Why Get a PhD?
This question is one that gets batted around the internet like a virtual beach call. For business students it is an ongoing debate between the academic credentials that a PhD brings (in analytics, for instance) and the time and money lost to additional academic years that could have been spent gaining corporate experience. That’s a debate that also applies to professions such as engineering where graduates at any level are usually going to land in the commercial or public sector. But there are several other issues in play for potential PhD candidates.
Do you want an Academic Career?
Most PhD programs are still designed to produce scholars. That means post doctoral placement with a university faculty somewhere, continuing the research and teaching that began with your PhD studies. Devotion to scholarly advancement in an academic discipline is the key to contentment with this career choice. You have to love what you’ve studied and anticipate further contribution to the body of knowledge in the field with enthusiasm. You should also find some pleasure in teaching, or the job is inevitably going to grow tedious.
Those ivy covered halls have an appeal to certain types of people who love learning and wish to reach the point where they can excel both in developing the knowledge base in their field and in imparting it to students. A tenured faculty position is as close to a career cradle as any work environment to be found today. The trade-off is a salary range with little growth. Universities protect their faculty members in an academic cocoon of sorts, but it is not an environment where economic advancement accompanies post-doctoral academic achievement, unless an outside consulting opportunity arises.
Are You Prepared for a Leadership Role?
If you put the time, money and effort into a PhD program with the intent of entering the commercial or public sector, you must be interested in taking a managerial role in either research or administration. A doctorate in Public Policy may land you in any number of positions. Faculty jobs will still predominate, but consulting, working on policy development for emerging nations – you can cast a wide net for job opportunities with a doctorate, but expect to take a primary role.
Do Salary Tables Mean Something to You?
You can find a plethora of statistics about how much money, on the average, a master’s degree can earn the average business worker over an average career under unnamed, average circumstances. Those same sorts of statistics are available for a PhD – it’s worth X dollars more per year on Wall Street than an MBA, etc. Those statistics are meaningless to anyone except that rare person whose circumstances meet the median figures perfectly. Here’s everything you ever wanted to know about the relative value of a PhD in Psychology – see if you can make sense of it.
The Value of a PhD when Launching a Career
However it is generally true that a PhD can command a better base salary going in to a job than can someone with a lesser degree. In most business situations, companies that want a PhD credential for an open position will advertise for it whether it is in economics, finance, engineering, chemistry or biotechnology. They assume that they’ll be paying for the credential as well as the presumed academic proficiency that accompanies it. The other factor that strengthens a resume with a PhD on it is the experience in research. That can be a leg up in consulting, in policy positions within the public sector and in business analytics.