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How To

Midnight inspiration: The part you control is preparation

February 18, 2010 · 2 comments

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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Tagged as: job hunting

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What not to say in your job interview

February 16, 2010 · 1 comment

in How To

Dear lovely readers,

When I let you know my good news about my new job, I truly did not intend to inspire mass feelings of panic over the disappearance of this site. Okay, perhaps it wasn’t mass panic, but I did get a few anxious emails from you lovely people about the value and helpfulness of this site, and would I prettyplease not take it down?

I just want to make sure you all know that Leaving Academia isn’t going anywhere. It’s perfectly clear to you now, however, that fresh content will be provided on a totally irregular and entirely unpredictable basis. And I am still investigating the possibility of turning the site into a group-written blog (any other people interested in contributing? Email me or leave a comment below). But in the meantime, I am not taking the site down.

I also just want to relate one little tip for those of you who’ve processed your decision to leave academia and are currently job hunting. One of my colleagues (this would be someone I work with at my job doing policy analysis for a non-profit organization in the health care sector) who has conducted a lot of hires mentioned this to me just prior to the talk I gave a few weeks ago at the University of Waterloo. It’s one of those tips that sounds completely self-evident, and that you want to laugh at smugly, thinking you’d never be the fool who’d make this gaffe. But there are people out there who are making this gaffe…and really, you don’t want to be one of those people.

When a prospective employer asks you in a job interview why you want the job (and you can be 99% sure that this is the very first question you’ll be asked), you can say things like,

“Because I’ve always wanted to work for this organization.”

“Because I have a passion for [fill in the blank].”

“Because I’m looking for a job where I have lots of learning opportunities and a chance to maximize my [whatever] skills, and it sounds like this job offers precisely that.”

There are lots of things you can say that will demonstrate your knowledge of the job, your interest in the job, and your understanding of the aims of the organization. Lots. What should you NOT say?

“Because I want to leave academia.”

Or:

“Because I need to get out of grad school and get a job.”

Or:

“Because I can’t get a tenure-track position in a university.”

Just don’t say stuff like that, okay? Think about it this way: if you were a professional dancer and were applying for a job as an IT guy (and this is the career trajectory of someone I personally know), would you say to your prospective employer, “Oh, I want this IT job because I can’t be a professional dancer for the rest of my life. I just need to get a regular job. And since I pulled my hamstring, I just haven’t been the same.” Yeah, it’s obvious how un-smart that would be, right?

In short, your prospective employer really doesn’t care about how difficult your career change is, or why things didn’t work out for you in your previous career. Your prospective employer wants to know exactly what you’ve got that makes you a great fit for their organization. And if one of the things that you’ve got is passion, enthusiasm and an understanding of the organization, that goes a long way.

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How I Got My First Post-Academic Job

January 14, 2010 · 5 comments

in How To

Back in 2006, when I was just a few weeks away from defending my dissertation, I applied for a job working as a closed-captioning editor at one of Canada’s television broadcasters. It was a job that I was well-qualified for: it required top-notch English language skills, plus some computer literacy and organizational abilities. Best of all, the job was pretty mindless; it required absolutely no analytical skills whatsoever, and I got paid to watch TV for a living. For someone who was stumbling out of a Ph.D. program feeling battered and bruised, the job was ideal.

How did I get this job? Networking.

In my case, the old adage about “who you know” held true. But the person who helped me get my foot in the door wasn’t some old windbag I met at a greasy-palmed meet n’ greet. It was a woman my age I’d met at a rock show. She was an acquaintance of my husband’s, someone he’d known in the indie rock community for several years. The first time we met was probably about a year before I finished my degree. We hit it off, and it turned out we were both grad students at the same university, and we had a lot in common (other than musician-type boyfriends).

She told me about her job, and the fact that she did this work on the side must have stuck with me, because when I ran into her on campus some months later, I asked her about it. I told her that I was going to need a job after defending my dissertation, and was looking at non-academic labour. She told me more details about the nature of the work, its ups and downs and how I could apply.

In the interests of public service, I’ve sorted through the dusty rabbit warrens of my computer and retrieved the actual cover letter I used to get that first non-academic job. And more than anything, with three years of hindsight, it actually reads like a prime example of what not to do when you’re trying to secure that first position.

To wit: just look at the length of that cover letter! That’s terrible!

Sure, we all know I tend to be a little long-winded, but come on! An entire page to list my many great accomplishments? What’s actually really terrible about this cover letter is that, although I claim to be some super-literate mistress of the universe, it’s clear that I wrote the damn thing in the most white-knuckled way. Don’t try to enlarge this letter and think that you’ll get some tips on how to write a solid cover letter from it. You won’t. You will be tortured by my incredibly inelegant turns of phrase like, “I have a high degree of literacy,” and “I am a highly educated person.” Oh, god, give me purchase!

You know that I am only sharing deeply embarrassing phrases such as these with you so that you will save yourself from sounding like such a knob. Seriously, if I read a cover letter from a near-PhD that used those kinds of expressions, I would toss it in the recycling bin simply because that kind of language only affirms stereotypes about PhDs. So academics beware! Try your damndest to talk like a normal person when you’re carving your cover letters!

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know my well-established views about networking: it doesn’t have to be sleazy. It’s actually happening all the time, all around you. Whether you’re chatting with an acquaintance at a party, a worker at the health food store or a colleague at a conference, you’re networking. Networking doesn’t mean you’re trying to get something from someone. It just means you’re exchanging information and that you’re open to the opportunities that that exchange might hold.

And I feel compelled to risk the broken record rep and say it again: you do actually know people outside of academia. Sometimes academics feel as though they’re insulated from the “outside world.” You’re not–you’re right in the thick of it. Even if most of your closest friends are academics, there are plenty of people you interact with every day who might know about job opportunities in their field. And if they don’t, they know people who do.

In the case of my first post-academic job, networking helped me skip past HR. Because I had the name and contact details of the power who actually had the power to hire me, I avoided the HR folks who might have tried to screen me out. This was useful for a former academic like me who might have beeb seen by HR as too over-qualified or under-qualified (or that paradoxical mix of the two). Now, I did still have an interview with HR, but it happened after the interview with the head of the department, and I got the distinct impression that it was merely a formality.

When I got that job, I converted my seven-page CV into a one-page résumé. As you may well be aware, there are scads and scads of books out there will all kinds of up-to-date information on how to write a résumé. But some of the best advice I can give you is to not do this:

picture-10

Hoo, boy. Now, this is not the actual resume I used to go out on the job market, but it does look something like it (the real thing is just sooo embarassing–plus I don’t want to have ALL of my info hanging out on the internets).

Where to begin?

1. It was total news to me when I finished school, but apparently the rest of the world does not exclusively use a Times New Roman 12 point font for absolutely EVERYTHING they do. When you leave academia, the world of fonts opens up to you…somewhat. You still want a crisp, tidy font that conveys professionalism, but you can sex things up a little bit by breaking away from the essay-style look.

2. Consider how you can collapse all of your teaching experience into one line. While it is relevant to you and your academic colleagues that you taught three different sections of Intro to Sociology over the course of three years, do not put “Intro to Sociology” three different times on your résumé. Just don’t. If you taught that course from September to April, you will not be lying if you cut out the months and collapse it into one line:

2000-2003 Course director, Introduction to Sociology, U of Hellride

Really, no one will assume that you’re trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes by not specifying the months.

3. All of those dinky little research assistantships, graduate assistantships and marker/grader positions you’ve had? Mush those up into one line, too. Again, the distinctions matter to you, but probably not to anyone outside of academia.

4. Spare yourself the teeth gnashing about how obvious to be about your education. If you think it’s relevant to the position, put it at the top. If it’s not that relevant, put it beneath your work experience since this is (apparently) the convention, these days. Either way, the potential employer is going to see you are ABD or a Ph.D., and that will be only one factor upon which they base their decision to interview. Oh, and don’t waste a bunch of space by separating out your degrees (the way it is above, there). That’s just stupid.

5. Proofread like you’re scrutinizing your most-hated student’s paper. I’m sure the eagle-eyed among you have already noticed this, but see how the dashes between the dates for the education are all inconsistent? Don’t do that. For god’s sake, just don’t. If you’re not an “attention to detail” person, get a handful of people who are to look at your résumé. Ask them to specifically check for stuff like that.

6. You will need to consult a résumé book, a career coach or a job-search service for the best advice on this, but gone are the days when the little blurb about what you did at your job was supposed to read like a job description. Now the fashion is all about framing your accomplishments. Instead of saying, “Marked and graded assignments, helped students with writing skills,” you’re supposed to say things like, “Increased class average by 20% through individualized coaching during office hours.” You know–stuff that really demonstrates how heroic you were in your job (don’t let my cynicism about this rub off on you–just consult someone about how to do this best).

7. Finally, don’t damn yourself with faint praise. You see the “Computer skills” section and how very, very empty it is? It’s better not to say anything at all rather than draw attention to the fact that, oh, gee, you know how to use Word, just like 98% of the rest of the population. And don’t say vague shit like, “My typing speed is well over 80 WPM.” Be specific (but stop short of “My flaming fingers can produce at the rate of 110 WPM, which is how I got my dissertation done”).

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Tagged as: cover letter, job hunting, resume

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A networking (and more!) link roundup

November 26, 2009 · 4 comments

in How To

Earlier this week, I organized another installment of the Toronto-based Leaving Academia meetup. It was a great meeting, with new people and a lot of wonderful energy. The theme for this week was networking, and lots of folks had some great tips and techniques for strategies they had used to mobilize their own network. Here are some useful resources that folks shared:

Someone alerted us to Donna Messer, a networking queen who actually does have a lot of good insights into networking.

Whoa, talking about networking: for those of you on the academic job hunt, are you aware of academia.edu, which someone at the meeting described quite accurately as “Facebook for academics”?

Are you still wondering how to maximize LinkedIn in your job search? Here’s a nifty little video that will explain it all.

And then there’s the piece I wrote about my recursive networking process over at Inside Higher Ed.

And wow, why had I not yet encountered MITACS, an organization that links business, government and non-profits with universities “to develop cutting-edge tools to support the growth of our knowledge-based economy.” It actually has post-doc internship programs in industry–wow (I’m assuming, though, that this is limited to Canada–if you find out otherwise, intrepid Americans, let me know). It does seem mostly aimed at the science-y among us, but it seems there’s a wealth of info at the site for researchers of all stripes.

Moving away from networking, but totally worthy, is a little advice for those of you dreading telling your supervisor/PI that you’re planning on leaving academia.

And if you need even more post-academic advice, I just discovered Kate Duttro’s Career Change for Academics site.

And here’s a superfabulous former music psychologist turned writer-editor-blogger, Christine Koh (and one of these days I’ll post my interview with English-PhD-turned-blogger Anna Viele who writes over at ABDPBT).

Finally, one reader sent in this link about the “quarterlife crisis” phenomenon, which included this little zinger:

An obvious choice for panicking twentysomethings with a post-undergraduate sense of displacement and for the ones that aren’t fulfilled by their jobs is grad school. James, a 28-year-old student, says “Quarterlife crises are the reason that so many universities have turned lower-level graduate programs into a cash cow.” Graduate and professional school can provide a direction and delay other choices about career and stability. And, while it’s true that higher education can “help students improve their personal and professional competency,” it can also “leave students feeling insecure about their abilities and their job prospects,” says Marc Scheer, who is a career counsellor and educational consultant, the author of No Sucker Left Behind: Avoiding the Great College Rip-Off and an advocate for considering options beyond formal education. (He also has a Ph.D.) Scheer emphasizes making an informed choice. “Whether graduate school is a wise move depends on each individual student and what they want to study. Law school can be helpful, but mostly if a student can gain acceptance to a top-tier school. Getting a Ph.D. could be dangerous for some students, especially since Ph.D. graduation rates are obscenely low these days, and few tenure-track jobs are available. So it really depends.”

And, dovetailing what I wrote earlier this week,

Women also find themselves conflicted, usually more than men, about the trajectory of their twenties as they relate to relationships. Sarah, who is 27 and works at a non-profit, wants to travel and get a master’s degree, but feels conflicted about doing either. “I want to have kids, and every day that goes by, I have this number in my head. It’s 32. It used to be 30. That’s only a few years from now. I’m thinking, if I don’t do some of this stuff now, before I have kids, am I going to be able to do it?” Women are roundly considered to be in biologically ideal form for baby-making in their twenties and early thirties, which are also prime fun-having and career-building years. For women who want all of the things promised by (theoretically) equal education, work and sex lives, the conflict of desires can be catastrophic.

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Tagged as: networking

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What are you doing for your job search when you’re not online?

August 28, 2009 · 4 comments

in How To

Earlier this week, I was checking out the new site redesign at Brazen Careerist (and if you haven’t checked out this great resource lately, hop to it now). While there, I saw the headline for a member’s blog post called something like “How to job search when your computer is broken,” or something to that effect. I clicked to see the post because, naively, I assumed it was going to be a piece on networking (and as it happens, I’ve been not only doing a lot of networking myself lately, but I’m trying to organize something on that very topic for our next Toronto-based Leaving Academia meetup).

As it turned out, the post suggested activities like, “If your wireless is down, you can still search for jobs in newspaper classifieds,” and “Write letters to companies you might want to work for.” Huh? What about, um, say, talking to actual live human beings, some of whom you may already know!

Networking is not a mysterious activity; it’s also not a sleazy activity. Networking is about relationships. It’s not about begging or cringing while you ask for a job lead (in fact, asking for a job lead is probably the last thing you should be doing while you’re networking). It’s about information gathering and relationship cultivation. Probably one of the simplest, most straightforward pieces I’ve read lately validates what I often tell my clients: talk to everyone you know about the fact that you’re looking to change careers, including your hairdresser, your dog walker, the concierge of your building, and, as the article says, your grandma. Sure, you may not want a job as a hairdresser, a dogwalker, a concierge or…a grandma. But those people all know people, and following the trail of people is partly what networking is about.

But don’t forget that networking isn’t just a one-way street, of squeezing information out from people about job prospects. It’s also about finding out what other people need and want. As researchers, we’re trained to look for gaps — so start using that skill in your everyday life. Is your hairdresser him/herself looking for a dogwalker? Hook him/her up with yours. Is your concierge looking for a a hairdresser? You get the idea.

I’m going to post again about my own networking activities as of late to give you a bit of an illustration about what I mean. In the meantime, I’m going to spend a little more quality time with my computer before I head out to engage with some real, live human beings.

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Leveraging your assets in your post-PhD job search

August 25, 2009 · 4 comments

in How To

In an academic job search, the desirability of candidates is demarcated by certain categories understood by all. For example, the candidate who has published a scholarly book by the time she finishes her Ph.D. is ostensibly a stronger contender than applicants who have published book reviews in minor journals. The candidate who has proved she can draw in $1 million of external funding is going to be looked upon more favourably that she who wasn’t able to win any cash past her entrance scholarship. These indicators of scholarly achievement are clearly understood to be the standards by which hirings happen — though of course, what actually shakes down in a hiring committee is also subject to all kinds of human caprice, power struggles and political jockeying.

In your non-academic job search, other, sometimes more elusive, criteria set the standard for your candidacy. Unlike academic achievements, which can be pointed to definitively as proof of your ability, non-academic employers are going to be looking for qualities that can’t be measured by a grades transcript or a list of publications. Sure, they’re going to need concrete qualifications like a university degree, or a knowledge of a certain software package, but they also need things like communication skills, writing skills, teamwork skills and multitasking. Fortunately, these are things the average Ph.D. has. Unfortunately, it’s up to you to demonstrate that effectively to potential employers.

One mistake that fresh-out-of-grad-school post-academics may make when entering the non-academic job market is to assume that your potential non-academic employer really gives a hoot about your Ph.D. Oh, sure, they care about your Ph.D. insofar as they care about someone who can set priorities, meet deadlines, work under pressure, exercise problem-solving skills, and so forth. But he or she may not actually know that getting a Ph.D. is actually proof of all of those abilities. So putting your degree proudly at the top of your cover letter and résumé, as though that alone were proof of your qualifications for the job, is not the way to go (for most sectors). But, I hasten to add, shamefully trying to tuck away the major accomplishment that is the Ph.D. is really no better.

A while back, I met with a client who told me that he felt as though his Ph.D. was a giant boulder he was trying to hide behind him. It was this huge liability, in his mind, that he couldn’t disguise. My response? I said that, from my point of view, there was no point in trying to hide having a Ph.D. Even if you wanted to, I can’t imagine how you would do that (short of actually lying on your résumé, which is SIN NUMBER ONE, in my books). Hiding a Ph.D. seems like a silly strategy when what you could actually do is leverage it.

My reply to this client was to tell him that we were going to take a big old pickaxe and smash it into that big boulder of a Ph.D. We’re going to break into its component pices and offer those pieces to potential employers. What are the pieces? Teaching, research, writing, to be sure, but everything else that I mentioned above, too: ability to juggle and set priorities, meet deadlines, work under pressure, and so on.

By foregrounding and offering employers the skills that they want, you are making it clear that you “get it” — you understand what they need. The Ph.D. (and all the activities you did while undertaking it) are proof of those skills. By using the Ph.D. as proof of those skills, you’re leveraging your degree — neither hiding it nor foregrounding it. Rather, you’re using it optimally to communicate your strengths as a candidate to your potential employer. And wow, it’s so much easier than hauling that big boulder around behind you.

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Tagged as: jobs, transferable skills

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Dos and don’ts of the post-academic job application process

July 31, 2009 · 0 comments

in How To

We lucky Canadians have a national holiday on Monday, so my husband and I decided to make it an extra long weekend by taking Friday off, too. That means that, when you read this, I should be sitting in the sun in an undisclosed location, enjoying a gin and tonic. Actually, given that I usually set my posts to publish in the early morning, I’ll probably be stepping on Cheerios while chasing after my kid when this hits your inbox. Regardless, I just want to wish all the Canucks a happy long weekend, and to let everyone know I’ll be back to my bloggy goodness–not to mention my email accounts–on Tuesday.

I’ve spent the last two months working with clients who are on the post-academic job hunt, and I’ve learned a few things along the way about what people find the most troubling and confusing about the process. In the best tradition of Glamour magazine, I’m going to present a do and don’t list summarizing some real golden nuggest of wisdom.

DO contact someone inside the organization if you’ve got questions. Sometimes that might be the hiring manager, sometimes in might be HR. One of my intrepid clients found someone inside the organization who would be her peer, someone who had the same job title that she was applying for. She asked a few questions about the job, and got back a really fantastic, informative, helpful reply. Not only did she glean some clues for how she should position herself in her application, not only did she demonstrate initiative to her potential employer, she got her name front and centre with someone who, it so happens, is on the hiring committee.

DON’T underestimate your past experience. I’ve had clients casually mention accomplishments in passing that hadn’t appeared on their CVs because they felt like ancient history (i.e. before the MA) and weren’t relevant to their academic work. Sometimes that stuff ends up quite fruitfully on the résumé. Any kind of volunteering, internship or leadership roles you’ve had can be useful woven into a résumé or cover letter, providing proof of the strength of your skills.

DO demonstrate enthusiasm. Employers want to bring people on board who will have energy. They want people who can get excited about the work they do and that the company/foundation/organization does. Excitement does not equal a lack of professionalism. Excitement equals commitment, drive and teamwork. Can you answer the question, “Why do you want this job?” with enthusiasm? If so, your future employer is gonna like that a lot.

DON’T be afraid to mine language and information for all different parts of your life. Clients have sent me grant applications, various cover letters, CVs, old résumés, some publications, lists of likes and dislikes–things that we wouldn’t use directly in their applications, but that give me a sense of their skills and that they can use as proof of their skills.

DO be yourself. Let your freak flag fly. If you act like someone you’re not, you’re going to be in a real pickle if you actually land the job. But more to the point, what you might perceive as a weakness or liability can actually be an asset. For some of you, you might feel like your Ph.D. is a liability. I had one client who had a hidden disability, one that she could hide very, very well. But instead of doing that, she was open about this disability, thereby demonstrating how her knowledge of and experience with disability issues actually makes her a strong candidate for the job.

DON’T confuse a CV with a résumé. They are two totally different docs. A CV is a list of all your accomplishments in one part of your life. It is read by people who have those same accomplishments, too. A résumé is an argument. It is a carefully crafted argument for why you are the best person for that job, with proof indicating why you are exactly what the employer needs. The company needs someone with good communication skills? You’ve got good communication skills! And you can prove it, too!

What have you learned along the way about the job application process?

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Tagged as: applying, jobs

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It’s Who You (Sorta) Know

July 16, 2009 · 3 comments

in How To

I have a client (we’re going to call her Eleanor Kaye) who is trained as a sociologist. Eleanor recently told me about an old sociological study on networking and job hunting. She offered to write a guest post about the study, knowing that it would be of interest to the readers here at Leaving Academia. Here it is–both the research and Eleanor’s own life experience illustrating the research!

We’ve all heard the cynical expression, “it’s who you know” when it comes to looking for a job. But in the 1970s, US sociologist Mark Granovetter conducted a social networking study and found that, counterintuitively, people didn’t necessarily get jobs through a close friend or family member–they got them through a contact that was more remote, a “weak tie” in soc-speak.

Granovetter’s explanation for his “strength of weak ties” argument is straightforward enough: the people we are closest to, the friends and family we consider part of our everyday social network, tend to know the same kinds of things (notice how your friends are, overall, more similar than different from one another). People we don’t know that well, those we may just call acquaintances, are more closely tied to other networks–so they know different things, have different connections. An acquaintance can be a kind of bridge to another network of unexpected information and resources.

Whether you consider someone an “acquaintance” or not, the fact is that anyone you don’t know that well is a person who is connected to other people you don’t know, who know things and other people you don’t know, and so on.

Many years ago, in sheer desperation, I worked at a call centre where my only work tools were a heavy, black, rotary-dial telephone, and a dirty phone book. I sat at a makeshift desk (a slab of plywood balanced on sawhorses) and made cold calls from the phonebook, trying to be heard over the din of the other callers. One morning, the two young men who worked on either side of me were talking past me to each other, in hushed tones, about their parole officers. I knew there was something seriously wrong with this picture.

One of the places I called that day was a small non-profit agency. When I asked to speak to the person in charge, in order to make my sales pitch, I was told that she was busy… conducting job interviews. I politely asked about the job and before I was caught in this inappropriate chat mode by the beady-eyed call centre bossman, I got the specifics and during my lunch break I rushed over there with my resume. I was interviewed the next day and got the job–needless to say, it was a much better job and I learned a whole new set of skills while there. This is perhaps an extreme example of the strength of weak ties, but you get the point.

This weak tie theory has practical applications for more than just job-getting.

When I first moved to Toronto in 2000, to start my PhD, the rental vacancy rate hovered close to zero and the apartments that were available were ridiculously overpriced (”no thanks, I don’t think that having the bathtub in my bedroom should be considered a ‘feature’!”). I began to panic. Would I have to cancel my acceptance and return to the coast? In desperation I began to talk to everyone I met about my situation. To my partner’s embarrassment, I literally stopped people on the street to ask them if they had any leads on a decent apartment. One morning I asked the woman who ran a nearby convenience store if she knew of anyone with an apartment for rent. She said that in fact she did. A man had come in earlier that morning to buy some milk and told her he’d just finished renovating an apartment and hadn’t yet advertised it for rent. We moved in a few days later and stayed for three years.

If you think of all the jobs you’ve had, you will probably find that quite a number of them were found this way–through the strength of weak ties. While we may be tempted to write off this research as more sociology-of-the-obvious, what we can take from it is this: talk to everyone you meet about what you are doing and what you want. Encourage them to do the same with you (this reciprocity idea is mine!). You simply do not know, and really should not assume, what someone else knows or doesn’t, and who they might know. If in fact it is a small world after all, it’s only because we talk to each other and pass along our stories and insights… or in this case, job leads.

But let’s face it–it’s not just about the strength of weak ties. It’s also about recognizing these opportunities, screwing up our courage and proceeding with chutzpa!

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Tagged as: networking, research

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Post-academic professional development

July 13, 2009 · 2 comments

in How To

I’ve got a fresh batch of linky goodness for you this week, all related to your professional development:

Have you heard about The Ladders? It’s kind of like Monster.com, but for $100,000+ jobs. I know, I know–you’re thinking there’s no point in job searching on a site like that, partly because you feel so underqualified but also because you don’t have a sleazy job in some corporation just because you’d make the big bucks (or would you? Hmm!). If you take a moment to sign up, though, you’ll find there is a lot of useful, free information aimed a professionals (and guess what? Even if you don’t feel like one, you’re going to market yourself like one). For example, I thought of you guys when I saw this article on the elusive “hidden job market.” It’s a very brief and to-the-point how-to on networking your butt into your next job.
I know how some of you have slightly icky feelings about turning from academia to the corporate sector. You’re not sure if you can play the corporate game, and if you’re going to have expectations imposed on you that you may not be able to cope with. My friend Jamie Ridler is offering a workshop called Authentic Professionalism, which is precisely oriented for those of you who aren’t sure how to work in a private sector context but still be yourself.
A client sent me a link to a site called Squawkfox. When you first get there, it looks slightly busy with all of those ads and the “everything but the kitchen sink” nature of it. The aim of the site, actually, is to provide information about frugal living (kitchen sink, like I said). However, there is an avalanche of really solid information about resume-writing. It’s not specifically on converting a CV to a resume, but if you start at the begining of her series, you’ll find links to tips on jop hunting, doing a skills inventory and probably one of the best top-10 lists on networking that I’ve ever read.

What online resources have you found helpful in your post-academic travels? Leave a comment and let us know!

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Tagged as: networking, professional development

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Looking for a flexible work schedule? You can find it–or create it.

July 2, 2009 · 3 comments

in How To

I got an email last week from someone who asked me a question I didn’t know the answer to, so I thought I would throw it out to the readers to see if any of you have any insights.

The Ph.D. who asked me this question has, since graduating, worked as an adjunct/sessional teacher. Though she has an impressive CV, her decision to live near her family has limited her ability to apply for jobs far from home. As a result, she is considering leaving academia. But, she writes:

I have a pretty big obstacle standing between me and the Outside World: I have a hidden physical disability that makes going into a workplace five days a week impossible. College teaching, on its every-other-day class schedule, allowed me to excel at my job without becoming ill or having to say “no” to employers’ expectations.

I had tried other professions before grad school, and despite good health care and a stabilized condition, I couldn’t work within the 9 to 5, Monday to Friday parameters. Are there job placement offices or career advisors for a situation like this, and how do I find them?

I told the reader I knew of no particular career resources for people with disabilities. All I could suggest was the obvious, which she had already looked into (you know, the campus career centre, the office for persons with disabilities). So the first question to you, the readers, is whether anyone knows of job offices or career advisors who specialize in persons with disabilities.

Our email conversation then moved on to trying to identify forms of work that don’t involve the 9 to 5 life. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), a movement towards flexible labour (read: part-time, contract, home-based, etc.) is the way the job market appears to be going these days. Isn’t that what Time Magazine just said?

The help-seeker said she had tried consulting and entrepreneurial enterprises when she was younger, but her health and the trials of job searching has made it difficult to cobble together the work that being self-employed requires. Moreover, she likes working with and for people. She also said:

I just wish I could simply show up at a stable, humane place and “serve.” You know what I mean?

Reading this, my suggestion was for her to

Pinpoint some organizations that are in need of people showing up and serving, and see if you’d be interested in working for them. If you made some cold calls (gulp!) and did some information interviews, you could find out from people what kind of flexibility those organizations offer (like telecommuting). If you found work with a place that let you work part of the time at home, perhaps that would be a way for you to manage your disability.

When she replied, she said she’d like to first know more about what kinds of industries have flexible scheduling and hire Ph.D.s. These are, of course, two different questions. Here’s my take on the first.

Some job ads will actually specify that some of the work is done virtually, aka, no need to come into the office; you interface with co-workers and/or clients from home via the web. I actually just helped a client write a resume and cover letter for a job in Washington that stated that much of the work was done virtually. So it’s a good idea to keep an eye open for language like that (”flex-time available,” “virtual work environment,” stuff like that) when you’re scanning job ads.

But in some cases, that kind of working arrangement is negotiated between an employer and employee. Sometimes this negotiation will happen once you’re already working for a company or organization. When my crack I.T. team was still working for the big I.T. company, he had orchestrated a routine work-from-home arrangement. A friend of mine who’s a former academic works in an office in the recruitment sector, and she has been able to make occasional arrangements to work from home; she also gets Friday afternoons off in the summer time.

But in other cases, it can happen prior to even starting the job. I have a friend, for example, who negotiated a 4-day work week with her previous two employers. She did this simply because she hates the 5-day work week; she is a more efficient and happy worker at 4 days. The negotiation occurred when the job offer was in hand and they had gotten down to salary negotiations. With the first job, she ended up actually working the equivalent of a 5-day week because of the time she put in on the weekends. With her current position, though, her 4-day week is actually a 4-day week.

So to answer the first question (who offers flexible arrangements?), my take is: potentially anyone, if you ask them at the right time and in the right way (by “the right way,” I mean, “by spinning it to their advantage,” in terms of lower costs, increased efficiency, etc.). On this, I’m going to quote from that Time magazine article:

More and more, companies are searching for creative ways to save – by experimenting with reduced hours or unpaid furloughs or asking employees to move laterally.

At Deloitte, each employee’s lattice is nailed together during twice-a-year evaluations focused not just on career targets but also on larger life goals. An employee can request to do more or less travel or client service, say, or to move laterally into a new role – changes that may or may not come with a pay cut. Deloitte’s data from 2008 suggest that about 10% of employees choose to “dial up” or “dial down” at any given time. Deloitte’s Mass Career Customization (MCC) program began as a way to keep talented women in the workforce, but it has quickly become clear that women are not the only ones seeking flexibility. Responding to millennials demanding better work-life balance, young parents needing time to share child-care duties and boomers looking to ease gradually toward retirement, Deloitte is scheduled to roll out MCC to all 42,000 U.S. employees by May 2010. Deloitte executives are in talks with more than 80 companies working on similar programs.

…The recession provides an incentive for companies to design more lattice-oriented careers. Studies show telecommuting, for instance, can help businesses cut real estate costs 20% and payroll 10%.

To me, the task of finding work that interests you and uses your skills is about seeking out (or, the case of entrepreneurship, creating) that work specifically. While you are at the research stage, it is useful to know who hires Ph.D.s (and you can start with this list here). But the fact of the matter is that there are ABDs and Ph.D.s everywhere, in every sector, at every pay scale. Thousands of people earn Ph.D.s and don’t get tenure track positions. They scatter to places that interest them. So that’s why I urge people to do the same: look for work in fields that interest you. Then find out (through applying, networking, information interviews, studying the web site, etc.) whether or not particular organizations can cater to your needs (physical, emotional, mental, geographical), etc.

What kind of requirements do you have of a post-academic job? What steps have you taken to ensure those needs are met? And what companies have you found hire Ph.D.s?

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