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[drothar]

This came up in a discussion with my spouse.

Let's say that a long-time adjunct were to say "screw it, I will never become a tt prof" and go out into the wilds of industry.

As I see it,  people without much familiarity with the academic status system would think "This person has been teaching  and doing research but now wants to make some more money".  Clearly, for most positions  teaching  wouldn't be viewed as a huge plus (unless the course matter was directly relevant),  but the adjunct in question would not be viewed as having been essentially unemployed for several years.

My spouse says that a long-time adjunct would be viewed as having been  marginally employed,  on the grounds that these positions are not full time and are simply "part-time help" to the departments in question. Indeed,  savvy employers would realize there is something "wrong" with a person like that (who is not a real professor), and that such a person may be as questionable as a person who was unemployed for an extended period.

Both of these are really just guesses, representing our respective biases.
So what's the real deal?

Informed comment and real-world anecdotes would be most welcome.

[zharkov]

I'd lean closer to you than the spouse.....

Many people don't quite know what adjunct means, and would not be about to consider it marginal employment.  To put that a bit differently, outside of higher ed, few people know how adjuncts are different from tenure track profs, and few really care. 

[acrimone]

I'd lean towards your spouse's view somewhat, although it's so incredibly field-dependent, and probably such a small factor anyway, that it doesn't really matter.

[dept_geek]

Story from my experiences...

Unless you are going back to work at a quasi-academic place (e.g. a teaching hospital) then your spouse may be right.

The quasi-academic places understand what being an adjunct means. The straight-up industry places may not.

The story:

I was adjuncting while working for an industrial company. My boss wondered why I had to work part time elsewhere.. what was happening in my life that I needed extra cash. They were concerned and I got grief for this.

I changed companies to a quasi-academinc location (it was industry, but they had dept chairs and ranks and such). They saw the PT teaching as improving my visability, a change to meet with folks outside my area so I could grow my own work unit, and a chance to do some networking. They loved it.

The real deal? From my little experiences, you are both right and it depends on what kinds of companies you look at when you finally say "Screw it."

[vortex]

This came up in a discussion with my spouse.

Let's say that a long-time adjunct were to say "screw it, I will never become a tt prof" and go out into the wilds of industry.

As I see it,  people without much familiarity with the academic status system would think "This person has been teaching  and doing research but now wants to make some more money".  Clearly, for most positions  teaching  wouldn't be viewed as a huge plus (unless the course matter was directly relevant),  but the adjunct in question would not be viewed as having been essentially unemployed for several years.

My spouse says that a long-time adjunct would be viewed as having been  marginally employed,  on the grounds that these positions are not full time and are simply "part-time help" to the departments in question. Indeed,  savvy employers would realize there is something "wrong" with a person like that (who is not a real professor), and that such a person may be as questionable as a person who was unemployed for an extended period.

Both of these are really just guesses, representing our respective biases.
So what's the real deal?

Informed comment and real-world anecdotes would be most welcome.

My boss (at a small, private consulting firm) told me that when he first started here he adjuncted for fun until his travel commitments forced him to switch to teaching seminars since he couldn't always make it to a regular class.  He likes teaching and I think, if I had been an adjunct or wanted to adjunct, he would understand.  So it depends on who your boss is.  I think a boss with a PhD is more likely to understand about teaching.  One who likes to teach is even more likely.

On the darker side, I had an interview with another, even smaller consulting firm where the president (who was doing the interview) said he didn't like to hire people who weren't fresh out of their doctoral program because he thought they just wouldn't be able to adjust to industry.

[dr_stones]

Hobby.  Don't let it get in the way of doing actual work.

[sinenomine]

Hobby.  Don't let it get in the way of doing actual work.

This is how my last non-academic employer viewed my adjuncting -- the employer before that knew that teaching was important to me and was very flexible about my schedule.  Fortunately, I landed a full-time position -- and my non-academic employer mentioned above was pretty miffed when I gave him notice, although he came to terms with it pretty quickly.

[drothar]

Thanks for all of the responses.

I am not surprised to learn that employers would view teaching on the side as hobby that might interfere  with work.  Knowing what I know, I would view an employee doing a lot of adjunct teaching on the side as a flight risk.

However, the intent of the original post was to figure out what potential employers would think of a resume with a couple years of adjunct teaching and publishing as the most recent entry.   Would potential employers view this as "a couple years of teaching" or as  "a couple years of being marginally employed"?

My gut agrees with Zharkov...

[tamiam]

I think it could go either way, but I'd lean toward the spouse's view. I worked in industry for many years prior to entering academia, and I can tell you that in the corporate world, teaching in general isn't looked at as serious work.

Depends greatly I suppose on what non-academic field you're looking at.