the whole disjointed narrative is in your head. To the outside world-- i.e. an employer, not in academia, you’re someone who has a BA- check. You have a Master’s degree- check. You have a PhD- check. You have experience in research and analysis- check. Done and done.
I’ve worked for companies (all large, global corporations) who hire PhD’s. Sometimes it’s required for the job (PhD in engineering for a role that requires specific technical skills and knowledge) but more often, it’s just that the competencies we need happen to land with a candidate who has a PhD. I have colleagues who NEVER ask about the dissertation topic in these cases- it’s not relevant. I always ask- I come from an academic family (I’m the only one without a PhD so I’m always interested in hearing about people’s dissertation experience) but if a doctorate isn’t required, it’s more conversational than anything else.
And the questions are largely going to be personality type questions, not content questions - “how did you handle negative feedback from your advisor?” or “tell me about a time you were frustrated with your research- how did you pivot?” The questions will be focused on “Is this a person with tenacity, emotional intelligence, able to see the big picture”.
If you are worried about having to get into the weeds (i.e. your “disjointed” concern) once you are out of academia, nobody will care. It’s the lessons learned- frustration, grit, completing something complicated and hard, making sense of very large pools of data and summarizing your findings-- that an employer will care about.
I hired someone for a statistical analyst job a while back who impressed EVERYONE who interviewed him because he told us that his “secret sauce” in his doctoral program was that he was the only one in the department who was able to explain his dissertation topic to a non-technical audience. Periodically the university put together roundtables for the student body, staff (non-professors, etc.) to show “This is what our PhD students are working on”. The other PhD candidates hated doing these-- their work was too technical and they couldn’t be bothered figuring out how to explain it to librarians, administrators, undergrads, etc.
Our guy (who we hired and was a phenomenal employee) LOVED doing these. He took great joy from making the esoteric understandable. Which was exactly what we needed- someone who could break down complicated statistical findings and explain them to product managers, financial analysts, sales teams, etc.
You’ll find your secret sauce… maybe it’s that despite long odds, you understand how to push and push and push even when you are tired. There will be an employer out there who finds that very compelling!!!