My LinkedIn headline comes up in conversation from time to time, and as you may imagine, there’s a story behind it. After all, we don’t normally seek work based on our real or perceived lack of qualifications, and I’m not completely insane. Well, I always respond with the same story, so I might as well write it down and publish it for the benefit of everyone who is curious enough to wonder, yet not curious enough to ask.
Cleansing My Profile
I don’t have a PhD. I discovered years ago that if you’re hiring and you really, really want someone with a PhD, there is nothing I can put on my profile — projects, papers, reports, presentations, certificates, hackathons, courses, workshops, lectures, summer schools, articles, blogs, etc. — in any quantity that will substitute for it. Unqualified is unqualified, so I stopped trying to look less unqualified. If you don’t require a PhD, then my portfolio is my CV, and my LinkedIn profile is my ice breaker.
Chatting on LinkedIn
One day, I was chatting with a very distinguished member of the quantum community. If you follow the industry at all, you know who he is. Anyway, we were chatting about a particularly unscrupulous organization. I was attacking their ethics and behaviors when this VIP began attacking their academic credentials. I…
