Back in 2015 in the Cocoon's Job-Market Boot Camp series, I shared my experience using a job-market consultant. This week, a reader emailed me asking who I used and whether we could have a thread discussing consultants. Given how catastrophic this year's academic job-market is so far, I think it could be helpful to not only discuss academic job-market consultants, but also any potentially helpful services to help job-seekers transition into non-academic jobs.
So, then, I'll put out four questions to our readers:
- What academic job-market consultants are out there?
- If you have used an academic job-market consultant, would you recommend using them?
- What non-academic job-market services are there to help job-seekers?
- If you have used a non-academic job-search service, would you recommend using them?
I'll answer first. I used Karen Kelsky from The Professor Is In as an academic job-market consultant way back in 2014. I have to confess that I was pretty skeptical about the service. It was also damn expensive, and I couldn't really afford it (especially given that I was still in substantial student debt at the time). However, I had been on the market for six years, planned for my seventh year to be my last, and personally knew two other philosophers who got tenure-track jobs after using her--so my spouse and I decided I should give two of her services (dossier review and interviewing intervention) a try as a last ditch shot. Surprisingly, although I was skeptical and found Kelsky a bit gruff personally, my sense is that her help vastly improved my materials and helped me correct a few bad interviewing habits--and I ended up finally getting a tenure-track job. It's hard to know whether using her services 'made the difference', as it were. After all, correlation isn't causation, and I might have ended up with a tenure-track job anyway. I'm also just one person, though, and it was a long time ago, so I cannot vouch for the quality of the services today. But this was my experience.
What about the rest of you? Do any of you have experience with academic or non-academic job-consultants (or similar services)? If so, what was your experience like?
Like you, I was on the market for a while. I had been able to land several postdoc positions in succession and because I was in Europe this was more common than in the US and so not a big deal. Still, going into my third postdoc position I knew I should try to find something permanent (also, moving around so much was not good for our family's wellbeing). It really dawned on me something was wrong with my materials when I gave a talk at a conference in England, and the faculty members there were wildly enthusiastic. One of them asked why I didn't apply for a faculty position they recently had. But I had applied! And like my other applications, I didn't even get on the longlist (in spite of a good CV, of course, many people have good CVs).
That's when I knew my materials must be lacking. So, I enlisted Kelsky. Her personality was indeed somewhat unpleasant to work with, but I think she did a great job showing me where my materials go wrong, getting a better sense of the US market too. I started landing interviews, and soon (also using her interview intervention) a tenure track job in Europe.
Looking back on her services, I do think it's worth people who have no mentoring or help at all with these things can get benefit from them. This is just speaking from personal experience. However, her help is not tailored to specific disciplines (she has a clear template, which you can also find in her book, and you end up with decent though cookie-cutter materials following them). If you do have a good placement director their help will likely be more valuable as it will be specific to philosophy, e.g., what journals help for CV building, who to solicit letters from outside of one's department, etc etc.
Posted by: Going anonymous for this one... | 11/08/2020 at 10:53 AM
Hi Marcus,
I'm responding to the "resources for getting a non-academic job" part of the post.
First, the APA's Non-Academic Careers Committee has been creating content for our new website (which will replace the old Beyond Academia guide in pdf). This should begin rolling out before Christmas. Initially the content will be fairly small, but the website will give us a platform to continue to build upon.
Second, there are a number of good resources about a non-academic career search available online now. You can get good advice about informational interviewing, networking, making a resume, and other really fantastic content over at ImaginePhD.com.
Posted by: Shane Wilkins | 11/08/2020 at 01:00 PM