Career Transitions

"Graduate students are accustomed to success. They are high achievers who have done well academically for many years, received praise for their research and writing, and have demonstrated an ability to succeed in an academic environment."

This is not my impression at all. Yes, grad students probably did well as undergrads, but doing research means confronting protracted periods of failure--more or less alone. Graduate school gives few benchmarks by which to measure success post-candidacy. There are usually few or no performance reviews, and it often takes years to produce the first publication. It's an extremely hard environment for people who are motivated by small successes and the occasional compliment. The majority of non-academic work environments I am familiar with (law, medicine, even the admin at my university) receive periodic performance reviews and have pretty easy metrics by which to gauge success and standing. I think most graduate students, provided they adapt at all, end up far more tough and resilient than people who don't confront the messiness of research and its accompanying competitiveness. I'm saying this as someone in a STEM field. It might be different in the humanities.