A psychology PhD's journey from academe to human factors engineering

Ashley Ruba on the value of building abiding relationships online

Photo by Ashley Ruba

If you have a PhD and are weighing your options outside of academe, I’m back with another hopeful story for you. But even if you’ve never been an academic, I think you’ll find today’s guest unforgettable.

Ashley Ruba is a Human Factors Engineer at Arthrex, a global medical device company. They previously worked at Meta and at the consulting firm Bold Insight as a UX researcher after completing an NIH postdoc at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

I first became aware of Ashley on Twitter while researching my feature “The Big Quit” for The Chronicle of Higher Education. But after Elon Musk’s takeover, Ashley moved much of their content over to LinkedIn, a platform that they believe encourages more positive and productive engagement. We talked about best practices for academics transitioning to industry, how state and federal politics affect industry jobs as well as academic positions, and the importance of building meaningful professional relationships at every stage of the job search (and beyond).

To access my full interview with Ashley, 11 other interviews with PhDs who have pivoted to industry, and upcoming conversations, such as my next one with Ryan Collins, founder of After Your PhD, please consider upgrading your subscription. As always, my deepest thanks to those who already have.

A Conversation with Ashley Ruba

Joshua Dolezal: Thanks so much, Ashley, for taking time to speak to me. I've seen your stuff on LinkedIn for several months now. I've been posting regularly since about June and it seems you've been posting for quite a bit longer than that. When did you start?

Ashley Ruba: I started in late December last year and then posted pretty consistently for about two months. And then in February I did a solo trip to South America and thought, I'll come back and keep doing this. And then I ended up actually taking a really long break. I just got back to posting two weeks ago.

Joshua Dolezal: A lot of people on LinkedIn are selling something, coaching services or a book or something that. It doesn't seem to me you're doing that, so I'm curious what makes it worth your time.

Ashley Ruba: Yeah. Not yet. I guess that's the short answer, but every time I tell people that I have as many followers as I do on LinkedIn, that's the first question they ask is how I'm going to monetize.

I'm not sure. I started doing this very accidentally on Twitter. That was the first platform I was on and just gained a lot of followers really quickly. And it was really just from a desire to help other academics who wanted to make this transition. And then once Elon Musk purchased Twitter, I sensed this huge exodus and people trying to find another platform.

And so LinkedIn made the most sense based on the stuff that I was sharing. So that's why I moved to LinkedIn when I did late last year. I just like helping people and a lot of people have messaged me and thanked me for everything that I've shared. So that's what keeps me coming back and continuing to do it.

Joshua Dolezal: Well, I know there's another reason that creating content on LinkedIn has benefited you, but we'll put a bookmark in that for now. So yeah, I'm curious where this journey out of academia began for you, because for everyone it's different. Some people are in a PhD program and know before they're done. Others end up in this purgatory of adjuncting work, the contingent path, and just never seem to break through into the tenure track job, and people like me leave more mid-career.

So where did that exit begin for you?

Ashley Ruba: The initial seeds of doubt were late in my PhD program. I ended up pursuing a PhD in developmental psychology. I really got into research in undergrad and was told at that point that I should become a faculty member.

So I went through my entire PhD program with a single-minded career goal. I didn't consider anything else. And then I sat on a faculty search committee when I was a fourth-year grad student, and seeing the process from the other side was pretty soul crushing. And watching people who had CVs much better than mine not even get interviews, not even get shortlisted. And I just remember leaving that thinking, there's no way I am going to get a faculty job.

I was in Seattle doing my PhD. I loved Seattle. At that point it was 2018. I had Microsoft and Google reaching out to me, trying to give me research contract offers. And I ended up applying for one postdoctoral fellowship. It was an NIH (National Institutes of Health) T32. They only had one spot, and I got the spot and was told you're amazing, one of the best applications we've seen go through the program, you'll definitely get a tenure track job at a top 20 university. And I couldn't say no.

So I moved to Madison, Wisconsin, six months before the pandemic started, and then I watched the job market collapse over the next few years, and then all of a sudden I was a third-year postdoc. I didn't have any job interviews and I thought, I feel done. I feel done with this. And I just wanted to move on with my life.

And I didn't want to be a fourth year postdoc. I didn’t want to be a fifth-year postdoc. I just wanted to have any kind of stability. I wasn't willing to move just anywhere for this job. I was just really tired. So I think if Covid hadn't happened, we might not be talking right now. I was very set on being an academic for a really long time.

Joshua Dolezal: If Covid hadn't happened we wouldn't be talking because I would still be a professor in Iowa, without a doubt. My own exit was precipitated by that disruption as well. You have, I think, mentioned kind of some numbers to put this into perspective on how unmeritocratic it is on the academic job market. How many achievements you were able to celebrate and then how invisible you were as a candidate. Do you have any of those memorized?

Ashley Ruba: Oh yeah, so I had 15 first-author publications. I had two dissertation awards. And then I had this NIH T32. It was a three-year fellowship. And then at my top choice school, I knew someone on the hiring committee who had encouraged me to apply. I didn't get an interview. I was told they had 400 applications for that round. And that I was shortlisted, but I ultimately didn't get an interview. When you're shortlisted, you could just pick any name out of a hat at that point, I saw it happen. Anyone is perfectly qualified and it's just kind of up to the whims of the hiring committee at that point. That was one of the big reasons where I thought, you know what, what is another one, two, or three first-author publications going to buy me at that point? What more can I possibly do?