job market in DC for a PhD in stats

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Graduation is approaching next spring for my husband and with it, the desire/need to find a job. He is a PhD student (bachelor’s and master’s in stats too). His only job experience had been as a teaching assistant in master's and PhD . He came here as an international student and now has a green card . Is there a problem finding jobs at the PhD level? Because he doesn't have much work experience, I suspect that recruiters are not likely to pay as much attention him? Or perhaps the PhD level research could qualify as work experience.

I desperately want to move back to DC. Any suggestions on how to network with others in the statistics community in DC?

Send me a resume. I'll get him an interview. [e-mail]

We love PhD stats guys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Graduation is approaching next spring for my husband and with it, the desire/need to find a job. He is a PhD student (bachelor’s and master’s in stats too). His only job experience had been as a teaching assistant in master's and PhD . He came here as an international student and now has a green card . Is there a problem finding jobs at the PhD level? Because he doesn't have much work experience, I suspect that recruiters are not likely to pay as much attention him? Or perhaps the PhD level research could qualify as work experience.

I desperately want to move back to DC. Any suggestions on how to network with others in the statistics community in DC?

Send me a resume. I'll get him an interview. [e-mail]

We love PhD stats guys.

Thx. Will let him know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FDA, NIH, Census, Mathematica Policy Research

Can he program in SAS? SPSS? I assume yes... he will find a 100k+ job in no time with programming skills

Plus NIST

Hot job field he'll do well

[Anonymous]

I think Jeff should hire him just to debunk things that are statistically incorrect or an incorrect application of statistics!

[Anonymous]

I think he'll have a ton of opportunities. I am searching for a job as a recent PhD from a qualitative social science and many employers are looking for quant skills. Also I second the PP who noted how those of us who are academics have to learn new ways of presenting ourselves and framing our work. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Add me to the list of folks skeptical of data scientists getting tons of 200K offers.

Seems to me that data scientists have similar skills to stats people but are often more computer science oriented. Also, sometimes they're the ones who prepare and clean the data for the PhDs to analyze. The term means different things.

I think someone with a stats PhD can do well in DC, but all the statisticians I know are scratching their heads wondering where these 200K jobs are.

That said, I'd also suggest the FDA or Census. They hire tons of stats PhDs including many non-citizens. You might have to be hired as a staff fellow or some other back door method other than USAjobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Add me to the list of folks skeptical of data scientists getting tons of 200K offers.

Seems to me that data scientists have similar skills to stats people but are often more computer science oriented. Also, sometimes they're the ones who prepare and clean the data for the PhDs to analyze. The term means different things.

I think someone with a stats PhD can do well in DC, but all the statisticians I know are scratching their heads wondering where these 200K jobs are.

That said, I'd also suggest the FDA or Census. They hire tons of stats PhDs including many non-citizens. You might have to be hired as a staff fellow or some other back door method other than USAjobs.

Government hires more traditional statisticians. Private sector is where the $200K jobs are at. Also, the reason that statisticians can't get these jobs is because of exactly what you indicated - they expect clean datasets that they can apply their math genius to. But in today's world, you're expected to know programming and database engineering, so the cute little matlab stuff isn't cutting it anymore.