Job-Seeker, Market Thyself! Thoughts on Not Finding My "Brand"

The following is a guest post from Sarah S. If you would like to contribute your own post about leaving academia, finding new employment, or any other topic, please contact us!

A current trend in career advice is to build your “brand” in order to better “sell” yourself to prospective employers and control your career trajectory.(*) In this digital age, the thinking goes, employers can find out all about people online and it behooves the jobseeker/career builder to stand out from the crowd with focused, personalized branding. I mean, if it works for soda and tennis shoes and software companies, why not you?

Transitioning academics likewise receive this branding advice. In fact, the difficulty of translating academic experience to employers in the “real world” makes concise, coherent branding particularly attractive. It can also supposedly demonstrate a post-academic’s business acumen as well, her awareness of market realities outside the Ivory Tower. I get these arguments. They make sense to me. So why am I so unable to discover and package my brand?

The Academy, at least in the Humanities, traditionally eschews this kind of corporate speak. And yet I was never so well branded as at the end of my PhD in English. In fact, I’d spent ten years honing and narrowing myself into an incredibly specific area and then spent hours perfecting my “elevator speech,” as well as articulating my philosophy of teaching (student-focused!) and area of expertise (British and American modernism, with an emphasis on the novel, trauma, and war!). I even had multiple distillations of my dissertation argument. First, the formal: “The Great War was so unprecedented it disrupted traditional mourning rituals, with their attendant resolution, leading to a traumatizing state of irresolvable mourning that I call ‘traumatic grief.’ This state caused post-war novelists from Britain and the US to represent the war as causing a widespread sterility, an inability or unwillingness to procreate, that manifests in characters, themes, and narrative itself.” And then this version, honed over beers and tator-tots, “World War I was major and it made people feel bad on their insides and then broke their baby makers.” By the end of the PhD I was this scholar-teacher—squished, narrowed, and branded within an inch of my life.

As we know, all the branding in the world can’t fix academia’s job issues and so after a fruitless year “on the market” I embraced my decision to stop applying for tenure track jobs and become post-ac, alt-ac, what-have-you. But one cannot transform on openness alone and magically transition from what she was to what she will become.

I tried the branding thing. I really did. I researched various careers. I participated in online communities. I did informational interviews. I wrote and rewrote (and rewrote and rewrote) my resume and cover letters. And I discovered a couple of things. First, getting a job is hard, ya’ll, even outside the Academy. Second, after the corseting I experienced by the end of my PhD, I didn’t want to “brand” myself, to limit myself to a single identity. Sure, I attempted to market my experience and goals for a handful of different career paths. Yet whenever I seemed to encounter a point where I really ought to buckle down and choose something, I balked.

I think there were several reasons for this. On some level, I was (I still am) gun shy; I put all my eggs in the academic basket and I remained wary of making the same mistake again with a new career path. I was also still connected to my identity as a scholar and teacher, and even though I was rationally comfortable with my decision to leave academia, the emotional and personal effects could not be wished away. When you spend years becoming a thing you cannot simply cease being it. Surely, as the soldier finds civilian clothes a little too constrictive and the transformed princess still wants to flap her goose wings so too the no-longer-academic forgets that she is not, anymore, a scholar, teacher, researcher, and so forth.

On the other hand, I pushed back against “branding” because I was also tired of being constrained. For so many years, I had been this very specific thing and now I wanted to take this new ephemerality out for a spin. Sometimes this flexibility involved uncovering things I’d always been, such as “writer.” I’d relinquished the right to call myself a writer after my MA when I chose the PhD path rather than, as did many of my peers, the MFA. They were writers, and I was this other thing called an “academic.” But as soon as I stripped off the title of academic, “writer” was underneath, like a worn undershirt. Other things I’ve come to realize as essential parts of me include “mentor” and “critical thinker” but also “story-lover” and “rock climber” and “political news junky”—none of which cohere nicely into logo form.

Apart from uncovering these bedrock components of myself, I also felt an expansiveness in self-definition, at times exhilarating and at others, I must admit, discombobulating and horrible. And yet even in the darkest times of uncertainty and seeming dissolution, I could not seize on a new thing: This is me. This is who I am. This is my brand! Would this experience have been different if I had been quickly hired into a job with a viable career path? Possibly. But I wasn’t and however I tried I found that, post-PhD, I encompassed far more than an elevator speech—for good and for ill.

I don’t write this post as a tirade against “branding” or to discourage anyone from taking the ubiquitous branding advice because it probably is good advice, or at least practical. I write merely to note that, at least so far, this approach has not worked for me. And so I embrace Walt Whitman’s declaration, “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself.” Despite the rigidity of academia, many of us loved it because of the endless possibility. Imagination alone limits one’s potential for reading and thinking and writing and teaching. I submit that the same holds true outside academia’s hallowed halls. Those who triumph with this approach are those wildly successful, entrepreneurial types who switch careers every three years and go base jumping. Meanwhile, the world also holds the rest of us, who may wish for greater specificity but will not relinquish our multivocality.

I thus prefer the approach of storytelling rather than “branding.” (I am a literature person, after all). Chris Humphrey has two excellent posts on this subject, one on overcoming the post-academic “failure” narrative and the other on telling a great story about your transition out of academia. Stories allow for so much more dynamism than a brand. Stories can develop and grow. Stories also honor the complexity that makes up a life’s journey, pulling together the splatters of experience, synthesizing the shared and highlighting the unique. And stories emphasize that I, that you, are so much more than a “brand.” In the end, practical or not, I’d rather be represented by a narrative than a catchphrase.

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(*Here are a few examples of the type of "branding advice" that is referenced in this post.)

Post-Ac Careers: Pinball, Not Path

This recent post here at HTLA has me thinking about the way we conceive of our post-ac careers. We hear lots about the career “path” - heck, I’ve used this language myself - but a path implies a linear progression, something mapped out, progressive, and even logical. But I think pinball might be a better metaphor, at least for some of us. We may bounce from job to job for sometime. We may shoot across the board to a totally different work or field than we’d originally intended, for a variety of reasons, some purposeful (“I want a different job”) and some incidental (“I’m moving, we’re downsizing, I need benefits, I’m having kids” - whatever).

I thought it might be illuminating to talk about the different career trajectories of people who have worked in my office in academic advising (anonymously and without identifying details). Many of the people hired here have backgrounds and advanced degrees in humanities, social sciences, etc, so I think their career trajectories will illustrate how much things can change -- may change -- for post-acs. I also want to normalize this fact of life: everything doesn’t proceed in a straight, beautiful line. I think this is much more common than we may realize, especially as we start out in the “real world.”

This is just a sampling of people I know about, not necessarily know personally. Again, identifying details removed, and this is purely anecdotal. We have a big office with somewhat high turnover, so I have a lot of examples here.

 

Advisor Amy

Field: anthropology

Advisor: 3 years

What came next? Went back to school to become a nurse.

 

Advisor Betty

Field: women’s studies

Advisor: 4 years

What came next? Full-time English position at a Community College.

 

Advisor Craig

Field: unknown

Advisor: 7 years

What came next? Moved to be closer to home, admin position at small liberal arts school.

 

Advisor Dan

Field: English

Advisor: 8 years and counting

What came next? Nothing, likes the job and moving up the ladder.

 

Advisor Eleanor

Field: Architecture

Advisor: 9 months

What came next? Moved due to partner relocation, now advising at another major University.

 

Advisor Fritz

Field: unknown

Advisor: many years

What came next? Went back to school for Counseling Psychology degree.

 

Advisor Gru

Field: Education

Advisor: 2 years

What came next? Did side work for a testing org that turned into a FT job.

 

Advisor Harrison

Field: English

Advisor: 20+ years

What came next? Still in advising working primarily with pre-med students.

 

Advisor Ingrid

Field: Theater

Advisor: 2 years

What came next? Adjuncted for awhile, then FT lectureship in Theater department.

 

Advisor Jan

Field: Communication

Advisor: 3 years

What came next? Left to be a full time mother.

 

Advisor Kevin

Field: American Studies

Advisor: 3 years

What came next? Moved because partner went to grad school in different state, became full-time father for awhile.

 

Advisor Letitia

Field: Psychology

Advisor: 5 years

What came next? Moved into a senior advising position in an academic department unrelated to field of study.

 

Advisor Magnus

Field: Engineering

Advisor: 7 years

What came next? Took a position at a rural CC to create a new pre-Engineering program.

 

Advisor Nina

Field: unknown

Advisor: 1 year

What came next? Took a position at a small lib arts school where had been adjuncting during grad school, works with first year orientation.

 

You can see here that for some, advising becomes the new career path, and for some it's a "just for now" job. Some job opportunities came along, some made choices based on life circumstance, some progressed into new positions along the same lines as advising. Some end up in positions closely tied to their field of study, some work in something unrelated. Some stay! And so it goes.

How to Get a Post-Ac Job?

 

Cross-posted from Kathleen "Currer Bell"'s blog.

Whew! The first two weeks of [my new job at an online university] are kicking my ass! Adjusting to the new gig, along with continued health problems, has left me feeling pretty wiped out most evenings and disinclined to sign on and blog. Yet I had an email recently from a reader that inspired me to pop on here and share a few thoughts.

A reader who had found the piece "I Hate My Post-Ac Job" on How to Leave Academia asked me how I got my post-ac job(s). Like many of us, he earned a PhD and is having a difficult time securing employment. Or, scratch that, he has managed to secure employment, but it's at a job that doesn't take advantage of his talents/abilities/education level and pays a ridiculously low wage. Plus, the hours are crap and he doesn't like the work.

Sound familiar?

In this new age of "post-ac advice giving," (seriously, I feel like I can't sign onto Twitter without some new person advertising their post-ac help business) part of me wanted to be able to confidently reply to his email, "Have no fear--here are 10 easy steps to get your post-ac job." We've all read this type of post--network, hire someone to change your CV into a resume, work through your post-ac emotional stuff with the help of a life coach, take my 5 session webinar on the Post-Ac Job Search--sometimes it seems like the post-ac community has shifted to a post-ac "help" industry.

Instead, I replied with what I see as the (messier) truth. The type of advice he can easily find if he wants it (network, resume building, webinars) is fine. There's nothing inherently wrong with it and it probably can't hurt if he has the time and money to devote to it. Heck, I hired a coach to help me with my post-ac transition and it was helpful. And I've helped others through their transitions as a coach.

However, my hunch is that as an intelligent person with the skillz necessary to earn a PhD (research, reading, writing, critical thinking) he probably already knows how to write a pretty decent resume without hiring a professional. He may not think he knows. He may not have the confidence to strike out on his own. But he probably can handle writing his own resume. And if he can't handle the task at the present moment, a library is never far away with a book that'll show him resume templates and verbiage that he can imitate to draft his own resume.

The nuts and bolts of the (post-ac) job search are really a small part of the problem for most post-acs.

The bigger problem?

The fact that there is no easy answer. The fact that employers do shy away from degrees they don't understand. The fact that not everyone has money to hire professionals to help them. The fact that not everyone has the luxury of taking more courses, doing an unpaid internship, etc. The fact that as much as we'd like to say there are guarantees and simple, clear solutions to the post-ac job problem, there are not.

How did I get my post-ac jobs? Time. Persistence. Crying. Feeling like a failure. Networking. Not networking. Building a LinkedIn profile. Taking down my LinkedIn profile. Hiring a life coach. Taking classes for a new career path, but not getting certified. Taking any post-ac job because we needed to pay our bills. Refusing to take a post-ac job just because we had to pay our bills. Starting and then not starting a new career path. Applying to go back to school and then withdrawing my candidacy. Starting to open and then pushing pause on my own business. Giving up. Trying again. Luck. Dumb luck. The dumbest luckiest luck.

What is the "Right" Postacademic Job?

Crossposted from JC's blog.

As you may have just read (and if not, go read it now!), my fellow post-academic and co-editor Kathleen has landed herself a new fulltime job working for an online university! She will be working with and mentoring university students, teaching a few online classes, and will be staying in the geographic location that she is currently living in without having to relocate. Oh, and it will also pay her a generous full-time salary with benefits. Yayyyyy Kathleen!!

(Because I feel like I should say this: I know what school she will be working for, and it's not one of the "diploma mill" online schools that are often criticized. Though for reasons that I will outline below, I wouldn't care if it was ... because I firmly believe that any nonacademic job is a valid choice for people who leave academia.)

So, the other night when Kathleen emailed Lauren and me to tell us about her new job, she was a little worried that she would be considered a "postacademic impostor" once she announced her new job: that she would be criticized for not taking the "right" kind of postacademic job (because online universities have come under fire lately from folks in academia and postacademia), or that taking a job that involved teaching and mentoring was not far enough outside of traditional academia to truly qualify as a postacademic job.

As I told Kathleen last week, I don't agree with that assessment at all. And thinking about that conversation has actually motivated me to write my first blog post in a long, long time.

I've been out of academia for nearly three years now, and the postacademic blogosphere and world have changed considerably during that time. Most of that shift has been wonderful - we are getting national press coverage and having public conversations about leaving academia, and the decision to leave is losing a lot of its stigma and the people who do it are being brought out of the shadows.

But along with the growing visibility of the postacademic blogosphere, I've also noticed a not-so-great shift in the types of conversations we're having.

The postacademic blogosphere used to be primarily about how individual bloggers were leaving academia without a net or a guide, and about their success (or lack thereof) at finding some job - any job - that would help them fully break free from academia's totalitarian culture and strict guidelines for what was acceptable. We had popular postacademic bloggers who worked as temps, as secretaries, as office managers, and even those who were unemployed for a while as they tried to find a new job. But we supported each other, and we reassured each other, and we talked about how even our not-so-glamorous jobs were terrific in comparison to adjuncting! And that our stable jobs (no matter what they were!) were better than begging for graduate funding every year while we took multiple futile stabs at the academic job market. At that time, leaving was the end goal for postacademics. It didn't matter what you did next, as long as you broke free of academia.

In contrast, today's postac blogsophere has been more focused on scathing critiques of higher education and academia, and on profiles of successful people who have left academia and are well-established in new careers. I think that these types of pieces are certainly useful for new postacademics to read (scathing critiques abound in my archives, of course!), but this new focus has left a noticeable hole in the blogosphere. The highly personal, individual stories about the struggles and ups and downs of individual people as they are initially leaving academia and trying to find some stable footing elsewhere are all but missing in today's postacademic world. (Though such stories abound in our e-book, which can be bought here or here!)

That's understandable, to a point - as postacademia becomes more public, the types of conversations that we have will change. But to tie this back to my conversation with Kathleen--in which she worried that her new job meant that she was "doing postacademia wrong"--I worry that the absence of stories about the struggles and hard decisions that many postacs go through as they leave may inadvertently make future academic leavers feel anxious or apprehensive. If new postacs don't know what kind of career they want after they leave, is that okay? Because most of what they will read in today's blogosphere is about people leaving and landing awesome, elite, PhD-level jobs.

Similarly, if they don't land a perfect, academically-approved postac job right away, are they doing postacademia right? If they wind up temping for a little while as they figure out what comes next, should they feel like failures? If they get a good job with a generous salary and benefits in an industry that other postacademics are criticizing publicly, should they stay quiet because it's not a "good" job??

I worry that if postacademia continues to highlight only the biggest postac successes, they will be inadvertently ignoring people whose paths out of academia aren't quite as blessed. And in turn, I worry that we may be doing a disservice to the people who will be looking to the postac blogosphere for advice in the future, especially if they don't know exactly what they want to do next. (You know...people like Kathleen and me, 2-3 years ago.)

So in today's shifting postacademic blogsophere, I want to be clear about something that I believe with every fiber of my being (and that I do believe most postacademics believe, for the record): short of contract killing or drug trafficking, there are no "good" or "bad" postacademic jobs. There is no "right" or "wrong" way to do postacademia. 

In order to do postacademia "right" (according to me), you need to find a job that fulfills two goals: (1) one that pays you enough money so that you can live a stable life, and (2) one in which your employer treats you better than how folks are treated in the worst aspects of academia.

Those are the goals you should be focused on. You shouldn't be wasting your time thinking about whether you're getting the "right" job (according to your former academic colleagues or according to what you read in an interview with a successful postac that one time). Just find a job that breaks you from traditional academia and that lets you live a stable adult life.

Goal #1 will vary based on your individual circumstances. Maybe you have a big savings account already or a wealthy partner, so you can afford to work sporadic, one-off jobs after you leave. Or maybe you have a well-paying academic job that you don't despise, so you decide to hang out in grad school or in your faculty job until you land the perfect nonacademic career you're dreaming of.

Great!! Good postacademic-ing! Keep on looking for that job you really want!

But some people can't hold out for that dream job. Maybe they can only find academic work as an adjunct or on a one-year VAP post across the country, and they need more money and stability than that. Maybe they have kids, or a mortgage, or student loans...whatever it is, their situation is not sustainable in academia. They need to leave now, and can't afford to keep adjuncting (or freelancing part-time or interning for no pay) until their perfect job appears.

So for those people - and I want to be very, very clear about this - taking any job that offers financial stability is a wonderful postacademic move.

Even if you are working for the most soul-sucking, nasty, for-profit corporation in the world, you are doing postacademia right. Because you have broken from academia and you are making ends meet, and you have therefore given yourself the freedom to pay your bills and think about what comes next for you, career- and life-wise. Maybe you will land a "better" career at the perfect nonprofit think tank you've always dreamed of next. If so, great! But the point is - if you don't, that's great too! Because you are a successful postacademic at the very moment that you break free from academia.

You have removed desperation from the equation. You're no longer frantically wondering if the academic job market is going to come through for you, or what you're going to do if it doesn't. You're no longer eyeing the impending cancellation date for your graduate or VAP health insurance and wondering how the hell you are going to pay for a new plan when you may have no salary if another institution doesn't pick you up. And you're no longer researching how long it will take you to get food stamps for your kids if you find out in June that your adjunct contract won't be renewed for the following year. You are outside of the traditional academic structure and now you can look forward and figure out what comes next.

And this brings me around to goal #2 - how do you know whether your new postac job is "good enough" for postacademia?

In my opinion...if your new job treats you well (however you define that) and your job title is not "Professor," you are a postacademic success story. No matter where you work.

Any job that gives you whatever benefits you, personally, need (on top of a solid salary) is better than the worst aspects of academia, in which you're expected to work for any amount of pay and any crappy benefits that an academic institution is willing to charitably bestow upon you.

Any job that does not demand that you have to suck it up and move to a geographic location in which you don't want to live (and that you are told to be grateful for, because there are 1000 people who would love to be in your shoes!!) is better than the worst aspects of academia.

Any job for which being fired or laid off would qualify you for unemployment benefits is better than the worst aspects of academia.

Any industry that hires year-round, rather than during the same four-month schedule every year (and too bad for you if you need a job in May!), is better than the worst aspects of academia. Bonus points if your interview for said job took place in an office, rather than on a hotel bed.

Any job where you're treated like an employee rather than an indentured servant who should be grateful for the opportunity is better than the worst aspects of academia. I don't care what industry you're working in or what your job title is ... if academia is forcing you to live in poverty or to be utterly miserable, any other job is an upgrade from that.

So my job at a consulting firm (with fulltime salary and benefits in the town that I want to live in, on a contract that has no foreseeable end) qualifies as a postacademic job, and a success. Kathleen's new job as a mentor/instructor at an online university (with fulltime salary and benefits in the town that she wants to live in with a contact that has no foreseeable end) qualifies as a successful postacademic job. My friend who works at a research center at our old university (with the same benefits as above) is a successful postacademic. The secretarial job that the old blogger Recent Ph.D. got after she left academia (fulltime salary, benefits, city she liked, indefinite contract) made her a successful postacademic.

Every one of those people is a successful postacademic because they have found something better than they could get in academia. The point is not what your job title is or what your qualifications are, but that you are refusing to play by academia's batshit rules anymore. You are declaring yourself as a qualified and educated adult who deserves some stability and a living wage. And once you have that, you are a successful postacademic.

So if you find that stability and a living wage in a teaching/mentoring position without the title of "professor," then that's great! Good postacademic-ing! If you find that in a secretarial job, then that's great! If you find it in a freelance or entrepreneurial career, then that's great! High-five!

Because no one - NO ONE - who leaves academia should feel bad about the type of job that they get. (Again, unless they are becoming a contract killer. If you are doing that, you should feel bad.)

The point of postacademia isn't getting a certain type of socially-approved job. It's about breaking free of academia's bullshit rules and of getting yourself a sustainable adult life.

So no matter what kind of postacademic job you get, be proud of yourself. I sure am.

Life Coaching: Working with One, Working As One

Posting on behalf of Kathleen "Currer Bell" Miller.

We at How to Leave Academia have observed the growing popularity of the life coach, both as a resource for folks transitioning out of academia, as well as a new career path for those billing themselves to post-and alt-ac individuals. Since a few of our readers were uncertain as to what a life coach does, how to locate a coach that’s a good fit for you, and what to expect from life coaching, Kathleen “Currer Bell”  has designed this handy-dandy guide to life coaching full of general information with examples from her own practice and knowledge. She is nearing completion of an intensive training seminar with Martha Beck (author and monthly columnist for O: The Oprah Magazine) and is currently working toward her life coaching certification. She is happy to announce that as part of her certification process, she is taking on clients for a very low fee.

What is life coaching?

In a very general sense, a Life Coach helps people clarify and articulate what they want most from life and how best to achieve it. More specifically, coaching helps people get past their obstacles in order to create the results they want in life, work, relationships and spiritual growth. Coaching is like having a “personal trainer for your soul.” Life coaches don’t tell people what they should do; rather they ask powerful questions in an effort to help the client find the answers that always lie within. A good life coach will not tell you what to do. Coaching is particularly helpful if you feel out of balance, i.e.; working too much, playing too little (or the opposite); if you feel something is missing but can’t put your finger on it; if you want to pursue a new career or change jobs; or perhaps you simply want more joy in your life. Coaching gives you someone who holds the space as you grieve and grow, and promotes accountability for your own transformation. Change can be difficult and it’s useful to have someone navigate the journey with you.

 

You can see why life coaching would make sense for people in the middle of the huge transition out of academia, especially if you have no clue where you are going or what to do next. But people in many life situations might want to consult a coach: people going through a divorce, folks who are navigating empty nest or retirement transitions, or people who have just lost a job, are changing jobs, or who are facing a medical diagnosis that means lifestyle changes are imminent, etc.

 

Coaching is not a substitute for therapy

Let me clarify that coaching is no substitute for therapy. It is not for people with serious emotional problems. Coaching is about creating results, not dealing with crises. It focuses on the future and, as a result, can assist to change attitudes resulting from past experience. Life coaching might be a great option if you have processed your emotions and are ready to make a next step.

 

How long does coaching last?

Coaching is an individual process and so clients may sign up for sessions ranging from 1 to infinity. However a good coach ultimately wants you to be able to coach yourself. They will teach you the tools to do the work of coaching on your own; a good coach doesn’t want to set up a codependent relationship. Clients may benefit most from 3-6 months worth of coaching, or even up to a year in some cases. After all, making long-term changes in thought patterns and behavior isn’t work one does overnight! But there should be an end date to a good coaching relationship. You can discuss finances up front, and most coaches can come up with a flexible range of services to maximize your value while working within your personal budget. Newer coaches in the process of certification (see below) often offer services at a discount or even for free as they establish their credentials.

 

How do I pick a coach?

Most life coaches will offer a free 20-30 minute information session. During that time, you can ask questions related to the coach’s training and experience, how sessions typically progress, reimbursement, etc. Your potential coach may offer a brief sample of his/her coaching technique in order to help you decide. Remember, this is a time for your coach to interview you, but it’s also a time for you to interview and determine the fit of your coach.

 

While picking a life coach, you may want to consider the rapport you have over the phone or Skype. Does the coach’s voice resonate with you--its pitch, tenor, pacing? Do you enjoy your coach’s energy? Does your coach laugh and joke around? Is s/he more serious? Do you get the sense that he/she is listening and responding to your specific situation and desires? Personal communication preferences will be key here, so pick someone who complements your own energy and communication style. Go with your gut.

You should also look at consider the program your life coach completed. Coaching is an unlicensed industry, so people can declare themselves life coaches without training or certification. The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is taking steps to make life coaching a more regulated industry and if working with a coach from a coaching organization is important to you, you may want to search the site for someone who is ICF certified.

Life coach training programs are very diverse, and some are pyramid schemes designed to get money from trainees, so investigate the program with which your coach is affiliated. Reputable programs like Mentor Coach and the Martha Beck Coach Training Institute are respected programs with articulated philosophies for their approach to life coaching. Some programs adopt a positive psychology approach, while others are devoted to goal setting; others are more holistic in their approach. You can imagine that the philosophy under which a life coach is trained says a lot both about their own values as a coach, and the advice and style they will offer you.

A program like the Martha Beck Coach Training Institute draws from Eastern philosophy, Western medicine, mind-body coaching, cognitive behavioral therapy, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. I was drawn to Martha Beck’s holistic approach, as it used the tools of many different philosophies to push back against painful and limiting beliefs we have about ourselves and our stories. Plus, Martha Beck is a former academic and her scholarly, but humanistic approach, appealed to me. Coaches trained by Martha Beck are also encouraged that their most powerful coaching comes from their own “to-hell-and-back” story. Life experiences then become a powerful indicator of choosing a “right fit” coach - and this might be a good strategy for you to use as you look for your own coach.

If you’re struggling as a new divorcee, you might want to consider looking for coaches who specialize in relationships, or for those who have been through experiences like divorce or single parenthood themselves. Of course, it is definitely possible that a coach who has not been through a particular life event can offer excellent coaching on that topic, but you may find that someone who has navigated the waters you are venturing into may be particularly resonant in their advice for your situation. So along those lines, if you’re a post-ac leaving academia, you may benefit from a coach like Julie Clarenbach who has made the transition, conducted a successful post-ac job search, and worked outside the academy.

How to Contact Me

If anyone is interested in my services or has additional questions about coaching, they can contact me at kathleen.miller127@gmail.com.  I look forward to speaking with you!

Deciding who to work for: finding employment outside academia

This guest post is from Chris Humphrey at Jobs on Toast, a post-academic career advice blog. Check it out!

‘Who do you want to work for?’ and ‘Where do you want to work?’ are two questions that you’re unlikely to hear in any discussion of the current academic job market! Given the desperate state of the market today, with many more candidates than posts, the idea of a new PhD having a choice about their first post in academia seems crazy. People are resigned to going to places where they can get a job, even if the position and location aren’t a particularly good fit (adjuncting in North Dakota anyone?).

If you ask these two questions in the context of jobs outside of academia however, you get a very different response. Try it yourself! The sheer amount of options can be quite overwhelming at first: ‘You mean, I get to CHOOSE who I work for, and where?!’ Well, obviously you still have to apply for and get the job! But you definitely have more control over your employment terms (salary, workload, work-life balance, location) in comparison with your options inside higher education. So let’s look at the abundance of career opportunities outside academia, with a view to helping you choose your first job post-PhD.

Careers outside academia

We might mistakenly imagine (from inside academia) that PhDs can only venture out of higher education as far as publishing houses, or into research labs. The reality is that PhDs are enjoying successful careers in a broad range of organisations outside of higher education. I recently listened to a radio profile of Angela Merkel, a PhD in quantum chemistry, who as Chancellor of Germany is running the biggest economy in Europe! There are a number of dedicated websites where you can go and read interviews with PhDs who are working outside the academy. Just take a look at PhDs At Work (www.phdsatwork.com) for instance. This fantastic site has profiles of PhDs who are employed across a range of sectors, from coaching to environmental health to film and the arts (look out for me!). They are succeeding on the back of the skills and experience gained through their doctoral research, not in spite of them. You can check out my blog post on ‘Life after the PhD’ for a list of the top websites which carry interviews and profiles with PhDs employed outside academia.

Who do you want to work for?

So, who do you want to work for? You might decide that you actually want to work for yourself! An increasing number of PhDs are doing this, setting up their own businesses in fields like marketing, consulting and coaching. Being your own boss may not be that different from being a PhD – a lot of the same skills are required, such as time-management, self-motivation and dedicated hard work.

If you decide you want to work for someone else, you have three main options – non-profit, government and business:

1. Working for a non-profit, you are going to be using your skills to support the organisation’s mission. This mission could be health-related, environmental, artistic or may involve helping disadvantaged groups in society or in another country. This is a great way to put your expertise to work, in a research capacity (e.g. with a medical charity) or as a subject specialist or an administrator.

2. Your second option is to work in local or national government. In local government you’re going to be responsible for the delivery of a service to the public– this could be heritage, libraries, schools or planning, to name just a few of the options available. I know several PhDs who’ve gone into museum management for instance – they are now heads of their own collections! If you go to work in national government, you can find a home for your research skills in a policy unit, or perhaps further afield as a diplomat. One of my contemporaries from the University of York is now the British High Commissioner to Kenya!

3. Your third option is to work for a company. From the perspective of academia, it’s easy to have a knee-jerk reaction to business, and think that you have to sell your soul to work in one. Actually, there are many companies which are doing a great deal of good in the world. I would strongly encourage you to do some research into small and medium-sized companies with an ethical, social or sustainable mission. Companies in the ethical and green sectors tend to have an open-minded recruitment policy, and want to employ people who are aligned with their values – ideal if you want to change the world!

Where do you want to work?

Having spent a long time living and working in a university town or city while completing your PhD, it can be quite a wrench to have to up sticks and move for the sake of a job. Certainly for new PhDs, it would be quite unusual for a suitable academic position to come up locally, so relocation is a very likely prospect. When considering your career options outside of academia however, the ability to stay put can be a nice perk. Why not start your business in the location you know best – your home town or city? Or go to work for a local employer who’s looking for someone of your calibre and potential? While the offices of big employers like Google or Microsoft may be located hundreds of miles away, you may find that one of their subcontractors has an office just down the road …

On the other hand, if you fancy a change of scenery, a job outside of academia can be your passport to a dream location. Very few jobs will come up at the University of Hawaii for instance, but if you look for work outside of higher education, and are prepared to be flexible, an opportunity may present itself!

It’s your choice!

If you follow any commentary on the academic job market, you’ll know that it’s currently dominated by feelings of scarcity, compromise and under-employment. PhDs are taking temporary, low paid teaching work in universities in the hope that by ‘staying in the game’, something more permanent will eventually come up. This is an understandable strategy, but realistically the odds are stacked against you, and you have no control over when or where you’ll finally get a job. By contrast, we’ve seen how you can get back a degree of choice and self-determination, if you opt for self-employment, or if you go to work for an organization locally or elsewhere. I would love to hear your answers to the two questions posed at the beginning of this post – please leave your comments below!

 

Dr Chris Humphrey is the founder of Jobs on Toast, a blog dedicated to helping masters students and PhDs find fulfilling careers outside academia. Chris obtained his PhD in Medieval Studies from the University of York (UK) in 1997, and he is the author of The Politics of Carnival: Festive Misrule in Medieval England. Since leaving academia in 2000, Chris has worked in a range of project and programme management roles in the areas of sustainability, transport infrastructure and training. Chris regularly gives workshops at UK universities on the subject of marketing yourself for a career outside academia, and he will shortly be launching an online directory of paid-for products and services benefiting doctoral researchers.

Academic Advising as a Post-Ac or Alt-Ac Career: Info and Advice

This post originally appeared on my personal blog, Mama Nervosa.

It’s been awhile since I rapped at ya about alt-ac life and my work as an academic advisor. Last year, when I started my position as an undergraduate advisor at an R1 school, I wrote extensively about what it was like, how it felt, etc etc. I haven’t written about it since then because, well, it’s work, and eventually it stops being that novel and compelling and just becomes your day job. Nevertheless, I get regular queries from friends and readers who want to know what the work is like and how it’s going, so I wanted to give you an update at just under 1 year of work as an advisor. Obviously, this reflects my personal experience and doesn't speak for all advisors in every context (although a colleague in my office with 20 years' experience read this and said it was pretty representative of our gig, at our school). YMMV.



What is Advising Like? Who Is Cut Out For It?

Overall, I like advising. I work with students almost all day, every day, and feel satisfied that I make a difference in their college experience. Although the relationships aren’t as in depth as teaching, I do get to know my 200-odd students well. If you enjoy teaching at the college level, and like freshmen and their quirks and personal issues, then you’ll probably like advising.

Advising keeps me on my toes. There’s always something new happening, and the way advising is set up at my U means that I work with students across a variety of disciplines, which is cool. If you are behind the whole liberal arts mission and enjoy hearing about and learning about stuff happening in different departments, you’ll probably like advising. On the other hand, if you like a lot of consistency, advising can be challenging. Rules, requirements, and policy change all the time. Just when you get something figured out, it will change on you.

Advising can be stressful, but there is really no such thing as an academic emergency. I think that people who can avoid taking on their students problems, emotions, or decisions will find advising less stressful than people who will fret over a student’s schedule or whatever. I can lament a student’s choice or look at something and say “uh oh,” but at the end of the day all I can do is what my job title says: advise. The rest is on the student.

A lot of advising stress comes from the feast-or-famine intensity of it. Some weeks, we are working very hard from the minute we hit the door to the minute we leave. We’re dealing with last minute crises, making phone calls, seeing a dozen students. The next month, we may see two or three students total. We may have nothing on our calendar, and few responsibilities, meetings, or tasks. It’s extremes with few periods of regularity. I kind of enjoy that, because I know the intense periods end, and I don't struggle to find something to do during down time, although I often struggle with boredom. But for some people, the unpredictability is really challenging.

The things I enjoy least about my job are things most people don’t enjoy about jobs. Being here for 40 hours can be a drag, especially if I’ve wrapped up my work early. Meetings are… meetings . Sometimes productive, sometimes frustrating. Advising focuses quite a lot on broad, institution-wide, bureaucratic stuff. There’s a TON of policy and procedure talk. We can be at the mercy of administration at times. This is higher ed, after all!

I tell you what, though, I love getting paid. I enjoy my weekends and evenings free from grading, prepping, or student emails. I like coming to work, having a special place where I do my work, and then leaving it all behind when I depart at the end of the day. I like the social nature of the work, and have great colleagues. I think there’s far too much ignorant poo-pooing of working life among grad students. Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it.

My situation is unique to my school, its advising structure, and the (frankly) amazing group of people I work with. And to me and my preferences. I never got super hung up on research or fell deeply in love with my discipline in grad school. I like students, and I can get into just about anything. Every school has a different way of doing advising, but in my opinion, it’s a great career option for teaching-oriented grad students. I hope someday I can get back into teaching, but in general, this is a good place to land if you care about students and like academics.

So how can you get into advising?

As always, your mileage may vary, caveat, etc etc. But here’s what I think:

Work closely with college freshmen. TA, tutor, etc. Teaching experience at the college level is a huge factor in the hiring done at my center. Work with different populations of students — high achieving, low achieving, first gen, transfer, international, whatever. You’ll need lots of stories and strategies to work with different students towards their goals.

Do some research about the school you’re applying to so you can speak to their specific population, resources, challenges, etc. Being knowledgeable about the school makes you stand out. A metropolitan campus with a largely commuter population will have very different issues in advising than a flagship state school in an agricultural town in the middle of nowhere. If you have time, do some light research in advising websites and journals about advising any special groups that that school serves (NACADA is the place to start). Does this school have a large Native American population? Learn a little about advising them. Is the position for a special subset of student, such as Honors? Learn about it. If you have institutional access, you should be able to read journals and such. But don't get carried away -- this isn't grad school!

Learn about the advising structure of that school beforehand if possible. Is it a large center or small? Will you be in a department, or an office that acts only as an advising center? Is advising mandatory or optional? Will you work with one major or multiple? This is good in terms of preparing for an interview, but also in terms of understanding if you want this gig. I work at a large advising center that serves mostly first- and second-year students, and advising is mandatory. I like this setup because I don’t have to deal with faculty meetings and my students are compelled to come sit in my office, which is better for both of us.

Look at the backgrounds of advisors at that school, if possible. It seems that some schools are very open to, or even actively seek, former academics to staff their advising. Other schools may lean more heavily towards people with backgrounds in higher ed admin or student services. This may help you suss out your likelihood as a candidate. Again, there is a huge variance across schools as to how advising is structured, staffed, and managed.

Lastly, think about what you can contribute as a colleague. This is kind of different from how grad students typically think of work life, because teaching and research are largely independent activities. But advising is often a team thing, and people will want to know what it will be like to work with you. If you can speak to experience team-teaching, collaborating, etc, that will probably be good. Sound competent and fun.

You may want to do an informational interview or ask to do some job shadowing at an advising center. Although I’ve never heard of that happening at my center, I can’t imagine we’d have a problem with it, although you may not get to sit in on student meetings due to privacy concerns. The more you can speak to the actual work of advising, versus the fantasy or hypothetical, the better your candidacy is. In my humble, novice, non-hiring committee opinion.

So there you have it: my final say on advising as an alt-ac career for quittas and post-PhD leavers. Feel free to ask questions!

Some Legal Differences Between Ac and Non-Ac Employment

This guest post is written by Paul R. Sullivan, Jr., Esq, an employee rights attorney in Pittsburgh, PA. With a keen knowledge of employment law and a personal investment in the experiences of post-acs (he is engaged to How To Leave Academia's own Currer Bell), Paul wrote this post to help make post-acs  aware of some of the legal differences between academic and non-academic employment. You may find him at http://paulsullivanlegal.com or on Twitter at @sullivanlegal.

My fiancée received her Ph.D. in English last year. Since then, she’s become heavily involved in a growing community of grad students and professors who, voluntarily or otherwise, are leaving in droves the sinking ship that is academia. Because working in the academy is very different from most jobs, I decided to put together some helpful tips to help academics transition from the ivory tower to the downtown skyscraper.



There are a number of concerns that go along with any career transition: what types of jobs are you qualified to do, what skills do you possess that easily cross-over into new fields, and how, for the love of god, do you find those jobs. Unfortunately, I don’t have those answers. If you find yourself asking these kinds of questions, you may benefit from the services of a career coach or counselor who works with people making career changes. I can, however, highlight some of the important legal issues you may encounter when leaving academia.

What Is Employment At Will?

Most academics, whether a professor, grad student, or an adjunct instructor, work on a contract basis. A contract provides certain guarantees, such as a defined length of employment and a list of reasons for which you may be terminated. Most jobs in the private sector, however, are “at will” employment. This means, with few exceptions, you can be fired at any time, for any reason. However, even when your employment is at will, federal and state laws protect you from discrimination based on characteristics such as race, age, gender, religion, and disability.

While working at will may seem intimidating, it does provide some benefit to the employee. Because you can be terminated at any time, the flipside is also true. The ability to leave a job at any time can be very beneficial, especially when you are unhappy, or a new opportunity suddenly presents itself.

Pennsylvania, where I am located, is an employment at will state. However, the law regarding at will employment varies from state to state, so if you have specific questions about your local law you should contact an attorney in your jurisdiction.

What Is This Overtime Thing I’ve Heard So Much About?

I’ll refrain from a diatribe on the working conditions most academics face in this new world of temporary positions, adjunct assignments, and grad students working for peanuts. Indentured servitude is an accurate, if slightly hyperbolic description of what many people face in today’s academy. For those of you who have grown accustomed to this way of life, take hope—there are laws to insure you get paid for all your hard work.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), along with similar state laws, require employers to pay employees overtime wages for every hour worked in excess of forty hours per week. The amount of overtime is usually calculated at time-and-a-half, but can be more depending on your local law.

“But I’m a salaried employee, doesn’t that mean I can’t get overtime?” Absolutely not! There are certain exceptions to the FLSA, but being a salaried employee does not automatically make you exempt from receiving overtime wages.

So feel free to continue to put your nose to the grindstone, burn the midnight oil, etc., just make sure you’re adequately compensated for doing so.

Have Questions? Just Ask.

The most important take-away from this post is simply this: always ask questions. When you’ve spent a large part of your life working in one particular field, it’s easy to assume the rest of the world operates in the same way. Don’t let your assumptions prevent you from understanding and asserting your rights.

There are numerous resources on the web, and I’d be happy to point you in the right direction if you have a specific question. Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and call an attorney in your area. Most employee rights attorneys will take the time to speak to you on the phone about your concerns. If you have more specific questions about leaving academia, feel free to leave a comment or send me a tweet @sullivanlegal.

Discovering a world of post-academic possibilities: How to benefit from informational interviewing

This guest post was written by Liza Shoenfeld, a blogger who studied neuroscience at Bowdoin College before working as a research technician, and is now a second year grad student funded by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. By day I research how Lou Gehrig’s disease slowly obliterates muscle control, but by night she explores the many career options open to graduate students in the sciences.



When I decided not to pursue academic science, I suddenly confronted, as I’m sure many of you have, the enormous task of trying to choose between all of the other careers that there are. Worse, I had no clear idea of what these possibilities even were – only that there lay a vast, hazy world of jobs out there that did not involve test tubes or spectrometers or grant applications.

I came to this decision during my first year of grad school, already embedded in an institution so divorced from the reality of its trainees’ futures that it seems to hold a restraining order against the grim statistical evidence that fewer than 15% of PhDs in the biological sciences go on to attain a tenure-track position within 6 years of graduating. Yet this was precisely the career for which we were trained. There was little room for – or even interest in – a discussion of more realistic career options.

So I embarked on a project to meet with people who had left grad school to pursue careers in a variety of different fields. I wanted to learn from these people: How did you get where you are today? Which skills have you carried with you from grad school, and what have you learned since then? What do you find most meaningful in your work now? What is your advice for someone in my position?

I met with people in consulting, insurance, policy-making, competitive intelligence, teaching, grantmaking, project management, freelance writing, technology transfer, human resources, communications, university administration, and more. Some had quit grad school and found fulfillment elsewhere. Some had come from academia, some from other graduate
backgrounds, and I also spoke with some who had found success without ever stepping foot in the fluorescently lit halls of graduate school.

I learned that this type of conversation is generally called an “informational interview,” and aside from its obvious networking benefits, I found the process enormously inspiring for two reasons: One, it opened my eyes to a world of fulfilling and successful careers outside of academia. And two, each conversation taught me something new about how I might find my place in that world.

My interviewing project, now in its second year, was born out of my frustration that my graduate program is training me for a career that I’ve come to view as both unrealistic and undesirable. By talking with so many people outside of my graduate school bubble, I’ve learned how to branch out from the narrow path of the academic pipeline.

For those who have not yet benefitted from informational interviewing, I highly recommend it. I knew little about the process when I started, but in the last year have conducted over 2 dozen of these conversations. I have since created a website called, called “branching points”, designed to give graduate students ideas and resources for careers outside of academia. While much of the site is
targeted to students in the sciences, there are a number of resources that I hope are helpful to people of any background. You can find my beginner’s guide to informational interviews, which includes how to find people to interview, how to ask for an interview, 10 tips for informational interview success, and 10 questions you should ask. Also included are profiles of nearly a dozen “alternative” careers. Q&A’s with recent grad-school-grads, resource guides, and my thoughts on branching out from academia.

A great career advice podcast with Julie Clarenbach

A post-ac blogger, Unemployed Philosopher, has a nea-to post-ac podcast and recently interviewed post-academic career coach Julie Clarenbach. Julie left a tenure track job in technical writing to become a post-ac career coach. She works at Escape the Ivory Tower (she calls post-acs "escape artists"). This covers so many of those initial concerns we have about moving into "real world" careers: networking, emotions, next steps, cover letters, etc. It's a great listen! Add it to your podcast and listen to it after the Freakonomics podcast on Quitting and you'll be fired up and ready to go!

Martin Fisch via Compfight

Book Recommendations for Career Change

These books come up again and again among post-academics seeking a career change.

 



So What Are You Going to Do with That?: A Guide for MA's and PhD's Seeking Careers Outside the Academy Basalla & Debelius 2001

It's over a decade old and still the go-to guide for post-academics trying to figure out what else to do and how to sell themselves to new employers. The authors are post-academics and drew on hundreds of interviews for their advice. A must have.

 



What Color Is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual For Job-Hunters and Career-Changers Bolles 2013 (updated annually, which is awesome.)

Yes, you're going to feel like a total tool when you buy this, but trust us, this is the best career change manual you can get. Get the most recent version or last year's at discount (this is nice because it actually includes websites, social media stuff, etc, versus a 5 or 10 year old manual that's like "electronic mail, or 'e-mail,' is a new tool for jobseekers..."). If you're floundering in uncertainty about what to do next, this book is full of exercises that can help you learn about yourself, think of possible careers that will be fulfilling, and articulate your transferable skills. This will help you figure out what you might actually like and be good at, versus what sounds cool or neat or you think would be easy to tell people when you quit. Read about Lauren's experience with What Color? here (scroll about halfway down, past the crafty stuff, to get to the review). I decided to move away from freelancing as a post-ac career based on this book, which was wise. Jen, another post-acer who blogs with Lauren @ Mama Nervosa, also found What Color? valuable after she left a PhD program in Women's Studies. This  book will probably also confirm your decision to move away from work in academia. So we think it's completely necessary.

More books tba!

 

Links: Careers for Post-Academics (including publishing, teaching, film and more)

Here's a smattering of resources out there in the internet that focus on career options for post-academics. This is probably the aspect of post-ac life that has the most resources available; thus, we aren't aiming to be exhaustive here, but highlight some common themes that come up and maybe direct you to some of the better resources.

As always, we can't recommend Versatile PhD highly enough. #Alt-Academy can also be valuable if you're thinking about working in academia in a non-faculty capacity (e.g. administration, librarianship, etc).

 

Quizzes, Assessments, and Career Courses

If you're still exploring lots of options, taking career assessments and courses can be useful. Myers-Briggs is a standard and you can take it here. Also check out our book recommendations for excellent manuals full of quizzes, surveys, and exercises.

Jo Van Every and Julie Clarenbach, post-academic career coaches, offer two career courses. One, called Myths & Mismatches, will help you suss out the misconceptions you may be carrying around about academic work versus "real world" work, and it's free! (See a review here.) They also offer a 6-week Conscious Career Choice course for a fee of $179 (US) that aims to help you figure out what you want to do before you start obsessing over resumes and cover letters.  Christine Hassler, a life coach, offers a more general career change course for $97 (US) called Navigating Your Career Path.

 

 

Blog Posts About Different Career Options

This is by no means exhaustive, but these are helpful commentaries on different career options for post-academics.

WoPro encourages you to ask yourself how far you want to go when looking for a new career:

When I decided I wanted out, I meant OUT. I meant that I no longer wanted anything to do with the nefarious schemes of institutionalized education. So I thought I’d talk here about the less obvious places to get away to. Of course, a leap further afield is scarier than a well-worn path. But we all know what that one poem said — you know, two roads something something traveled path something something. (Lesson one: if you want to “cross over” it’s important to understand the difference between normal-person conversation and snooty intellectual conversation. Unless you’re in an approved snooty environment, casually verbatim poetry  just makes you look like a jackass. Ditto for spouting equations.)

WoPro has a lot of great links for career-seekers on this post.

(Post)Gradland did a series of recaps from a conference at her graduate institution that focused on alternative academic careers. Here's one on publishing. This speaker had a lot of practical suggestions for skills you could work on developing while you wind down a semester in grad school (graphic design, institutes). This speaker focused on careers in the film industry, which is probably something that feels as pie-in-the-sky as tenure to most of us, but this speaker has great tips! Another speaker at this panel discussed teaching in private schools, which may be an attractive option if you love the classroom (we'll try to cover teaching at the high school level in more depth later).

Finally, here's an article from Library Journal that discusses academic and public librarianship. Although be advised that librarianship is an industry that also struggles with a flooded labor market. In The Library With a Lead Pipe is a great blog that focuses on many aspects of librarianship that might be a good resource if you're considering this career.

 

jessamyn west via Compfight

Stay tuned for more links and resources. In the meantime, check out other articles in this section!