I’ve just come across a few more resources I wanted to share with everyone. This first one is something that Canadian job searchers may already know about is new to me. It’s a job search engine called Eluta (or I suppose it’s eluta, without the capitalization, but c’mon, people, isn’t that kind of ’90s?). From my brief poke around the site, it looks like a very smart way of organizing job search information; best of all, you can search for jobs offered by Canada’s top employers, the best employers for diversity, the greenest employers, etc. So it looks like a really nifty way implementing your values into the job search. Coolio, eh?
The other thing I’ve been meaning to share with you is this article at The Ladders (you may have to become a free member to access the piece) called “12 Daily Habits to Boost Your Hire-Ability.” The article, by Scott Ginsberg, has such sensible, practical advice that really applies to post-academic job searchers. Among his suggestions? “Be radically honest” (i.e. make sure everyone in your life, from your hair dresser to your dissertation supervisor, knows that you’re job hunting. Okay, maybe not your supervisor. But you know what I mean), start a blog, get up an hour earlier, etc.
What kind of daily practice have you instituted for your post-academic job search? Anything that you think might help others?
Tagged as:
resources
Last week, the Globe and Mail (one of Canada’s national newspapers) asked, “Should you go to grad school?” and answered with “Yes and no.” There’s a Facebook discussion on this matter at the Globe Campus Facebook page, in case you’d like to offer your own experience on the issue. Katie from Twenty-Something weighed in on the matter and said something that I think gets left out all too often in this kind of discussion:
I can also thank grad school for my current perspective on the world, for a stronger sense of self, for a greater degree of confidence in my abilities, and of course, greater maturity. Grad school was my trial by fire, and I think I came out on the other end a better person because of it. It didn’t make me more employable. It didn’t ensure I got a better salary when I did join the workforce. But…I did something I truly loved, and from that perspective, grad school had (and still has) immense value to me.
In my tooling around, I also found this person over here asking people why they had quit grad school. Some of the answers aren’t especially illuminating, but some of them are really interesting. Hands down, the one I thought was the best (i.e. greatest combo of funny and smart) was written by someone called Mason Dixon (whose website can be traced to Boston Sutras) who wrote:
I am completely serious: Do you feel full? You know deep down if you are full or not.
When people ask me why I quit I I tell them: “I was full so I got up from the table and quit eating,” and that is what it felt like to me.
The prospect of cigars in the parlor with those who finished dinner was not a strong enough lure to keep me sitting there stuffing my gob –even though the food was fine. I said, “Thank you, Good Night and Goodbye.”
I decided that if I want to learn more about “X”, I’ll do my own snacking later. I have yet to have any regrets about it.
So chew on that, Leaving Academia readers. Do you feel full?
Tagged as:
grad school,
leaving,
resources
