Why Job Applications Are Closer to Academic Arguments Than You Think

One of the more common questions that comes up when PhDs start applying to roles outside of academia is some version of: “How do I say that I meet this qualification if I haven’t done that exact thing before?”

It often shows up in very specific ways. Someone will point to a line in a job description—leading programs, managing stakeholders, designing strategy—and compare it directly to what they have done. If the wording doesn’t match, the assumption is that there is a gap that they need to address, sometimes by additional training or certifications.

However, the issue is not usually that the experience is missing. There is a tendency to read job descriptions quite literally, as if each qualification refers to a distinct, clearly bounded type of experience. But in practice, most roles are made up of underlying skills and responsibilities that show up across many different contexts. The challenge is not just in how to describe your experience, but in recognizing where those parallels already exist.

This is where I often see people thinking too narrowly. They look for a one-to-one match — have I done this exact thing in this exact way? — and when they don’t find it, they stop there. But that’s not how experience typically translates, either within or outside of academia.

If you take a step back and look more closely, many of the responsibilities described in job postings are things PhDs have already been doing, just under different names and in different settings. The issue is rarely that the experience isn’t there—it’s that it hasn’t yet been interpreted in a way that makes those connections visible.

In practice, this is not a new challenge. It is one PhDs are already well-trained to handle. When you develop a research claim, you are not simply listing what you have found; you are interpreting evidence, drawing connections, and making a case for why that evidence supports a particular conclusion. You decide what is relevant, how different pieces fit together, and how to present them in a way that others can follow. A job application works in much the same way. The task is not just to describe your experience, but to make a case for how it meets the needs of the role.

First, Engage in Job Ad Analysis

Before you get to wording, there’s an analytical step that needs to happen first. Without it, reframing tends to feel forced—or worse, inaccurate.

In practice, this looks like:

• Start with the role, not your experience.
  What is this qualification actually asking for underneath the wording? What would someone in this role be responsible for doing on a day-to-day basis?

• Break that into underlying skills or functions.
  Instead of “program management” or “user-centered design,” what does that involve in practice? If you are unsure, do some research.

• Look broadly at your own experience.
  Where have you done work that reflects similar patterns, even if the context looks different? This is where people tend to miss connections by thinking too narrowly.

• Map the parallels explicitly.
  Not “this is kind of similar,” but how, specifically, the work overlaps.

• Then—and only then—decide how to frame it.
  The wording should follow the analysis, not replace it.

This is, in many ways, the same process you use when building an argument in your academic work. You are interpreting, connecting, and deciding what matters before presenting it. The difference is simply the context in which that thinking is being applied.

Once that layer is in place, the question of “how do I say this?” becomes much easier to answer, because you are no longer trying to stretch your experience to fit a role. You are making visible the ways in which it already aligns and can articulate this to others with confidence.

What this can look like in practice

To make this more concrete, it helps to walk through how this process unfolds with specific roles and qualifications, especially in cases where the connection isn’t immediately obvious.

Example 1: Integrating Advocacy, Policy, Communications, and Coalition Work

Let’s say you are applying for a role that includes:

“Integrate advocacy, policy, communications, and coalition efforts into a cohesive, high-impact approach.”

At first glance, this can feel like something that requires formal experience in nonprofit or policy environments, particularly if you have spent most of your time in academia. If you have not held a role where those functions are explicitly named, it can be difficult to see how your experience might apply.

However, if you look more closely at what this requirement involves in practice, you can see it is about bringing together different priorities, translating across groups, and shaping those inputs into a coherent direction that others can act on. One example where this kind of work often shows up is in departmental or institutional service.

Therefore, during an interview, you can address this requirement with the following:

“One example that’s relevant here comes from my experience serving on a departmental curriculum committee, where we were tasked with revising our program to better align with both student needs and evolving expectations in the job market.

The challenge was that different groups were prioritizing different things. Faculty were focused on maintaining the integrity of the discipline, students were looking for clearer pathways to careers, and there was increasing pressure to demonstrate how the program connected to broader workforce outcomes.

My role involved helping bring those priorities together into a cohesive approach. That meant making sure student needs were clearly represented in discussions, which functioned as a form of advocacy, while also translating those concerns into terms that resonated with faculty priorities. I also helped connect those internal conversations to broader job market expectations, ensuring that decisions were grounded not only in disciplinary values but also in how the program would function externally.

A key part of this work was shaping how these decisions were communicated—both within the committee and more broadly—so that the rationale was clear and the changes were understood as part of a unified direction rather than a set of disconnected updates.

The outcome was a revised curriculum structure that more intentionally integrated career-relevant skills into existing coursework, rather than treating them as add-ons. This required integrating different perspectives, translating across groups, and building alignment around a shared, implementable plan—work that directly reflects the kind of cross-functional integration described in this role.”

Example 2: User-Centered Thinking / Designing for an Audience

Now consider a role that includes:

“Experience applying user-centered thinking to design solutions, content, or experiences that meet user needs.”

At first glance, this can feel like something that belongs to fields like product design or UX, and not something that would apply to academic work. It’s common to read a requirement like this and assume that, without formal experience in those areas, there isn’t a clear way to make a connection.

But if you break the requirement down, “user-centered thinking” often involves understanding the needs of a particular audience, structuring information in a way that is accessible and engaging, and adjusting based on feedback or observed challenges.

Once you look at it that way, a different set of parallels starts to emerge.

Teaching, for example, often requires designing a learning experience for students who do not share your background knowledge. This involves deciding how to introduce concepts, how to structure material so that it builds over time, and how to adapt when something isn’t landing as expected.

That is not typically labeled as “user-centered design,” but it reflects many of the same underlying principles.

So, in an interview, you can say:

“One example that comes to mind is my experience designing and teaching courses, where I had to think carefully about how to structure complex material for students with varying levels of familiarity. I approached this by focusing on how students would experience the content—sequencing concepts in a way that built understanding over time, incorporating examples that made abstract ideas more accessible, and adjusting my approach based on where students struggled. That process required designing with the audience in mind and iterating based on feedback, which aligns closely with the user-centered approach described in this role.”

Here, the shift is not in the experience itself, but in how it is interpreted and articulated. Teaching becomes not just content delivery, but a form of designing for an audience.

What ties this together

In both cases, the key move is the same: You are not simply describing what you have done—you are making a case for how it is relevant.

That case depends on two steps that are often collapsed into one: first, recognizing where the parallels exist, and second, deciding how to articulate them in a way that someone outside of academia can easily understand.

PhDs are already trained to do this kind of work. The challenge is not learning how to translate your experience, but recognizing that the same analytical and interpretive skills you use in your academic work are directly applicable here. Not to be cliché, but I guess one can say the power was within you all along. (Yes, I did just write that.)

Looking for support in navigating your career journey? Let’s chat — it’s free, and you’ll walk away with actionable steps to start your journey.

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© 2026 Marya T. Mtshali. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the author.