I’ve got a few things I want to draw to the attention of Leaving Academia readers, so it’s a link-roundup kinda Friday.
- Canadians: are you aware that the federal government has re-opened their post-secondary recruitment campaign? Most job ads close October 8th, so you’ve got a week to whip your application together.
- Thanks to @jovanevery’s introduction on Twitter, I’ve found out about the very busy Raul Pacheco-Vega (that’s @raulpacheco in Twitter-speak). I haven’t had a chance to talk much with Raul, but I thought you should know about him because he has managed to bridge the divide between scholarly research and consulting. And no, he’s not a computer guy. Water is his thing.
- I’ve also been thinking about this piece over here at The Ladders which claims that “men have stronger professional networks than women.” This is based on research by two American sociologists who found that
“both men and women tend to build networks comprising people of their own gender — a process known scientifically as homophily and colloquially as “birds of a feather flock together.” But women tend to recognize the tendency and try to overcome it — building networks made up of about 50 percent men — while men’s networks included very few women, Torres said.
“According to Torres’ and Huffman’s theory of social networking: Because men hold 80 percent of the jobs in senior management (a figure that has been steadily declining), they are more likely to hear about job openings at the senior-management level. Men pass the news on to their mostly male social networks, and it is likely that news about the job opening reaches women only after it has reached and passed several men.”
And sociologist William Bielby adds:
“Women have tended to be better connected overall, but they and many of their female contacts tend to work in more female-dominated jobs,” Bielby said. “So their networks may be wider but not reach to as high a level as men’s, who tend to be better connected, particularly in getting professional news, to more high-status people.”
Hmmm. Something to think about when you’re cultivating your networks. The advice the article supplies in response to this problem?
“If women want to equal the effectiveness of male social networks, they need to emulate the men in those networks, said Torres. If male-dominated professional networks are passing jobs leads to other men before women, women should put themselves in the path of those leads, Bielby said. Women must add more men — especially high-status men — to their professional networks. Furthermore, they need to make their interests and competencies as clear as possible, he said.”
Tagged as:
consulting,
jobs,
networking,
roundup
Doing the work that I do in my capacity as a writer and consultant around all things post-academic is interesting, valuable, and, often fun. The money? That’s a blog post for another day (though I can say that, like many of the self-employed former academics I’ve interviewed, launching my own business without the financial and emotional support of my spouse would be unimaginable).
Approaching university administrators and department chairs about working with their graduate students and faculty advisors to develop strategies around post-grad school employment can result in a number of responses, ranging from relieved enthusiasm to stony, defensive silence. Although faculty advisors do seem now to grasp that something needs to be done to help current graduate students, there is still reluctance to spend any money on the problem. There is still a prevailing attitude about it being better to spend $12,000 to bring in an unintelligible talk by the ruling hotshot of the day than to spend a fraction of that for a day-long workshop that could help steer people’s professional development.
But then there are interested, interesting people like those at University of Waterloo, who contacted me a while back about doing some work with them. Way to go, Waterloo, for living up to your reputation for innovation! Last Friday, I went down there to meet with some faculty and career centre staff to talk about how they’re already serving graduate students and where some of the gaps are. I’m going to develop a workshop for them that I’ll present early in the winter term, and we’ll see where that goes.
After my meeting in Waterloo, I jetted on over to Kitchener for another meeting with a whole other type of scholar–one doing community-based research. This was a totally different type of meeting, one that was more like an information interview, sprinkled with some exploration about how we could work together. This is an area that I’m putting my feelers into, as a way of returning to my social justice roots, as it were. I’m going to start blogging about this a little bit, sharing with you my own efforts to expand and grow my career into a new and different direction.
In the meantime, though, I am still working to spread the gospel of life on the other side of the academic divide. Contact me if you’re interested in finding out if your university or department would bring me in to run a workshop, or beam me in with a webinar. What is your campus doing to help grad students and faculty find non-academic work?
Tagged as:
consulting
In response to what I’ve heard from clients and readers, I’ve been working to find ways to help establish a community of post-academics. Now, there are, of course, the comments threads here on Leaving Academia. I’ve also started a Facebook page, which has a discussion board you can use to reach out to other folks. There’s also our Facebook group, which is “secret” (i.e. not visible to non-members and does not appear on your own Facebook page when you join). This is oriented to people who would like to be part of a post-academic community but are concerned about their privacy and anonymity. If you’d like to join, send me an email (sabine at leavingacademia dot com) and I’ll get you set up.
I’m also really thrilled to announce two new offerings aimed at connecting academic leavers, while also helping people who have limited budgets that they can devote to their career change. I’ve also got an announcement about my limited-time introductory offer for one-on-one consultations–see below!
Free event!
Torontonians, unite! If you live in the GTA and you’re interested in meeting others who have left or are thinking about leaving academia, come on out for our first official Leaving Academia meetup.
We’re going to meet at 2:30 pm on Thursday, August 20th in room B-1 at the Toronto Reference Library (on Yonge, just a stone’s throw north of Bloor; use the Bloor/Yonge TTC station). I’ll be there to meet everybody and facilitate the discussion–and best of all, it’s free!
This will be an opportunity for you to connect with other (potential) leavers and talk about the challenges and rewards of (potentially) leaving academia. If this becomes a regular thing, the group can choose to make subsequent meetings more structured and information-based (like focussing on particular topics or inviting guest speakers, perhaps?). If you do plan to attend, drop me a line (sabine at leavingacademia dot com) to let me know.
Don’t live near Toronto but want to organize something like this where you live? Let me know and I can help spread the word!
Affordable help for your post-academic problems!
Teleseminars have arrived at Leaving Academia! Starting in August, I’ll be holding monthly phone meetings on a different topic related to developing your post-academic career. Our inaugural seminar is on that most vexing of topics: how to convert your academic CV into a killer resume. This teleseminar includes:
- an hour-long crash course on the absolute must-dos and FOR-GOD’S-SAKE-DON’T-DO-THAT don’ts of resume writing
- time at the end of the call to ask me questions about what to keep and what to excise from your academic CV
- a worksheet that will be emailed to you after the call is completed, summing everything up
- the opportunity to let me know if you would like to connect via email with the other participants you met during the teleseminar
- an offer to receive a discount for group-based or one-on-one consultations with me
And guess what? You get all that for $20.
This teleseminar will be held on Tuesday, August 11 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern (10:00 a.m. Pacific). Interested? All you have to do to register is email me (sabine at leavingacademia dot com) with the subject line, “Teleseminar registration,” letting me know you’d like to attend. I’ll send you the number (the area code is 785, so check with your phone company about any relevant long-distance charges on your line) and access code for the call, and that’s it! When the date and time rolls around, you just dial the number, plug in your access code, and voila–sweet relief for your résumé quandaries.
Can’t make it at that time and date? Drop me a line and, if there’s enough interest, we can tack on an additional meeting time.
Cut-rate one-on-one consultations!
I’ve so enjoyed working with those of you who took me up on my introductory offer of one-on-one consultations. I’ve worked with Canadians and Americans, MAs to tenured faculty, each looking for help with résumés, cover letters, networking, information interviews–and sometimes, just a sympathetic ear. My introductory rate, however, will end at the end of this month. Starting at the beginning of August, my rates will go back up. If you want to take advantage of the introductory rate, book with me by the end of July. For more details, email me at sabine at leavingacademia dot com.
Have ideas for other ways you’d like to build community and get some post-academic support? Leave your comment here or give me a shout.
Tagged as:
consulting,
meetup,
teleseminar
By now, my philosophy of career search/job hunting is probably starting to become pretty clear on this blog: I’m all about doing what you’re interested in and passionate about, not restricting yourself to lines of work that are dictated by the confines of your scholarly discipline. That’s why I haven’t spent a lot of time writing about companies that hire Ph.D.s. To me, most medium-to-large companies and organizations probably have a whole host of MAs and PhDs running around, simply because those people were drawn to that work, and happened to have some solid skills to make them a good fit.
But I do want to draw your attention to McKinsey & Company, a global consulting company. McKinsey doesn’t just hire MBAs; in fact, according to their website, 22% of their workforce are PhDs and MDs. They actually make a point of hiring people from a broad range of backgrounds. Yes, your PhD is an asset here.
I mentioned McKinsey to a client last week, and she drew my attention this super handy little section of their website: videos that actually spell out for you how to do well in an interview with McKinsey. How cool is that? And there’s a bit of humour in there, too–I think around the 2-minute mark in the “Experience interview” video, a PhD (or HR person playing one) starts talking about his grant application as proof of his leadership skills and…let’s just say there are some lessons in there!
And as per my previous post, McKinsey also has flexible work arrangements for good performers. (Though I do believe they also have a reputation for their people working incredibly long hours, so maybe the flexi stuff happens after you’ve established yourself. I’m not sure).
I do not know how McKinsey has fared in the global economic meltdown. But I do believe this little paragraph (by subscription) I read over at The Ladders last week:
When companies tell you they aren’t hiring because of the recession, don’t believe them. What they mean to say is that during a recession they are very, very discerning about who they hire and who they keep on their team. However, every company is always hiring as long as they believe they are getting an amazingly talented person who fits well within their culture.
Is management consulting you would consider doing? If you’ve watched the McKinsey vids, what did you think?
Tagged as:
consulting,
jobs
