This one is for those of you anxiously trawling the internet at midnight, Googling search terms like “useless PhD” and “job after academia” and “what can you do with a PhD in philosophy?”
I love my job. It doesn’t matter what my job is. What matters is that I love it–and that I fell into it quite by accident. I did not know that the line of work I’ve gotten into would be the one that would fulfill pretty well every professional ambition I’ve ever had (these ambitions essentially boil down making money by making a difference). What matters is that it took time, luck, perseverance, preparation and a great deal of support to end up in the role I have.
The hardest parts of any job search are the parts you don’t have any control over: the luck and the timing. Sometimes–like in my case–the constellations just have to align in such a way that the right job opens up at the right moment when you’re fully prepared for it. I actively job searched for 4 months–and I mean 4 months of intense, intense job searching–before someone at an organization saw a job ad, applied for it, got that job, and quit her current job. The job that she quit got posted, and I applied for it and got it. There was a domino effect that had to take place in order for me to get my job. I had zero control over that process. If you think about it too much, it can be frustrating and demoralizing.
But here’s the really important part, the part you DO have control over: preparation. When that job got posted, I was ready. I was ready with:
–the knowledge of what makes a strong resume
–the knowledge of the important elements (and unimportant elements) of a cover letter
–a strong sense of how to articulate the skills that I had that were relevant to that job
–the importance of learning about the organization before writing my application
I spent a week focussing on drafting, tailoring and fine-tuning my resume, and writing my cover letter. I got feedback from four different people. I read and re-read the organization’s website. I was prepared to pull together the strongest possible application I could. And because I was prepared, I did pull together the strongest possible application I could.
Learning how to do that–to create a strong application that would resonate with the potential employer and would show my skills in the best possible light–took a really long time.
So no matter where you are on the spectrum of leaving academia, one thing you can do for yourself is to start taking the time to learn about the basic elements of making a strong case for yourself, so that when the right job comes along, you will be ready to seize it.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Did you find that your PhD ever actually *got* you a non-academic job, though? Because that certainly hasn’t been my experience. Sometimes it’s been an “extra bonus”, but for every job I’ve ever applied for, there’s been a faster and cheaper way to get it.
My experiences as a job seeker with a PhD outside the academy have been overwhelmingly negative. I’d love to see you write about those of us who are still penniless and feel suckered.
Hi Alexandra. Yes, in my case, my PhD got me my non-academic job. There were people who applied for my job who had MAs and it was my PhD-level research experience that helped give me an edge (then again, other PhDs applied for my job, but I had lots of skills and experiences, beyond my degree, that showed I was a good fit for the organization).
Would there have been a faster and cheaper way to get my job? Probably. They might have hired me right out of my MA, based on my other strengths. I doubt my strengths would have been as strong without the PhD experience, though (I do four things in my job, all of which were sharpened during the PhD: writing, research, policy and advocacy).
Yeah, getting a PhD is an expensive way to feel unemployable. For sure. That’s why I started this blog. But my mandate here is actually the opposite of what you’re suggesting I take up (writing about those who are still penniless and feel suckered). There are lots of places online where people who are in this situation can and do congregate. I started this blog because I wanted to write for the penniless and suckered people who want a little bit of hope.
Hope is certainly not everyone’s bag, and I’ve heard that loud and clear from a very tiny sliver of readers. But I’ve also heard from people who cry when they encounter this blog because they can’t believe someone is writing publicly about life after academia. They are desperate for hope and feel relieved when they find it. So I write for those people, knowing that there are other venues online where the people who are not into hope can gather.