Notes from the Grace Hopper Celebration 2011: Information, Job Opportunities, and Career Paths

Gokcen Cilingir12/02/2011

A ship at port is safe, but that’s not what a ship was built for.

Grace Hopper

Who is Grace Hopper?

Grace Hopper

• developed the first compiler for a computer programming language in 1940s• conceived the idea of machine-independent programming languages -> COBOL• popularized the term "debugging" (motivated by an actual bug removed from the computer)

Presented by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

The world’s largest gathering of women in computing in industry and academia.

Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC)

Gathered about 3000 technical women in Portland.

Included new investigator research forums, PhD forums, career development sessions/panels, technical speeches, poster sessions.

You can read session notes from their wiki page.

GHC 2011

About 100 employers from industry, research labs, and academia.

Lots of internship/job opportunities, check out this job booklet for more information.◦ Some attendees of the career fair:

Adobe, Amazon, Expedia, Facebook, Google, HP Labs, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle Corporation, Twitter, Yahoo, Thomson Reuters,…

GE Global Research, Palo Alto Research Center, Inc. (PARC), Advanced Technology Labs (ATL) of Adobe, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, A2Z Research and Development,…

Career fair highlights

“PhD says something about you beyond the particulars of your research”

A scientific perspective to job search

Rest of the talk…

It is important to know/to be reminded of what you’ll bring to the table having a PhD.

Why? You can make sure you are gaining the skills you’re

expected to possess Knowing your strengths shapes the way you present

yourself You’ll gain most out of the activities you’re

performing, having an “active” state of mind.

PhD says something about you beyond the particulars of your research !

Critical thinking

Ability to identify problems and being able to go deep into solving them

Ability to step back from the depth and detail and show how your solution affects the big picture

Communication skills- with people in and out of your discipline.

Time management skills for managing multiple tasks simultaneously

Skills that you learn in grad school

“PhDs become translators between academics and engineers, they built the bridge between cutting edge research and products.”

“Critical and analytical thinking about problems can be a hard quality to find in product development work, which PhDs consistently demonstrate.”

“PhDs can simplify complex things into something that business/product units can understand and work with”

Dr. Monica Martinez-Canales, Principal Engineer at Intel

Why hire a PhD?

“As a scientist, you are used to tackling complex problems in a systematic way. Finding a job is a complex process requiring a serious commitment

of time and smarts.”

Find out what’s out there. Read job ads, career articles

Find out what you want to do Talk with people, request ‘informational interviews’,

do internships

Job search is a complex process

How to find jobs in science/ research/ academia:

Your network

Career & Job Center of ACM

CRA Job announcements

International (UK-based)

What is out there?

YES, but you need to play by the rules.

If you stay too long in industry, it is hard to get back into academia

Remedy: Keep reading papers and keep publishing

If you stay too long in academia, it is hard to get back into industry

Remedy: Stay up to date on the current climate in industry, keep your technical skills fresh

Can you go back and forth between academia and industry?

Expect to send out at least 10 applications to get an interview

Start building your professional network early, company referrals ease your way into an interview

There are so many factors out of your control, so start your search early, be persistent

Some facts about job search

Keep your web presence up-to-date◦ Make a personal web page◦ Open a technical blog◦ Prepare a Linked-in profile

Participate in open-source projects Check out github – social coding(!)

Some tips for increasing your visibility/credibility

Asking no questions may kill your interview.

Asking insightful questions demonstrate your critical thinking abilities◦ A Principal Engineer at Intel explained how she

gives her decisions largely based on the questions one asks

Interview the company

Anne Condon - Some How's and Why's of Programming DNA Molecules

Margareta Ackerman - Towards Theoretical Foundations of Clustering

(here is a talk on this work delivered by Shai Ben-David)

Highlights of technical talks

CRA-W workshop slide archive GHC wiki Mastering Your Ph.D.: Preparing for Your Pos

t-Ph.D. Career

Resources

Thanks for listening! Any questions or comments?