<p>I agree that there is some luck involved, but I also think that hard work does not necessarily lead to success. Obviously it’s important, but hard work is no guarantee of anything.</p>
<p>I have some anecdotes from my cohort of unemployed PhDs, too: the one who had a CalTech PhD and an Ivy postdoc who landed a job at a start-up biotech, held on to that for a few years until it went belly-up, started his own consulting group, and is now struggling mightily to keep afloat. I know another really smart, talented guy with all the bells and whistles on his academic and professional CV who is now on his 3rd pharma job with progressively lower salaries (this after multiple relocations and uprootings of his family.) I know of several bright, hard-working, hustling, terrifically talented people who have done okay and several who are equally smart, hard-working, and talented who are really really struggling.</p>
<p>I do know some who have thrived in their own consulting jobs. They seem to be no smarter or harder working than their less successful colleagues - for the life of me I don’t know what has distinguished them from the others. The ones who seem happiest, actually, are those who were close to retirement anyway and who are now in completely different, non-science fields.</p>
<p>I think my story speaks more to the glut of chemists (in my sub-specialty of chemistry anyway) and biologists than anything else. That, and there are no guarantees in life, especially your career-life!</p>