Greetings to all young readers. It was not so long ago when I was one amongst you pursuing my PhD from one of the best institutes in India, my alma mater and your present home, CSIR-IGIB. I still recollect the days spent at IGIB with great pride and joy. A PhD prepares you well for the world and helps you build persistence and resilience. At the end of my PhD, my confidence and skills grew manifolds. Ideas, hypotheses, free-wheeling debates excited me. Not to forget, the adrenalin rush I experienced while observing my fluorescent tagged cells under the microscope. I spent hours doing Confocal microscopy and there was no bigger joy than getting lost in the awe-inspiring beauty of the melanocytes. There were good days and bad days as well. Embracing failures and picking myself up after every hurdle made me stronger. This, my friends, is a life skill that you will thank PhD the most for as you move forward in life.
While biology excited me, I realized communication was key to my success. I also love to travel and meet new people. I wanted to build on a career path that will best nurture this. I decided to move out of academia and explore my options in Industry.
My first job, when I passed out in 2020 was with Premas Lifesciences Pvt Ltd, New Delhi as a Product Manager. I handled the Fluidigm genomics product range which included high-throughput microfluidic real-time PCR systems & genotyping platforms among others. I was also exposed to the world of Next-generation sequencing technology of Illumina during my tenure. Being a product manager meant coaching & training a team of sales colleagues to achieve excellence in everyday sales of our products. This also meant meeting customers, identifying a need and then offering relevant solutions to our customers. My job included giving product related presentations and discussing pricing with my customers and colleagues.
While I enjoyed product management, my technical expertise was not put to best use. So, I decided to explore other technical/techno-commercial roles in the industry. I landed in Cepheid, Danaher group as a Field Application Specialist (FAS). Cepheid is a multi-national company and caters to the testing/diagnostic needs of the clinical market. To be more specific, Our GeneXpert machines are world renowned and WHO recommended for Tuberculosis testing across the globe. As an FAS, my role is techno-commercial at Cepheid. My job includes travel and meeting new people. I learn the most when I interact with our customers. The job involves: pre-sales support to our sales colleagues and accompanying them for field visits to drive conversions; post-sales application support & training at the customer site after installation. Troubleshooting, guiding customers on their sample runs, doing product demonstrations and customer trainings drive me; I am also work in progress when it comes to learning the language of sales & supporting our sales team to help bring our products/solutions to customers.
I recommend that all of you refer “Disha”, a valuable career resource, available for free on India bioscience website to understand available career options post PhD. Many of us think that academia is the only way forward as we lack the guidance on other available options. Hence, I would like to leave you all with one advice: The world is big and full of opportunities. Follow your dreams and create your own identity; the way it suits you.
I sincerely hope that my personal note to all of you through this article gives you a flavor of few career options that await you post PhD. Wishing you all the very best and a bright career ahead!
Cover picture Credit: Sangeetha K
Anusha Krishnan completed her PhD with Dr Rajesh Gokhale in 2020. She represents the growing tribe of IGIBians who learned the craft of science and are now contributing productively to the commercial branch of science, an essential part of the scientific industry.