A prolific digital health researcher for more than 20 years, social psychologist Chandra Osborn, PhD, MPH, thought she’d spend her entire career in academia.
“I was pumping out papers and grants and growing a research team I adored,” Osborn recalled. Then, in 2016, on the verge of earning tenure at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Osborn decided to take her skill set in a different direction, joining One Drop, a diabetes digital care company, as hire number 12. One of her cousins had recently passed away at a young age from diabetes-related complications, and as a health disparities researcher, she felt called to find a way to use her training to reach more minority and underserved patients around the globe, a big focus at One Drop.
“I was sitting in my office at Vanderbilt when I got the call that she had died. I realized then that everything I was working on was years away from helping her—at the time it would only have helped the people in my research studies,” Osborn said. “So, when I received the opportunity to join One Drop, I felt like I had a moral and professional responsibility to lean into the opportunity and the value it provided in bringing behavioral science to a wider population.”
Osborn spent nearly 3 years at One Drop before accepting a behavioral science executive position at Lirio, a tech company that uses behavioral science and advanced machine learning for health behavior change, and she isn’t alone in her decision to change tracks midcareer.
While academic jobs are typically the most coveted and popular roles among those with a doctorate in psychology, more are exploring alternative careers, particularly in the private sector. In fact, the number of psychologists earning doctorates and entering academia has dropped by 7% over the past 10 years, according to new data from the National Science Foundation’s 2020 Survey of Earned Doctoratesopens in new window, released in November 2021. The report also found that the share of graduates entering the industry or business sectors has increased by nearly 10%.
Additionally, new APA data furthers the idea that career paths in psychology are not always linear—1 in 4 psychology graduates moved across educational, government, and private settings when they last changed jobs (Lin, L., et al., “Non-linear Career Pathways in Psychology,”opens in new window APA, 2021).
Part of the impetus for leaving academia is that, even pre-pandemic, college and university employment statistics looked bleak, with the proportion of tenured and tenure-track positions in the academic psychology workforce continuing to decrease, even as the number of graduating PhDs increases. Access to tenured positions is unequal in nearly all fields of study, not just psychology, with White menopens in new window disproportionately serving in these roles, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics.
The versatility of psychology training gives graduates the ability to explore a variety of career paths, noted Cynthia Castro-Sweet, PhD, a health psychologist who spent 16 years as a staff scientist at Stanford University before leaving academia. She is now the senior director of clinical research at behavioral health support firm Modern Health.
“There’s so much more opportunity now for psychologists to transition into roles like this in industry,” said Castro-Sweet, who spent 5 years designing and managing research studies at the private virtual chronic care firm Omada Health before joining Modern Health in May 2021.
Despite the increase in the availability of roles for psychologists outside of academia, making the move can be daunting in terms of how it may affect an individual’s professional identity, the stereotypes of entering what some have deemed “the dark side,” and navigating a new world outside the ivory tower.
“It was exciting and risky, and there were a lot of unknowns about where Omada was going and where this work would lead, but I really felt like it was right for me, and it ultimately changed the course of my career,” Castro-Sweet said. “Now that I’m in industry, there’s no going back because I see so much opportunity here to revolutionize how we deliver clinical practice in a way that still retains the best of what clinical research has learned about how to help people change, while reaching more people more efficiently.”
Psychologists who decided to leave academia explored their decision-making process and shared their advice on overcoming the barriers of a transition into industry and how to market yourself in the business world.
Consider the impact you’re looking to make
Many psychologists like Osborn say they transitioned out of academia into industry or other sectors because they wanted to see their work have a greater impact on several different populations.
Gary Foster, PhD, said he was tenured and enjoying every aspect of academia, but after more than 18 years at two different universities researching obesity, he felt drawn to a job where he could potentially help more people.
“I was getting NIH grants, publishing papers in high-profile journals, and giving talks, but the research always tended to have a pretty short cycle,” Foster said. “It may have had some influence on a small number of people in the field, but it didn’t really have a wide impact on the broader population.” When he received a call from WW, formerly Weight Watchers, in 2013 asking if he knew anyone who might be a good fit for the company’s chief science officer job, he threw his own hat into the ring and was offered the job. He’s still there nearly 9 years later, helping WW’s customers build healthy habits rooted in science. “I was captivated by the thought of leading a team that scaled science to impact literally millions of people.”
Change your networking strategy
Reaching out to psychologists who work in the sector you’re considering can help determine if you should also make that move, said Matt Scult, PhD, clinical content lead at Modern Health, who made the transition to industry just a few years into his postgraduate career after serving in a faculty position at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York.
When Scult was considering his move, he did informational interviews with people working in industry and asked them about their projects and what they enjoyed about their work.
Organizational psychologist Amy Bucher, PhD, who transitioned to industry shortly after completing her graduate training at the University of Michigan, joined several groups of applied behavioral scientists on the business communication platform Slack to meet people and see examples of potential behavioral science jobs outside of academia.
“There are also more conferences now that focus on applied behavioral science, and I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of networking with people there,” said Bucher, chief behavioral officer at Lirio.
For those still in graduate school earning their PhD, pursuing an internship in industry might also be a great way to determine whether the sector is a good fit, said Janet Ahn, PhD, who left her tenure-track assistant professor job at William Paterson University in New Jersey in January 2021 to become the chief behavioral science officer at MindGym, a behavior change firm that uses academic and empirical research to solve organizational problems.
“It’s so important to go out and find exposure to these alternative options because this really isn’t a mental exercise—you have to try it,” Ahn said.
Learn the lingo
You shouldn’t use your 10-page academic curriculum vitae to apply for an industry position, Castro-Sweet said. Instead, learn about the company’s business model and who their target audience is. Then, condense your vitae down to a one-page résumé that quantifies your productivity, versatility, and impact.
When you’re condensing, use active language and be brief, Castro-Sweet noted.
“Academics tend to use passive verbs and lots of filler words,” she said. “Instead of writing something like ‘I was fortunate to have the opportunity to receive a grant,’ say ‘I secured X in external funding in Y months/years.’”
Scult and Bucher also recommend learning business- and industry-related terms—getting accustomed to saying “cross-functional” instead of “multidisciplinary” and referring to “all-hands” or “town hall” meetings instead of “departmental” or “grand rounds” meetings.
“I use the phrase ‘insights’ a lot in my professional life when talking about research findings. That word would have made me cringe when I was training for my PhD, but it has a lot of weight in industry settings,” Bucher said.
Understand what skills the position requires
Some firms will be looking to hire you specifically because of your knowledge and expertise as a psychologist. In these cases, lean into that experience during the interview process, Scult said. Other employers will be more focused on transferable skills. In these instances, he recommends learning the language of that industry and thinking about how your skills can be valuable in these settings.
For example, he noted, describe how your experience running randomized controlled trials has prepared you to do A/B testing, a popular form of user experience research in industry.
“At a startup, things move quickly, and often you are in uncharted territory, so recall times when you have had to think and adapt quickly, and be prepared to give concrete examples,” Scult said.
Make sure the company’s goals align with your scientific values
Before moving into an industry position, Foster recommends making sure the potential employer’s business goals are consistent and align with science.
“You want to look for synergies where science isn’t some outlier, but that its core to the mission of the company,” he said. If you’re a researcher, ask those you’re interviewing with about whether they see value in you continuing to publish in peer-reviewed journals.
“I didn’t think I’d be able to publish as much if I left academia, but we do a lot of research at WW, and I’ve been able to publish at nearly the same rate as I had been before,” he said.
Expect an extra layer of scientific scrutiny
When publishing your research outside academia, you may have to work harder to prove your credibility, Osborn noted, adding that journal reviews of her manuscripts in industry have been significantly more critical than the reviews of her manuscripts in academia.
“The reviews I received on the papers I published at One Drop were significantly harder than the reviews I received from my more than 100 publications at Vanderbilt,” she said. “You almost have to be a better scientist in the commercial setting than you were in an academic setting because of the scrutiny that scientists receive when they’re associated with a for-profit entity.”
Ahn agreed, adding that she felt as though there was an assumption in academia that scientists who work in industry aren’t as precise, as engaged, or as critical in their thinking.
“The truth is that the right job in industry forces you to stay more intellectually curious because the pace is so fast you have to stay on top of what’s coming down the pike,” Ahn said.
Trust yourself
One of the biggest barriers to abandoning the ivory tower is fear, said Muniya Khanna, PhD, a clinical psychologist who spent nearly 9 years in a faculty position at the University of Pennsylvania before leaving academia to start her own obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety clinic.
“When you’ve gone through graduate school, you’re trained to see and learn about two paths—academia and research or clinical practice, or some combination of those,” Khanna said. “Anytime you’re doing something off course or outside of those traditional paths, it feels like you’re taking a risk or going somewhere uncharted, and for someone who is starting a family or simply starting their life as an adult, it’s really hard to decide to do something that looks riskier and doesn’t have clear benchmarks like academia.” But that line of thinking is more fear than fact, she noted.
In addition, psychologists, as behavior change experts, are in great demand and can be incredibly valuable in industry, Foster said. Not only do they know the literature and what will resonate with clients or customers, psychologists are also good collaborators, he said.
“As academics, we’re trained to have intellectual discussions and encourage discourse, all while maintaining our composure, clearly articulating our point of view, and listening to other people,” he said. “Being able to entertain productive discomfort in the spirit of a good outcome is a sign of being a good scientist, and it translates really well into industry.”
And finally, Osborn noted, you can always change your plans if needed, and even return to academia.
“There are so many options now, and you can really write your own path, which can be challenging for PsyD- and PhD-trained individuals who are used to seeing their path already well defined,” she said. “It can be a mindset stretch, but you have to trust that you can carve your own path and that any path you take does not have to be forever.”
