In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:
I'm having motivation problems. This is my 4th year on the job market and it looks as though, once again, I'm not going to get any traction whatsoever this year.
The thing is, I'm currently in the 1st year of a postdoc position that's part of a grant that I wrote for a 2 year project. So, I'm quite lucky in that I'm employed with another year and half to keep doing research and few other responsibilities.
However, given my complete lack of success on the job market (besides the postdoc position I've been in), I have no reason to think that accruing further publications is going to do much for my chances of landing a TT position. I've got what I think is a very strong publication record - it's comparable to what many people have who've gotten tenure. Yet, like so many others, it doesn't seem to have made the slightest difference in getting a job. Sadly, this is probably due, in part, to having gotten my PhD from a unranked department.
At this point, I'm basically counting on the fact that I'm going to go back into a construction gig once this postdoc is up. Given that I've written the grant, there's little penalty attached to being less productive for the remainder of it. Add to this, I have a wife and a toddler who I could spend more time with while I've got job flexibility, I'm finding it very hard to motivate/justify continuing to invest myself in what seems to be a almost certain dead end. How much time/emotional energy should I continue to invest?
I'm really sorry to hear that this reader is going through this. I went through something similar myself during my years on the market, and I deeply empathize: I remember all too well how hard it was for me to continue on, and to wonder what else I could/should be doing.
A couple of readers submitted follow-up comments. One reader wrote in:
I'm in similar shoes. My advice? Explore all your career alternatives now so that you don't have to go back to construction (unless that's your next preference). It's what I'm doing. With the dearth of entry-level tech jobs, I do believe it's hard to get decent white collar work with a philosophy background nowadays. People don't seem to appreciate that enough. Still, I think it's orders of magnitude easier than landing a TT job in philosophy -- especially if you're doing "core" analytic or something like that. It's an uphill battle to get into industry, but at least you have a fighting chance.
And another wrote:
I'm in a similar situation, with a list of short-term postdocs that keeps growing. In Europe, where I'm based, this is perceived as the norm. Postdocs, whether self-funded with a grant or fellowship or offerred by a research group, are what an early-career researcher typically does. To most people here, I look like a *successful* early-career researcher. But I have no idea how I could move to a TT job, for similar reasons as the OP. I heard that getting a really big grant might allow you to negotiate a position in some European countries, but I'm not confident this is a sure route anymore. What my senior mentors keep telling me is that I'm doing fine and just need to wait (persist) long enough. It's tough.
While persistence can of course pay off, few things are as uncertain as the academic job-market--so I think the first reader above probably has a point. If the OP has the time to begin cultivating a better Plan B, they might be in a much better position in a year-and-a-half to secure a more attractive non-academic job if things don't work out. Personally, I wish that I had done this myself!
During my 4th year or so on the market, I received zero interviews, and I didn't know whether to continue on. But I had a relatively stable non-tenure-track position, so each year my spouse and I had difficult discussions on whether I should keep going. Fortunately, after a few more years, I finally began to get more interviews, and ultimately I landed a TT job during my 7th year on the market, the very year my non-TT job was due to run out. If I hadn't gotten a job that year, then I probably would have had to leave academia--and I didn't have any plan B whatsoever, so I had no idea what I would have done instead (which I do recall being pretty terrifying).
So, maybe the thing for the OP to do is to sort of split their energy between academia and cultivating a Plan B? What do you all think? If you agree, any tips for the OP on how to best develop an alternative career plan?
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