A new start. Ten years ago today, on January 7, 2003, I arrived in Ottawa with a suitcase and my ruby iMac with the intention to find a job so that I could move my whole family here. I had been living in the UK since September 1988, having initially gone as an undergraduate exchange […]
Read More »non-academic careers
Why you get hired
What will you contribute to the success of the organization?
This is the primary question every person or committee who has ever hired anyone is trying to answer.
As with any other writing you do, audience matters. The people doing the hiring are the audience for your job application materials. They need to be written in such a way that they can find the information they need to answer this question.
Read More »Yes, you have career options
An article on Embedded Sociologist from the American Sociological Association, inspires some thoughts on the value of organizing scholars working outside academe within scholarly associations. Links to other such groups are encouraged in the comments.
Read More »You aren’t looking for a job for life
You are not behind. You haven’t wasted your time. It’s easy to think that you made a mistake somewhere along the line. Studying for a PhD was a wrong turn. Most people have their career figured out by the time they are 30. You should have learned these career research skills when you were younger. […]
Read More »Job hunting in times of change
It’s not just that the labour market is awful right now. Higher education is changing More students. Less public funding per student. Major shifts in the balance of public and private funding, even in public institutions. Stable or declining numbers of full-time, permanent faculty positions (what gets called “tenured” and “tenure track” in North America). […]
Read More »Preparing for the job market
Whether you are planning an academic career or looking for options outside of academia, the transition from student to career is difficult. An academic qualification may be necessary but it is never sufficient to get you a job. Potential employers are always looking at a combination of knowledge and skills in relation to the particular […]
Read More »On the road to an academic career
If an academic career is on your list of possible post-PhD paths, there are a few things you should know. The de facto requirements for an academic position have increased. It is unreasonable to expect that you will have all of these additional requirements at the same time as you are awarded the PhD. For most people, there is going to be a period of some other employment between finishing the PhD and getting that secure position. In this post, I lay out some options.
Read More »So, what do you do next…
Julie Clarenbach and I wrote the Myths & Mismatches series because we know that a lot of people are feeling unhappy with some aspect of their academic career. We also know that a lot of people are blaming themselves. When you feel like the person in this painting, it’s pretty hard to start looking for […]
Read More »Academic Myths and Mismatches
As I’ve said before, I genuinely believe that a lot of humanities and social science research and scholarship is interesting and important, even if it has no direct instrumental application. I think our society is a better place for having such interesting literary, historical, philosophical, cultural studies, sociology, etc. scholars in our midst. One of […]
Read More »Shifting the career focus in doctoral education
On Wednesday November 17th, 2010, I spoke to graduate students at Carleton University about careers after grad school. This post is based on part of what I said. It is directed not only to graduate students but also to the faculty that advise them. For most doctoral students, the tenure-track position is the daisy in […]
Read More »Sessional Teaching: What if you decide it’s not worth it?
So what if you need to pay the rent but you’ve decided that maybe the particular sessional teaching opportunities available are not worth it. They aren’t going to give you experience you need, and they’ll take too much time away from other things that are more important to your career development.
What are your options?
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 […]
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