I came across this very interesting interview yesterday with Aaron Kagan, who received his PhD in philosophy at Fordham and now works at Google. The interview not only covers his own path out of academia. Kagan also gives a ton of helpful tips on how to do so, including things to do during grad school, how to network, how write a good non-academic resume (1 page only!) and cover letter, how interviews differ, and how to present oneself to a non-academic audience--to name just a few. It is a great interview, almost certainly the best that I have come across on this topic. Here are just a few choice snippets (not in the same order as in the interview), and again, there's a ton of other good stuff:
Did you have to deal with feelings of grief or anything else surrounding leaving academia? Did you find there were other consequences of making that choice?
I beat myself up pretty badly at first. However, once I ‘left’ (i.e., started working somewhere that wasn’t academia) I was so happy. People cared about the work I did, more than 3 people actually read stuff I put together, people depended on me for things, and I was a part of a team, plus I got paid like real (livable) money.
If I think back to my decision, the grief associated with it was largely internal (e.g., how I felt about myself), and a bit of vanity (e.g., not telling people I’m a professor, that I’m not sure what I’m doing, that I’m a “Junior XYZ” at some corporate so and so). But once I got a job this all instantly vanished, I had a massive community of people, co-workers, teams, and others in the industry that also worked as a ___.
What should someone thinking about leaving academia do to figure out what kind of career they would enjoy?
Talk to as many people as you can outside academia and ask them all kinds of questions about their life and their job(s). We have a tendency to get tunnel vision in the ivory tower and only surround ourselves with academic perspectives. Most of the world is not academia, so cast a wide net.
Research non-academic stuff…
This is a lot easier than the kind of research work you’re probably used to. It consists largely of looking through the morass of information on different job roles. There’s loads of free information and training out there.
Try your hand at a bunch of different stuff…
If you’re a business owner and someone comes along and says “Hi, I’m a functioning adult and would like to work for you for free”, you’ll probably get their attention if you’re not totally off putting. There are plenty of opportunities to try your hand at a variety of jobs. In all likelihood, you’d very quickly start to discover the kinds of things you like and don’t like.
What kinds of resources did you utilize to help transition out of academia? Are there resources you see available now to job applicants that you wish you had been able to access?
I wish I had forged even more connections outside academia without the guilt that I was somehow “cheating” on my academic career. There are so many resources nowadays with respect to ‘free education’ on pretty much any topic. I think I could have chased down a lot of dead ends much faster, for example.
Most of the resources I utilized I mentioned above–viz. reading a lot of non-academic stuff, talking to people outside of academia, and sweat equity (i.e., free work for experience of trying your hand at something).
Did you have to drastically change how you presented yourself to potential employers? Did you have to prepare differently for interviews? Did you have to speak to your PhD training and how that was perceived by the interviewers? Were you asked why you were transitioning from academia, and if so, how did you answer?
YES. It’s a very different game. I felt like I had moved to a different planet when I started having these conversations. My preparation was lots and lots of rehearsing answers and talking points. It was kind of like theater. I made my poor wife keep asking me “so tell me about yourself” over and over again, until I had that answer committed to memory.
When you first start out, you will unquestionably get questions about your PhD training. Be ready to speak to it (this is NOT a bad thing, it actually makes you stand out). These will be questions like “Why not stay in academia?” “Why are you making (or why did you make) the jump from academia to this kind of role?” “How has your PhD helpful for this kind of job?” “WTH is a philosopher doing applying for this role? I hated philosophy and got my worst grade ever from the one philosophy class I ever took. The professor was an asshole!” (This last question is actually one that I got. Seriously)
How did you go about networking? Who were the first people you contacted, and who connected you to them? Was your network from graduate school useful or part of this process?
I reached out to family and friends, and, like most of us with social media accounts, leverage superficial connections through facebook, twitter, etc. Plus lots of creeping people on LinkedIn. The first super meaningful connection I made was my cousin-in-law. He was the one who really was like “Dude, here’s what it’s like to work in Tech. No one cares about your PhD. This is what you can offer, but, in their eyes, you have zero work experience. This is not good. Right now, read these books, practice interviewing with me, etc. etc.”
The first “real” (i.e., salary and benefits) job I got was through a connection I made at one of those particularly depressing and cringeworthy in-person meetups for people in the industry (I think it was through meetup.com). It was toward the end of the event. I was talking to this one person who had an MA in psych. He knew a little bit about my specialization and recognized it was valuable. I started blabbering on about my dissertation and my undergrad honors thesis. He interrupted me by saying “Dude, I think I can get you a job, you just have to stop being an academic…” His former employer needed an entry level researcher, and they were in the middle of doing a usability test on motorcycles. (The bonus here was that I rode/restored vintage bikes as a hobby and it turned out that no one at the agency could actually ride. This was massively helpful during my on-site interviews with them).
(Side note: I found out later that after my interviews hiring committee/managers were basically like “This dude has no work experience, but he has a PhD and he knows how to ride motorcycles. He also seems like a nice guy. He’s probably worth investing in, let’s give a shot”. Hiring is really weird like that. There’s so much happenstance involved, most of which you have no idea about because you’re not working at the company. They could just like your vibe. They could also be completely wasting your time because they are really just going to hire someone internally. This is all to say that when you get your job rejections (which we ALL get tons of) 98% of the time, it’s got nothing to do with you. It’s impossible not to take it personally, but I’m here to tell you that you need to do the impossible in this case. Most of the time, if you’re at the actual on-site interview stage: It’s not you, it’s them).
What can someone be doing now (in the final years of their program, at the ‘all but dissertation’ stage) to prepare for jobs outside of academia? How important was it to finish the PhD/degree?
... Make sure you are connecting with and surrounding yourself with that which is not academia; this means books, articles, and, most importantly, people.
Start ‘re-branding’:
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- Writing about yourself and your work for an audience of ‘regular people’. (e.g., what does your ‘about me’ LinkedIn look like….which reminds me, create a LinkedIn
- Practice interviewing. Seriously. Rehearse in front of a mirror a bunch, then hand some questions to a friend and ask them to ask you them. Better yet, see if you can do a mock interview with someone that hires people (*bonus points if said person is in the field/industry you want to break into)
If you went through that process again, is there anything you would do differently?
I would have been easier on myself. I really beat myself up thinking I had ‘failed’ or ‘given up’ in some way by not pursuing an academic job like I was “supposed to”. I would have ‘gone with the flow’ a bit more. That said, it’s pretty much impossible for someone like me to have done that, because I had no idea how things were going to shake out.
I probably would have reached out to more people and created even more of a network. I also would not have been as stubborn about what was supposed to happen or what people were supposed to understand about me outside academia.
How long did it take you to transition out of academia?
AGES….it really felt like an eternity. I was doing a lot of ‘sweat equity’ type work (i.e., working for free) and contract gigs while I was still finishing my dissertation. If you’re asking how long it took me to be gainfully employed in a full time role, the answer is 2–3 years.
What do you think faculty members can contribute by way of support or training to assist people looking to leave the academy? What are faculty members doing that makes it more difficult to transition to different careers?
I think faculty members (and academic philosophers in general) could really do with reaching out to people outside academia. Full stop. There’s so much crossover and value add, but we often stay in our ivory tower silos. I don’t know if this is simply a generational thing (like when people could actually get jobs in philosophy out of grad school) or because we’ve been out of that horribly painful situations for so long–it’s really hard for me to remember what it’s like to be a ‘all but dissertation’ grad student and that was less than 4 years ago, I can’t imagine having to do so 8, or 10+ years out of that scenario.
Just a few ideas off the top of my head:
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- Bringing in people to give talks about how they’ve used philosophy in the private sector (and maybe even vice-versa). (And maybe offering these speakers some kind of incentive in return, doesn’t have to monetary, but some kind of thank you)
- Setting up mentorship opportunities/programs for grad students
- There’s SO MUCH “what do you do with your PhD in philosophy” type information (essays, presentations, videos, etc.). Sifting through that and offering it to the grad students so they don’t have to hunt that stuff down
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