I’ll continue my interview series on academics who have transitioned to industry in the coming weeks. My guests will include: Ginger Lockhart, a former psychology professor who started her own business, Quantfish, a statistics training platform for researchers
Thanks for your transparency about the industry job searching. (Note: your résumé has some personal info that you’d redacted on your CV!) I’ve struggled to craft cover letters, turn a 30-pg CV into a 1.5-pg resume and a 5-pg brief CV. As I’ve worked on this though, I’ve developed an extended list of ‘what I did’ --> ‘what the doing required’ --> ‘what the doing IS in industry terms. Useful, if nothing else, as a salve for the frequent days when I feel deep worthlessness and devaluation in academia.
I want to say that I think academics sell ourselves very short. Clarity about ‘what else besides academia?’ might usefully be found in an initial examination of personal values, electricity (what lights me up when I discuss it or when others see me discussing it?), and flow states? Exhaustive clarity about these things can make pathways to non-academic work clearer. We don’t just need to look for the same sort of environs we ideally wanted in our academic pursuits.
Example: my values...and my middle-age = I want autonomy, I am not striving or ambitious now, and I value a job that stays ‘at work.’ I don’t necessarily need a job that uses my academic skills as much as I’d like a job where I’m not micro-managed, a job with explicit stop and start times. So my options may be broader now that I’ve figured out what matters at this point in my life. (It’s also helping me to find better sanity whilst still in academia.)
Just saw this pop up while on the app, nice timing! I tend to appreciate a transcript instead of a podcast, since it makes it easier to take notes. I wish there was more discussion about careers outside academia in the environmental humanities, but I’ll keep a look out for people who’ve made the switch. Have you heard of Chris Cornthwaite and his site ‘roostervane’? He’s the only humanities person that comes to mind at the moment. Looking forward to the interview series!
I've never understood why so many people prefer videos--I know you're not going those but it's a parallel point--when reading text is soo much faster and more efficient. But the stats show that general audiences love them. I think it's a generational and demographic thing. So, going back to your poll, it's about who your audience is.
Great discussion going on here, thanks for sharing your journey Joshua and best wishes for your transition.
A few other avenues of possibilities for academics in humanities could be Management Consulting, Non-Profits. I've also seen early stage startups have roles that don't have a very specific definition - which for some could be useful to break into and gain some mission driven experience in industry.
In terms of the podcast/article - I myself am going through a very similar analysis and I've seen Peter Yang here in Substack, use interview articles very astutely as opposed to audio based podcasts. I'm heading that route as well myself most likely.
I did an article based approach for Joe S the history prof- who you mention here. Here is a link if you want to see it in action:
Thanks for your transparency about the industry job searching. (Note: your résumé has some personal info that you’d redacted on your CV!) I’ve struggled to craft cover letters, turn a 30-pg CV into a 1.5-pg resume and a 5-pg brief CV. As I’ve worked on this though, I’ve developed an extended list of ‘what I did’ --> ‘what the doing required’ --> ‘what the doing IS in industry terms. Useful, if nothing else, as a salve for the frequent days when I feel deep worthlessness and devaluation in academia.
I want to say that I think academics sell ourselves very short. Clarity about ‘what else besides academia?’ might usefully be found in an initial examination of personal values, electricity (what lights me up when I discuss it or when others see me discussing it?), and flow states? Exhaustive clarity about these things can make pathways to non-academic work clearer. We don’t just need to look for the same sort of environs we ideally wanted in our academic pursuits.
Example: my values...and my middle-age = I want autonomy, I am not striving or ambitious now, and I value a job that stays ‘at work.’ I don’t necessarily need a job that uses my academic skills as much as I’d like a job where I’m not micro-managed, a job with explicit stop and start times. So my options may be broader now that I’ve figured out what matters at this point in my life. (It’s also helping me to find better sanity whilst still in academia.)
A career changing humanities Ph.D. for you.
https://christophercaterine.com/additional-resources/
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691200194/leaving-academia
Also, I see the EBSCO position in the secondary list mentions Spanish speaking, and I don't think you mention that anywhere.
Just saw this pop up while on the app, nice timing! I tend to appreciate a transcript instead of a podcast, since it makes it easier to take notes. I wish there was more discussion about careers outside academia in the environmental humanities, but I’ll keep a look out for people who’ve made the switch. Have you heard of Chris Cornthwaite and his site ‘roostervane’? He’s the only humanities person that comes to mind at the moment. Looking forward to the interview series!
About the poll.
I've never understood why so many people prefer videos--I know you're not going those but it's a parallel point--when reading text is soo much faster and more efficient. But the stats show that general audiences love them. I think it's a generational and demographic thing. So, going back to your poll, it's about who your audience is.
Great discussion going on here, thanks for sharing your journey Joshua and best wishes for your transition.
A few other avenues of possibilities for academics in humanities could be Management Consulting, Non-Profits. I've also seen early stage startups have roles that don't have a very specific definition - which for some could be useful to break into and gain some mission driven experience in industry.
In terms of the podcast/article - I myself am going through a very similar analysis and I've seen Peter Yang here in Substack, use interview articles very astutely as opposed to audio based podcasts. I'm heading that route as well myself most likely.
I did an article based approach for Joe S the history prof- who you mention here. Here is a link if you want to see it in action:
https://phdtoindustry.substack.com/p/tenured-to-tech-how-a-history-professor
Best wishes and good luck!
Just thought of another humanities Ph.D. in industry I recently heard about https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddcarmody/?originalSubdomain=de