Taking a Job as an A.B.D.

In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Brutus observes:

“There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.”

The job fortunes of applicants who are “all but dissertation” fall in line with that observation. I’ve seen many instances in which the hiring of A.B.D.‘s turned out great; they were able to finish their dissertations and make a felicitous start to the profession. I’ve also seen promising careers shuffled into “shallows” and “miseries” when A.B.D.‘s took full-time jobs, either teaching or staff positions, that ended up being time hogs and snuffed out the possibility of finishing the dissertation in a timely way.

I advise people to avoid taking a tenure-track position until the dissertation is really, and I mean really, a year or less away from completion. It’s too great of a risk. A job offer is good. It’s amazing, in fact, but if you get an offer A.B.D., you will likely get a better offer when you are Ph.D.

What advice would you give A.B.D.‘s who are offered full-time positions to help them to catch the flood tide and avoid the neap tide that alters their career trajectories?