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Waiting to Get Your Dissertation Accepted?
Last Updated on: 30th August 2022, 04:22 am
There’s a joke that in Austin, Texas: even the cab drivers have PhDs. With tens of thousands of PhDs granted each year, getting a job with a PhD now means you have to be a lot more entrepreneurial than you would have had to be 30 years ago.
Some years ago, you could “just work for a university.” But today, colleges are turning out more PhDs than they have jobs for. Inevitably, many of them will have to find other employment.
Why Are There So Many Unemployed PhDs?
Institutions that grant PhDs have no incentives to not grant PhDs. They don’t look at the market and see it’s saturated and say, “we should accept fewer students.” That’s something that you, as the student, should look at.
The academic market is pretty much stagnant. And as the number of graduates with PhDs continues to grow, that means the competition gets more and more fierce. The competitiveness that used to exist for key positions at prestigious universities is now found for faculty jobs at community colleges. Even lecturer jobs, which used to be a way for non-PhDs to work their way into academic jobs, are often now reserved for people holding a doctoral degree.
How to Avoid Becoming an Unemployed PhD
In order to avoid becoming an unemployed PhD, you may have to think outside of the academic box. Here are some of the approaches I’ve seen used successfully.
Apply Your Skills to Other Jobs
Beyond the additional content you absorbed over the years you studied the topic, you learn a variety of other valuable skills in your PhD program. If you aren’t one of the few who get an academic job, you may have to learn to apply those skills to tasks other than research. When getting a job outside of academia, you’ll want to tell employers what skills you learned from earning a PhD and how those skills translate into value in the workplace.
These skills may include:
- Organization
- Research
- Working collaboratively (you may have done group projects, worked in a lab team, etc. during your PhD program)
- Ability to handle tight timeframes and due dates independently
- Project management–the ability to handle a massive project and break it down into smaller chunks, and deliver the end product by a deadline.
- Distress tolerance
- Assessing complex issues to identify specific problems and potential solutions
- Grant-writing
- Writing skills
- Skill at writing proposals
- Writing articles for popular press or the general public, explaining research findings
Skills that you learned from doing research may not apply to most jobs outside of academia, but some might apply at non-profits or in positions of authority–such as a school principal, for example:
- Skill in performing literature searches to identify “best practices”
- Ability to understand and synthesize research articles
- Ability to translate research articles into understandable language for consumers
- Skill in defining parameters for studies
It’s also important to understand that the world doesn’t talk in “academic-ese”. You can explain things to people more simply.
Acknowledging Biases
Generally speaking, a PhD degree impresses people; most people understand that it takes a lot of brain power and persistence to complete a doctoral program. Some people even view PhDs as geniuses simply because of their degree.
On the other end of the spectrum, some employers might assume that PhDs can’t be successful in the business world. In this case, you’ll have to show them that you can be. This bias may be rooted in the idea that academic work is “soft” work, and that the academic world is protected from real-world problems.
To a degree, there is some truth there, in that when studying phenomena, you can “take them apart” and slow things down. You may not have the luxury of doing that in a non-academic setting. Acknowledging the differences between the settings and naming the reasons you’ll be able to cope with the differences should ease an employer’s worries on that score.
Another bias to confront may be your own: an assumption that a person with a PhD should start in a higher position, with a higher salary. You might need to cultivate reasonable expectations around this issue, as it has also been affected by the increasing number of PhDs in the workplace.
Your degree won’t necessarily put you at the top immediately; you still have to demonstrate expertise. Some people resist taking a job that they feel overqualified for, but it might be worth it to work your way up. Once you prove to be a team player who has some unique skills, you may move up quickly.
Become an Entrepreneur
One option for unemployed PhDs is to reach into the wealth of knowledge and skill you’ve gained and start a business.
You’ve proved to yourself that you have the vision, fortitude, and self-discipline to finish your degree, and those same skills lend themselves to self-employment. You know how to organize your time around specific, short-term goals that lead toward a larger goal.
But, you ask, what should you create? Just like you found your problem statement, you want to find the niche where there’s a need that you can fill. And then, answer the problem by filling the need. This could be a physical product or a service. It could have something to do with your area of study or not.
You may be one of only a few people in the world who knows as much about your dissertation topic as you do. How could that knowledge help others? Could you be a management consultant, after having studied the cultivation of minority leadership? Could your expertise in the social life of seven-year-olds lend itself to doing teacher training?
To make a go of entrepreneurship, you’ll need to apply a few more of the skills you learned in graduate school: accessing funding and finding kindred spirits. Look to the Small Business Administration for guidance on funding. They may even provide mentorship, depending on your project. Then, research who else is doing similar work and begin to make connections.
What to Do if You Are an Unemployed PhD
If you find yourself among the ranks of unemployed PhDs, don’t fret. There’s a lot you can do.
Emotional Health
It’s not a reflection of your value. If you’re an unemployed PhD, it’s important to remember that it’s not a reflection of your self worth or your value as a scholar. It’s a reflection of the oversaturation of PhDs in the system.
It was still worth getting. Many people get a PhD as part of a quest for knowledge. Then they have to figure out a way to make money in the “real world.” That can be a hard transition for some people. Even if you never “use” your PhD for your career, you use the skills you learned in many different areas of your life.
Practice self-care. Any time you’re unemployed, you should be thinking about mental health. Make sure to practice self-care. If you can, take advantage of this time to do some things you had to put off while working on the doctorate.
Career Health
Even if you’re unemployed, you can still make strides in your career–or at the very least, have a good answer to explain a gap in employment. Here are some ideas that will help you stay productive.
Network. Maintain contacts with people in the various areas you’re interested in so that when opportunities arise, they still think of you. Consider letting them know you are willing to consult, and maybe go so far as to set up a consulting business in the interim. That way, you can begin earning an income, even if you want to eventually work permanently for an organization.
Do something meaningful. While unemployed, try to engage in meaningful activities that show up nicely on your CV. This gives you a way to frame your unemployment as taking time to pursue a passion or lifelong dream, which may even make you seem unique.
Publish. When unemployed as a PhD, publish. When you’re not burdened with work, take the opportunity to do research and publish it. Reach back to your contacts at the university you graduated from and volunteer to assist them with their research, if that feels easier. Publications are like gold in academia. If at all possible, collect them while you can.
Learn relevant skills. If you’re good at quantitative research, get good at qualitative research. Get a friend to tutor you in statistical analysis, if that’s a weakness. Or read the latest research journal in your field. I don’t necessarily mean learn to play the guitar (though maybe you should do that too. Maybe you’ll discover you actually want to be a musician!).
Become an adjunct. You can try to fill up your portfolio with positions as an adjunct. You won’t get benefits or get rich, but it can keep you in touch with the community, and you might scrape by. And if a job opens up at the school where you’re working, you may be one of the first to be considered.
What Universities Can Do
Universities could also be doing a lot to better prepare PhD students for today’s job market. Here are some ideas.
Job Placement Services. Placement offices are usually swamped with undergraduates (because there are many more times undergraduates at most universities than there are PhD). These placement offices could consider offering services to PhDs as well, helping them to move into the workforce, rather than assuming they’re heading to academic jobs.
It would be good for schools’ reputations to do this, because it means the graduates leave with a better feeling about the school and will recommend it more often.
Being Realistic. Universities could be more realistic about the job outlook for people with the degrees they offer. Granted, they make money by having students matriculate, but by limiting the number of doctoral students (offsetting the losses, perhaps, by increasing the number of masters and bachelors degree-seekers), they will be maintaining the utility of the degree.
One caveat is that limiting the number of students should not be an excuse for any kind of unlawful discrimination. Perhaps this would be an opportunity for universities to cultivate truly diverse, but small, cohorts of doctoral students.
Increase acceptance of non-academic jobs. Professors and institutions have to understand the need for non-academic jobs and encourage students to open up to them as well. They can explore the possibilities as part of the curriculum, discussing how to bring academic rigor to professions and jobs outside of academia.
As Amanda Chung wrote in The Conversation, “I think it is time for a change of attitude towards acceptance of non-academic careers. Progress begins with the professors; they must become more open-minded to students’ pursuit of alternate career opportunities. This includes allowing them to devote some of their time to cultivating skills and relationships that will provide a solid foundation upon which to find the right job after graduating.”
Avoid Becoming an Unemployed PhD
As an academic career coach, I’ve helped many postdoctoral graduates land their dream jobs and helped others build their own consulting businesses. If you could use help navigating today’s competitive job market, book a free 30-minute call with me.
