I somehow missed this post a couple of weeks ago, but I will say that almost every single statement made here conflicts directly with my experience. And I’ve spent most of the last quarter century as a hiring manager of PhD types, most of the time for what I think would be considered “serious companies”. You can’t have gaps in your resume. There is nothing wrong with “screwing around time”, but it needs to be documented as such. Otherwise, the default assumption is that you served the time in prison. As for those most talented people who drop out of school? Let’s say most of us are really not looking to hire the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. Very difficult people to manage! Finally, if you have ever fired somebody at this level (we are not talking strawberry pickers here, however expensive they may be), you would not casually talk about kicking people out after a probationary period. In the US we can, more or less, kick people out whenever, but it is almost always a painful process for all involved.It would be nonsensical to discriminate against a candidate because of a gap in their CV. Different things could have happened in your life. Besides, everybody knows that the most talented people have problems or drop out of the academia these days. Serious companies have their own recruitment systems. If you perform well during the interview, you will score enough points to get the job. Show motivation, interest in the area, excitement about the role, ... - that's what they expect from you apart from the declared skills and knowledge. After all, they can kick you out after the probation period. And it's way more informative for the interviewers to read your research paper than some unverifiable claims in your CV about the scope of your work at some company.
Good points. Although to the extent those companies turn into regulated utilities, in addition to being vast corporate organizations, the difference between them and large financial institutions may shrink considerably over time.Bearish, that's why I think that someone like the OP should target research groups in tech companies like Google, Facebook, etc. Managers there are not supposed to "manage" them, but to guide them through the internal career process. Besides, I know people who sit years in the same company doing literally nothing - I'm sure they are easy to manage.
I can't imagine any functioning business to reject a candidate because they are presumably difficult to manage for a manager. This is wrong on so many levels. For example, managers aren't supposed to have their lives made easier - they are supposed to make life easy for those working their arses off on the project. If the managers can't provide that, maybe they should be replaced?Good points. Although to the extent those companies turn into regulated utilities, in addition to being vast corporate organizations, the difference between them and large financial institutions may shrink considerably over time.Bearish, that's why I think that someone like the OP should target research groups in tech companies like Google, Facebook, etc. Managers there are not supposed to "manage" them, but to guide them through the internal career process. Besides, I know people who sit years in the same company doing literally nothing - I'm sure they are easy to manage.
I somehow missed this post a couple of weeks ago, but I will say that almost every single statement made here conflicts directly with my experience. And I’ve spent most of the last quarter century as a hiring manager of PhD types, most of the time for what I think would be considered “serious companies”. You can’t have gaps in your resume. There is nothing wrong with “screwing around time”, but it needs to be documented as such. Otherwise, the default assumption is that you served the time in prison. As for those most talented people who drop out of school? Let’s say most of us are really not looking to hire the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. Very difficult people to manage! Finally, if you have ever fired somebody at this level (we are not talking strawberry pickers here, however expensive they may be), you would not casually talk about kicking people out after a probationary period. In the US we can, more or less, kick people out whenever, but it is almost always a painful process for all involved.
He didn't have to.What this anecdote really shows is that even when physicists think they know statistics, they don't know statistics. Fermi not being an exception.