The Philosophers' Cocoon

Crowdsourcing non-academic jobs (2023-24 job season)

Last year, we hosted a thread seeking to crowdsource job opportunities for philosophers outside of academia ('alt-ac' jobs). Given that a new thread was requested in our current job-market discussion thread, I thought it might be good to run new threads each job season. So here is this year's thread!

Please do feel free to use the comment thread below to draw attention to job ads (academic or non-academic) that philosophers might be competitive for that are not PhilJobs or HigherEd Jobs.

A link to this thread will be pinned to the blog's side-bar through summer 2024.

A pending recession and enrollment cliff: to stay on the market, or not to?

A reader writes in:

I have been on the job market for a few years and am seriously looking into quitting the profession this year. The alternative is that I hold out for another year or two in a visiting position. I'd appreciate hearing your readers' thoughts on whether the job market is likely to improve in the near-term. The US is likely headed for a recession, which many private sector firms are already planning for. And the anticipated "enrollment cliff" (dropping college enrollments due to a decline in birthrates post 2008 recession) will hit soon after that.

Because market conditions will likely only get worse for the next several years, sticking it out doesn't really seem to make sense. Can any of your readers speak (anonymously) to whether departments and universities are already factoring in a recession and the enrollment cliff in future hiring plans, and whether university administrators are already discussing hiring freezes?

An important question. I responded to this reader in private, but I'm curious to hear what readers think--and, in particular, whether any readers on the hiring side of things have any inside information relevant the OP's choice. One thing that I didn't mention to the reader in private, but which is probably relevant, is that aside from technology (which has been notably engaging in large-scale layoffs), non-academic job markets are historically strong right now and are unlikely to remain that way. As such, if there is any good time to transition from academia to industry, it seems to me that time is probably now!

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours? 

Beyond Academia Conference

A reader writes in:

Just in case you have not seen this already, I wanted to call your attention to a conference aimed at “PhD professional development and careers outside of academia" that begins next Thursday, February 23—the “Beyond Academia Conference” at UC-Berkeley. Here is the link to the event site:  https://beyondacademia.berkeley.edu/. My understanding is that one can attend this conference virtually, and that it is free.  There is at least one speaker with a philosophy background, past member of the APA non-academic careers committee Shane Wilkins, who will be speaking about employment in the government sector. 

Sounds like a cool opportunity!

Helpful stories from those who left academia?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Perennial Candidate writes:

Since this year's job market is shifting into the next phase (fly-outs, offers), I wonder if it's time to revisit stories from people who have left academia — how they knew it was time, what they're doing now, their feelings on the transition, whether they're thriving. I think it might be helpful to those of us who are pondering how to prioritize our career development in the new year.

This is an excellent query, and it would be great to crowdsource more stories like these. We put together an Alt-Ac Transition Tips series and Alt-Ac Workshop series a while back featuring some helpful stories, and have a more general continuing Alt-Ac series that the OP may find helpful.

One reader submitted the following reply to the OP:

May I humbly suggest my podcast which interviews PhDs and almost-PhDs from humanities fields who now work in the alt-ac. Although it's not focused on philosophy, a number of my guests happen to be philosophers (because I'm in philosopher's circles, I suppose). https://offcampus.buzzsprout.com

This podcast looks really great. Do any other readers have stories of their own or links to stories to share? It would be great, in particular, to hear answers to the OP's specific queries ("how they knew it was time, what they're doing now, their feelings on the transition, whether they're thriving"). 

Updated ADPA job placement data & table

Carolyn Dicey Jennings (UC Merced) has a new post up at the ADPA blog describing the results of "ten years of data for around 140 [PhD] programs, nearly 50 of which have so far been able to verify our data."

There is also a new sortable table at the ADPA site where one can learn about job-market placements from different programs. As the following table illustrates, some of the data is very illuminating:

Participate in a survey on non-academic careers (guest post by the APA non-academic careers committee)

The APA Non-Academic Careers Committee is seeking input and feedback on how it can better serve philosophers in and out of the profession. To this end, the Committee has created a survey: 

https://delaware.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3JCIC4U196id4ma

While the Committee is particularly interested in hearing from philosophers who have left academia or are considering doing so, we would like to invite philosophers at all career stages and types to respond to the survey. 

Preliminary results from a prior version of this survey have been useful. We look forward to receiving additional feedback from new survey participants! 

- Lynn Chiu on behalf of the Non-Academic Careers committee

Alt-Ac Job-Market Tips (quick links)

Here is a list of links to our Alt-Ac Transition Tips series:

1. Supporting non-academic careers (Kevin J.S. Zollman)

2. Moving from academia to a think tank (Jason Schukraft)

3. What I learned from leaving academic philosophy (Samuel Kampa)

4. My Path into Project Management (Katharine Schweitzer)

5. Tips for transitioning into tech industries?

6. Leaving academia for industry: 7 years later (Zachary Ernst)

7. Networking and 'Leaving Academia'

8.  Interview: ‘How to Shawshank your way out of academia’ (Aaron Kagan)

9.  How to leave philosophy (Greg Stoutenburg)

10. How to make yourself hireable outside of academia as a philosophy grad student or PhD (Aaron Kagan)

11. Alt-ac careers podcast: 'Off Campus'

12. Crowdsourcing job ads thread

And here is a list of links to our Alt-Ac Workshop series:

1. Marketable Skills, Potential Jobs, & Networking (Calvin Warner)

2. How to create an Alt-Ac Philosophical Company and do work that you love (Claartje van Sijl)

3. Phil Skills - an Alt-Ac Resource website (Eleni Manis)

4. Pursuing a Career in Government (Carl Baker)

5. Navigating grad program politics when leaving?

Online teaching & alt-ac certifications?

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

Is this a certification that is meaningful? Does anyone know anything about it?

https://yougotclass.org/register.cfm?action=add&certificate=16

I have to confess that I don't know much about this kind of thing. It might be good to hear from readers, including which kinds of certifications might be helpful for obtaining 'alt-ac' jobs in industries outside of the academy. Given how expensive these kinds of certifications appear to be, it might be worth hearing whether any of them are worth it, and if so, precisely which kinds. Alternatively, are there good free or low-cost options available that early-career academics should consider instead?

Alt-ac careers podcast: 'Off Campus.'

A reader wrote in to draw my attention to a cool new podcast, Off Campus., featuring interviews with academics who left the academy for alternative ('alt-ac') careers. Here's the full podcast description:

Each episode features a guest who has completed substantive postgraduate education in the humanities and who currently works in an alt-ac career. By listening to their stories, this podcast aims to shed light on life beyond the academe, what scholarship can do in the broader world, as well as how graduate training in the humanities helps or fails to help us prepare for the path off campus. Listen to the entire podcast here.

There are three episodes up so far, and it looks to be a great series that many of this blog's readers might find helpful!

Crowdsourcing job ads thread

A reader writes in:

I wonder how you felt about having a post about job ads. I was thinking even one that might have a pinned link on the side. Many of the jobs are posted on PhilJobs, but there are plenty that are not. UK jobs and postdocs are sometimes only on jobs.ac.uk; European jobs are in other places sometimes as well; society of fellows things, who knows where those are; etc. This seems like a great occasion for crowd sourcing. I’ve been placement director at [redacted] for a while and each year I have to ask the students if they found things in unexpected places. Anyway, I thought it would be a handy resource for people on the market. What do you think? 

I think this is a fantastic idea. It could be cool not to only crowdsource academic job ads in unexpected places, but non-academic ('alt-ac') job ads too. So, that's what I propose we devote this thread to, which I will pin on the right side-bar of the blog in perpetuity (or at least until the comment thread gets so long that it makes sense to start a new one). So, please do feel free to use the comment thread below to draw attention to job ads (academic or non-academic) that philosophers might be competitive for that are not PhilJobs or HigherEd Jobs!

Logic based therapy?

In our January "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

Has anyone heard logic based therapy and is it legit?

I saw a friend who had become certified or something on social media and I am somewhat skeptical.

Honestly, I hadn't heard of this until now, so I looked it up! Apparently, it's a form of philosophical counseling, which I have heard before but don't know much about. Based on a cursory reading of the Wikipedia entry's section on criticisms and limitations, as well as a Google Scholar search, there appears to me to be a fair amount of theory on logic based therapy, but not much (if any?) empirical research on its effectiveness in treating anything. But again, this is just what I gathered from a couple of quick web searches, and I might be entirely wrong.

However, irrespective of the idea that 'therapy' is (I think) standardly understood as a kind of treatment for disease or illness, I like the idea of philosophical counseling for helping people to grapple with (e.g.) existential, moral, political, and social issues. As I think we see with many of our students (as well as laypeople who are interested in philosophy), a decent proportion of people appear to crave the kind of deeper analysis of life and the world that philosophy can offer--and for good reason: we all face deep existential, moral, spiritual, social, and political questions that are profoundly difficult to grapple with and which personalized guidance from a professional philosopher may very well be helpful regarding.

So, I guess--again, just offhand--I'm inclined to be a fairly skeptical of logic based therapy, but not so skeptical of philosophical counseling (understood not as therapy but rather as philosophical guidance and cultivation). But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

ADPA data on non-academic careers

Over at Daily Nous the other week, Carolyn Dicey Jennings (UC Merced) provided a 10-year update on the Academic Placement Data and Analysis (APDA) project, the purpose of which "is to collect, analyze, and distribute data on job placement for graduates of PhD programs in philosophy."

As a member of the ADPA's board of advisors, I volunteered to discuss the ADPA's findings on non-academic job careers for philosophy PhDs. Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) should be discussing demographic data at The Splintered Mind.

What, then, has the ADPA found about non-academic careers for Philosophy PhDs? Here is a quick summary:

(1) How many philosophy PhDs pursue non-academic careers? 

Over the past ten years (2011-21), the ADPA surveyed 6030 PhD graduates. Of those surveyed, 2606 (or 37.6%) are now in permanent academic jobs, and 846 (or 14%) are in non-academic jobs. The remaining philosophy PhDs are either in part-time academic positions or did not report.

(2) What kinds of non-academic careers are philosophy PhDs in?

Top-ten words used to describe positions (in order of frequency): Director, Manager, Senior, Associate, Assistant, Analyst, Research, Software, Teacher, and Consultant.

Top ten industries (in order of frequency, of around 800 in database): education, technology, law, health, consultancy, government, university administration, finance, non-university education, and non-profits/NGOs.

(2) What kinds of salaries do philosophy PhDs make in non-academic industry?

• Mean salaries reported 
  
  • Academic: $79,237 (n = 477)
  • Non-Academic: $179,833 (n = 42)
• Median Salaries
  
  • Academic: $73,000 
  • Non-Academic: $100,000 

(3) What kind of job-placements do PhDs prefer: academic or non-academic?

Of those who received academic jobs, 84.8% reported academic placement as their priority. However, of those who entered non-academic jobs, only 52.9% preferred academic placement, 17.6% percent preferred non-academic placement, and 29.4% reported no strong preference.

(4) Do PhD programs support students seeking non-academic placement?

• Of those who received non-academic employment (n = 63), only 17.5% felt unsupported by their graduate program.
• A plurality of (all) respondents felt their program was neither supportive or unsupportive (n = 27 or 42.9%).
• However, individuals without placement information (n = 11) unanimously indicated that they felt their graduate program was very unsupportive of pursuing non-academic careers.
• Some qualitative responses: 

The faculty of my department were unprepared to offer support for students pursuing non-academic jobs. If anything, they looked down on such students.

Nonacademic jobs were mentioned in the professional development seminar, but no real guidance was offered beyond that. There may have been other resources available, but I did not know about them.

Pursuing professions other than teaching philosophy is discouraged. Several of my fellow students did not disclose that they were interested in professions other than teaching, for example, pursuing a law degree.

Program officials and some professors have made comments supporting non-academic jobs and they occasionally offer a talk on this. However, there is no focused and continued support.

My department has taken some pretty good steps to help us with this. But during the times where I have thought about not pursuing an academic career I have felt like I had to keep it secret or the department would take me less seriously, give me less support, etc.

(5) Are philosophical skills and knowledge job-relevant?

84.1% of those in non-academic jobs found philosophical skills to be relevant to their non-academic career (n=63). Only 53.2% found philosophical material to be relevant (n=62). 

Some qualitative responses:

My work in narrative ethics informs everything I do from managing business functions such as HR, to fostering community values, developing student leadership as well as developing our marketing strategy and posting on Instagram. Everything we do as humans involves stories and sharing experiences - I have never doubted that my PhD research was valuable, practical and of ongoing benefit to me as a person and as a CEO.

Doing logic and looking at formal systems made the transition into coding and data analysis quite easy.

None of my research was directly applicable, but studying logic helped prepare me for a career in tech.

The vast majority of the topics you study in philosophy are irrelevant to work in the business world. However, the skills you develop and the techniques you learn through the practice of philosophy are invaluable. Being a strong and logical thinker is a huge asset in a business environment.

I engage in textual analysis and rational argument on a regular basis in my employment as a business lawyer -- skills that I acquired and honed in my philosophy graduate education.

The skills of reading and thinking carefully, and communicating well orally and in writing, have helped make me more effective in my position as an academic administrator.

In a generic way, the critical thinking, writing, teaching and public speaking skills I have gained have all set me apart in the workplace.

What should we take away from these findings? As with any study using non-randomly collected samples, we must be careful making strong inferences about the total population. Still, bearing this in mind, here are a few hot takes:

1. About 1 in 7 philosophy PhDs in this sample report working in non-academic careers: that's a good number of people!

2. Philosophy PhDs can end up in a variety of good non-academic careers, some of which involve learning computer programming, but many of which appear to be in well-paying, non-STEM areas (government jobs, consulting, etc.). 

3. Philosophers can make a lot of money outside of academia: of course, it is hard to know exactly how accurate this sample is, as the sample sizes are small and those who are underemployed could be less likely to report. Further, there is presumably wide variance among the salaries of those in non-academic industries. Still, the fact that philosophers can achieve high-salary positions in industry shouldn't be too surprising. Philosophers are as a rule highly talented, conscientious people who can think slowly and carefully as well as quickly on their feet; can understand and grapple effectively with very complex problems, speak persuasively in front of groups (viz. experience in teaching and seminars), etc. Moving from academia to non-academic industry can be difficult for philosophy PhDs--but clearly, it can have real upside, as my Philosophers in Industry Directory also suggests.

4. There is significant variance on the kinds of jobs that philosophy PhDs want: Yes, according to the ADPA's 10-year sample, a supermajority of those who have academic jobs desire and academic job. And yes, a slim majority of those who leave academia have a strong preference for an academic job, as well. Still, a significant proportion of PhDs in the sample report being less invested in academia, either wanting non-academic work or reporting no strong preference either way.

5. Most PhDs reported that their programs were neither supportive nor unsupportive of non-academic employment, and a significant proportion reported that their programs were very unsupportive. Further, qualitative responses suggest that PhD students may fear even disclosing an interest in pursuing a non-academic career -- and in general (with a few exceptions), it doesn't seem that many departments do very much to help their PhDs pursue non-academic jobs.

6. Philosophical skills (and, to a lesser extent, philosophical knowledge) seem to be job-relevant outside of academia: the kinds of skills philosophers cultivate (reading, writing, thinking, speaking, logic, creative problem solving) are widely reported by those outside of academia as directly relevant to their careers. And over 50% of those who reported said that philosophical material is job-relevant too (such as knowledge of ethics, etc.).

Finally, here's one more hot-take, to echo some points I made a few weeks ago:

7. It probably behooves academic philosophy (and grad programs) to do far more to support students seeking non-academic work. Placing students into good careers not only reflects well on the discipline (including to administrators, parents, prospective students, taxpayers, etc.). It may also be conducive to philosophy-supporting philanthropy. Humanities departments (including philosophy departments) are being closed and or otherwise threatened left and right--and like it or not, for better or worse, we live in a time when public and philanthropic support for academic disciplines are increasingly crucial. Many other academic disciplines realized this long ago, and have cultivated industry ties in ways that help their disciplines and departments thrive. The more that philosophers thrive outside outside of academia, the more likely (it seems to me) the philosophy will survive and thrive in academia. Or so it seems to me.

But these are just my hot takes. What are yours? 

How strongly do philosophy grad students want an academic career?

On Twitter, our own Helen De Cruz writes:

In how far do philosophy grad students overwhelmingly want an academic career? Is this their absolute top preference, or is it bc they can't imagine doing anything else, or do they think they should want an academic job so as not to disappoint their advisors?

These are really good (and important) questions. What proportion of grad students are so single-mindedly focused on an academic career? How many grad students are unsure what they want, or whose minds change over time? In our recent thread on grad program support for non-academic careers, there was some debate about the last of these questions. Derek Bowman wrote:

If students have realized they want to pursue another career, why would they pursue it through a philosophy PhD program, instead of pursuing that career more directly?

However, Chris Stephens responded:

It sounds like your experience is different from mine. In my experience, many PhD students discover along the way that they don't want to pursue an academic career. That's why the surprise.

I'm really curious to hear from all of the philosophy grad students and recent PhDs out there (or even people who got their grad degrees a while ago). How strongly do you/did you desire an academic career? Did your mind (or strength of preferences) change over time? If so, when? Early in grad school? Later on? Why?

Which grad programs have good alt-ac support?

On Twitter, our own Helen De Cruz (St. Louis University) writes:

How do different grad schools compare in their placement of people into alt-ac careers? I suspect (but have no data) that if you actively help people (e.g., with making resume and mock interview) you'll place more successfully in alt-ac jobs but we have no data.

Good question. Does anyone know? My memory is a bit hazy here, but I seem to recall hearing that at least a few grad programs in philosophy do have decent support systems for pursuing alt-ac (or non-academic) careers. If anyone has any insights, I'd love to hear them in the comments section!

Grad program support for alt-ac careers?

On Twitter, our own Helen De Cruz asks:

[When it comes to applicants deciding between grad programs,] how important should support for alt-ac careers be? Given that even the best placing schools will have grad students who will never be able to have a career as an academic, does this mean that all grad programs should at least do something toward alt-ac training/placement?

These are excellent questions. There has been some debate lately about whether grad programs should take greater steps to aid students in Alt-Ac placement. Some (such as myself) think that the answer is: obviously yes. Insofar as only something like 50% of philosophy PhD students ever finish their degrees, and of those who do only something like 32 to 35% get permanent academic posts within 5 years of graduation, this means that a high proportion of philosophy graduate students could really use support in finding non-academic work. On the other hand, there are those who think this isn't really the job of faculty in philosophy PhD programs, as these programs are said to exist primarily to train students for academic jobs. From my perspective, this latter line of argument amounts to a bare appeal to tradition. Yes, philosophy programs have existed primarily to prepare students for academic jobs--but I think there is no good reason for things to stay this way. Let me explain.

How to make yourself hireable outside of academia as a philosophy grad student or PhD

The aim of this blog post and interview is to give readers a primer on how to create the conditions that make you hireable as a philosopher outside of academia. The Cocoon also has other practical advice on alt-ac careers such as how to write a resume and how to network outside of academia, and you can find earlier advice by Aaron Kagan here.  The focus here will be on mindset: on overcoming cognitive obstacles and preconceptions. This is an interview with Aaron Kagan (UX Researcher- formerly at Google, now at Facebook Reality Labs). I asked Aaron about how he made the transition from being a philosophy graduate student and PhD at Fordham University, with a PhD with a focus on the role of the body in emotional experience, to a researcher working at big tech companies such as Google and FaceBook. 

Q: Could you tell me a bit about mental obstacles and how to overcome them for philosophers seeking alt-ac jobs? For philosophy grad students (and postdocs, VAPs, etc…) it seems like gaining the skills, connections and mindset to get outside of academia is an insuperable problem.

It might be worth reminding ourselves that we are talking about the practical world.  I say this to draw a distinction from the “rational” or “theoretical” world.  Trying to collapse these two worlds when thinking about life outside of academia is a great source of pain and suffering (at least it was for me, and yes, I know I’m playing fast and loose with metaphysics, but hear me out). 

In the rational/theoretical world, you are a catch: You are highly educated.  You can pick apart and construct arguments of all kinds. You can take highly complicated topics and technical information, distill things down, and communicate them to non-specialists (e.g., your teaching).  Your academic work/specialization may also have strong or direct theoretical ties to a certain industry.  

What’s more, you’re willing to start at any entry level position; any employer can get you for cheap, at least by non-academic standards.    

In the practical world however: You have no previous work experience–none. And you don’t “make sense” to employers.  Why are you leaving academia? What does your work have to do with this organization’s? How exactly can you help make us money?  From this perspective, you’re also “overeducated”. 

How to leave philosophy (Guest post by Greg Stoutenburg)

By Greg Stoutenburg

I recently announced on Facebook that I left my NTT position for a non-academic one and offered to talk more about it. Marcus then asked if I might write something up for PC, which is something I am very happy to do!

It is very easy to get a non-academic job. All that you have to do is contact a friend who can get you hired and ask that friend to get you hired. Then, you interview with some people, possibly as a formality, and eventually, you get hired.

***

But the process of getting to the point where one can call upon such support can be frustrating and time-consuming and feel at times demeaning and hopeless. I started looking casually at non-academic positions a few years ago and much more seriously over the past few months. Looking back at various relevant conversations, interviews, and activities over the past couple of years, and the strategy that I cobbled together from others and applied in fits and starts, I now think that I could have successfully transitioned out of academia into an interesting and rewarding position in six months or less. The same should apply to you.

What I will do from here is state some things that I’ve learned and provide some personal commentary on each. These will be tidbits, and I hope to revisit this topic in more detail later. Although it makes me a little uncomfortable to offer advice, I am going to write this largely as advice, because that’s what I needed during my job search. I won’t spend any time on how hard it is in academia, or why a person would want to leave. I’ll write this for the person who already wants to leave. I’ll assume that’s common ground. I previously told the story of my academic search struggles here Sweat Equity on the Philosophy Job Market - The Philosophers' Cocoon (typepad.com).

Before I start, I do think it’s fair to say that mine is a success story. In the past month, I have been a candidate for a few positions in four distinct fields and had serious offers for further discussion about still other positions once I accepted the first offer. (Has that happened to you in philosophy? You tell someone, “I published yet another epistemology paper!” and they say, “Oh, really? We’re looking for epistemologists right now!”) The position I accepted is partly commission-based, so if I manage to make a non-zero commission, I will immediately earn more money than I did in my philosophy job, and potentially 50% more than in my philosophy job—at that’s all just the first year, while my philosophy job would pay the same until I die. On a personal note, I love the outdoors, and I am excited to finally be able to go camping in September again, which is impossible as an academic; I’ll be working remotely, so I can go anywhere I want to go and see my family regularly throughout the day; the work is interesting to me; and the career growth potential is astounding, especially in comparison to continuing in academia, where in your entire life you either get one promotion (two depending on how you count) or none (if you’re NTT, like me).

1. Having a Philosophy Ph.D. Is a Liability, Not an Asset

In one final interview for an analyst position at very well-known logistics company, the hiring manager I’d been talking with brought in someone who once held the same role and went on to climb the company ladder. After I had the opportunity to show in specific, clear, vivid detail how work I had done in my academic job, in epistemology, and otherwise applied specifically to the job requirements, she said, “You know, when I saw your resume, I said to [hiring manager], ‘Philosophy Ph.D.? Are you serious’ But when you explain it it makes sense.”

A senior HR director at a global marketing company said she would not have given my resume more than a second’s glance after seeing my education unless she’d already known more about me. I have had other interviews with similarly negative remarks about my education and academic work history. How many times was my application thrown out because of my education, which I always thought was a significant accomplishment?

An email list for government jobs (by Madeline Martin-Seaver)

Madeline Martin-Seaver (postdoc, Auburn University) writes in:

I am a philosophy post-doc at Auburn and a longtime appreciator of the work you and your teammates do at the Cocoon! You’ve definitely helped me with my jobs and teaching.

I recently started an e-mail list compiling job USAJobs postings for which humanists might be good fits...The first post is here: https://andgovcheese.substack.com/p/jobs-for-humanists-64 It’s on Substack, but free.

I also have a little blurb on the “about” page..: https://andgovcheese.substack.com/about

"Wine and Government Cheese is a weekly e-mail of federal jobs for people with advanced degrees in the humanities and social sciences. You have a particular set of skills. Allegedly, they’re fungible. Also, there are 10k openings on the USAJobs website and the search engine doesn’t let you exclude terms or reverse sort. W&GC points out at least some of the positions that are 1) open to the public and, 2) applicable to people with MAs or PhDs in the humanities and the humanistic social sciences.

Subscribing gets you a weekly e-mail with highlights from the job descriptions and links to the questionnaires so you can do a better job searching and applying for jobs."

This looks awesome. I thank Madeline for her kind words about the blog, for her work putting her initiative together, and for sharing it with us!

Freelance work for philosophers?

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

What are the best options for freelancing as a professional philosopher? For example, say someone is a FT philosophy instructor looking to pick up summer work or earn extra money during breaks or the school year. What are the best types of freelance work, and where are the places to find them?

I’m thinking there may be options for tutoring, editing, etc., but I’m not sure where to start or if this is a fruitful path...

This is a great question, in part because good answers to it might help graduate students and academic job-candidates to explore and develop "plan B's" outside of academia. Any of you have tips or other suggestions?

ADPA data on job-market competitiveness of candidates over time

Last week, I linked to a post by Charles Lassiter (Gonzaga) on when a PhD degree goes 'stale.' In my post, I noted that it is hard to know whether and to what extent the PhD goes stale without knowing how long academic job applicants stick it out on the market. Interestingly, a handful of readers chimed in noting that, like me, they actually seemed to become more competitive of the academic job-market over time. However, because these are just anecdata and real hard data is important data to know, I reached out to Carolyn Dicey Jennings (UC Merced) of the Academic Placement Data and Analysis (ADPA) project and found out that this kind of data has already been collected and reported upon.

Specifically, I learned that back in 2017, the ADPA's comprehensive report (p. 23) indicated the following:

One’s chances of obtaining a permanent academic job in a particular year past graduation are as follows: 

• • 1 in 5 in the first year after graduation
  • 1 in 8 in the second year after graduation
  • 1 in 8 in the third year after graduation
  • 1 in 12 in the fourth year after graduation
  • 1 in 17 in the fifth year after graduation
  • 1 in 22 in the sixth year after graduation
  • 1 in 23 in the seventh year after graduation

Although the chances of finding permanent academic employment after one’s 7th year are very low, 22% of all 2009 and earlier graduates in the APDA database are now in temporary academic employment

Using a non-academic offer for leverage?

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

I am a junior person on the tenure-track at a large-teaching-focused-state school. This school is an area of the US which has very high cost of living and the pay at my institution has not kept pace with inflation.

My question is: Can I use a non-academic job offer to try to get my current institution to give me a raise in salary?

Before I got into philosophy, I had a 10+ year career in a specific business or industry. So, I could get a non-academic job offer. My worry is how my department, dean or administration will receive this. On one line of thought, if they want to keep me, they will make an offer.

On another line of thinking, they may not treat this kind of job offer like they would an academic TT job offer. But I am completely unsure about this.

Another reader submitted the following reply:

[F]rom my experience if you approach the administration at a university/college in the USA with an offer of a job outside the academy they will say "God Bless, and good bye". You are conveying to them that you really are not that interested in the academy and THEIR college. There are, after all, hundreds of hungry adjuncts dying to work for peanuts. They do not need someone who is slumping around for the next 30 years thinking they are unpaid (even if they are).

My sense is that this is probably true of teaching-focused institutions like the OP mentions. However, I'm not sure whether things might be different for R1's, who might want to hold onto 'star faculty.' I realize this is probably an uncommon situation, but do any readers have tips or experience with this issue?

 

Making a mid-career leap of out academia?

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

I'd like to hear from people who left academia for personal reasons when the going was good. My partner & I have an international two-body problem that has resisted solutions for years. They are a couple of years from tenure while I am up for tenure soon. My publishing profile is excellent, theirs is good but not stellar due to a range of reasons, some beyond their control. An international relationship is not feasible in perpetuity. But leaving a promising career for unknown waters (in the midst of a pandemic, at a certain age) is terrifying--and I am the one considering leaving for personal reasons (their close-knit family is in their country, my country is not friendly to my identity & medical needs, I have had other jobs before academia).

I'd like to know how people knew when to make the leap and how they managed to survive financially. I have been exploring alt-ac for a while (coding, editing work) but I enjoy my research too much to want to just leave academia. And I have a slight worry about what might happen if my partner don't get tenure, and we are both out of work.

This is a great query, and I know of philosophers (such as Zachary Ernst) who have left TT or even tenured positions for very good post-academic careers. However, I don't have any first-hand experience with any of this or feel qualified to opine on any of it. So, are there any readers who fit the OP's description who are willing to weigh in? Any experiences, tips, or insights you think might be helpful to share?

APA resources for non-academic careers

Shane Wilkins (Management Analyst at USDA), a member of the APA’s Committee on Non-Academic Careers, writes in about two new resources the APA is offering for philosophers interested in non-academic careers:

The first resource is the new Beyond Academia webpage to replace the old print edition. The goal of the website is to provide useful, actionable information for departments, graduate students, and others who are interested in a career switch. The website should be accessible to everyone.

The second resource is an upcoming APA webinar  on “Launching a Non-Academic Career” to be held 4/28/2021 at 1pm eastern time. The three panelists for the discussion will be 

• • Gina Helfrich, PhD (Non-profit technology sector)
    Program Officer for Global Technology, Internews
  • JC Lau, PhD (Video game development)
    Producer, Harebrained Schemes
  • Shane Wilkins, PhD (Public administration)
    Management Analyst, U.S. Department of Agriculture

The facilitator for the panel will be Sherri Lynn Conklin. Please note that registration is required for the webinar, and there will be a video recording available after the fact but registration and the video link are both restricted to members of the APA.

We hope that these two resources will be helpful to an important constituency within the philosophical public and would greatly appreciate your help in making sure that everyone who would like access to this content is aware of it.

Alt-ac job discussion thread (2021)

In our job-market discussion thread, a reader asks: "Is there a place where people discuss hiring information about alt/ac posts targeted at philosophers (e.g. the Notre Dame Center job)?" I don't know if there is any place like that, but I think having a dedicated thread for discussing alt-ac (i.e. non-academic) job opportunities and preparation (i.e. non-academic resume-writing, interviewing, etc.) is a fantastic idea. So, this is that thread! If you are a philosopher seeking an alt-ac/non-academic job and you're looking to commiserate with other similarly-minded philosophers, feel free to discuss in the comments section below. Feel free to post:

• Non-academic job ads
• Application questions
• Questions about resumes, interviews, etc.
• Etc.

As with the academic job-market reporting and discussion threads, I will keep a permalink to this thread on the right-hand side-bar of the blog. Hope some of you find it helpful forum in your job-search!

Interview: ‘How to Shawshank your way out of academia’

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).

 

Philosophers in Industry updates!

This is just a quick note that I made significant updates to the Philosophers in Industry directory, adding over 20 entries yesterday thanks to a helpful reader. Given how historically awful this year's academic job market is, my hope that the directory will help philosophers in need of work network outside of academia, as well as better appreciate the kinds of possibilities open to philosophers in industry. Looking at the updates, a few things really pop out at me.

First, 'ontologist' jobs seem to be a big growth area. I don't know much about the line of work, but it appears to involve logic and formal semantics--the general aim being to improve how software applications (including AI and web search engines) reason and categorize things. There is a pretty large number of ontologists listed on the directory, both at big corporations (Amazon, Dell) and smaller start-ups. Second, although I recall seeing a few job ads from them on PhilJobs over the years, I did not realize until now how big of an employer of philosophers Cycorp appears to be.

In brief, people with philosophy degrees can get very good jobs in industry, especially (but not only) if they are willing to learn how to code and network well. Over the years, many readers at the Cocoon and elsewhere have despaired over a philosophy PhD only preparing them for poorly paying, 'entry-level' jobs. I hope the Directory helps despairing readers see that philosophical training can be leveraged into good careers outside of the academy, and that it serves as a helpful resource for networking, finding good jobs, and learning what it takes to transition into them!

Crowdsourcing think-tank opportunities?

The other day, I saw a junior philosopher report getting what sounds like a great job at a think-tank. While I've noticed that a few think-tank jobs are posted at PhilJobs from time to time, I have to imagine there are more think-tank jobs out there that philosophers might be well-positioned to get that aren't advertised on philjobs. Anyway, given how uniquely terrible the academic job market is this year, I thought it might be worth trying to crowdsource potential think-tank opportunities--not just opportunities that are currently listed, but also a list of think-tanks that philosophers might keep an eye on for future opportunities. Do any of you know of particular think-tanks that philosophers could be good fits for, or any think-tank job opportunities that are currently available? Feel free to list them below!

APA webinar: supporting non-academic careers

This is just a quick note that the APA’s Committee on Non-Academic Careers has organized a webinar for APA members, Supporting Non-Academic Careers: What Can Faculty Do?, for next Monday (October 26th) at 4pm EST. I think this is a great endeavor, and hope it receives strong participation, in part to incentivize more endeavors and events like this in the future. Here's a quick description of the event and scheduled speakers:

The webinar will include recommendations about steps departments and faculty can take to support and facilitate careers outside of academia, as well as experiences from faculty working to promote career diversity. The webinar may be especially useful for faculty in leadership positions in graduate programs, such as chairs, directors of graduate studies, and placement/career services officers.

The panelists for the webinar are the following:

• • Mark Barber, PhD, associate chair of the APA Committee on Non-Academic Careers
  • Carolyn Dicey Jennings, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science, University of California, Merced
  • Shane Wilkins, PhD, member of the APA Committee on Non-Academic Careers
  • Kevin J.S. Zollman, Professor of Philosophy and Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University

To participate, register on the APA website. Registration will be available until 10 a.m. Eastern time / 7 a.m. Pacific time on the day of the webinar, and access information will be provided to registrants at least one hour prior to the start of the webinar. Registration is limited to current APA members.

Interested readers can register for the event here. However, if you can't make it, a live recording of the event will be made available to APA members afterward. 

Networking and 'Leaving Academia'

I just came across this really interesting interview of Christopher Caterine, author of the new book, Leaving Academia: A Practical Guide (Princeton University Press). Here are a few choice bits of the interview focusing on networking:

Q: Networking is a subject in your book. How is networking different for nonacademic careers than for academic careers?

A: I was such a firm believer in meritocracy that it never crossed my mind to network while I was in academe! At best, I saw it as an imposition on other people's time; at worst, I viewed it as a type of cheating -- trying to convince someone to hire you because of a relationship instead of for the quality of your scholarship. I think part of that block was that I assumed networking was solely about helping yourself get a job. That's one of the reasons why you do it, of course, but if it's your only goal, you won't get very far. To be good at networking, you need to make it about learning from others and positioning yourself to help them. Enter every meeting aiming to learn as much as you can about your contact’s professional history, goals and current challenges. That knowledge allows you to connect them to people who can help them solve their problems faster than they could in a vacuum. At that point, you’re returning value to them on the time they invested in your meeting. The benefit to you is information about their line of work, the skills required to do it and an improved perception of what it would be like to do that job on a daily basis.

To my mind, scholars could be much more effective and efficient in their work if they applied these skills inside the academy. But the culture of grad school seems to condition most people not to behave this way. When I first started networking, I was terrified that I would annoy people by asking for their time. Most -- maybe 80 percent -- quickly volunteered an hour to tell me about their career path when I emailed my request. That's probably what's most different about networking between academia and the rest of the professional world: nonacademics prioritize networking and relationship building even though their calendars are far more constrained and far less flexible...

Q: Can you describe your job outside academe and how you came to get it?

A: I'm a communications strategist and proposal writer for a global consulting company. On a fun day, I work with senior members of the firm to craft a compelling sales message or collaborate with the rest of our creative team to convey that message as memorably as possible. On a boring day, you might find me applying a style guide to a massive technical document or checking to make sure that everyone's name and title are correct in an organizational chart. Essentially, I apply a wide array of skills I learned earning my doctorate: synthesizing information, weighing ambiguous evidence, writing clearly and framing what is usually quite boring information in an exciting way that can hold an audience’s attention. I used to travel almost weekly to work with teams on site -- and will be first in line for a COVID-19 vaccine if it means I can do so again!

I found the job through networking. Someone I had cold contacted for an informational interview put me in touch with someone he knew at the company, and a good chat with that individual led to a call with a superior of his who had also been an academic. The focus of that call -- and this is important general advice -- was that people with advanced degrees look overqualified when applying for entry-level jobs: to his mind it was far better for people like me to seek midcareer positions. At the end of our discussion, he hesitated slightly before asking me for a writing sample. He was apparently happy with what he saw: shortly after receiving it, he referred me for a position that was about to become available. I didn't even know I was being considered for a job until I was asked to schedule the first interview! At the time that seemed crazy, but I now know that most midcareer positions are filled by referral rather than application. That fact makes it essential for academics to step outside their comfort zone and learn how to network. It really is how you create your own luck -- especially in a job market as competitive as today's.

I hope some of the Cocoon's readers find this helpful. Feel free to share tips and anecdotes of your own in the comments section below!

Alt-ac job opportunity!

A reader writes in:

We have a job opening at Idaho State University (for a University Policy Manager) that might be of interest to some Cocoon readers, especially in this time when jobs are hard to come by. I think it is also in a similar vein to the post on becoming a project manager from a while back. I'm on the hiring committee and we currently have an underwhelming number of applicants, so I suspect that many Cocoon readers would be highly competitive for the position. 

The reader also suggested it might be good to host an open thread crowdsourcing similar opportunities, which I think is a great idea. So I'd like to encourage any readers--particularly those working outside of academia--to list any other current alt-ac job opportunities that philosophers might be competitive for in the comments section below!

Tips for transitioning into ethics consulting?

In our September "how can we help you?" thread, three different readers wrote in asking for tips on how to transition into ethics consulting jobs:

I was wondering if anyone has suggestions on how to transition to an ethics consultant role (e.g. business ethics, but not only), starting from expertise in ethics (but not normative ethics) (PhD), some competence in law and formal methods, but no background in business or business ethics, and some years of postdoctoral work (books, teaching, etc.). EU focus, but obviously open to any perspective. - Posted by: FF 

I want to second FF's request: I'd love a little insight on how to transition to an ethics consultant role with a philosophy PhD, AOS ethics. - Posted by: Seconded

I want to second-second FF’s request, but in a slightly different context: would it be possible to transition into an ethics consultant role with a PhD but a non-ethics AOS? - Posted by: Thirded 

These are really great questions, and I hope we can get some good answers to them from readers! I don't know very much here myself, but here are a few thoughts and questions...

Humanities for All - Project Director Position

Shay Logan (Kansas State) wrote in to draw my attention to this Project Director position with the National Humanities Alliance in Washington, DC. I think it would be great if a philosopher were to get the post! Here's a brief description of the position:

The National Humanities Alliance (NHA) is a nationwide coalition of organizations advocating for the humanities on campuses, in communities, and on Capitol Hill. Founded in 1981, NHA is supported by over 200 member organizations, including: colleges, universities, libraries, museums, cultural organizations, state humanities councils, and scholarly, professional, and higher education associations. It is the only organization that brings together the U.S. humanities community as a whole.

What we do:

• Cultivate support for federal funding for the humanities. 
• Promote the public value of the humanities.
• Promote the value of studying the humanities.
• Convene the humanities community to explore best practices for advocating for the humanities on campus, in communities, and on Capitol Hill.

As a part of its ongoing work to promote the public value of the humanities, NHA seeks a project director to work on the Humanities for All initiative. Humanities for All documents and promotes publicly engaged humanities work in U.S. higher education, including research, teaching, preservation, and programming conducted with and for diverse public partners. It is a resource for scholars carrying out their own publicly engaged work, educators teaching on the public humanities, and scholarly societies and funders looking to support public engagement efforts in the humanities

The project director will have the opportunity to develop expertise in the state of the field of publicly engaged humanities work and gain experience in project management and advocacy. This expertise and experience will provide a foundation for subsequent work in both academic and non-academic settings.

Interested readers can apply at the website linked to above!

How Can I Be a Philosopher in a Non-Academic Career? (APA Blog Interview)

The Blog of the APA has a great interview up today with Gina Helfrich, who received her PhD at Emory and "is now program officer for global technology at Internews, an international nonprofit dedicated to empowering local media worldwide." A couple of choice passages:

Q: Tell me about the twists and turns.

....

There were a lot of unexpected moments. Sometimes, it seemed as if a perfect job fell from the sky with the job description written just for me. Other times, I had to work very hard to find a position.

My first full-time job, as assistant director of the Harvard College Women’s Center, fell from the sky. I saw it come across a mailing list I was on as a result of my graduate fellowship working in the Center for Women at Emory University, and it was a great fit with my scholarly focus in women’s and gender studies.

After a promotion to director and four years at the women’s center, I felt restless. So I read books like What Color Is Your Parachute? I did informational interviews. And eventually, I networked myself into a tech job at a startup—but I got laid off after a year, and I then was stuck with this bizarre resume.

So I did what you do: I put myself out there, chased a lot of opportunities that didn’t pan out, and eventually landed a communications position with NumFOCUS, a nonprofit that supports open-source scientific research. Around the same time, I cofounded a staffing and consulting business to support better diversity and inclusion in technology. We started getting a lot of attention, and even got some venture capital, so at a certain point I was basically forced to leave my full-time/regular job. But the business didn’t work out, and after seven months of “funemployment,” I found my way back to NumFOCUS for few more years.

Then, something else fell from the sky. When I heard about my current position, I thought it was perfect—the candidate needed to understand open source software communities and be conversant in issues of diversity and inclusion. I submitted my resume and cover letter, and got the job.

Honestly, even that summary of my career feels a little too neat; it was very messy and unexpected. So that’s the non-academic path—terrifying, but beautiful!

.....

Q: What can philosophy faculty do to help their students pursue non-academic careers?

The most important thing is to be supportive. Graduate school can really undermine one’s self-confidence. But you need self-confidence to get a job—and faculty support helps.

Another thing faculty can do is get familiar with some basic resources to help graduate students find careers—things like the book Designing Your Life by Stanford University professors Bill Burnett and David Evans.

Faculty have to reckon with the fact that PhD students fund their lifestyles, but there are not enough academic jobs for every PhD student. So faculty really owe it to PhDs to support them in the search for all types of work. Our community should also do more to encourage and support hybrid careers for PhDs—you work in tech, for example, but also teach a course or write philosophical articles.

Rethink Priorities is hiring (multiple jobs!)

Jason Schukraft, who wrote a guest post in April on transitioning from academia to a think-tank, kindly let me know that his company, Rethink Priorites, is currently hiring for multiple research positions (remote/anywhere, full-time or part-time). In a year with a lot of bad news, this is just a little bit of good news, and I am delighted to share it in the hope that it leads to some philosophers in need finding gainful employment.

Here is the ad:

The effective altruism movement is allocating hundreds of millions of dollars and millions of person hours each year to improve the world. Better research can dramatically improve this allocation. Rethink Priorities is a research organization aimed at uncovering the actionable insights needed to do this. We have founding values -- we care about transparency, tractability, short feedback loops, actionability, and impact assessment.

Since the beginning of 2018, we’ve:

• • Constructed cost-benefit intervention analysis for farmed animal welfare.

  • Conducted polls, surveys, and message testing to better understand how the public thinks about animal welfare. Our work has been used by the Humane Society for the United States, Mercy for Animals, the Humane League, and others.

  • Brought to light the important and neglected area of invertebrate welfare.

  • Created quantitative existential risk assessments, starting with nuclear war.

  • Analyzed the effective altruism movement through the EA Survey and the Local Groups Survey.

  • And much much more!

We’re backed by Open Philanthropy, Effective Altruism Funds, and viewers like you. We’re now looking to hire multiple part-time and full-time researchers at any level of seniority to join our existing team of ten and help us extend this great work. We’re looking to hire both generalists who could be a good fit for contributing in a variety of areas and specialists who have deep expertise in a particular important area.

Alt-ac jobs: some simple things programs can do

In my previous post, I explained why I think philosophy grad programs should be motivated to help their students pursue non-academic lines of work. In brief, doing so is likely to be in the interest of grad programs in an increasingly tenuous higher education environment. Even before COVID appeared, university enrollments are expected to plummet around 15% in the next five years--and when the inevitable fiscal belt-tightening happens at universities, the humanities are likely to be the first to go. For better or worse, one way to increase our departments' survival odds is to increase the amount of outside funding we get from donors--and successful people in industry are the kind of people who make those kinds of donations.

In response to my post, there was some inevitable skepticism. For example, one reader wrote:

[T]hinking that philosophy graduate programs should train their students to do things other than academic philosophy would be like thinking that a program for electricians at a technical college should train their students to be something other than electricians.

Another reader then added: "I do not think people who work in philosophy departments are really qualified to help their students with most alternative careers." However, then Amanda gave what I take to be exactly the right response:

The comments about, "philosophy professors aren't qualified to do this," drive me batty. They aren't. But the point is they can and should be. This does NOT mean philosophy professors must become experts in tech and project management. All it means is that philosophy professors should make efforts to cultivate relationships with alum in working in tech and project management. Connections couldn't be more important re employment. So philosophy professors simply keeping in touch with former students in non-academic jobs is all they need to be qualified to "prepare students for the non-academic market." Of course philosophy professors are not going to give a lecture on project management. But what they can do is invite their former students to do that lecture (i.e. former students who are currently in project management). It really puzzles me why so many people think either (1) philosophy professors are incapable of this, or, (2) philosophy professors have no obligation to put effort into the non-academic market. Philosophy professors are capable, because it is as easy as just described, i.e. staying in touch with former students. 

Look at the Philosophers in Industry directory I've put together. It shows that former philosophy grad students can transition effectively into a diverse variety of careers. Philosophy programs are surely not in position to 'train their students' for all of these jobs. That's a fool's errand. Yet each and every time we have these types of conversations on the Cocoon, many readers seem to me to make the same mistake here...over and over and over again: the mistake of thinking that 'helping philosophy students find non-academic jobs' is a matter of training. The fact is, about 70% of job openings are never even publicly listed, and 85% of jobs are found through networking. This suggests that what philosophy grad programs should do is really quite simple. Let me explain.

Consider first what almost certainly tends to happen when students leave a philosophy grad program without a degree--say, because the student never finishes their dissertation. I can't recall where I came across the number, but I recall seeing somewhere that roughly 50% of PhD students never finish. How do departments treat these students upon and after they leave the program? Although it's been a while since I was in grad school, my sense is that the following tends to happen: the student leaves with little support--rather, they are simply "shown the door" and the department washes their hands of them. I've heard that something similar tends to happen with students who graduate but leave for non-academic careers. Often (or so I've heard), their professors express disappointment about the decision and send them on their way. If this is what does indeed tend to happen, then notice what isn't going on. There isn't any:

• Positive, supportive relationship with the student upon their leaving for non-academic work.
• Effort put into maintaining such a relationship with the student in the years and decades after they leave.
• Attempt to use the former-student's later-developed non-academic expertise, such as by inviting them to give talks in the department on how to transition into and succeed in the non-academic world.
• Attempt to list the person on the department's website as a successful non-academic.
• Attempt to host networking opportunities featuring former students, such as annual department events where former students in non-academic careers are invited to a department gathering (at, say, a restaurant) to catch up with professors and get to know current students.
• Etc.

Indeed, how many PhD program placement directors even have a list of former students who went into academic industry, let alone stay in touch with people on that list by phone or by inviting them to department events? Similarly, how many grad advisors (including dissertation advisors) do this with their own students? I don't have the answer, but I suspect the answer to both questions is probably: not many. If this is correct, these are all missed opportunities of the worst sort. I say, "of the worst sort", for three reasons. First, as Amanda notes, these sorts of things seem (A) fairly simple and easy to do, and (B) are likely to have the "most bang for your buck" in terms of actually helping students find non-academic work. The third problem here is equally bad: by failing to maintain good relationships with former students in industry, departments almost certainly shoot themselves in the foot in terms of gaining donations (for programs, endowed chairs, etc.). I mean, who would want to donate to a program or profession that ignominiously "showed them the door"? 

Now, I actually know of a (very highly-ranked) program or two that started doing some of the above. And who knows? Maybe more programs do these things than I know of. However, judging by the many conversations we've had here and interviews of non-academic philosophers I've read, it doesn't seem like many programs do any of the above. If so, then they are missed opportunities indeed, and ones that seem easily fixed--if only programs begin to realize why they should be motivated to change.

Motivating PhD programs to focus on industry jobs

Following the Philosophers in Industry directory I'm working on, I had an interesting conversation the other day about what grad programs could do better in terms of helping to place their students in good non-academic jobs. I have been out of grad school for quite a while now, so I am not entirely sure what current practices are like. But when I was in grad school, the focus within the program was entirely on academic jobs. Like most PhD programs, mine had a placement director--and a very good one at that. Our placement director helped candidates workshop academic job-market materials, strategize, do mock interviews, and so on. Still, the focus was overwhelmingly on academic jobs. And while I have heard through the grapevine that some programs may be doing a better job focusing more on non-academic work, I suspect that many programs still probably focus primarily on the academic market. In my next two posts, I want to discuss two things:

1. Some steps grad programs might take to better support students pursuing non-academic work.
2. Why grad programs should be motivated to do so.

I want to focus on the second issue first, and here's why. Laying out a series of steps that grad programs might take in order to better place students in non-academic jobs isn't likely to be very effective if grad programs aren't motivated to change. And, on that note, one issue that I have heard may stand in the way of grad programs doing more when it comes to non-academic work is that grad faculty simply may not be motivated to change what they do. On the one hand, faculty in grad programs simply may not value their students leaving academia for non-academic industry jobs. Anecdotally, I have heard these sentiments to be quite common, with grad faculty sometimes expressing extreme disappointment or disregard toward students who let them know they plan to leave academia. On the other hand, grad faculty may not do much when it comes to helping students find non-academic work because they, the grad faculty, have never had a non-academic career themselves, leaving them at a bit of a loss about what they can do to help students find non-academic jobs.

Here, though, is what I think we should say to grad programs to better motivate them: in today's post-COVID environment, graduate programs are likely to need non-academic support in order to survive and flourish. Let me explain.

Leaving academia for industry: 7 years later

Zachary Ernst, former Associate Professor at University of Missouri-Columbia now working in the tech industry, has a really interesting new post at Medium entitled, "Leaving Academia for the Private Sector: Seven Years Later". (H/t Mark Barber) Here are few choice passages:

To my great surprise, I discovered that business is actually interesting! Coming up with the right strategy for growing the business, collecting the right data about the company’s performance, understanding the larger challenges in the market, evaluating the competition’s strengths and weaknesses, figuring out how to differentiate yourself from your more entrenched competitors — all of this turns out to be fascinating. In fact, I usually find it to be more interesting and challenging than my previous academic work in philosophy. Personally, I’m shocked to find myself reading articles from McKinsey & Company or the Harvard Business Review in my spare time. But I often do, and they’re just as interesting as anything in an academic journal....

My move out of academia has spared me the pain that faculty are enduring now that the financial state of the university system is spiraling downward....

I have literally never wished, for even one second, that I’d stayed in academia. My professional life is more interesting, more impactful, and more lucrative than it used to be. Based on the number of questions from current faculty I receive on a near-weekly basis, I expect that my own career trajectory will be much more common in the near future.

APA webinar: Philosophers Beyond Academia

This is just a quick note that the American Philosophical Association is holding a member webinar, "Philosophers Beyond Academia: Experiences in Navigating Diverse Career Paths" on May 20th at 1:30pm EST.

Although those of you who are APA members probably received their announcement about this by email, I would like to add that I think it could be a very good idea for Cocoon readers who are APA members to attend. I for one am delighted that the APA is devoting more attention to non-academic careers, and suspect that the more successful events like this are, the more likely the APA will be to do more things like this going forward. This, it seems to me, is the kind of support for early-career job-marketeers that people have long been clamoring for--so if you agree, please do consider registering and attending!

Side-gigs for philosophers?

In our recent thread on back-up career paths, M writes:

Not sure how selfish this sounds given that so many of us are unable to get jobs, but I wonder if it might be worth having a thread about side-gigs of philosophers-ways philosophers have of earning extra income. Salaries are not what we'd like them to be and many of us, FT and adjunct faculty, earn extra money to make ends meet. Any thoughts?

Although jobs of all kinds are scarce during the COVID pandemic, I think this is a great query. If I recall, philosophy grad students often have provisions in their contracts prohibiting them from taking outside employment (which, for the record, seems really unfair and counterproductive to me, as well as not at all in line with STEM grad programs!). But, in any case, side-gigs seem like the kind of thing one should pursue, not just for additional income but also for experience one can put on a resume in case one needs (or wants) to transition out of academia into a non-academic field.

Bearing this in mind, do any readers have any thoughts or experience here? Have any of you had 'side-gigs'? If so, were any of you able to leverage them in any way in transitioning out of academia into non-academic industry?

So You Think You Want a Tenure-Track Job? (Guest post by Liz Swan)

By Liz Swan (Real Estate Broker & Lecturer in Writing and Rhetoric, UC Boulder)

[This was originally posted at ChronicleVitae in 2016. Many thanks to Liz for allowing me to re-post it]

I wanted one, too. Badly. In fact, in 2010, I wrote an article for The Chronicle called “Message in a Bottle” in which I likened a Ph.D. sending out countless applications for tenure-track jobs to a castaway on a remote island, tossing messages out to sea in hopes of being rescued. But then, miraculously, three years later, I was offered a tenure-track job, and took it.

Exactly one year after accepting the position, I resigned from my first — and very likely, last — tenure-track job and eagerly coordinated my family’s return to Colorado. Here’s what I learned in the process, some of which I hope will be helpful to those currently in the depressing throes of bottled message tossing.

Loss of perspective. Being on the academic job market year after year — in my case, five years — means getting whatever employment you can along the way while holding out hope for a tenure-track position that may or may not come through. It’s akin to skiing downhill with no idea of how you’re going to stop at the bottom without crashing into a bunch of people. Weird analogy, maybe, but what I mean is that battling it out on the academic market year after year builds such a momentum, and you become so singularly focused on getting the job, that you lose all perspective. You don’t think about what it will actually be like when you do get it, and whether it will in fact satisfy your career needs and desires, not to mention be in the best interest of other people in your life like a partner and dependents. The pursuit itself is so all-consuming that it takes on a dangerous life of its own, everything else be damned.

 

Tips for transitioning into tech industries?

A reader writes in:

As an academic philosopher considering leaving the field, I've found your recent alt-ac posts, and the resources posted, very valuable. One possible trajectory I would be interested in learning more about, if this is possible, is the tech trajectory. In other words, suppose one has a doctoral degree in philosophy, but now, all the terrible things about the present considered, one wants to do something quantitative in the tech or adjacent industries. What does that path look like? How does one start to build credentials or the equivalent?

Great question! It's interesting to see that quite a lot of people in my new Philosophers in Industry directory are in tech. I think it would be great to have a guest-post or two on this from people who transitioned into tech fields. Any readers out there interested in contributing a guest post? If so, please just email me at [email protected]. In the meantime, I encourage any readers with experience in tech to post any tips they have in the comment section below!

My Path into Project Management (Guest post by Katharine Schweitzer)

The following is a guest-post by Katharine Schweitzer, a former academic philosopher who recently transitioned to a non-academic career in project management, and who also kindly volunteered to be listed in my new Philosophers in Industry directory. Katherine's post seems to me a profoundly helpful step-by-step guide detailing the general kind of process that an effective transition from academia to non-academic industry can involve. I am very grateful to her for putting it together and encouraging me to share it here!:

By Katharine Schweitzer 

Many job descriptions include “project management” as a responsibility. Project management is also a profession. Learning about how to manage projects is useful in many domains of life.

The Project Management Institute defines a project as “a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result.” A project has a beginning and an end, is carried out for a purpose, and is comprised of a series of related activities. As a graduate student or a university professor, you have probably managed many projects, such as:

1. 1. Applying for a grant or fellowship
   2. Creating the curriculum for a class and teaching it
   3. Designing and carrying out a piece of independent research
   4. Supervising a student’s independent research project, such as an honors thesis or independent study
   5. Establishing and running a research lab
   6. Organizing a conference or a conference session
   7. Creating and publishing a website for a professional organization
   8. Chairing a search committee to hire a colleague
   9. Chairing a committee to create a component of your university’s core curriculum

Many of my friends and family are engineers, and project manager has become an option in the professional advancement of engineers after they prove that they are competent individual contributors. I learned about the profession of project management from my engineer friends. When they told me about their job responsibilities, I thought, “I would be great at that!” Managing projects involves being attentive to details, communicating clearly and concisely with people at all levels of the organization, and gauging the interpersonal dynamics of the team members who are carrying out the project work.

In summer 2018, I had no technical qualifications in engineering or IT, but I had plenty of project experience after five years of being a philosophy professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. For three years, I considered leaving academia. In June 2018, I communicated to my department chair that I intended to resign my position as a tenure-track professor, effective June 2019. In my final year as a professor, I created and executed a plan to start a non-academic job in project management in July 2019. Here’s how I did it. I hope that sharing my story will help others if they are considering a similar career pivot.

Backup career paths in the COVID era?

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

It would be useful to talk more about the back-up career paths for mint philosophy PhDs. And how to switch to them. This is more necessary than ever since Covid19 will disrupt the already competitive academic job market. If people like me had some hope before the pandemic, now university cuts on jobs and post-docs lead us to face reality: fresh PhDs have passed from having little chances to zero chances — not only in Humanities. So, many would be grateful if even more space could be given to non-academic careers in either the US and Europe. At least, I see also the positive side-effect: the situation will push to think more about the prospectives philosophers have outside academia. Thank you in advance!

This is a really important query, for obvious reasons--as the academic job-market is almost certainly going to be a disaster this year (even more so than normal, sadly). Anyway, here are a few resources to begin with:

• The APA's Beyond Academia Network: mailing list for philosophers searching for non-academic opportunities.
• Phil Skills: a website of interviews with philosophers in non-academic careers.
• Helen's series of interviews with philosophers outside of the academy at The Philosophers' Magazine.
• Our own Alt-Ac Workshop and Alt-Ac Jobs series featuring tips and guest-posts.
• Free range philosophers: more interviews with philosophers with non-academic careers.
• A helpful 'Plan B' article with practical tips at Chronicle of Higher Education.
• Beyond the Professoriate: a website and membership service featuring free (?) career events as well as (paid?) job-search courses, coaching, and other resources (I just discovered this and have no idea whether it's any good).

Finally, because I was curious, yesterday I did simple Google searches for "philosophers in industry", "philosophers outside of academia", and "philosophers non-academic careers. Because (1) to my astonishment I wasn't able to find anything like a list or directory in 15 seconds (let alone after a little more digging), (2) as we've discussed before networking is how the vast majority of jobs are found and filled, and (3) ex-academic philosophers are probably the best people to appreciate the talents and job situation of philosophers, I just decided to create a Philosophers in Industry Directory of my own. As of now, I am taking suggestions for additions, updates, and deletions by email: [email protected]. I hope some of you find it helpful, especially those of you who need a job or will need one soon (e.g. post-graduation).

Basically, I just did a little bit of digging and decided to list people alphabetically by last name, linking to their professional pages and listing their line of work. Although I imagine an individual listed here or there might email me asking to have their name removed or whatever, given that all I've done is list publicly available information on LinkedIn, an informal directory like this seems to clearly fine to put together--especially given that it might drive viewers and talented new employees to their company. Who knows? Among other things, I think it's kinda cool to see in one place all of the interesting and diverse things ex-academic philosophers have gone on to do in their careers. And if the directory turns out to be more trouble than it's worth, then I can always take it down. Until then, enjoy - and feel free to suggest additions, etc.!

In any case, do any of you have any helpful tips or resources for the original commenter?

Alt-ac paths for historians of philosophy?

A reader writes in:

Thanks so much for the rich blog, including its posts on questions pertaining to alternative careers to academia. I have learned much from these, but one thing I have sensed—I may be wrong—is that much of the discussion is especially relevant to people working in M&E, logic, etc. Although I continue to enjoy all such posts, including the recent one from Samuel ... if the opportunity ever arises I would be especially interested to hear from any historian of philosophy that might not have the math skills others have, which plausibly leads those others to find work in technology and so on (and perhaps with greater interest). Just a thought—and many thanks again for your efforts!

Anyone have any helpful insights?

What I learned from leaving academic philosophy (Guest post by Samuel Kampa)

By Samuel Kampa

By the end of April 2019, my academic career was over. My on-campus interview did not yield a TT job. For personal reasons, I made the wrenching decision to turn down a one-year postdoc offer. Every other opportunity ended in polite rejection, impolite rejection, or ghosting. With mixed feelings, I applied for non-academic jobs and eventually accepted a position at an education technology start-up called Yellowdig.

My story is not exactly a page turner. So why am I telling it? I'm encouraging you—no, urging you—to consider a similar "alternative" path, especially in light of the inevitable recession to come. A year ago, "TT or bust" was a common but ill-advised attitude toward the job market. That attitude should be unthinkable today. COVID-19 is an accelerant to a fire in academia that has been raging for at least a decade. When that fire is finally extinguished, the landscape of higher education will be unrecognizable at best and decimated at worst. Philosophy departments will stop hiring. Universities will receive less funding from states and lower yields from endowments. Enrollments will shrink at an even faster rate. Driven by the necessity to teach at scale, colleges will increasingly shift classes online. One by one, non-elite liberal arts colleges will shut their doors. And all but the most elite graduate students will feel the pain of the contraction. You might have thought staying in academia during a pandemic was the safest course of action. You'd be wrong.

If my story matters, it's only because it highlights lessons I learned too late. Like many of my grad student colleagues, I knew less about what it took to get non-academic jobs than I thought I did. My current position is a product of dumb luck, charitable interviewers, and just enough personal preparation. Be smarter than me; learn these lessons now. My intention is not to scare you, but to inspire concrete action. And if I'm "catastrophizing", it's because graduate education really is a catastrophe⁠—albeit a very white-collar, first-world catastrophe. How you respond to this catastrophe will determine the amount of needless pain you'll experience in the near future.

Moving from academia to a think tank (Guest post by Jason Schukraft)

I’m a senior research manager at a small, academically-unaffiliated think tank called Rethink Priorities. I’m paid to conduct original research, much of it philosophical in nature, that helps charities decide how to allocate their resources. It’s not a career I planned for, but it’s a great job, and my doctorate in philosophy turned out to be pretty good training. The demand for the sort of work I do seems to be increasing, and newly minted philosophy PhDs would be a good fit for many comparable positions. I’m writing about my experience so that others might pursue similar opportunities.

My Alt-Ac Journey

When I was accepted to PhD programs in philosophy in the spring of 2010, I naively believed that becoming a professor was more-or-less a given. Over the next several years, I was exposed to a variety of evidence to the contrary, but through a combination of confirmation bias and wilful ignorance, I convinced myself that the base rate of failure I observed on the academic job market didn’t apply to me. Since nobody in the department was talking much about alternatives to academia, I never really investigated my options, and I certainly did not tailor my research interests to appeal to the non-academic market. (My dissertation is in metaphilosophy.)

In my final year of grad school (2016-2017), I applied to 50 academic jobs and was rejected by all of them. At the time, my wife was pregnant with our second child. I could have applied to even more jobs, but I wasn’t willing to move my family across the country for a one-year VAP or adjunct position with uncertain prospects. (I’m not certain I would have received a VAP or adjunct position even if I had tried.) I was pretty despondent and totally unsure what to do with my life.

I assumed I would end up in a boring, entry-level, nine-to-five office job, probably in the tech industry. (There’s a lot of that around here.) I heard about Rethink Priorities through a newsletter I subscribed to. I didn’t think I was well-qualified for the position, but Rethink Priorities is a remote-only organization and thus offered flexible work hours. As the parent of two young children, that really appealed to me, enough so that I decided to write to one of the founders and inquire more. He encouraged me to apply, and I ended up being a good fit.

Supporting non-academic careers (guest post by Kevin J.S. Zollman)

Kevin J.S. Zollman is an associate professor and director of graduate studies at Carnegie Mellon University. His research is on the application of mathematical models to social behavior, and he is author of the popular book The Game Theorist’s Guide to Parenting. 

When I was a kid growing up in Kansas, someone asked me “what church do you go to?” While (perhaps) not intended, the phrasing of this question communicated volumes to me. The presumption of the question is that I go to a church, not a synagogue, mosque, or temple. What’s more, it presumes that I visit houses of worship regularly. Being raised atheist, it stayed with me: I was so unusual for my time and place that one should assume me away. Many of you reading this post have had similar experiences, especially those of you who are members of groups historically excluded from western philosophy.

We are sensitized to these micro-aggressions against marginalized demographic groups.  But we may miss how we do similar things to those who ultimately leave the academy. Just think for a moment about all the ways philosophical culture talks about getting a PhD. “Placement” means “academic placement”, “a job” is synonymous with “an academic job.” Even that phrase I just used, “leave the academy” implies something like abandonment or at least departure from expectation. Happy, important, and gainful employment outside the academy is treated as abandoning one’s path and is the equivalent to unemployment.

It doesn’t take much effort to realize how cruel this is. In a field where more than half of our students won’t get academic jobs, we are actively creating a culture where most of our students will view themselves as failures. Even those that manage to escape the self-hating trap may still worry that others view them that way.

While I still often make mistakes, I have tried to change the way I talk with students in our graduate program. I always preface relevant sentences with “For those interested in academic employment, …”  I ask students, when I first talk with them about employment, if they want a job in academia. I repeatedly reinforce the question (“are you still planning for a job in academia?”) giving students the opportunity to change their minds.

Job-market catastrophizing? It is not the only way

[EF: I discussed the blogpost "Job-market catastrophizing?: a conversation" with Krishna Del Toso, who continues to write and think as a philosopher but is no longer paid as one. He agreed to share his reflections below:]

Here's my two cents.

I must say that, as I see it, the root of the "catastrophizing" lies in the fact that as far as the academic work is concerned (whether it is philosophy, literature, physics etc.), you aren't totally in control of the effects of your choices, whereas in other domains you are. This condition that characterizes wannabe academics bring about two aspects: 1. you don't need to train the instant reactivity to external stimuli (I'm talking about the kind of reactivity that can make the difference between leading a business brilliantly… or not), 2. you enter a sort of vicious circle in which the "catastrophizing" is nothing but a passive, fruitless, element that nourishes, and is nourished by, the observation that things go as they go because of a sort of inviolable and tacitly admitted norm (kind of Heidegger's "das Man world").

Of course, I was myself in this very vicious circle when I was hoping (mind the word: hoping!!) for a position at the university, long ago, and I was wearing myself out of "I've never done enough", not to speak of the struggle for publications (a struggle often driven by the aim of adding an extra title in my cv: mere form, devoid of real substance… should research be like this? Definitely not!) and of the almost depressing waiting-time in the maybe-you’ll-be-the-next "parking lot" for researchers after a position. I was waiting for others to decide for me, and that, back then, looked quite obvious, normal.

Fortunately all this no longer wears me out, fortunately we live in a fast-changing world… and fortunately the Aristotelian saying, often remembered but rarely put into practice, according to which "being (and so philosophy too) can be said in many ways" remains always valid.

Now I'm bringing my knowledge of philosophy into non-strictly-philosophical fields, such as early-stage business (I'm currently working on a book on this subject) and personal growth (a colleague recently asked me to make together Youtube video conversations on this matter). The time to actualize the aforementioned Aristotelian message is ripe: consider that Google inaugurated the CPO position, Chief Philosophy Officer, not because it's cool but because they need philosophers. I also continue as an independent scholar with my research in the spare time, avoiding all boring stuff and focusing only on arguments that really tantalize me (of course now I write less articles than before, but they're published on the same international journals). But the most important aspect is that now I know (I mean, crystal clear awareness!) that if I work well, I pick up all the fruits of my actions because I damn deserve that, if I don't, the bad effects are entirely on me… because I damn deserve that. Such a huge relief!

Changing the 'academia or bust' mindset

In my recent post, "Alt-ac: how our profession can do better?", I suggested that grad programs and professional organizations (such as the APA) should do more to foster alt-ac opportunities for their students. At the moment, our profession leads all too many its early-career members into an awful situation. As anyone who has gone to grad school or sent off undergrads to grad school knows, many people enter grad school with a false sense of their chances (youthful optimism is surely a very real thing). They then spend anywhere from 5-10+ years doing little else than academic philosophy, often while racking up student debt. Then, after 5-10+ years, only around only around 35% of those who finish the PhD end up getting permanent academic jobs. And the rest? As Ben Sheredos' paper on professional failure illustrates--and countless discussions both online and offline attest--those who don't end up with permanent academic jobs can end up feeling like abject failures utterly ill-equipped to make a living in the non-academic world. Insofar as this is our profession--and insofar as grad programs often seem to entice students to enroll with optimistic pictures of career success--I believe we should make changing this situation our responsibility. But how?

In my last post, I suggested there are a few simple things that grad programs and professional organizations might do:

1. Grad programs (placement directors, dissertation supervisors) could cultivate contact-lists of students of theirs who have entered non-academic industries, staying in touch with them personally for the purposes of helping students network for alt-ac opportunities.
2. Professional institutions (such as the APA) could also publish a "who's who" directory of philosophers in industry, as well as organize alt-ac networking events at major conferences (much like other disciplines do, where industry representatives have informational tables for potential job-candidates).

Readers who commented seemed to like these ideas. However, although I think simple steps like these might dramatically improve things, one major difficulty is getting them to happen.

Alt-ac: how our profession can do better?

In recent years, my primary focus on the Cocoon has been to help early-career people navigate the profession, particularly the job-market. To this end, Helen and I did things like the Job-Market Boot Camp and Job-Market Mentoring Program. Although I plan to keep doing these kinds of things--as a number of readers have said they find these kinds of things helpful--from time to time some readers in comments sections have been critical of these endeavors, saying that they don't do anything to deal with the deeper problems grad students and job-candidates face: specifically, features of the profession that put grad students and job-candidates in such awful positions to begin with. If, as appears to be case, only something like 35% of job-candidates can get permanent academic jobs at all, what does job-market advice really accomplish in the end...besides helping out this candidate or that candidate, while still leaving 65% of job-candidates without jobs? Ben Sheredos' paper on the phenomenology of professional failure really drove this point home to me: that for all too many candidates, all of the well-meant advice and encouragement in the world (viz. "You can do it...if only you improve your dossier materials and interviewing skills!") may not only ring hollow, but may even be harmful in a hard-to-quantify way (by perhaps fostering false hope, followed by many hours harder and harder work to become a better candidate, only to again be met with failure in the end). In this way, Ben's paper made me begin to reevaluate what in the world I am trying to do here at the Cocoon.