Leaving at the Finish Line: Why I Withdrew from My Last Job Search to Become a Post-Academic

 

The following is a guest post from Nick Walsh (pseudonym). Nick is a gay, southern-born African American anthropologist who lives with his partner in a major city on the west coast of the US. He is also a first generation PhD who has mentored other PhD students and doctoral recipients of color in official and informal capacities. Before becoming a post-academic, he received several prestigious national fellowships and a competitive postdoc position.

“You are being very unprofessional and I suggest you put your application back in for consideration immediately."

These were the words in an email that came from a highly-respected senior scholar and my postdoc mentor. To this day, those words still sting in an email that I am still not able to read in its entirety, due to its harsh, disciplinary tone. (In fact, it sits in my inbox still, in a special folder.) This scholar was someone who I had respected for quite some time and, in many ways, still do. She had been the author of many cornerstone works on language and inequality, with a push towards working to eradicate inequality on a practical level. Yet her very words sounded like anything but a scholar interested in reproducing an equal academy.  She sent this email to me after I made the decision to withdraw from the short list of a tenure-track position. This was after a successful campus visit, with a perceived support on the faculty for my hire. They seemed to be in love with me, and yet I could not bring myself to feel the same about them and the career they were ensconced in. It was at that moment that I chose to finally make official what had been perhaps unstated for at least a year...

After two years as a postdoc (2010-2012) and another two years as an underemployed contingent faculty member in two institutions (2012-2014), I had become a post-academic. I no longer wanted what academia had to offer, nor did I seek invest my identity in this one small corner of the world. For my postdoc mentor, this change of heart seemed to come from nowhere. I believe this was because we had been out of touch for months at a time, only communicating around my applications that were still active on the academic job market. Outside of these interactions, though, I had been contemplating a post-academic life for a while. So when this moment happened, the choice to leave academia, although not easy, also was a no-brainer at this point. I knew if I didn’t leave then and accepted the tenure track offer, it would only get harder to do so.

During the campus visit, I had an inkling that I just didn't belong in this particular place, but I wanted to be sure. Little did I know that this also was my gut screaming loud and clear that I didn’t belong in academia. This is despite what others around me told me. The following Monday, the faculty were going to meet to vote on who to give the offer to. I knew I had to act fast but skillfully. Thus, I emailed the search committee chair, asking her to remove my name from consideration on the short list.

When I withdrew from the search, I (naively) asked the members of the search committee to keep it confidential. I hoped this would all pass quickly. Instead, the opposite happened. Consider it Murphy’s Law. One of the search committee members emailed my postdoc mentor who had written on my behalf. This faculty member apparently told my postdoc mentor  what I had done. The next day, I received rather extensive email bashings from my postdoc mentor. What came out of these discussions, to which I minimally contributed to with two line responses compared to her novel repsonses, was that, according to my postdoc mentor, I was the department’s first choice for the position. What she saw as entering the coveted royal court of academics was what I saw as the continuation of a few more years of bondage to something I didn't really want to be bonded to. Deep down, I knew it wasn't fair to hire someone who didn't really want to be there and wasn't entirely committed 110% to academia anymore. This was a far cry, indeed, from that ambitious 22-year old PhD student a decade ago.

It was at this moment that I decided for myself that I would no longer pursue the tenure track or any other postdoctoral fellowships. As scary as it felt, it also felt emancipating.

Why Did I Leave? A Mixture of the Usual and the Unusual Reasons
The reasons why I left are familiar to anyone who has read most of the literature and contributions in the post-academic blogosphere. There was a desire, in my early 30s, to have a life with some sense of financial stability after much graduate school-induced financial instability in my 20s. Knowledge may be forever, but, let me tell you, a credit score affects what I can and will be able to do in this lifetime. Additionally, the lonely life of an academic was something that became too much for me. As I would joke to friends during this time, "That great book I want to write will never be able to hug me back or comfort me when I've had a bad day in the department." Yet I told myself repeatedly I was the one who was free. Why? Because I was living the life of the mind. But when I finally got into a relationship with my current partner who is not in academia, I realized for the first time that maybe I wasn't so free.

When you are a gay African American man in a same-sex relationship with a first generation Mexican American who is well established in his non-academic career, things can and do get complicated in trying to live up to this ideal. This complication cuts across participation within both the LGBTQ community in academia, the  community of academics from racial/ethnic underrepresented groups, and the broader academic circle. I was attractive because I was able to help diversify the academy in so many interesting ways. At the same time, I became unintentionally narrowed to this utilitarian purpose in the career. To leave is not just me abandoning a calling. Colleagues construe it also as abandoning a political mission. How dare I, of all people, let down those others who fought for me to have a place in the academy for such selfish reasons! It is this part that constantly weighed heavily on me . If I left, who would be there to help guide future young scholars who found themselves caught up in the politics that come from being a multiply-marginalized person in the academy?

Beyond this, I constantly thought of my own physical safety and that of my partner in any place I might be sent to for a tenure-track position. For many heterosexual and racially-endogamous couples, physical safety is often a taken for granted luxury. For me and my partner, however, we could be a real victim of a hate crime for sexuality (by any racial/ethnic group) or race. Yes, even in this mythical post-racial and post-sexual climate of the US. There would always be the very real chance we could end up in a small town that, despite having a ‘relatively’ liberal university within its city limits (or the superficial appearance of one, at least), the townspeople could have conservative views that make them appear to be from the yesteryears. I also want to have children one day. My concern as a future father of children of a same-sex interracial couple remained very much on my mind. Would the kids be physically and emotionally safe, or the victims of bullying and discrimination from both students and teachers? When I relayed these concerns to my faculty ‘mentors,’ they often told me I was overthinking things. (This I still find strange to this day. How could one be overthinking about the serious implications of a career that provides you and your family with no control over your geographic location?) In essence, I learned that when you are in a relationship and on the market with a non-academic partner, all these issues begin to become very real. Yet I was being advised to not think of these concerns. Put the pursuit of knowledge first, my senior colleagues demanded, at times explicitly and other times implicitly in their advising practices towards me.

How My Relationship Saved My Life
Similar to other stories in the post-academic world, I have to say that being in a long-term relationship with a non-academic saved my life. Although my partner could see that I thrived in academic environment, he also saw the realities of the market and what I had allowed being on the market to do to me (and us) emotionally, physically, and mentally. He constantly reminded me that I had transferable and adaptable skill sets that industry would be happy to have. He also, at times, painfully underscored that, as a 31 year old man, I would need to find better ways of financially co-supporting the household in an area as expensive as where we live. Lecturing until the tenure-track job came along was not going to cut it. Although painful to hear, I couldn’t help but agree. It was because of him that I eventually swallowed my shame and went to visit the career center of my alma mater in Spring 2013. This was during the time I was doing my first lectureship at a local university following my postdoc tenure.

At the center, I remembered feeling guilty about asking about non-academic employment options. It felt like I was giving up on the people who had invested so much in my academic success. I also felt like I was giving up on the mission of diversifying academia. However, the counselor assured me that many PhDs often felt the way I felt. Moreover, she was the first person to tell me that I needed to think about myself now, rather than what my academic colleagues were thinking and saying about me. I told her I could no longer afford to put myself and my partner through the financial instability that we were going through with my lectureships, which were always term-to-term without guarantees. The life of the toiling academic was beginning to be too much. So at that moment, we began the process of changing my CV into a resume.

A few weeks later, she told me the new resume was ready to go out. We had identified jobs that would be suitable for me as an anthropologist, and I went after those jobs everyday with a vengeance. All this happened while I was still lecturing for another year. I even sent out cover letters and resumes in my tight, cramped campus office that I shared with another visiting professor, all right before I would go down to teach. Thus, when I made the decision to officially quit academia in my final year on the job market, I already had a backup plan in place about a year in advance. I just didn't have the guts to actualize it until my former mentor gave me an electronic lashing.

When the email lashing came in Spring 2014, I realized that I could not and would not be a part of an institution that praised and encouraged such dominating behavior that had a very clear message: as a ‘junior scholar,’ I had no control in my life. I knew I needed to take back my life, and I did. What also helped me make this transition much sooner was the vipassana meditation practice that I began in 2011, as well as my local meditation center. Practicing on my own and with my weekly meditation group really encouraged me to listen from within and trust that feeling more than anything else. In what seemed like hours on the meditation cushion, I came face to face with the emotional storm that raged within me. The meditation practice also reminded me to embrace impermanence as the truth of life, which helped me to see that all things can end long before we expect them to--even an academic career. This impermanence also applied to emotions too, for I began to realize during this time, I was not always happy, nor was I always sad or depressed each day of the transition.

Coincidentally, this was also that time I sought out the online post-academic community in the blogosphere. Reading those blogs daily after the campus visit fiasco saved my sanity and provided much needed strength in numbers. These blogs let me know there were other people out there going through my same struggle of unemployment and finding a new identity again. So when the time came to make that jump into the unknown, I did it knowing that what I was feeling was completely legitimate and that there were others who had done it before, surviving just fine.

The Aftermath
After I withdrew from the academic job search, my days included receiving numerous rejections from non-academic job applications across the board; having numerous talks to reassure my partner that things would turn out fine; designing and doing intense home workouts to relieve the stress of it all; finishing up my final semester of teaching; and venting over coffee to whoever would listen. I then came upon what I consider to be a great end and new beginning to my story. A month after my lectureship ended, I got a job offer to be resident anthropologist at a global design thinking firm. In fact, I was hired by another post-academic who had also become disenchanted with academia years before.

Now, I love coming to work everyday. I enjoy interacting with such a diverse workforce that includes people with so many different backgrounds, from business strategists to industrial/service designers. I still get to be an anthropologist and teach, traveling all over the world. However, I have new students now (VPs and CEOs seeking to create more meaningful products and services) and new classrooms (corporate boardrooms). I’ve also reconnected with many of my friends from my undergraduate film school days, which has led to us launching an animated web series. Of course, as you can guess, there’s some anthropological themes in the series, for sure, so I’m getting the opportunity to have an impact through entertainment. If that’s not enough to fill my schedule, I also just started a program to become a certified personal trainer, thus starting my goal of putting my teaching skills to work in helping others reach their wellness goals. This goal is near and dear to my heart because I will always say it was my personal trainers who helped me get through the PhD process, and I’d like to pay it forward.

In terms of the short-term rewards, I love having things like a paycheck that allows me to do more than just survive, an insurance package that doesn't terminate at the end of each semester, and free time at the end of the day and weekends to spend with my partner. Not everything is where it should be yet, though. I'm still paying back the credit card debt that I incurred from my long-time relationship with academia. However, it feels good knowing I can make the payments each month and I take immense joy in seeing my credit score rise. I'm also still involved in academia. I have a non-paying affiliation with a local university, which allows me to publish a paper or two on my own time and conduct my own research (on my own dime, of course). I also work closely with organizations focused on labor issues of contingent faculty because I truly refuse to leave my brothers and sisters behind in the struggle. In working with them, I’m hoping that my future children and their friends will have something to treasure in this changing landscape of higher education. Finally, I volunteer my time at my alma mater to speak on career day events to those who are struggling with leaving academia. Most importantly, I am happy.

So to my postdoc mentor, I express nothing but gratitude. Without her, I would have never had the courage to admit to myself that I was a post-academic long before it materialized externally. I also express thanks to the post-academic community, for your stories continue to remind me that I have the right to be happy about my life stage. Finally, I share my story to let anyone know that it is never too late to change course, even when a tenure-track job is forthcoming. Although there might be some backlash, the ultimate reclaiming of your authentic happiness is much too important to sacrifice for the purpose of making other people’s dreams of you come true, even if they are dreams that you once shared but no longer do, regardless of the reasons.

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.

The Post-Academic Privilege Divide: Troubling Trends in a Growing Movement

How to Leave Academia founders JC, Kathleen “Currer Bell,” and Lauren collaborated to write this piece after a conversation concerning recent trends and themes we believe are developing in the “post-academic” movement, which we find troubling. In this post, we describe some of the assumptions that we see undergirding recent themes in the “postac community” -- the network of bloggers, writers, and publications that focus on leaving the ivory tower and finding outside employment -- and connect them to a “privilege divide” that we believe exists in today’s visible postacademic movement.

In short: we believe that the most visible and vocal part of today’s post-academic movement is serving primarily (or only) the most privileged post-academics - those who can pay for professional services or who are seeking careers in a specific range of entrepreneurial/writing fields after leaving academia. We would like to call attention to this troubling trend, as we believe that it leaves less privileged post-academics in the lurch when they go looking for advice. We understand that many of our fellow post-acs are currently embarking on entrepreneurial careers related to offering advice to or writing about folks who are leaving academia, and we would like to be clear that we support those ambitions and projects wholeheartedly. However, we strongly believe that the postacademic world at large needs to offer free, open-source advice for all post-academics in all situations, so we would like to stake a claim for our website as a resource for people who may desperately need income/assistance after leaving, or for those who may not want to seek a career related to writing or research or other pseudo-academic fields.

While all post-academics - privileged and nonprivileged - deserve support and advice as they transition out of academia, we believe that less privileged academic leavers need particular, unique types of support that are not being offered by many postac voices today - but that we at HTLA are specifically and deliberately offering with our site. We end this “manifesto” by noting our vision for the post-academic movement and how it (and we) can best serve all post-academics - not just those who can pay or those who will transition into careers that are very close to academia (policy research, curriculum writing, university administration, etc.).

Introduction

Nearly two years ago, JC wrote several posts about privilege in graduate school. She argued that differences in pre-existing privilege between graduate students (who later become adjuncts and faculty) leads to major inequalities in financial and emotional well-being among academics. Her basic thesis was that grad school exacerbates existing class inequalities: that grad school is set up to benefit people who already have financial resources and support, so that privileged grad students have an easier time doing the types of things that make progress and success in the academic world possible (living on meager fellowship money, attending expensive conferences, etc.). Those things that mainly privileged grad students can do, in turn, become the defining criteria by which academic success is identified, so that ultimately the students who are given the most support and have the best job market records after graduation are often those from more privileged backgrounds (since their resumes are full of fellowships, independent research projects, and conferences rather than teaching positions and scut work done for other academics in order to earn extra money to pay their bills).

Unfortunately, we believe that we are now seeing these privilege divides replicating themselves in the post-academic world, whereby post-academics who are more privileged (who can afford to take time off after quitting, or who can pay for new training programs or survive on freelance or part-time work until they land their “dream jobs”) are the targets of much postacademic advice being handed out publicly today. In turn, post-acs who have to take any job they can find out of financial necessity have been are telling the three of us (via emails and blog comments and posts of their own) that they feel somewhat ashamed or even marginalized by the larger postac movement for not having landed the “perfect” postacademic job, or for not working a job that is considered prestigious enough for their education level.

This worries us, since we firmly believe that no one should feel bad about the type of post-academic job they get (see recent posts that touch on this sentiment at all three of our blogs). But perhaps more importantly, we are deeply concerned that the post-academic movement and community may be on its way to marginalizing and even ignoring the financial/emotional crises that many post-academics face after leaving, and the social justice issues therein.

A lot of today’s post-ac advice talks about networking, consulting, freelancing, etc. - activities that a lot of visible post-academics are involved in themselves. And of course, it is easiest to give advice about things that you have firsthand knowledge about - we understand that! But engaging in these activities without another source of income (or a family or partner who can support you) requires a certain level of privilege in order to make it work. And unfortunately, there are many people who want or need to leave academia who do not have that level of privilege. Their first focus must be on paying rent and feeding their kids, and they cannot survive on freelancing work alone, nor can they take some time off to network or to hold out for the “perfect” nonacademic job.

We are beginning to worry that the most visible parts of the post-academic movement are focusing too strongly on the first (more privileged) group of post-academics, and are leaving the less privileged groups out to pasture without advice or support for their particular situations (how to deal with student loans, how to make ends meet, how to deal with emotional fallout in ways other than writing publicly).

When JC first left academia in early 2011, her biggest inspirations in the post-academic blogosphere were Recent PhD of the (apparently shuttered) blog After Academe and the writer of the blog Postacademic in NYC. Both of these early postac bloggers left academia after finishing their Ph.Ds and worked as a secretary and a white-collar temp worker, respectively, before moving onto different positions. JC - who left academia knowing that she needed a full-time job to pay the bills but being unsure of exactly what she wanted to do with her life (because she had never planned for anything but an academic career!) - found both of their stories incredibly inspiring. Their jobs weren’t ideal, but they were still happy, and were utterly convinced that leaving academia was the best choice for them. They gave JC the courage to quit.

In the current post-academic universe, we fear that stories like this are missing, to the detriment of those who are leaving. Of course, we would love nothing more than for every academic leaver (including ourselves!) to be able to move immediately into their dream postacademic job. But the reality for many post-academics looks much different, and we are sad to no longer see stories like RecentPhD’s or PAINYC’s out there, positioned prominently in the post-academic world.

The post-academic movement simply cannot talk about “what academic leavers should do” (during or after their time in grad school) without talking about the wide range of experiences people have in academia, the effects of which they carry with them when they leave. Not everyone networked or thought about postac careers while they were in grad school. Not everyone can afford to take time off after leaving (or even to adjunct or freelance) while they figure out what they want to do next and take a year or so to start earning a real income.

Many post-academics need to find a steady paycheck with benefits before they can think about next steps or long-term career goals. Many will have student loan collectors or credit card companies breathing down their necks after they leave, and will need to formulate a plan for dealing with those issues before they can think about what their ideal postacademic career would be and sacrifice to prepare for it. Yet other people may not even want to seek out a new career immediately after leaving, but may be content to just find an administrative, paper-pushing job that will allow them to spend time with their families and to enjoy their lives away from academia, without the stress of freelancing or entrepreneurship or other such endeavors.

All of those life situations and choices are perfectly valid, and all of those groups of people deserve to be helped by the postacademic movement. Unfortunately, the focus of the public post-academic movement in recent months has noticeably shifted toward the more privileged or ambitious groups, and is leaving the rest of the post-academics without much visible help.

In 2011 and 2012, there were no national news articles about the plight of the post-academic or the adjunct. There were few conversations about these issues on Twitter or Facebook. There were simply a few post-academic bloggers, writing entries in the evenings after their office jobs or during their frantic post-academic job searches. Bloggers sitting on the couch on the weekends, answering emails and responding to comments, offering whatever tiny pieces of advice we could think of to the desperate people who wanted to leave but couldn’t find any help or support outside of our little blogs.

Today, however, post-academia has exploded. We are getting national attention from journalists, Twitter conversations fly fast and furious, and there is a whole industry developing around helping academic leavers negotiate the transition out of academia and onto something new.

That “something new,” however, far too often involves a narrow range of career choices like freelancing, coaching, or working in alt-ac positions in universities. And the new post-academic industry too often reserves its advice for those who can pay, while ignoring the more ad-hoc, casual, unstructured requests for help. Twice in recent memory, editors of this blog have noticed tweets in which potential post-acs asked for general advice about leaving or career guidance from any of the post-acs who are active on Twitter….only to see those tweets go unanswered until one of us from HTLA answered, sometimes hours later.

Meanwhile, post-academic blogs seem to have fallen by the wayside, to a large extent. There are articles in national magazines and websites offering up services for hire to people who want to leave academia...but the old stories of “how I left academia and how you can, too!” are all but missing today. We find this pattern problematic. Post-academia, in our opinion, should be about helping all leavers get through that tough time.

We are not asking all post-academics to pay attention to all groups of academic leavers, or for everyone to offer advice ranging from how to become a freelancer down to how to become a secretary.

However, we would like to directly call out this shift in the public movement and identify it as problematic, and we would like to clearly and directly stake a claim for our space in the post-academic universe. And we are asking the most public and active post-academics to remember that there are other types of (less privileged or less confident) academic leavers out there, and that there are resources out here for them as well.

What How To Leave Academia (HTLA) Offers to the Post-Ac Movement

At How to Leave Academia, we have traced the history of the post-ac movement in some detail, and note that while the movement actually started several decades ago, the past few years have seen exponentially more voices entering the scene (with, surely, more to come). More and more grad students, adjuncts, and full-time faculty are quitting, and we are proud to be significant contributors to the resources available to those who are on their way out of the ivory tower.

But one aspect of How to Leave Academia that is at least somewhat unique is that we are a free, collaborative, peer-to-peer resource, created by post-academics, that offers not just career support, but life support. We are, to our knowledge, the only post-academic clearinghouse that targets struggling post-academics who have to rebuild their lives from the ground up after departing. This was our explicit goal when we started HTLA: from day one, our site has focused primarily on issues of debt, desperation, and hard choices for post-academics who are leaving academia with no safety net to catch them and no idea of how to progress in this new life.

This focus arose from the fact that none of the founders of HTLA were able to financially endure a prolonged period of unemployment (or marginal employment) after leaving, and that all of our post-academic life choices have proceeded from that point. We’ve applied for unemployment; we know what it’s like to feel as though our loans are a life sentence of punishment for graduate school; we struggle to create savings, let alone retirement funds; and, out of necessity, we work jobs we are indifferent to or even hate. Dropping out of grad school or refusing adjunct work was an important step for us, it’s true: but in our cases that step needed to be immediately followed up quickly with something. Putting thought into long-term career plans and into what our skills and strengths are was definitely something we did and continue to do, but by necessity those steps had to come after the steps of “consolidating and starting to pay on our student loans” and “finding a job - any job - that pays actual money so that we can buy food.”

It seems that this reality - that many academic leavers can’t survive a year of adjunct/freelance pay or marginal employment while they figure out what comes next - is being ignored by many in the postacademic movement. Many post-acs who exit grad school or adjuncthood in financial ruin and emotional turmoil are suffering from the consequences of the academic house of cards, yet they are given little to no support (as compared to the attention paid to the “success stories” who leave academia for a prestigious position elsewhere). And further, we worry that the glorification of the success stories (as opposed to the folks who left and are happily working as secretaries) can alienate some people who want to leave, but worry that they will be “doing it wrong” if they don’t find an awesome, Ph.D-level job right away.

Because of our experiences, we all believe that new post-academics need more than platitudes about “unlocking career potential” or “beginning new learning journeys,” and they need more than rousing rants about the corruption of academia or advice about how to find an industry research job. Those things are certainly important in the postacademic journey … but “not becoming homeless” is also important. And for many less-privileged academics, adjuncts, and grad students, “becoming homeless” is a very real fear. And getting yourself gainfully employed after you leave - no matter what job you take - is a goal that the postacademic movement needs to highlight and champion.

Rants and mental exercises and virtual support sessions for launching a freelance career are great, but post-academics also need practical, compassionate advice about entering the world of “9-5 employment,” if that’s what they have to do to survive. Historically, websites and articles have touched on this, but today’s public postacademic movement is absolutely not focused on those mundane, “how to survive in an office job while you get back on your feet” types of things. We at HTLA want to stake our claim for that audience of post-acs, and want to state - loudly and clearly - that that type of life choice is a good and valid one that should be applauded.

The fact that this is not currently happening - that twitter calls for people to “network” get more attention than any acknowledgement that some people need to find “any job” after leaving, and that coaching businesses are booming while publicly-accessible postacademic blogs are falling by the wayside - has led us to conclude something that is hard and sad for the three of us to come to terms with.

Yes, Virginia: there is a privilege divide in the post-academic movement.

A Way Forward

We neither demand nor expect that everyone agree with our critiques about today’s postacademic movement or with our stance on the future of post-academia, but we are hoping that more folks will share our vision. So what are our hopes for the postac movement, and our personal goals going forward?

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  We want career advice for post-academics to be broad, and take into account the variation in privilege, positionality, and resources of post-academics.

  
  


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  We want open-source stories, advice, and information to be available. Those who want to pay for access are welcome to do so, but that should not be the only way for post-acs to receive information and help. Because not everyone can pay.

  
  


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  We want a shift from ranting to genuine, purposeful critique; support; and a sense of community responsibility to advocate for others in the same position, or positions different from our own.

  
  

The lone genius in the ivory tower, the cutthroat competition within subfields of subfields of study, the ruthless job market, the inherent privilege bias on the ladder to success: post-academia is dangerously close to replicating these structural disasters that we all recognize in academia. Is this what we really want to reproduce - the prestige-based and unequal structure that we all fled academic to escape? What if the post-academic movement was instead about collaborative creation, mutual support, and social justice and was available to everyone, regardless of ability to pay?

For our part, we hope to live out these values in the collaborative space of How to Leave Academia, where the advice will always be free and written by post-academics on a volunteer basis, where ads will always be free, and where we will soon have a free, open forum for postacademics to seek help and advice. Our e-book, Moving On: Essays on the Aftermath of Leaving Academia, is value-priced so it is affordable for anyone who wants it, and its proceeds will go towards maintaining and expanding the site for the postac community. And we will continue to rattle our swords for structural reform to higher education (since we have no skin in the game other than a volunteer-staffed website), and will continue to offer advice for all post-academics, not just those who can pay.

We hope that other post-academics will follow suit, or will at least pay attention to different (less privileged) groups of academic leavers … and point them to the free resources that are out there. After all, we are all in this together. And if you remember how scared you were when you left and how grateful you were for the support that you received from those of us who were already out here … you should realize how important it is for those resources to be out here for everyone.

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.

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.

13 Tips for Using LinkedIn® to Find a Great Job

This is a guest post written by Cicely Rude, a post-academic turned language consultant and coach. See her website here. Thanks for the awesome advice, Cicely!

1. Build your network before you need it. Click the “Add Connections” button and look for people that you may know, have known, or have worked, studied, socialized, and collaborated with in the past.

2. Think in terms of reciprocal relationships. Instead of asking yourself only, “What can this person do for me?” when requesting connections, ask yourself “What can I do for this person?”


3. Personalize your connection requests for better results. Add a personal note to the generic "I'd like to add you to my professional network" line. Giving an indication of where you met (e.g., at a conference) will help them to remember you and increase your rate of accepted link invitations.


4. Spread the word about your job hunt. Use the update feature to tell everyone in your network that you are looking for a job and ask for leads and introductions. Announce what type of job you are looking for and be as specific as possible. Don’t be ashamed. Everyone has been on a job search and most will be again…and again.


5. Customize your headline. The text beneath your name at the top of your profile page is called your headline. LinkedIn® will insert default text that matches your current job title, if you have one. However, that text can be easily changed to reflect what you want contacts and recruiters to see first. For example, one of my clients adopted the headline, “Executive Assistant, Actively Seeking New Opportunities” and saw an increase in interview offers.


6. If you are bilingual, build a bilingual profile. If you are proficient in a second language and want to capitalize on that skill set in the job market, you can build a second version of your profile in your second language.


7. Optimize your profile for searches. Use LinkedIn®'s suggested key words and phrases to attract recruiters who are looking for what you have to offer. Use consistent word choices, tenses, and adhere to industry standards. Check your grammar and spelling meticulously.


8. Exchange recommendations and endorsements. Invite people with whom you have worked or studied to post a positive review on your profile, or to endorse your skills. Positively recommend and endorse others.


9. Join groups that match your interests. There are many networking groups on LinkedIn®. You can search by topic yourself, but after you have built a profile the system will suggest some for you. Groups can keep you apprised of new developments, discussions, and jobs in your industry or profession. You may also let a group know that you are searching for a new position. Set your e-mail notification frequency to suit your preferences.


10. Follow companies where you may be interested in working. Searching for companies in your geographic area and professional field will enable you to follow them and receive notifications of new job openings.


11. Actively look for job postings and find useful connections. Browse the “Jobs” tab in LinkedIn® for positions that might interest you. Check for second or third-degree connections between yourself and the company– a personal introduction from a first or second degree contact within a company might not automatically get you a job, but can help you get an interview.


12. View your own profile page regularly. Many people overlook this strategy, but it's useful because LinkedIn® will constantly suggest people you might know, companies you might want to follow, groups you might want to join, jobs you might be interested in, and new ways to improve your profile.


13. Remember that LinkedIn is a professional network. Don't confuse LinkedIn® with social networks or social bookmarking. Keep your content professional and relevant.

©2013
Cicely Rude
English Language, Culture and Curriculum Consultant
www.cicelyrude.com

A Brief Intro to Networking for Post-Acs

Networking is one of those things that may feel impossible when moving out of academia. Oh sure, we've all rubbed shoulders with fellow Victorianists interested in the ethics of literary experience at MLA, but self-promotion and glad-handing are not really a part of our academic repertoire. It can feel a little too close to, ya know, begging. Or lying, if you're feeling completely defeated and inadequate.

But networking is crucial to post-academic life, and once you learn some tactics, it's not as bad as you think. One thing to remember is that while this is all foreign and new to you, people in the real world expect you to ask questions, add them on Linked In, probe about openings at their company, etc. We have some excellent guest posts about networking and linked in headed your way, but in the meantime, revisit some advice from Worst Professor Ever, who wrote a short series called "Networking for Misanthropes and Introverts." She writes:

If you’re feeling awkward about the whole idea, the best way to get over it is to keep doing it. The learning curve is no worse than teaching, trust me. Play to your strengths, which are listening and remembering names and stuff. Check out these Forbes tips for conversational success. And these tips for not feeling sleazy. And consider that introvert leaders may yet take over the world with their mad but stealthy skillz  that extroverts ‘just can’t access’.

She briefly covers informational interviewing, cold contacts, etc. She reminds us that teaching is just as social, charged, and draining as networking, but with a lot more payoff potential!

The bottom line is, you have to network if you want to transition. As I’ve told several people, HR is likely to discard your unorthodox job experience without a second look; you need an actual person to tell them not to. Think of networking as the groundwork for sending off an application, or better yet, a way to meet someone who runs a smaller business and might be willing to give you a shot in a way a large corporation won’t.

Success in any endeavor requires you to do things that aren’t particularly fun. And I’m still gonna say that, as tiring as I find active networking, meeting potentially interesting grownups beats the hell out of killing myself for students — because, let’s face it, teaching is possibly the worst, most exhausting job for introverts. As I learned the hard way.

Be sure to read the comments for even more tidbits about networking for post-academics.Versatile PhD has oodles of info on informational interviewing, which is a great way to start learning about careers outside of academia and making connections. For example, I have been interested in faculty development as a possible career, so I requested an informational interview with the director of my university's Center for Teaching before I left. It was really helpful, and now she knows my name and face. All I had to do was think of the questions I had for her -- genuine questions! -- and ask them! This could also help you figure out what you don't want to do. If you have a friend or colleague who works in a position that you find interesting, drop them a line and ask if you can talk to them about what it's like, their insights, etc.So start networking on today! Sign up at Versatile PhD, and start commenting on other blogs! Earlier this fall, a post-ac blogger shared an opening at her workplace that was ideal for post-acers. This is how you get your foot in the door.

Link Roundup: Real World vs. Ivory Tower

Stuart Bryant via Compfight

These links from around the web compare and contrast work life in the "real world" versus preferences and practices in academic life. For a lot of post-acs, the "real world" seems confusing and strange and very different from what we've become accustomed to in academia.

Unemployed PhD for Hire writes about the differences in work life after one year in a regular office gig. S/he writes:

That's probably the second take home message this past year has taught me - it's ok being outside the ivory tower. Sure, my job is a little boring and the general office vibe could be better, but that's particular to the role and the company. There are also lots of positives, but I can't go into that without spilling too many beans about what I do. Anyway, I can always change jobs if it gets to be too much.

Katie DePalma, a former Classicist turned book editor, offers a list of "how tos" for post-ac jobseekers in this guest post @WoPro. Part of starting a job hunt (and figuring out your life) after leaving academia is letting go of misguided notions and narrow-minded conceptions of careers and priorities. DePalma writes:

Your education and teaching experience will take up about half a page of your résumé. What are you going to say about yourself to fill up the other half?... What can you actually do? Your years in the academy have prepped you for an Other job in a million different ways. You can read anything, write anything, teach anything, and research anything. You’re familiar with a wide variety of languages and computer programs and style manuals. You can coordinate and organize a project as massive as a thesis/dissertation. You can deal with the full spectrum of dysfunctional personalities. This stuff is part of the job of being an academic. But don’t assume that the person reading your résumé knows any of this if you don’t tell them explicitly. Tell them everything you can do and tell them exactly how awesome you are at it.

Amanda @WoPro offers her own compare-contrast after a year of post-ac life. She as a series of real world versus academia posts, but this offers a sample (hint: the real world usually wins). She says

I won’t lie to you, transitions are hard. There have been many points in the last year when I’ve been freaking out about money, which sucked - after grad school, I swore I’d never do that again, but it’s really just unavoidable when you simultaneously change locations and careers. On the flip side, I’m choosing the place I live, the people I work with, etc. I don’t regret it for a moment, and I’m definitely, qualitatively happier than I ever was in academia. Which is all that matters, really.

Here's a taste of small talk in the real world, versus the kinds of conversations we usually have as academics (you know, brandy snifters and Derrida). Caroline @Postacademic writes:

So all-in-all, I’m not sure where that one-upping trash-talking wannabe Marxist academic I was in grad school went, but it sure isn’t to a kid’s Halloween party or the neighborhood playground.

And (Post)GradLand muses about "The Suit Life" in this post after she finishes her PhD and goes to work for a content writing company in Tokyo:

There’s also, I realize, a grieving period in a situation like this. I grieve the classes I may never design and teach, the seminar discussions I won’t have, the groups of like-minded people that I won’t interact with as much, the book I won’t publish, the great epiphanies I won’t have. In short, I grieve the death of my own personal “life of the mind” dream. But as I pointed out before, I just don’t think that dream was a viable one to begin with. And many of the things I miss I can and will still get, in different ways.

Be sure to check our other articles about careers!