. For researchers wanting to move into industry positions for the first time, those who have already done so offer their insights and advice on what homework to do before negotiating, why to negotiate salary and which other aspects of the job are on the table.
But attaching a salary figure to a specific job can be difficult, especially if researchers are making their first leap out of academia or are the first in their family to go to university. “It’s quite a different experience when you come from parents who are professionals,” explains Lim, who is now senior vice-president of scientific affairs driving research and development at a cancer therapeutics company called Prescient Therapeutics in Melbourne. “Mum didn’t finish school.
The trick is to treat the job hunt like a research question, she suggests. “Anthropologists are going to be well situated to go speak to a lot of people, the [quantitative analyst] people are going to be well situated to do a spreadsheet. Everybody has research skills, so it comes down to not treating your career as though it is outside of your skill set,” she says.Kelsky also recommends always aiming high when asking for a salary, because academics tend to habitually undervalue their worth.
“To really see what you’re worth, you need to see the number,” says Meschede, now a sociotechnical systems manager at a software company called Tweag in Paris, after having been promoted twice there. However, if Meschede were to repeat his multiple-interview strategy, he would “get a feeling for what’s possible in the first interviews and try to go up from there with my own offer”.
Forscher says it is important to negotiate company support when it comes to bureaucracy in foreign countries. His organization has a great deal of experience with immigration, and uses the services of consultants to assist. “Make sure that you’re working for an organization that’s familiar with how to manage visas and things like that,” he says. “If there’s not much support, it can be extremely disorientating and difficult to live.
This is a good one.