Career Talk

Devising a Plan B

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By Julie Miller Vick and Jennifer S. Furlong

Question: I have a Ph.D. in a social-science field. I've been on the academic job market twice and I still hope to find a tenure-track position in my field. However I'm trying to be realistic, and I know I might never find one. Plus I'm slowly going broke and have no savings for retirement. Academe is still my first choice, but how can I come up with a coherent Plan B, just in case?

Jenny: Getting a tenure-track job requires several things -- solid research, a good publishing record, good teaching, the ability to package yourself well, and luck. It's that last factor that can keep good candidates from finding the right position, even when everything else is in place.

It helps to have thought about what you might do if your academic job search comes up short. It can also be quite liberating to realize that you are not locked into one specific path, and that you do have choices.

Julie: In formulating an alternate career plan, the first thing you might want to think about is setting limits on your academic search. How many times do people in your field usually go on the market? How many times are you willing to do so? How many postdocs are you willing to take? How many one-year positions? Are you willing to move across the country? Do you want to stay in one region?

It's crucial to set your own boundaries, rather than being pressured into making choices by your colleagues or advisers.

Jenny: Once you've decided how much time and energy you're willing to invest in your academic search, you might want to begin thinking about other careers that appeal to you. Think about what made you want to pursue an academic career in the first place. Do you love research? Do you prefer teaching? Is it the writing aspect of academe that interests you? Do you like to present your work publicly? Do you enjoy planning conferences and colloquia? You might find that some of the things you enjoy about faculty work can also be found in positions outside of academe. Check out an article on this site by Mary Dillon Johnson -- "What Else Can I Do?" -- to help you think through the self-exploration process.

Julie: Start talking to people outside of academe. Find out what they do and what they like about their work. Ask which skills they use the most and which they've developed on the job. Ask about long-term goals and career progression. Talk to people who've been in their jobs for a short time and those who have held them for a long time. What are the challenges and what keeps them interested in their work every day?

Jenny: How do you find people to talk to about their careers? Just be open. Talk to people you might not normally think would have anything in common with your current work as a doctoral student. Ask a lot of questions and do a lot of listening.

Recently on the WRK4US e-mail discussion group, Alexandra Lord, a history Ph.D. who has found satisfying employment outside of academe, commented: "Knowing people in a variety of professions (and knowing people who switch careers frequently) has helped me to understand that extraordinarily bright, hard-working, and creative people can be found in every profession. The people I know who have switched careers -- or even more simply jobs -- have done so because they were intellectually curious people."

Approach your Plan B research as you would any research project -- with engagement and intellectual curiosity.

Julie: Where do you find people to talk to? Through friends and family, roommates, fellow students, friends and family of your significant other, and people you work with, as well as resources from your institution. Whether you are a student or earned your degree long ago, the alumni office and/or the career office will probably have lists of alumni willing to talk about their work with students and graduates.

Jenny: Since many professional and scholarly associations now include information on nonacademic careers on their Web sites, that may also be a way to identify people to talk to in your discipline or field. For example, the Project for Nonacademic Employment offers information on alternative careers in mathematics. Created by the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the site features an archive of profiles of Ph.D. mathematicians who have found employment outside of academe.

Julie: Another way to ascertain whether a certain career path is appealing to you is to read job announcements in that profession, which can give you a sense of the skills and duties that are required. Luckily, that type of research is quite simple to do, given the great number of job sites on the Internet.

The Chronicle has compiled an extensive list of Internet-based, nonacademic resources that may be of use to graduate students contemplating a career outside the academy. In addition to the large job banks, like Monster.com, there are countless career sites devoted to specific fields. If a particular organization intrigues you, take a look at its Web site. Most businesses, nonprofit groups, and governmental agencies list openings on their Web sites. When reading announcements, ask yourself, Is this something I'd like to do? How do my skills match with this position?

Jenny: If you have a profession in mind as your second choice to an academic career, you should attempt to get a bit of experience in that field. I've known students who manage to complete interesting internships and still finish their Ph.D. in a timely fashion. One graduate student I know in the humanities even went on to a tenure-track job after completing an internship and considering nonacademic careers.

However, if you do not feel that you could commit the amount of time required by an internship and still pursue your graduate studies, you could volunteer, or even pick up a little hourly work. If you are interested in teaching in a private high school, volunteer at a museum to get some experience working with kids. If you are interested in grant writing, volunteer to write grants for a small nonprofit organization. A scientist interested in technology transfer and patent law could look for part-time work through her university's technology-transfer office. You may not earn a ton of money (or any at all), but you would gain skills that could open doors for you in the future.

Julie: Several years ago Margaret Newhouse wrote a column called "Using Graduate School Strategically." In it she gave some suggestions for developing skills and knowledge that would be valued by nonacademic employers while doing the work of a graduate student. She told the stories of several students who developed their dissertation topics to give them contacts and knowledge yet still satisfy departmental requirements. Over the years I have worked with a number of students who also did that. What they had in common was that they proactively learned about alternative work and they made connections with people whom they might eventually want to work with or who could help them make those connections.

The hiring cycle in academe begins in late summer or early fall, so you'll need to balance the task of submitting job applications with the challenge of doing your networking and research on alternate careers. Doing both searches at the same time can be tricky and require you to switch gears frequently, which may or may not be something you can do well. Some people find a synergy when doing two kinds of searches; others find it overwhelming.

Jenny: Because conducting a dual-focused search can be difficult, we would strongly recommend that you organize your job search in advance. Decide how much time you are planning to dedicate to each type of search: Will you limit your academic job search to institutions in your region, and concentrate mostly on your nonacademic opportunities? Will you be applying to academic positions all over the country, and only looking at nonacademic positions if you fail to obtain a tenure-track job? Carefully evaluate both your priorities and your chances of obtaining an academic position in your field.

Julie: Have a sense of how the job market in your field works. When are the lulls in the job-search process during which you would be able to do some research on your nonacademic options? If you're a Ph.D. in English, for example, you might have some down time in between application deadlines, in October and November, and the Modern Language Association's convention at the end of December. You could use that time to do a little information gathering for your Plan B. The more thought you put into organizing your job search, the more manageable it will become.

Jenny: Finding a good Plan B, one that fits you and your values, can be a challenging task. We hope that we have give you a starting place. Remember, people change careers all of the time. See what happens -- with both of your searches -- and don't get caught up in worrying about whether you're a failure.