next »

[merope]

Thanks to Octoprof, for suggesting I start this thread.

I am in a humanities field with an extremely limited pool of positions, in which I apply as broadly as possible. I defended my dissertation this January, and I expect a good part of my anxiety arises from the fact that, beginning in May, I will be really and truly 100% unemployed for the first time in many years. I've had no responses to any of the applications I sent out, suggesting that I am significantly underqualified compared to other applicants -- and while I have many years of teaching experience, I have no publications. I know this is a weakness of my application, and I'd like to remedy it, but I'm not sure how that objective will balance out with the need to earn a living wage.

I'd gladly take a visiting position, but those are as competitive in my field as tenure-track, and much rarer. Instead if I am going to continue in academia for the next year, it's likely to be as a sessional, or adjunct, instructor. There are 8-9 universities within a four-hour drive of my current location, but most local schools have an unofficial policy of limiting the number of courses they give any one instructor, which means to put together a full-time load, I'll likely have to pick up courses from 2 or more different schools. In that situation, I expect to earn about $25K, which I don't think will be enough to pay my rent, transportation costs, and student loans, so I'll have to look elsewhere for additional money, or abandon adjunct work altogether for full-time non-academic employment.

I suppose what I'd like to know is how other forumites have bolstered their spirits and their energy while on the long road that leads to the tenure-track. And what strategies they've used to maintain and develop academic interests from a position of under- or non-employment in the academy.

[erzuliefreda]

I do modern U.S. history. I adjuncted during the year I defended the dissertation, and the next year when I was on the market. I taught on two campuses, far from each other, and kept a separate bag of books and folders for each school. It was hard work. It was also demoralizing. I had no office, little income, and felt very near invisible at work.

You really have to cultivate a vision of yourself as someone who won't be adjuncting for long in order to keep your spirits up and yourself focused. I drove my advisor up the wall by comparing myself to the 20-year, career ABD adjuncts with whom I worked.

You can usually use your adjunct affiliations to order ILL books, which is helpful. Publishing is obviously key. And teaching experience is not enough, at least for teaching schools, unless you also have solid teaching observation letters. So if you don't, be sure to invite your department head to visit your class and solicit a letter.

It can all be done, but as you note, finding the strength is the hard part some days. Best of luck. And congratulations on defending! That's half the battle, as G.I. Joe might say.

[alleyoxenfree]

First of all, lower your expectations for immediate, good academic employment and if you truly want to be in this field, settle in for the long haul.  I know many academics who found their TT job 5 or even 10 years out of defending the dissertation.  In the meantime, they taught wherever they could, and published everything they could.  They put together their self-esteem like a patchwork quilt: here a good student eval, there a sympathetic librarian or chair who treated them well, there a VAP that offered an unusually interesting class. 

There may be a lot of crap out there too and if you want to go down this road, you have to commit to that and find the pleasure in the teaching and in relationships with colleagues even if you are not a big cheese for a long time.

A few things that helped me were looking for opportunities on projects that would bring me into contact with colleagues, even across disciplines.  Choosing interesting books to teach so that class prep would also be intellectually stimulating.  And if I had a choice, choosing to live in inexpensive cities with low-cost diversions and similarly cash-strapped academics, rather than trying to stay afloat in an expensive place. 

I think your panic seems magnified by the unemployment prospect, which makes sense.  Since you already have teaching experience, you might want to consider taking the best non-academic job you can find, work on publishing, adjunct occasionally to keep teaching credits on your resume, but stay out of the poorhouse so you can be stable in one place and publish.  I moved all over the country to keep teaching and in hindsight, would not do so again; it was stressed to me by mentors then, but they (and I) were wrong as to what would become most important, which is publications.  See if you can get a staff job at your alma mater, stay put in a place where you have friends and contacts and know the library, and fill in that blank before you go back on the market.  And enjoy your life a little while you do it.

[snowbound]

THis advice is applicable if you're in a field where book publication is the gold standard . . .

While you're mulling over how to re-conceptualize the diss as a book, get the best chapter from your diss published--two chapters maybe.  Assuming your diss is pretty good, this will be relatively easy to do (compared with starting from scratch on a new article).  This will significantly beef up your CV, get your name out, and it will be a plus when you do start submitting the book manuscript.  Publishers like to see that some of the book has already appeared--not too much, of course--as it indicates the worth of your work.

[untenured]

This is all good advice and I hope it serves you well.

You apparently have the teaching credentials for a tenure-track job, but lack the research necessary to be competitive.  That means publishing is your first priority.  Take whatever job is necessary to give you the time and space to write.  Teaching adjunct courses is fine, but don't get into the habit of teaching a gazillion adjunct courses that absorb so much of your time that you don't get to write.  That's a trap, and you'll become a serial adjunct unqualified for a tenure-track line.

So to pay your bills, I suggest taking whatever job, academic or not, that permits you to pursue that agenda.  I like that idea of a university staff job, as you will have contacts and work in an environment that understands research at least a little bit.

Avoid the trap.  Publish often.  Network aggressively.  Do this and the job will come in time.

Untenured

[bent_abd]

This staff job idea does indeed sound very interesting.  A bit outside the box. 

I'm facing similar prospects - first year out unemployment - and that's quite frustrating.  Although in my case, I have one article coming out later this year, another that will be under review in May, and a dissertation that does not need massive revisions for submission to book publishers.  I think in my case adjuncting makes sense.  I desperately need a teaching portfolio.

Although to be honest, a staff job would be a much higher quality of life in the meantime.  And publishing would be much easier with a stable income, homelife, and library contacts.  Who knows?  Maybe schools give staff preference for adjuncting jobs...

[cranefly]

I was in a similar situation, and it took me about 4 years before I finally landed a job.
Driving back and forth between schools can take a lot out of you, and if possible I would strongly recommend you find a regular, full-time job (preferably something to do with your field, but if not, take a regular job). If you can find one with flexi-time, even better.  Then adjunct just one course per year.
The adjuncting won't land you a job. Publishing will. And, to publish and network, you're going to need to go to conferences: You can't afford to do this on an adjunct salaray.

Get a job. Spend your evenings and lunch hours working on publishing. Find an adjunct position that will let you teach one night a week, for one semester a year.

Take it from someone who learned the hard way.

[snowbound]

OK, let's look a the very worst case scenario: You adjunct as a stopgap, desperate to remain in academia. The TT job never materializes  (Combination of graduating in the worst ever TT job situation, no pubs, so exhausted from adjuncting enough to pay the bills that you were never able focus on research, diss getting older and more dated as the years go by, etc.)  Fifteen years late, you're an embittered, impoverished, permanent adjunct, living in your friend's basement.

How about another worst-case alternative scenario: You take an OK job outside academia (or a staff job at your U) as a stopgap to pay the rent.  With your outstanding analytical skills, work ethic, ability to express yourself coherently in talking and writing, and general smarts, you find yourself running the office within two years, and moving up to corporate (or administration) in five.  You wish you had time to work on those pubs for your "real" career, but eventually you realize that you rather like the security, lifestyle, and freedom that having a decent job gives you.  You always meant to work on that book but it never happened, so now your main link to academia is the basement you let your permanent-adjunct friend live in. 

My point is that, after having been totally absorbed in an academic life for so long, it's hard to realize that there are all sorts of other possible life trajectories that can be rewarding in every sense.  So long as you have adequate teaching experience--and hopefully can keep your hand in by adjuncting one course a year--it might be a good idea to explore the world outside academe.  If you have the opportunity to get a decent non-academic job in this economic climate, you should seriously consider it.  Hopefully you will end up with a TT job, but if you don't, which of the above worst-case scenarios is really worst? 

[notaprof]

Just a few words of warning about taking a college staff job and expecting to adjunct at the same place - it is not something encouraged here.  Staff members who teach do not get paid extra for teaching a class.  It just becomes a case of "other duties as assigned" that is part of every staff job description.  And if they do teach, any prep or grading has to be done outside of office hours and that can eat up your time for writing and research. Also, those staff who do teach do not tend to have hourly jobs because you would be over qualified with a PhD, they are mostly salaried and the hours of those jobs are often more than 40 hours per week and not limited to an 8:00 to 5:00 schedule.  Any job candidate for staff positions in our office who indicated an interest in teaching classes had their application moved to the bottom of the pile because past experience has been that such employees shirked some of their admin responsibilities in favor of the teaching and that means your colleagues in the office have to take up the slack.  Taking a college staff job and thinking you will have ample time to publish is probably delusional.

There are some jobs which are hybrids of administration and teaching but they are just as hard to get as tenure track jobs.  If you do decide to add one adjunct course, it will probably have to be at a different school.  It is best to keep your "job while you wait for tenure track opportunities" and your adjunct teaching as separate as possible.  And by the way, jobs are hard to find in staff positions even when the economy is good and many staff were laid off last year and a hiring freeze is still in place. I am not saying you shouldn't look for college staff positions, but just like tenure track positions, they don't grow on trees.  

One area that might make sense for a job is in the area of institutional research because your degree would be a benefit.   Or a position that is a ten month appointment may work and then you could teach some courses over the summer while off from the other position.  Again, these positions are limited.  

As far as attending academic conferences while working on a college staff, if the conference happens during the school year, sometimes you are not allowed to take vacation during certain periods so it may not be possible if the conference falls at a busy time.   At least this is the case at the SLACs where I have worked.  But as always, your mileage may vary.  

I am sorry that this sounds so negative but I think you should have a picture of some of the possible challenges to having a college staff position and hoping to publish on the side.  A job where you can leave at 5:00 PM and not think about work until you show up for work again the next morning might make more sense.  A part time job would give you time to do research and writing but is not likely to lift you above your grad school living arrangements.  On the other hand, the benefit of a college staff position will mean you have access to libraries and other resources.   And while it shouldn't be as bad as having to cobble together multiple adjunct positions and commute between them daily, I think it would still be quite exhausting to take any full time position and publish.  I just didn't want anyone to assume it will be easy, but you have to have an income and this is still one way to stay in the game while you wait for your TT opportunity to open up. Be realistic and prepared for the challenge and you can make it work.  

[fedscholar]

I would only add that this has been a very tough year. I am at the opposite end of the experience spectrum from you (PhD in hand for years, plenty of pubs, teaching, research experience, awards, etc.), and I have heard NOTHING from any of my applications this year. In past years I did better. So, while I agree you should look to strengthen your publication list, I would not be overly hard on yourself. Plenty of ABDs and recent graduates get hired in good years. This not one of them. The main thing, as many of the posts above suggest, is to find a situation that allows you to advance towards your goals, and keep trying.

[shrubbery]

Merope - I have no good advice for you, but I want to reply and thank you for making this post.  I am in the exact same situation, feeling a mix of despair and angry determination.  I have a large amount of teaching experience (I am in a field in the humanities), numerous grants and funding awards, and (what I think is) a very strong and unique dissertation.  My advisor is completely unconcerned.  Hu assures me that this is just simply a bad year and that I have nothing to worry about.  When I informed hu that I hadn't even gotten a flicker of interest from a single search committee, hu acted as if I had just informed hu that the sky was blue.  "Of course! It's a bad year and you're ABD."  Hu's reaponse was to assure me yet again that I would find a job next year.

My dissertation committee has been very luke-warm every time I've brought up the topic of publishing an article.  "All that matters is writing a good dissertation.  Get that done, then worry about publishing."  They may very well be correct.  My dissertation has done very competitively in garnering awards and fellowships.  Nonetheless, I find myself on the market this year with my defense now in sight and no job prospects.  I'm still waiting on one or two schools, but the fact that I didn't get a single interview at my field's national conference indicates to me that for a variety of reasons, I am not competitive this year.  Next year, I have a -chance- to adjunct a few classes.  The pay will be $2,000 per course.  These classes aren't guaranteed, however, and there is apparently a large number of ABDs and fresh PhDs all desperate to find teaching.  So, I may very well have nothing. 

My first goal is to produce a strong dissertation and a good defense.  Since I didn't get a job, I have a few extra months of time to do this so I'm going to take full advantage.  My other goal is to publish.  I'm not sure what else I can do.  I'm kicking myself for not getting an article out earlier.  I believe I could have done so but my committee brushed off the idea - not because they didn't think I was producing good work, but because they didn't think it was worth my time.  Looking back, I feel like I provided search committees with the perfect excuse for throwing out my application during the winnowing process.

Now, I'm facing a "dead year."  There is a knot in my stomach and a dread that this will be the precedent-setting year that will trap me into adjunct-teaching forever and that will signal to search committee's that I'm not TT material.  I'm determined not to let this happen to me - but it seems to be happening to hundreds of people like me.  It feels foolish to assume that I will be different.

To everyone else - thank you for all these posts.  They're very helpful to read.

[msparticularity]

Shrubbery, how is the placement rate for your advisor and committee? If they have, indeed, been placing their PhDs consistently right up until this year, then I think you might feel a bit safer about your prospects. If, however, their placement rate has been falling off in recent years, then I think you really may need to try to juggle preparing something for submission right away, at the same time as you're trying to finish your diss. This is, clearly, a difficult thing to try to figure out on your own--and possibly risky. (In other words, I'm suggesting that you may need to try to accomplish this without letting them know that you don't think you can trust their judgment.)

And is their any chance that you could extend for another year? You might confide in your committee that, with the job market so bad right now, it seems like it might be better to stay in your program if that is possible so you can really refine your dissertation.

[shrubbery]

Shrubbery, how is the placement rate for your advisor and committee?

They have a good placement record, but not a very long one.  My department as a whole has about a 45% TT placement record with another large percentage getting VAPs (and then possibly TT positions further down the road).

And is their any chance that you could extend for another year?

I'm looking at my options, but the short answer is no.  Possibly one extra semester, but I'm determined to have my degree in hand when I apply for jobs next fall.

The way it seems to me at the moment is that pushing to publish now certainly can't hurt.  Anyway, I didn't mean to derail this thread into being about me.  I just wanted to make a post of solidarity with merope.  Though, I can't quite decide if it's comforting or even more disquieting to think about all the other well-qualified ABDs in the unemployment boat together.

[merope]

Anyway, I didn't mean to derail this thread into being about me.  I just wanted to make a post of solidarity with merope.  Though, I can't quite decide if it's comforting or even more disquieting to think about all the other well-qualified ABDs in the unemployment boat together.

I'm glad you did post, and as the OP, I don't mind hearing about your experiences. My PhD program is very small -- I will be one of three graduates from our faculty at this year's convocation, and the only one in my field -- and so there's not really anyone to commiserate with, either.

Is there something we can do collectively with the boat we are in? Row in the same direction, rock it forcefully, abandon ship?

Also, thanks to everyone else for all your useful suggestions. I have been especially wondering about the outside-academia job path, so it's encouraging to see so many positive endorsements. Snowbound, your two scenarios made me laugh! And then think, of course. What a tremendous resource you all are!

[larryc]

Don't adjunct another class. It won't help your job search and is a trap besides. Find a job and write.