Leaving academia: Insights from evolutionary biologists on their career transitions and job satisfaction

Many who have obtained PhDs in evolutionary biology will ultimately pursue careers that fall outside a narrow definition of an academic career. At the same time, PhD students and supervisors of PhD students are often ill-informed about career options outside of academia. Here, we report on a survey of evolutionary biologists who have pursued non-academic careers to understand what careers they pursue, how they transitioned into those careers, how well prepared they were, and how satisfied they are with their current work. Overall, the message from this survey is positive– evolutionary biologists are readily employable outside of academia, generally well-prepared for those jobs, and report high levels of satisfaction in their non-academic careers. We also highlight areas where preparation for non-academic careers could be improved, which might be addressed by individual mentors or PhD training programmes.