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Beginning a new Journey with Andrew Graczyk
Professionals in academia have certainly not been immune to the current Great Resignation movement. An assistant professor of economics turned data science practice leader gives a candid glimpse into the world of academia and reveals his motivations behind pivoting from a university into the private sector. On Career Relaunch® podcast episode 87, we’ll discuss the unique challenges of academic careers, the importance of being open to new sectors, and why confidence is one of the most important assets to have during career transitions. During the Mental Fuel® segment, I also share my thoughts on why so employees are choosing to change career paths right now. Key Career Takeaways Studying one subject then going into a completely different field professionally is not uncommon and can actually provide you with a more unique perspective compared to others who follow more traditional career paths. When the people you’re surrounded by in your current industry have spent the majority of their careers in that same industry, the natural tendency is for them to promote career paths similar to their own because it’s the world they know. You may inevitably have to jump through some hoops to ascend the professional ladder you’re climbing, but at some point, the payoff may no longer be worth the effort. When you’re on an exhausting, depleting career path, you sometimes don’t realize just how much of a toll it’s been taking on you until you completely step away. You know more than you may be giving yourself credit for. Especially during career pivots, you must find a way to garner the confidence to unabashedly convey your unique value to others. The first person you have to convince is yourself though😉. Related Resources Read the full findings from that Prezi poll I mentioned about hybrid work survey findings that found evidence of employer proximity bias. Picking up on my Mental Fuel® segment where I discussed the importance of understanding how you prefer to work, check out this Slack article, Inflexible return-to-office policies are hammering employee experience scores Great Resignation articles- related to academia Calling it quits– Inside Higher Ed, July 2022 Has the ‘great resignation’ hit academia– Nature, May 2022 ‘Do it all’ culture ‘driving great resignation’ in academia– Times Higher Education, July 2022 Great Resignation articles- general Read why workers are quitting (BBC, Aug 2022) and where they’re going (Inc, Aug 2022) Why are people leaving the corporate world in droves– HS Burney, July 2022 Experts explain how to ace that ‘Great Reshuffle’ career move– CNBC, July 2022 Listener Challenge During this episode’s Mental Fuel segment, I talked about the importance of deciding what sort of organizational ways of working are acceptable to you with the latest advent of remote and hybrid working. My challenge you is to just consider if you’re facing a bit of a turning point with your own employer where you’re getting mandated to do things for the sake of returning to the way things were that just don’t sit so well with you anymore. You don’t need to pick up and leave right away. But you may want to put some stakes in the ground for yourself about what ways of work are acceptable to you in the months and years ahead. About Andrew Graczyk Andrew Graczyk is a trained data scientist with a PhD in Economics. He’s worked in academic and instructional positions for University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Wake Forest University, and the Duke University Talent Identification Program. Now he’s Practice Director for Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning at KForce, where he uses his mathematical, statistical, and game theoretic knowledge to architect and implement data driven improvements to business practices. Learn more about The Data Incubator that helped Andrew transition from academia into the private sector. Did You Enjoy This Episode? Please Let Us Know! Tweet: If you enjoyed this episode and have a few seconds to spare, Tweet to let me and Andrew know! Tweet a thank you! Review: I’d also love for you to leave a positive review and rating for the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, which helps my show reach more people who want to relaunch their careers. Follow: Be sure to follow Career Relaunch podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Android to automatically get each new episode on your device. Full instructions. Stay in touch: Follow Career Relaunch on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow host Joseph on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Comments, Suggestions, or Questions? If you have any lingering thoughts, questions, or topics you would like covered on future episodes, record a voicemail for me right here. I LOVE hearing from listeners! Leave Joseph a Voicemail You can also leave a comment below. Thanks! Thanks to Vista Social for Supporting Career Relaunch Vista Social is a versatile, time-saving tool to manage all your social media accounts in one place. You can easily create, schedule, optimise, and publish content directly to multiple social media profiles from one simple dashboard. I actually use it myself to manage all my online profiles. Try Vista Social out for free right now at careerrelaunch.net/vista. Interview Segment Music Credits Podington Bear – Encounter A Himitsu – Fragile Elm Lake – Purify Podington Bear – Bright White Podington Bear – Gathering Real Heroes – It’s Getting Better Episode Interview Transcript Joseph: Let’s start by talking about what’s been keeping you busy in your life and career. I understand you just started a new role just earlier this month, is that right? Andrew: [02:43] That’s correct. I just started as a practice director for artificial intelligence and machine learning at Kforce. That’s been keeping me busy, the transition has been keeping me busy, but it’s a lot going on. Joseph: What exactly are you responsible for there at Kforce, and what does Kforce focus on? Andrew: [03:00] Kforce is generically a staffing company. They’re the largest staffing company for infrastructure technology and other intelligence-driven services in the United States. They help companies solve problems for projects with people. What I’m responsible for is kind of kick-starting a practice in that vein for data science. Instead of having say IT people to institute some security protocol, or cyber security people instituting some protocol and working with a company’s full-time staff and permanent staff do that on a project, I would help to architect that and choose other consultants to help implement that as well as help implement myself. Joseph: You are based in Toronto. Can you just tell me a little bit about your personal setup? What’s been keeping you busy right now in your personal life? Andrew: [03:54] I guess what’s been keeping me busy lately is cats. We just got a new cat. I’m a very cat-oriented person. Joseph: How many cats do you have? Andrew: [04:02] Right now, we have three. Joseph: Okay. Andrew: [04:05] We just adopted one from a rescue here. Cooking and running; my wife and I like to run 10Ks and half marathons. I like to cook. I like to eat. I mostly like to run so I can eat. I don’t need to run, I run so I can eat and not become a giant person. Joseph: We have some things in common for. I love cats, Andrew. We don’t own one. I would love to own one, but I don’t know if I could keep up with it, and a little worried about the furniture. I also love running and I also love eating. Like you, probably run to eat, not the other way around. But before we go back in time and talk about your former professional life, you are in Canada but you are American. How did you end up in Toronto? Andrew: [04:52] I ended up in Toronto because my wife was working at the University of Toronto. My wife is also in academia and has a Ph.D. She came up in 2019, right after she got a Ph.D. into postdoctoral fellowship. I came up to visit her over spring break in 2020, and that is when the pandemic broke out. I was at the time a visiting assistant professor at Wake Forest University. They closed everything down, and all the travel shut down, and I was just in Toronto. For several years, I didn’t really go back to the States because it wasn’t really feasible to. I just kind of started being here. It was actually in Toronto that I began my transition. I like the joke that I came up for spring break and never left. And now, we’re both residents. The tax is a little complicated, my residence is actually in North Carolina for those purposes. I’m there sometimes, but still, in Canada frequently. Joseph: You mentioned academia there, and I would love to just go back in time. You haven’t always been working in data science at Kforce. You haven’t always been in the private sector. Can we go back in time and talk about your time in the academic world? We can move forward from there. What were you focused on as a Ph.D. candidate at the University of North Carolina, and how did you end up going down the Ph.D. route? Andrew: [06:20] Back the primordial days of 2010 and 2011, I was finishing my undergraduate degree at University of South Carolina. How I got into my head to do a Ph.D. is actually to this day kind of a mystery. It doesn’t really make sense why I did it because I got my bachelor’s in Physics and Math. I realized, towards the end doing lab work, that I kind of hated physics lab work. I was like, “That’s a problem.” I was like, “Okay, I could go into the high-energy pure math theoretical stuff. I could go and work for some oil company doing some basic physics, fluid dynamics stuff,” but I didn’t really like any of those options. For some reason, the end of my under career, I took a philosophy course which ended up teaching a bit about economics. I
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