer is yes, but you need to learn to market yourself.

If you have heard how hard the job market is and wonder whether you should stay in academia until it gets better, this episode is for you.

Biotech recruiter and career coach Carina Clingman shares the story of a community member who finished her PhD in Germany, moved to the US with her partner without a job, and worried her visa situation would make her unhireable. She networked hard, stayed motivated, got interview prep for every interview, and reviewed her interview transcripts question by question. She just accepted a scientist role at a biotech.

In this episode you will learn:

• When a postdoc is a valid path, and when going straight to industry makes sense
• Why saying "we" about your research hides your unique contribution from hiring managers
• How STAR storytelling (situation, task, action, result) helps you answer interview questions with confidence
• Why a CV is not a resume, and why your resume needs to read like a marketing document
• Why most certificates do not impress hiring managers, and how to get hands-on experience instead
• How many publications you actually need for most industry roles
• Why to start applying about 90 days before you can start working
• Why to start networking six months or more before your graduation date

Carina also suggests checking your grant funding, since some grants have career development built in and you may have unused funds.

Ready to practice interviews, get feedback on your interview transcripts, and build industry connections alongside other scientists? Join the Biotech Career Coach community on Skool. Start with the networking challenge, which is introvert-friendly and created by scientists for scientists. You can try it with a 7-day free trial.

• Join the Biotech Career Coach Skool Community

Learn more about the Collaboratory Career Hub community and access our free resources:

Join our Skool Community

Take the Free 7-day Interview Sprint Challenge

Check out our sister podcast: Building Biotechs

Send Carina a connection request on LinkedIn!

Stay connected with us:

🌐 Website

📱 Facebook

📷 Instagram

💼 LinkedIn

Chapters:

• 00:00 Can you go straight from PhD to industry
• 00:25 Postdoc or industry job for international PhD students facing visa sponsorship
• 00:55 How a PhD graduate landed a biotech scientist role with interview post-mortems
• 02:05 Why saying we in interviews hides your individual contribution
• 02:55 STAR storytelling for PhD interview answers
• 03:30 A CV is not a resume for industry jobs
• 04:00 Do certificates or more publications help you get an industry job
• 04:40 Volunteer in a lab or early-stage company to gain hands-on experience
• 05:25 When to start applying for industry jobs before your PhD defense
• 06:00 Network six months before graduation to find hidden job leads

Your job search is a marketing campaign, and you are the product. In this episode, biotech career coach Carina Clingman shows you how to build a resume and cover letter that get past the software and win the six second scan.

This is seminar one of a three part series Carina teaches for her outplacement career transition clients. She takes you inside a recruiter's applicant tracking system, where a single biotech role can draw 400 applicants, and shows how she narrows that pile down to the ten people worth a conversation. You will see why tailoring and keyword mirroring decide whether a human ever reads your resume at all.

What you will learn:

• Why a resume is a marketing document, not a career archive or a CV
• The four things every resume needs to survive the six second scan
• How recruiters use Boolean and reverse keyword searches to cut applicants
• How to mirror a job description so a recruiter reads you as one of us
• The five professional highlights that work like a movie trailer for your experience
• Where to place degrees, publications, and skills for the most impact
• The T style cover letter hiring managers love and the three questions it must answer

By the end you will treat every resume, cover letter, and LinkedIn message as a marketing message with one job, to make a hiring manager care about you.

Watch for parts two and three, on LinkedIn and interviews, in the coming weeks.

Want Carina to build your resume and cover letter with you? Join the Biotech Career Coach Skool community and get access to the brand new Biotech Career Coach app.

Join here:

Learn more about the Collaboratory Career Hub community and access our free resources:

Join our Skool Community

Take the Free 7-day Interview Sprint Challenge

Check out our sister podcast: Building Biotechs

Send Carina a connection request on LinkedIn!

Stay connected with us:

🌐 Website

📱 Facebook

📷 Instagram

💼 LinkedIn

00:00 You are the Chief Marketing Officer of your own job search

04:25 Inside a recruiter's inbox with 400 applicants

06:30 How Boolean and reverse keyword searches cut your resume

07:30 Build your resume like a persuasive essay

09:02 The above the fold rule and mirroring the job description

11:30 Five professional highlights that work like a movie trailer

13:26 Where to put degrees, publications, and skills

16:39 The T style cover letter and the three questions it answers

19:00 Opening a cover letter with a personal story

22:19 What is coming in parts two and three

Most bench scientists think breaking into computational biology means going back to school. Dean Lee proves otherwise. Dean went from neuroscience PhD student at Harvard to Principal Computational Biologist at Novartis by teaching himself to analyze scRNA-seq data in stolen scraps of time alongside his bench job, and now he helps thousands of scientists make the same move through his online community Dean's List.

In this episode, Dean and Carina break down exactly what it takes to build real computational biology credibility without another degree, without quitting your job, and without waiting for someone to hand you permission.

You'll learn:

• Why Coursera certificates don't move hiring managers and what actually does
• How to find public biological data and build your first comp bio project this week
• The reproducibility strategy: why re-analyzing a published Nature paper is an industry skill and your best portfolio move at the same time
• How to pitch yourself as a funded intern through the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center to break into small biotech startups
• The state of entry-level comp bio hiring in 2026 and where the openings actually are
• How to frame volunteer work and self-directed projects on your resume so hiring managers take them seriously

Whether you've been thinking about this pivot for years or you're just starting to wonder if it's possible, this conversation gives you the roadmap.

• RNA-Seq and ScRNA-Seq Courses
• How to become a computational biologist in a year
• The Big Challenge... With Dean Lee
• Dean's List
• Link In with Dean!

Learn more about the Collaboratory Career Hub community and access our free resources:

Join our Skool Community

Take the Free 7-day Interview Sprint Challenge

Check out our sister podcast: Building Biotechs

Send Carina a connection request on LinkedIn!

Stay connected with us:

🌐 Website

📱 Facebook

📷 Instagram

💼 LinkedIn

00:00 Dean Lee's path from Harvard neuroscience to computational biologist at Novartis

04:00 The volunteer scRNA-seq project that launched Dean's career pivot

07:30 Why hiring managers ignore certificates and look only for project work

12:00 How reproducing published research builds irrefutable portfolio proof

21:30 The MLSC funded intern hack for breaking into biotech startups

26:30 The 2026 comp bio job market and where entry-level roles actually exist

30:00 How to transition into computational biology within your current company

33:00 Operational AI vs scientific AI and what it means for your comp bio career