TL;DR
- Academia can be a great place to work–passionate people, independence, meaningful work–but it often comes at a big cost–very little work/life balance, no control over where you work, and a work environment rife with rejection, imposter syndrome, and competition
- If you have doubts, try journaling, talking with trusted friends and people who have left academia, envisioning your perfect work environment, and writing a practice cover letter explaining why you want an academic job
- If you’ve decided to leave and need to tell your advisors, ease your mentors into your decision, stand by your decision, and explain what you want to do, and prioritize self-care
- When applying for non-academic jobs, adapt your CV to a 1-2 page resume, don’t undersell your experience, and think critically about how to “sell” your academic experience for a non-academic audience
- Use cover letters to explain your career transition
- Use free and low-cost trainings to develop skills in high-demand areas
- Develop your network
In the last year of my PhD program, I decided to leave academia after graduation, which meant not pursuing academic positions like professorships. It was one of the hardest decisions I ever made. Not because I have ever regretted it (I never have, though I would like to wear more hats like in the picture above), but because deciding to leave academia is a little like deciding to leave a cult. It is a decision that can feel awkward, alienating, and hugely taboo.
This blog post is for anyone who is considering leaving academia and I wrote it as a blog post I wish I had access to when making my decision. It is also for anyone curious about the work culture of academia—spoiler alert, it could definitely be its own reality TV show.
Why Applying to Academic Positions Didn’t Work For Me and Might Not For You
If there are any non-academics in the room, I should provide some background. In academia, you are trained to get your Master’s degree and PhD and then go off and do a post-doc at a different university from the one you trained at (a post-doc is where you work on research under the guidance of a faculty mentor for 1-2 years; it’s kind of like an extension of grad school but you’re paid a little more and have more freedom). After that, you’re supposed to become a tenure-track professor, rise in the ranks until you are actually given tenure, and stay in that position until you are about 80-years-old.
Applying to academic positions means that you have virtually 0 control over where you will work because there are generally only a handful of openings across the country for a position in your field and there is massive competition for those few positions. Plus, departments virtually never hire their graduate student alumni (especially not right after they graduate) due, in part, to concerns that doing so will look like nepotism.
This was a big problem for me because I love living in Seattle. I grew up here, my friends and family are here, it is one of the best places in the world for my hobbies (climbing, hiking, running, etc.) As I wrote more and more applications for faculty and postdoc positions, I realized that I was actively hoping to not get any interviews or job offers. Each time I received a rejection, I wasn’t disappointed, I was elated. Sooo pretty big sign I shouldn’t be in academia.
On top of that, I was getting burnt out with the academic work environment. I was lucky to have a wonderful advisor and be in a supportive department that didn’t seem to foster competition between graduate students (very unusual). Nevertheless, to succeed in academia you have to publish your research constantly.
Not going to lie, I was good at publishing, but I didn’t love it. I spent years on research papers only to publish them and maybe have a few fellow academics read them. I never knew if any of my research led to real, actionable change or if I was just shouting into an ivory echo chamber. Plus, the review process for publishing your work can be brutal.
On average, (in Sociology at least) 3 academics review your research article and offer feedback. You often need to go through multiple rounds of revision and feedback before your article is accepted for publication (or, more often, rejected) and usually one of those reviewers is SUPER mean (it’s always Reviewer 2 BTW). When roughly 90% of graduate students have imposter syndrome (my unofficial estimation), dealing with that harsh feedback can be especially rough.
Then there was the pretty horrendous work-life balance that most academics have. It’s the kind of work environment where it often feels shameful to admit that you didn’t work over a weekend or in the evening. The kind of work environment where people ask if anyone isn’t working on Labor Day. The kind of work environment where it can be shocking to have well-developed hobbies that do not include reading academic articles in your spare time.
When I took a Research Scientist position with the university, I told the person I was replacing that I wanted good work/life balance and she told me that I should tell my boss if I “ONLY WANTED TO WORK 60 HOURS A WEEK.” I’m pretty sure I actually laughed.
Don’t get me wrong, there are many things to love about working in academia: independence, meaningful work, and passionate colleagues, to name a few. But the point is, the environment is not for everyone, and you have to be really devoted to the work to make the costs of academia worth it. Given those costs and all the academic job market competition, you would think that departments would teach students about career opportunities outside of academia and be supportive when students pursue those opportunities. In reality, that’s a nope and another nope.
Academia’s Silence on Other Career Options
Academic departments, rarely to never discuss job opportunities or bring in speakers who work outside of academia. Moreover, departments spend 4, 5, 6, sometimes 10 or more years training you as a graduate student with the expectation that you will become a professor one day and reflect well on their department.
If you decide you want to apply your skills outside of academia, many people respond with disappointment, attempts to dissuade you, and in extreme cases, hostility. This isn’t to say that everyone responds this way, there are many people who are supportive right out of the gate. However, that tends to be the rarer response.
In my case, I decided after writing those job applications (and a 3½ week trip to New Zealand that was the grad student salary version of Eat, Pray, Love) that the traditional academic career path was not for me, and I was only going to apply to positions in Seattle. This felt like a revolutionary decision, completely at odds with everything I was taught in grad school, though I have realized over time that my feelings are far from rare. It can often seem like everyone in academia wants the same career path.
But that’s only because it’s so taboo to talk about alternative pathways. I have talked to many PhD students who have expressed relief and joy at finding someone who also wants to follow a non-traditional career path and *gasp* move into the public or private sector.
If you find yourself having similar thoughts, how do you decide the right career path for you and how do you go about actually telling people? Here are a few recommendations from my experience:
Figuring Out Your Career Path
1. It can be helpful when you’re confused about your career path (or anything really) to journal for at least a few weeks. I often find that writing my thoughts down helps clarify what I want vs. what other people want for me. If you’re a people pleaser like me, distinguishing between those two things can be surprisingly difficult.
2. Spend some time (in your journal, on a walk, anywhere except hopefully not lying in bed awake at night) envisioning your dream work environment–what values does that workplace have, what are your working relationships like, what does the office look like, etc. That work environment may look a lot like an academic work environment, for me it did not. Side note, I think we spend too much time talking about what job we want and not enough time talking about the work environment we want. The latter is almost as important for job satisfaction as the former IMO.
3. Find a few people with whom you can talk through your thoughts. I found it helpful to talk with a fellow graduate student who was having similar doubts, as well as friends who were not in academia. A therapist could also be helpful.
4. If you haven’t written a cover letter for an academic position (or any kind of position you’re mulling over), try writing a letter explaining why you want the position. Is it really hard for you to get excited or even think of why you want the job? Then it’s probably not for you.
5. If possible, try to talk to a couple of people who left academia and get their thoughts on what they like/don’t like about working in a different kind of job and environment, it may help clarify whether you would also like that shift or not.
How to Tell People
Let’s say you’ve gone through those steps and have now decided that the academic career pathway is not for you. How do you *eep* tell people!?
1. If possible, ease your advisors and colleagues into your decision. In my case, I had been hiding my feelings about wanting to leave academia and when I finally made the decision to leave, I sprang it on my advisor seemingly out of the blue. I wish I had been more open about my conflicted feelings earlier on and had expressed interest in non-academic positions, so it was less of a surprise. I was worried that expressing any kind of doubt about academia would undermine my working relationships, but I now realize it probably wouldn’t have done so (in part because I had a very supportive advisor) and would have led to an easier discussion when I did make that decision.
2. Be prepared to explain and defend your reasons for leaving academia. For me, I explained that I wanted to stay in Seattle and do research that led to actionable change. However, very well-meaning individuals retorted that I could maybe get a faculty position in Seattle in 15 or 20 years if I left and that many tenured professors had worked with policymakers on changing legislation and other actionable changes. I had to stand firm and explain that waiting 15 to 20 years for what I wanted was too long.
3. Explain what kind of positions you are interested in pursuing. This is helpful for a few reasons: it shows that you’ve been thinking about this for a long time and are serious, it helps clarify what you are looking for, and it may help with networking if your colleagues have connections with the companies or industries you want to move to.
4. Finally, prioritize self-care. Standing up for yourself is heroic, often exhausting, and can feel totally at odds with what we’re used to doing as graduate students working in an environment rife with imposter syndrome, perfectionism, and the prioritization of work over self. Give yourself credit and, ideally, time to recuperate and relax after making an important and hard decision.
Advice for Applying to Non-Academic Jobs
Okay, so you’ve decided to leave academia, you’ve told people (amazing job btw!), and now you’re ready to actually apply to jobs. Buuuut, you haven’t applied to a non-academic job since high school and aren’t really sure what kind of application employers want from you, so what are your next steps?
1. Adapt your CV into a 1-2 page resume—sorry, but employers will rarely be psyched about reading your 12 page CV. See my post on advice for writing a resume if you’d like more guidance.
- Most importantly, focus on experiences that are relevant to the job you are applying for. That means you probably won’t need a full list of your research publications and presentations, service experience, and teaching positions in your resume. That being said, in my resume, I included an abbreviated list of first-authored publications because I was largely applying to research positions and felt like the publications were a good indication of my research experience. Including a shortened list of publications and/or presentations may be useful depending on the positions you are applying for.
- The title “Research Assistant” rarely conveys how much leadership and hands-on experience we get as graduate Research Assistants. If you led research projects as a “Research Assistant,” make sure you describe that experience and emphasize the tasks you were responsible for. I also modified some of my job titles to “Researcher” to more accurately convey my job experience in positions where I was the lead on research projects, despite my funding title being “Research Assistant.” Was that totally kosher? Probably not, but I’d argue it’s worse that our job titles are rarely reflective of the level of work we do.
- Follow the other tips in my blog on writing resumes and cover letters.
2. Use cover letters as an opportunity to explain why you are leaving academia. I found that employers were hesitant to hire people right out of academia because of perceptions that we are not serious about making the transition to a different sector, not accustomed to working in fast-paced environments or meeting deadlines, do not have experience with industry work products like memos, and may have trouble working on teams. Head off those concerns by articulating why those things are not true for you (unless they are true, in which case, maybe think through how you would deal with those changes).
3. Consider looking into free or cheap trainings that might improve your hireability. For example, I took LinkedIn Learning courses on SQL and Tableau because many employers were looking for those skills and I hadn’t learned them in grad school. Courses on leadership, writing for business audiences, etc. may also be useful.
4. Tap your network. See if your colleagues, friends, or family know anyone at companies you are interested in working for and see if you can have an informational interview with them over Zoom or coffee/tea/insert delicious beverage here. The goal of informational interviews is to learn more about the person, their position, and how they feel about their company, not to immediately ask for a job interview or referral. After putting in the time to learn more about them and their job, you can then ask if they’d be comfortable recommending you or letting you know about any job opportunities.
Finally, never fear if the first job you take after academia isn’t a good fit. After I decided to “leave” academia, I accepted an offer to work in my home department as an Acting Assistant Professor for a year. Even though it didn’t change my mind about eventually leaving academia, it was a really fun job and I was honored to be asked. That job turned into a Research Scientist position with the university that I hated for a variety of reasons.
After those two jobs basically still working in academia, I finally moved to a non-academic position as an analyst in a work environment that I loved. I was offered that last position after applying for positions at literally dozens of other companies and getting 0 job offers.
The main thing I learned through that whole process was to stay true to myself and what I wanted, to be open and honest about those decisions with others, and to persevere when things get hard.
If you enjoyed this post or think it would be helpful for others, please consider liking, subscribing (in the left sidebar), or sharing. And if you want more advice on how to make a hard decision, check out my blog post on that topic.