A job-market dilemma: teaching and having an affiliation, or publishing in a non-academic job?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

What is more helpful in terms of landing a TT job - teaching experience and having an affiliation or publications?

Here's why I ask: I'm nearing the end of a year long research postdoc. My publication record is pretty decent, as is my teaching record (4 publications in good journals, multiple years of teaching different courses at 4 different institutions). I am, of course, applying to jobs now but I'm operating under the assumption that I'm not going to land anything. Assuming that's the case, I'm going to be faced with a choice. I can adjunct while trying to keep up with research, but if the future is like the past, the amount of teaching I'll need to take on to keep the lights on will almost guarantee that my research progress will come to a halt. Alternatively, I can take a non-academic job that pays reasonably well that would allow me to keep writing and trying to publish. But from the outside, that will look like I left philosophy. How much does being unaffiliated hurt you on the job market?

I realize the answer to this question likely depends on whether one is trying to land a job at a teaching school or a research school. However, I'm just trying to land any job I can get. I also realize that, ideally, I'd just teach and research. Unfortunately, adjuncting means taking on 6+ courses per semester at different institutions, commuting 400+ miles a week, not to mention while having no benefits. Under those circumstances, I just won't be very productive research-wise.

What's the best route to go with an eye to making myself as marketable as possible?

This is a really good question, and I'm not sure what the answer is. On the one hand, if the OP has a good publication record and teaching experience, then I don't see any clear reason why they shouldn't be competitive for jobs if they take a non-academic job and continue to publish. But, on the other hand, search committees don't always act as they should, and I could well imagine them being biased toward candidates who have an academic affiliation. So, I'm not sure what the best strategy here is for being competitive on the academic market. But I guess this leads to my main thought, which is that given how much the academic job market is like a lottery, maybe the thing to do here is not to wager on which of the two job-market strategies is likely to be the most effective (since it's really hard to know). Instead, maybe the thing to do is to pick whichever path forward offers the best immediate rewards, such as a good salary, benefits, and quality of life. This is sort of what another reader suggests in a follow-up comment:

I love philosophy, but "taking on 6+ courses per semester at different institutions, commuting 400+ miles a week, not to mention while having no benefits" seems like an outcome to be avoided at pretty much any cost. If it comes to something like that, I will cut my losses and find some other job, even if that means never getting back in to academia.

But there are still less extreme versions of this choice, and I'm less sure what would be best in those cases.

On the one hand, assuming one's teaching evaluations and dossier look good, it would be strange if additional teaching beyond multiple years at 4 institutions would make a big difference. At least as evidence of sufficient teaching abilities, more teaching after that has drastically diminishing returns, right? So unless you expect to make significant and demonstrable improvements to your teaching in your next job, I don't think it should help your chances much. (But who knows how search committees actually would weigh this? Not me.)

On the other hand, it seems to be very rare for someone to go for a couple years without academic employment but come back and get a decent academic job. Jared Warren is the one case I know of, but his body of work (and pedigree, for that matter) was really exceptional. Probably there are others that I don't know about, but I assume they are few. Why is that?

I expect part of it is just that not many people seriously attempt to come back. Those that leave may reasonably want to focus on their new career and leave the horror of the academic job market behind. Others perhaps keep trying, but aren't able to keep publishing in a way that increases their chances. And maybe they only apply to very attractive (and so super competitive) positions. And perhaps their academic network decays in ways that harm their chances.

But I also suspect there is a bias against such candidates. Something along the lines of "Oh, I guess they couldn't get any job that year, they must not be that good" or "I guess they aren't truly dedicated to the profession". In the current environment these assumptions are absurd, so I don't know if anyone thinks them explicitly. But my own worry about taking some other kind of job and trying to publish my way back into academia is that this kind of bias would put me at a significant, perhaps insurmountable disadvantage. (So if people think there actually isn't this bias, please say!)

I think this is a shame. One of the worst things about the academic job market is the rootlessness it all but requires. Want to settle into a community before you're in your mid-30s? Want to live near your aging parents to help? Want to start raising a family and not have to worry about picking up and moving every year or two for who knows how long? Too bad!

Besides making people suffer, this is also a real selection pressure unfairly excluding certain kinds of people. Perhaps one could argue that some degree of this is inevitable and/or beneficial overall. And at any rate it would require major structural changes to really reduce. But a bias against people who go without an academic job for a while so they can stay in a particular region (and not have adjunct 6+ classes a semester to do so) makes this worse for no good reason.

One final, maybe more useful thing: if there is this kind of bias and some of it stems from people assuming one isn't sufficiently dedicated, I wonder if doing some regular public philosophy/outreach would be a good idea to improve one's chances.

Indeed, just about everything about the job-market is a shame. I put my own "life on hold" for nearly 7 years while I was on the market (becoming something of a ghost of a person in the process), and the only reason that I stayed on the market as long as I did is that I was in a well-paying, full-time academic job. If it were me and I had to choose between the OP's two options--commuting 400 miles a week as an adjunct without benefits or leaving academia for a better-paying non-academic job with benefits while trying to continue publishing--I'm pretty sure that I'd choose the latter. And, if I really wanted to stay involved in philosophy despite being out of academia, I might very well try what the second reader suggests above: doing public philosophy of some sort, such as podcasting perhaps. But again, this is just me speculating about what I would do, and I don't mean to imply that the OP should do what I might do (we're all different, after all, with different tolerances for risk, non-academic job prospects, etc.).

So again, I'm not sure what to advise--but those are my thoughts. What are yours? 

Comments

[William Vanderburgh]

My intuition tells me that committees look more favorably on candidates who are currently in an academic position of some sort.

But if 4 publications and 4 years of teaching aren't going to land you a job, then it seems unlikely that 5 publications and 5 years of teaching will. This is the insane reality of the job market, unfortunately.

The fact that OP got a postdoc does bode well (you are competitive).

Perhaps it depends on how many jobs are available in your specialty? If there are a lot, take a gamble on a year of adjuncting if that seems likely to even marginally increase the chance of success. If there are not, start living as if you are exiting the discipline even if you will keep trying for another year.

Think about building secondary areas that departments are looking for--everyone is looking to diversify their curriculums, it seems to me. Fins aomething that would make you stand out from another candidate who is otherwise similar in AOS and achievements.

[Nick Z]

Would it be possible to take the non-academic job and adjunct teach one course per semester? That way you would secure the upside of a decent job with benefits, maintain some academic affiliation, and leave more time for research. You've already demonstrated you can research and teach, so there's really nothing additional that teaching 6+ courses per semester would show a search committee.

[Tim]

This is a hard case. You might ask the question of 'which of these two options makes me more competitive for the job market?' But it seems to me the benefit of each are quite close. The job market is so chaotic, it is hard to say that one of them would offer clear and decisive benefits over the other. So I think this could be a situation where quality of life issues become more important.

[Michel]

I'm a little late to the party, but I think the non-academic position is a better bet. Like William said above, I don't think that the extra pub or an extra few courses from adjuncting makes enough of a difference to really justify delaying the non-academic job with better pay and long-term prospects. (If it's a multi-year VAP instead of adjuncting, then I think it's a different story.)

Although I share William's intuition that committee members are probably generally biased towards applicants who are currently academically employed, I myself don't feel that way--especially not for a gap of a few years, given the state of the market (many years might make a difference, though).