Research in industry

Florian Michahelles not available Fri, 16.03.2018

In this session, Dr.  Michahelles talked about his experience working in academia then shifting to industry, starting his research group in Siemens, Berkley. We discussed topics such as:

  1. Possible career paths of PhD graduates.
  2. How to do the shift between academia and industry and vice versa.
  3. Research opportunities in industry
  4. Criteria for selecting interns in industry in top notch companies and expectations from the candidates. There were some hints like:
    1. Prepare 1-page CVs
    2. Candidates are expected to contribute and be proactive => no spoon feeding and pre-set tasks
    3. Candidates are expected to bring expertise to the company
  5. Difference between acquiring research funding in academia and research and concepts like term-alignment. (In industry: 30% is base fund and the other is acquired by internal funding requests / research proposals)
  6. Required levels of abstraction for presenting research and highlighting its contribution: be able to present your work in 1 minute.
  7. It is fairly important to have an internship abroad from your PhD location as it demonstrates your ability to relocate.
  8. There aren’t many industrial ads asking for PhD students because they are so few to build a market. However, once you apply to companies and they realize you are available, a lot of offers are available and specially tailored for PhD holders.
  9. A lot of the companies do not care about the particular topic of your PhD. However, they care about your general skill set like being a problem solver and being able to have a vision. On the other hand, some companies are head hunting for very specific technical skill set, particularly students working at the intersection of domains (E.g.: HCI and AI). Thus, conferences are popular hiring locations.