Before the PhD · Looking ahead

Keep your options open from day one

Most economics PhDs end up working outside academia. The students who do best there start preparing in Year 1, not Year 5.

2 min read · By Marc Sleiman

Most students enter a PhD imagining an academic career. Most economics PhDs end up working outside academia, in industry, government, policy organizations and consulting. That is not a failure of the system; it is how the profession works. The students who do best in that transition are the ones who prepared for it early, without giving up on academia.

Why this belongs in the “getting in” guide

Many of the things that make you a strong PhD applicant also make you a strong candidate outside academia: rigorous quantitative training, programming skills, research experience and the ability to explain your work clearly. If you build them deliberately, you keep both doors open from day one.

Five things to do from your first year

Keep programming. The coding and data skills you built as a research assistant are among your most valuable assets in any career. Keep them current.

Learn to explain your research in plain words. If you can tell a non-economist what you found and why it matters in thirty seconds, you are ahead of most of your classmates. See your pitch.

Look at job postings early. Ten minutes reading what employers ask for will tell you what skills to build alongside your coursework. See reverse-engineer job postings.

Meet people outside your department. Economists working in industry and government are often happy to talk to students. Start those conversations long before you need them.

Follow the five-year timeline. It shows when to explore, build, position and execute, so that Year 5 is about using what you built rather than discovering what you lack. See the five-year timeline.