A postdoc asks—

What do you recommend in interviews for people who are moving from academia to industry?

In general, I think advice from any career transition applies. You’ll be best prepared by thinking about your interview preparation in terms of preparing for the specific role and organization- not the broad sector of industry jobs. In other words, I recommend not worrying about it too much at this level of generality! There likely isn’t a single piece of advice that applies to every one of the many different industry jobs out there. When you have an understanding of the specific job duties expected, it will be much easier to tailor your stories to what the specific organization might want to hear. In most cases, you will need to explain why you want to stop doing what you are currently doing and why you want to do this new job, but that applies whether you are changing job sectors, or just organizations, or even just positions within the same organization. In each case, I recommend telling them honestly why you want to make the change, focusing on the positives of the new position and leaving out the negatives (or at least being very careful about how you phrase the negatives) of the position you are leaving.

-David Blancha, Assistant Director, Career Development Team for Researchers