Building and Sustaining a Diverse Faculty: Implications for Faculty Advancement and Reward Systems

Even though academic research is often viewed as the preferred career path for PhD trained scientists, most U.S. graduatesenter careers in industry, government, or ‘‘alternative careers.’’ There has been a growing concern that these career patternsreflect fundamental imbalances between the supply of scientists seeking academic positions and the availability of suchpositions. However, while government statistics provide insights into realized career transitions, there is little systematicdata on scientists’ career preferences and thus on the degree to which there is a mismatch between observed career pathsand scientists’ preferences. Moreover, we lack systematic evidence whether career preferences adjust over the course of thePhD training and to what extent advisors exacerbate imbalances by encouraging their students to pursue academicpositions. Based on a national survey of PhD students at tier-one U.S. institutions, we provide insights into the careerpreferences of junior scientists across the life sciences, physics, and chemistry. We also show that the attractiveness ofacademic careers decreases significantly over the course of the PhD program, despite the fact that advisors stronglyencourage academic careers over non-academic careers. Our data provide an empirical basis for common concernsregarding labor market imbalances. Our results also suggest the need for mechanisms that provide PhD applicants withinformation that allows them to carefully weigh the costs and benefits of pursuing a PhD, as well as for mechanisms thatcomplement the job market advice advisors give to their current students. Citation: Sauermann H, Roach M (2012) Science PhD Career Preferences: Levels, Changes, and Advisor Encouragement. PLoS ONE 7(5): e36307. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0036307 Editor: Luı́s A. Nunes Amaral, Northwestern University, United States of America Received February 1, 2012; Accepted April 3, 2012; Published May 2, 2012 Copyright: 2012 Sauermann, Roach. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permitsunrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: The Georgia Research Alliance/Kauffman Foundation has provided partial funding for this study (http://www.gra.org/). The Georgia Institute ofTechnology (College of Management) has provided partial funding for this study (http://www.mgt.gatech.edu). The funders had no role in study design, datacollection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: [email protected]