I like the particle accelerator litmus test :p Also .. totally agree with the top 5-10 school. Universities do not typically "hire down". I heard an "unofficial list" during a faculty meeting my last year .. I was horrified!
Here is the big problem IMHO: by the time you graduate with your PhD in a 6-8 year program, you are either close to or in your 30s (best case). You just spent a decade investing in a research career. Most scientists will tell you that research is not being supported the same as in the old days. I can't say about govt grants but industrial labs have definitely changed in the last 10 years (I'm thinking of IBM Research and Microsoft Research). There have been several lab closures in the recent past: MSR's Silicon Valley, Nokia Research in the Bay area, Intel Lab-lets (Berkeley, Pittsburgh, etc.). So basically, supply is steady and demand is decreasing. This generally doesn't bode well for the prospective PhD candidate trying to make a career in industrial research. The bar simply keeps getting higher to get one of these "coveted" positions.
While it is true that PhDs can (and do) get hired at places like Google, Facebook or Wall Street, think about the almost decade spent on training that not only are you not using, at least a chunk of the technical content will be obsolete by the time you finish! Insane!!
To succeed with a PhD, you need to be a great seller. This is sort of the same skill you need as an entrepreneur or a specific type of middle-manager (dreamer? not sure this has a clear job title). I always thought it was about the technical challenge of the work or the quality. I sadly have to come to realize that the marketing (the intro to your paper) matters as much as the rest.
You can gain a lot of education working on a phd at a good school, even past your masters, and that can help if you are doing more sophisticated stuff. I found my phd helped a lot in my dev work at microsoft and google. Maybe someone with a lot strong BS or MS could have done it, but I benefited from my 8 years at grad school! I'm kind of embarrassed to admit how long it took, but I did finally finish :-)
Here is the big problem IMHO: by the time you graduate with your PhD in a 6-8 year program, you are either close to or in your 30s (best case). You just spent a decade investing in a research career. Most scientists will tell you that research is not being supported the same as in the old days. I can't say about govt grants but industrial labs have definitely changed in the last 10 years (I'm thinking of IBM Research and Microsoft Research). There have been several lab closures in the recent past: MSR's Silicon Valley, Nokia Research in the Bay area, Intel Lab-lets (Berkeley, Pittsburgh, etc.). So basically, supply is steady and demand is decreasing. This generally doesn't bode well for the prospective PhD candidate trying to make a career in industrial research. The bar simply keeps getting higher to get one of these "coveted" positions.
While it is true that PhDs can (and do) get hired at places like Google, Facebook or Wall Street, think about the almost decade spent on training that not only are you not using, at least a chunk of the technical content will be obsolete by the time you finish! Insane!!
To succeed with a PhD, you need to be a great seller. This is sort of the same skill you need as an entrepreneur or a specific type of middle-manager (dreamer? not sure this has a clear job title). I always thought it was about the technical challenge of the work or the quality. I sadly have to come to realize that the marketing (the intro to your paper) matters as much as the rest.