Kaidi Wu, Ph.D.

Feeling Lost -> Clarity
I coach PhDs to achieve dream careers in and outside academia.

Career Coaching

"I spent 10+ years trying to become a professor, only to discover how abysmal the job market is. What should I do with my life?""I spent over a year applying, interviewing, and getting rejected. I feel trapped in Groundhog Day. What more can I do to get a job?"”I’m an international student with an expiring visa. I need to find a job in the next 60 days or else be deported. Where should I start?”The job market is tough. But it's not tough if you learn the rules of the game and go in with right strategy. In coaching, you will get clear on two things:
- Where you want to go
- How to get thereWhen you don’t know what exactly you’re spending time and efforts on, you will get rejections (or worse, ghosted), which lead to frustration, which lead to more rejections. The cycle repeats. With each cycle comes more frustration, hopelessness, and resignation.But, when you focus your time and efforts in the right direction, you will be able to achieve the desired outcome in half the time.I help you discover the intersection of what you do best, what the market wants, and what makes your heart sing. We will then come up with step-by-step strategies on how to best prepare, apply, interview, and negotiate for the job you deserve.

What You Get Out of Coaching

  • Figure out who you are & what you actually want to do.

  • Learn the behind-the-scene playbook on applying, interviewing, and hiring. Diagnose. Course correct.

  • Put things in action (resume review, mock interview, portfolio review, salary negotiation). Replicate what works.

  • Get to where you want to go in half the time, with newfound clarity and confidence.

My Story

I spent 13 years trying to become a tenure-track professor. Then, I got knocked off the path.I did what every other academic did: breaking into industry and getting myself a good ol' 9-to-5. It was a long and hard road: getting ghosted, offer retraction, discrimination, mass layoffs, expiring visas. I was screaming into a void: What more can I do?! Even when I did everything right, there's always a "better" candidate.Coaches, workshops, many trial and errors later, I finally cracked the code on how to stand out as the ideal candidate. In the abysmal job market of late 2023 and 2024, I was acing interviews and getting offers. I got to a point where the hiring manager would tell me before the interview ends, “We want you. I’m going to tell you right now you’re getting into the next round.” There wasn’t a third-round interview I did that didn’t result in an offer.During my transition, I traversed the worlds of non-traditional academic roles, UX research, data science, solopreneurship, content creation. If you look close enough, the same playbook applies in every field. Find out what the behind-the-scene rules are, play by the rules, and you will win the game.It's simple, but not easy.I am here to walk you through everything I searched so hard for during my transition, so you won't have to walk the path alone.

© Kaidi Wu