My undergraduate advisor thought that I hated her lab.
I volunteered for 8 hours every week, meticulously coding frame-by-frame videos of 14-month-olds. At age 19, I didn't talk much, preferring to wear headphones and quietly focus on my work. It wasn't my intention to be anti-social (I genuinely liked my lab mates), but undiagnosed ADHD demanded the full force of my concentration, while undiagnosed Autism left me doubting my ability to hold a conversation. I never saw this as a problem.
I never realized how my quietness communicated disinterest to those around me.
That changed when I approached my advisor about completing an honors thesis. She would confess, years later, that my request surprised her - she thought I disliked research! I was equally surprised, because nothing was further from the truth. Early childhood development fascinated me, I just didn't externalize my excitement in typical, enthusiastic American fashion. I showed it through dedicated focus on my work.
She realized this soon enough. I was her first student to win our department's Outstanding Undergraduate Student award. Afterwards, she invited me to manage her lab while I applied to PhD programs in Developmental Psychology. She saw my potential and gave me a chance.
She finally empathized with me.
Who's to blame for our miscommunication?
At face value, our miscommunication seems to be on me. Many Autistic people struggle to understand the thoughts and behaviors of neurotypical people. However, the reverse is also true: many neurotypical people struggle to understand the thoughts and behaviors of Autistic people. Miscommunication happens because both groups lack empathy for the other group's experience.
Eye contact is a great example. As an Autistic person, direct eye contact feels overstimulating. My natural tendency is to avert my gaze, even around people who I trust and enjoy. But many neurotypical people in the United States see eye contact as a sign of trustworthiness and interest. This is why neurotypical career coaches remind you to "smile and make eye contact" during interviews. Lack of eye contact is seen as a deficit to be corrected, rather than a difference in communication styles.
Recently, I realized that this "double empathy problem" isn't limited to Autistic and neurotypical communication. In fact, it's the exact same problem that PhDs face when leaving academia for industry.
"Why won't they give me a chance?"
99% of people do not have a PhD. It's easy to forget that when we spend our careers surrounded by other PhDs.
During my 3 years in industry, I've seen that most industry professionals know very little about the skills you develop during a PhD program or the trials and tribulations of academia. Even worse, I've seen hiring managers stereotype PhDs as entitled, slow, overly critical, and divorced from reality. There's little empathy for how much we've learned and struggled for our degrees. Few hiring managers inherently understand the value we can bring to the workforce.
But the "double empathy problem" goes both ways. As much as industry hiring managers fail to understand PhDs, many PhDs fail to understand the needs of industry. Let's be honest, how much do you really know about branding, marketing, sales funnels? KPIs, ROIs, P&L, Churn? Product development, Sprints, Agile, MVPs? These are essential industry concepts that you'll never encounter in academia.
And that's a problem.
I’ve reviewed hundreds of resumes from PhDs that don't use any of this language. Instead, they proudly list the names of fancy universities, advisors, journals, conferences, funding bodies, and awards. While other academics understand why you would be proud of such things, industry hiring managers don’t care about academic prestige. They care about your skills.
Put yourself in the shoes of a hiring manager. Would you feel comfortable hiring someone who doesn't seem to understand your industry? Would you hire someone who might struggle with the responsibilities and challenges of the role? Or, put another way: would you admit a prospective PhD student who has never read a paper or taken a course in your field? Would you admit someone who seems unprepared to complete a rigorous degree program?
Probably not, because there's too much risk.
How to reduce your risk
You can reduce your risk by simply learning more about industry. Start with books, blogs, podcasts, and YouTube channels. You can even check out resources on product development or business strategy more broadly (I just finished Blue Ocean Strategy, and it was fascinating). As you learn more about business, you'll start to understand how you can best translate your skills (or upskill if needed).
For example, instead of saying I’ve "published 15 papers," I tell hiring managers how I "deliver insights quickly for cross-functional teams." Same skill, just translated.
Academia equipped you with transferable skills. You have the skills to solve problems, think critically, and teach yourself anything - in the time of AI, those skills are valuable. But without empathy for hiring managers (and the risks associated with hiring), your skills will go unnoticed. The burden is on you to communicate your experience in a way that it can be understood.
It's not fair, and it's not easy. But just as I’ve learned to adapt my communication style as a neurodivergent person, you can learn to translate your skills into a language that resonates with hiring managers. It will feel awkward and clunky (and sometimes you'll doubt whether you're translating correctly). That's okay.
If you made it through a PhD program, you can make it through this. Put on your student hat and start learning.
