Recently I had to make some difficult decisions about my capacity to review grant proposals in advance of a fall 2010 deadline. It was a hard decision to make and a hard decision to communicate to clients. I have gifts to share with my clients. I genuinely enjoy helping people. And from 2005 to now, […]
Read More »Career Planning
Ever considered being a program officer for SSHRC?
They are advertising. Some of their program officers have been around for a long time but all of them start on short term contracts. You could focus on the short-term part, and the lack of security, or you could see it as a good opportunity to try out a job that is related to your […]
Read More »Are you really motivated by external rewards?
As I see it, there are three ways to look at tenure, promotion, salary, etc. compensation for doing unpleasant or undesirable work motivation to do stuff your employer wants you to do recognition of the value you contribute to the employing organization When you say you are doing something a particular way “to get tenure” […]
Read More »What it means to say the job market is “competitive”
It means that it’s a competition, just like the Olympics. It means that you can be among the best in the world and still not get a medal job. It means that you have to go out there and do what needs to be done to the best of your ability anyway. Potential employers don’t […]
Read More »A job search is a 2-way process
In my last two posts, I suggested that you can decide what kind of academic career you want, and that it’s a good idea to get information and advice from a variety of sources, including informational interviews, to help you figure that out and learn more about the kind of academic career you want. When […]
Read More »How an academic job search is like any job search
In my last post, I proposed that you are likely only interested in a subset of all the academic jobs that are advertised in your field (no matter how sparse or plentiful those jobs may be). If this is a new way of looking at your academic career, it might be unsettling. You might be […]
Read More »There’s more than one kind of academic career
In all the debates about the academic labour market, it seems that an academic career is an academic career. The academic labour market is a mess. Funding is squeezed. Tenure lines (or, in the UK, open-term positions) are not being replaced. There is a huge increase in insecure and poorly paid teaching and research jobs with […]
Read More »Considering going on to PhD
In the full knowledge that you might ignore any and all of this information, I present you with some things to think about as you consider going on to a PhD. Do you want to study for a PhD? I know this seems like an odd question to ask, but the first step is to […]
Read More »Should you do a PhD?
There has been a lot of public debate about graduate studies, particularly in the humanities. Unsurprisingly, this is causing some anxiety for people either doing or contemplating grad school. Here are a few things to think about when making this decision. Why do you want to do the PhD? Are you excited about your research project […]
Read More »A PhD doesn’t prepare you for a career
There is a lot of talk about whether doctoral programs should do more to prepare students for careers outside of academia. When you think about it, most doctoral programs don’t even prepare you for a career inside academia. Universities are not really in the business of training people for careers Many of us roll our eyes whenever […]
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