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I remember when searching for jobs in the last year of my PhD I was confused about why it was going nowhere even though everyone had told me it would be easy. I

I remember when searching for jobs in the last year of my PhD I was confused about why it was going nowhere even though everyone had told me it would be easy. I then had this huge realization that the only people who had said it would be easy were still in academia and had never tried! And I also remembered that _I_ had sometimes told people that getting an industry job would be easy! I guess it's just a weird thing in math departments that this kind of idea gets thrown around without any kind of validation. Good that you've realized this early though.

red_trumpet 3y ago
Here is my theory: From the point of view of a math department, most people who did a PhD and don't end up in academia finally have a well-paid job somewhere in the industry. Whereas there are many stories of people who didn't make it to a permanent position in academia, even if they tried. That doesn't mean that finding a job in the industry is easy, so taking time to prepare for it is certainly good!