Job Search the Smart Way

Networking is one of the most important ways to explore career options and land jobs. But it can be intimidating and overwhelming, especially if you don't have a network. How do you build a network if you don't have a network? In this episode, Maren shares tips and strategies you can use to help graduate students, PhDs, and alumni, build authentic networks so that they can identify career options, land opportunities, and build meaningful careers.

Academia is populated with over-achievers competing for scarce resources and reviewing and critiquing each other. It's a recipe for toxic culture.  It also means that too many PhDs feel like they're not good enough, that they lack worth and value. We're also hesitant to ask for help or admit we don't know, because not knowing is an invitation for another academic to be cruel or unkind.  But we have to overcome our sense of impostor syndrome in order to be successful in landing a nonacademic job. We have to admit we need help, and that we don't know what we don't know. We also have to trust that people will help us.  In this episode, Maren talks about ways you can overcome impostor syndrome and approach your job search with curiosity and openness.

You made the decision to earn your degree and pursue a career in academia. But is that enough of a reason to stay? In this episode, Maren discusses how the sunk cost fallacy keeps people in academia. We've invested so many years earning our degrees and we want that investment to pay off in some ways. But that time, energy, and money is already gone. It's in the past. And it doesn't have to inform your future.

Many PhDs worry that leaving academia means giving up job security, especially if they've landed a "golden ticket" and secured a tenure track job.  But a job for life traps you. It creates a system where people are chasing a unicorn job, that few will actually achieve. It means that few people enter the system because few people are exiting. And it misses how important firing and quitting are in building healthy work cultures.  In this episode, Maren argues that what PhDs should be seeking is Career Security. They should take their skills and talents and move into careers where they have options ... and where their employer KNOWS they have  options.

Graduate students and PhDs are making decisions about their academic careers in the absence of data. How many tenure track jobs are there in a discipline? How many applications do departments receive? When are PhDs most marketable?  The nuances of the academic hiring process matter.  But this data doesn't exist for most academic disciplines.  In this episode, Maren talks about how we can start collecting this data and the radical impact job data would have on academia.  It's time for academia to be honest about its hiring practices, and provide accurate and transparent data so that graduate students and junior scholars can make informed career decisions.