Graduate Students: Academic Careers
Many people choose to stay in academia following the completion of their advanced degree. The following information will assist you in your preparation, with information post-doc positions, faculty positions, and non-tenure track positions in academia.
Post-doc Positions
Post-doctoral positions are research positions of a fixed length of time and usually serve as a stepping-stone on the way to a tenure-track position.
Points to think about when choosing a post-doc position:
- Career goals - does a post-doc position fit with what you want to do?
- Research area - do you want to diversify or remain in a similar field?
- The principal investigator - how does the PI run the lab and what is their reputation?
- The Lab - what are the facilities like? do you like the people?
- Funding - is the research well funded? will you have to secure your own funding?
- Research project - does the proposed project interest you?
Links:
- Career.edu - international job search board for universities and government research agencies.
- PostDocJobs.com - includes information about jobs, career tips and work visas.
- PhDs.org - helps students prepare for the changing demands of today's job market.
- PhDFusion - created to connect PhDs & offer career info based on needs & interests.
Faculty Positions
Deciding to start your search for a faculty position requires a lot of advance preparation (e.g., CV, teaching portfolios, letters of recommendation, time budgeted for attending interviews, paying up-front for travel, etc.) and often happens during the last year of your dissertation.
Helpful articles:
- Getting an academic job by Michael Ernst
- The hiring process from the other side from the UC Berkley career center
Non-tenure Track in Academia
Adjunct and part-time teaching is another avenue worth exploring which can include teaching or working at a community or Two Year College and working on the administration side of things.
Adjunct and Part Time Teaching
Adjunct and part-time teaching suits many people for different reasons, it may be to balance administrative work with teaching or gain teaching experience before going tenure track. Some people love teaching therefore this gives them the greatest opportunity to fulfil their passion. There are a number of issues to remember including the disparity in salary between adjunct/part-time teachers and their tenure-track counterparts and there is often much fewer benefits also.
Community and Two Year Colleges
In contrast to the grant-writing, paper publishing world of the tenure-track position, many people prefer to work in community and two year colleges. The emphasis at these institutions is more on teaching and less on publishing; the settings are generally smaller and more intimate. If you intend to take this path, in your application packet ensure you emphasis your teaching experience.
- Not what I had in mind
- Community College Week
- Community College Jobs
- American Association of Community Colleges
Careers in Administration
There are many jobs on a campus that you may not think of but that may be of interest, including fund-raising, admissions, career centre, student affairs, to mention a few. One of the advantages of these jobs is the 9 to 5 schedule and no teaching for those who want to stay in an academic setting.