Life is unprecedently hard for students who graduate amid the pandemic and is even harder if you are an international student who need visa sponsorship from potential employers. In the past couple of months, dozens of recent graduates have reached out to me on LinkedIn and asked for referral. They all have shining resumes, including PhD or Master’s degree from top U.S. universities. However, they all get rejection letters quickly and are still on the market many months later. One thing they share in common are they are all international students.

It’s hard for me to put myself in their shoes, as the market has quite a different landscape when I graduate a couple of years ago. However, I still remember the hopeless and fear of not finding a visa sponsor timely.

1) If I can not find an industry job after Ph.D. graduation, should I do a postdoc? The assumption is it is easier to find a postdoc position than finding an industry job. What would the postdoc bring you? It will comsume your precious OPT for sure.

2) Should I look for a data scientist role or software engineer role? Unless you are really prepared for the former, go for the later. The current market is in excess of junior data scientist, while hungry for experienced data scientists. There are simply more software engineer opennings and the job interview process is more straightforward compared to data scientist interviews.

3) I am not sure if I am qualified for this role, should I try? Just try it. You are going to fail many, tens if not hundreds, times before getting interviews anyway. You have nothing to lose.

4) What kind of companies and roles should I aim for? Bring down your ego and try all kinds of companies — tier-1, tier-2, tier-3, etc. Try full-time, part-time and contractor roles as well. Your Ph.D. degree won’t bring you much as there are simply too many candidates on the market and many of your competitors have received many years of formal computer science or data science training.

5) How long should I prepare for job hunting? If you want to find a role different from what you get trained in your Ph.D., try to plan ahead a year ahead at least, or two years ahead if possible. That’s partly the reason why many people spend six or seven years at graduate school. They need the time to find a next role.

6) Should I switch to another field or stay in my current field? Either way is probably hard. Listen to your heart. Follow your passion, not your money.

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