You want to do something outside of academia or which does not require teaching or academic research but you’re not sure where to get started?
Here are 20+ career paths PhDs can consider that do not involve teaching or academic research (for both STEM and non-STEM degrees). Enjoy!
✅Higher education administration – This is still in academia but may not necessarily be in the classroom.
✅Security organizations like the FBI or CIA
✅Global organizations like the World Health Organization
✅Consulting (very broad term but generally revolves around leveraging your knowledge/data analysis skills to help organizations make decisions)
✅Government policy and policy advising
✅User experience and research
✅Marketing for specific products or industry you can technical knowledge about
✅Sales related to an area you have technical knowledge about
✅Industry researcher or analyst (another very broad professional area)
✅Product management
✅Corporate communications
✅Scientific communications
✅Regulatory affairs – including but not limited to medical science liaisons & regulatory writers
✅Biotech venture capital (or just plain venture capital)
✅Specific industry public relations
✅Non-profit management
✅Tech transfer/Intellectual property law
✅Pharma has a LOT of roles for all types of backgrounds (biomanufacturing, R & D, recruiting, etc)
✅Entrepreneurship – Use your education and skills to start your own business.
Happy non-academic job hunting!!
Thanks for giving Hope!