If you're not lucky enough to land a tenure-track job in your first year on the market, what are your options? You could do what many Ph.D.'s do — join the adjunct labor force or accept a one-year lectureship that will entail moving to a new city and other hardships.
But what if you don't want to move? What if you don't want to teach for peanuts? When I speak at conferences, I often advise graduate students to try working outside academe while they wait for next year's job listings to appear. Not only will they have their nights and weekends free to continue their academic work, but they'll make more money, get better benefits, and develop skills and experience that they can fall back on if their tenure-track dreams don't come true.
After I make this suggestion, the graduate students in the audience usually ask: "Won't I be hurting my chances for an academic position if I work outside the academy? Isn't adjuncting the price you have to pay for a tenure-track job?"
To answer these questions, I asked faculty members at three different universities to describe how hiring committees view candidates currently employed outside academe. Michael Franz is a professor of political science at Loyola College in Maryland, Luis Vivanco is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Vermont, and David T. Gies is a professor of Spanish at the University of Virginia.
Question: How do hiring committees generally view tenure-track job candidates who choose to work outside the academy instead of adjuncting?
Franz: We wouldn't look down our noses at that. Having done other kinds of work has been very helpful to me as an academic. For example, as the wine columnist for The Washington Post, I have had to learn to write in new ways. It makes my academic prose better and breaks me of bad habits in my writing.
Vivanco: We see people from outside academia applying all the time. Sometimes it's young Ph.D.'s doing it as a stop-gap measure while they pay the bills, really trying to stay in the game; others are senior people who have had full careers in applied anthropology or archaeology. We are always looking for folks who have not completely walked away from the discipline, but are border-dwellers.
Gies: I do not see that it is either a help or a hindrance to be away from academia for a short while. Sure, being an adjunct gives one experience in teaching and committee work, but I think that a good candidate, one who is prepared for this question, can prepare a powerful answer about life in the real world and skill development. That is, other kinds of jobs also demand computer skills, research skills, committee skills, writing skills, etc., and one can view a nonacademic job as another step in skill preparation for academia.
Question: Have you actually hired (or come close to hiring) any candidates from outside academe in recent years?
Franz: We hired someone last year who was in the Congressional internship program, which may or may not count as falling outside academe. A few years back, we hired someone who had spent some time working for a political magazine. The issue has arisen with one or more candidates in almost all of our searches.
Vivanco: I would say that in every two searches, we get one person on our shortlist who has outside experience. We hired someone from outside academia in 1996. We've filled three other positions since then. [Candidates from outside academe] make up a small percentage of people in the pool -- maybe 5 to 8 percent -- and the fact that they didn't get hired in these recent searches doesn't necessarily suggest any conspiracy against them, perhaps just that they didn't fit all those crazy little contingencies that lead one to "win the lottery" over someone else. You'd be as humbled and horrified as I am to see how thoroughly arbitrary the process is -- whittling down a list from 300 to 1 is a harrowing experience for all involved, and no single issue ever stands out as what gets a person hired.
Gies: As I think over the candidates (and there have been many of them, to be sure), I can't remember any of the on-campus interviewees [or hires] coming from the business (or nonacademic) world. Although it would be ludicrous, I suppose, to suggest that we don't get applicants from outside of academe, I can't remember any.
Question: What do you look for in a CV and cover letter from a candidate who's been working outside the academy?
Franz: I believe in candor. If I were the candidate, I'd say in my cover letter: "I had an offer to teach for one year in Des Moines, but I didn't want to uproot my family, so I took a job at an advertising agency. And here are the five ways that it did me good as an academic."
Vivanco: We look for two key things in applicants' CV's: Have they continued publishing in academic journals or writing discipline-related books? And do they have a positive and recent teaching record?
Gies: The major question that pops up is, "Why?" That is, why are you not in academia right now? Did anything happen at your previous institution? Is there a reason that this person has not been employed, or is it merely situational? I think what I would like to see is some evidence of their continued engagement with academia: Have they published anything while "away" or done any research or gone to a professional conference?
Question: Assuming that a candidate is staying engaged with his or her academic field while working in an unrelated job, how long is too long to be outside academia?
Franz: Two years isn't bad. After five years, you'd probably lose the flow of academic life. But if you were staying in touch by publishing articles, teaching on the side, you could extend time to three or four years maybe.
Vivanco: It's always been my impression that the cut-off point is rather vague, because it depends on what kind of work the person is doing and how much they might be staying involved in the discipline. But there is a generally accepted cut-off, at least in my department. Two or three years is fine -- especially now given the paucity of tenure-track jobs. With so many hundreds of applicants for one job, you now need several publications (or even a book!) to get noticed, and it can take a while to accomplish these things, whether you're teaching or not.
Gies: I would think that if a person had not gotten a job in two or three or four go-rounds at MLA, this might suggest that something is wrong with them or their candidacy.
Question: Let's say a tenure-track job candidate remains inside the academy by taking a series of one-year adjuncting jobs. Is it possible to be an adjunct for too long?
Franz: Yes, sadly, that can happen. After a certain point, it's a negative.
Vivanco: If you're serious about winning a tenure-track job, you don't want to stay an adjunct too long, say more than four or five years. People start asking, "What's wrong with this person? Are they not collegial? Are they not able to balance the teaching and research?" But I think junior faculty members are especially conscious of the fact that these are unreasonable questions and expectations to be placing on our colleagues who are the victims of a structural squeeze and institutional discrimination.
Gies: If this person is looking for a job every year but has not yet received one, I'd wonder what's wrong. I would think that a full-time job at a lesser place would be better than a permanent adjuncting job.
The Consensus
Our three respondents agree: Working outside academe for a year or two does not necessarily hurt your chances of getting an academic job. Given the abysmal working conditions that accompany most adjunct positions, hiring committees can understand a candidate's decision to avoid these jobs. However, if you choose to work outside academe while waiting for another chance at the job market, it's important to demonstrate a commitment to your field by either publishing an article, attending a conference, or teaching in some capacity. For many people, it's easier to find the time and the energy to accomplish these tasks when you're not spending your weekends grading papers for a job that barely covers the rent. In addition, you'll also want to make a clear and convincing case for yourself in your cover letter by describing the benefits of your nonacademic experience.
As I always say, the boundary between the academic and nonacademic worlds is quite permeable: You can move between the two more easily than you might imagine. Just as the skills that you learned in graduate school can help you succeed in the nonacademic world, what you learn in a year outside the academy can, in turn, make you a better teacher and scholar.
