38: Supporting PhDs in Non-Academic Career Explorations [Pt. 1]

How do you help PhD students who want to pursue a non-academic career after graduation? Some programs or departments have the expectation that their graduates will choose careers in diverse fields like industry, healthcare, government, the non-profit sector, or primary education. 

But there are lots of graduate programs out there that offer specific training for graduate students on how to enter the academy as a professor. 

This kind of training is not so ideal, however, for the many graduate students who are not intending to become professors. And the reality of these times is that more and more PhD graduates are opting for careers outside of academia. 

In this 38th episode of the Rise with Clarity Podcast, I want to focus on how you can best support PhD students in their non-academic career explorations. You can find the full written transcript at RisewithClarity.com/38, along with all of my other podcast episodes and other resources for women of color faculty in higher ed.

Dr. Katherine Lee is a Higher Ed Coach and Career Strategist and a former tenured professor at an R1 university. She helps women of color faculty to manage the tenure track, navigate politics, and take the next steps to advance their careers. To find more resources or to work with Katherine, check out her website at: Rise with Clarity.

Transcript

Hi Professors,

How do you help PhD students who want to pursue a non-academic career after graduation? Some programs or departments have the expectation that their graduates will choose careers in diverse fields like industry, healthcare, government, the non-profit sector, or primary education. But there are lots of graduate programs out there that offer specific training for graduate students on how to enter the academy as a professor. 

Professional development workshops that may be offered by the department are geared towards things like academic publishing, entering the academic job market, how to apply for fellowships, and preparing for campus interviews.

Now this is all great if all of the graduate students in your program have articulated that they hope to hold a professorship in the future. 

But this kind of training is not so ideal for the many graduate students who are not intending to become professors. And the reality of these times is that more and more PhD graduates are opting for careers outside of academia. 

In this 38th episode of the Rise with Clarity Podcast, I want to focus on how you can best support PhD students in their non-academic career explorations. You can find the full written transcript at RisewithClarity.com/38, along with all of my other podcast episodes and other resources for women of color faculty in higher ed.

So first off, I want to acknowledge that there are multiple crises that American higher ed is facing right now. I don’t ever remember a time when there were different forces converging together to disrupt and threaten academic research, teaching, and learning. Factor in the enrollment cliff that presents with a significant decline in college-age students, beginning this year, and it’s no wonder that PhD students are creating plans to exit academia after graduation. 

And for those PhDs who do decide to throw their hat into the academic job search rings: they now have to contend with the fact that they are in the same applicant pool as PhDs who graduated several years ago as well as professors in tenure-track positions who may be seeking to move institutions or states. 

And then there is that big problem of contingent faculty who work for years without an offer for more stable positions or benefits. Knowing this, recent PhDs may in fact decide to pursue other alternatives from the get-go. 

And did I mention the hiring freezes that have been announced at many universities following the cancellation of federal funding by the Trump administration. 

We are entering a period when academic job market prospects are really, really dismal for recent grads.

Knowing about all of these conditions at play, what can you do to help your current graduate students? If your first answers are: “Well, that’s not really my problem” or “That’s not in my job description” Then ok, fine. 

But I’m guessing that you’re probably also not listening to my podcast.

For those of you who are very concerned about your graduate students, you want to help them, but don’t know how to help them because you’re never worked outside of the academy, then what can you do? 

How can you mentor graduate students on a career pathway that is very different from your own?

PhDs Who Choose Non-Academic Careers are Not Failures

I want to begin to answer this question by first relaying a story to you. This is going to seem long, but stick with me.

About a year ago, I facilitated a professional development workshop for graduate students at a very well-known research institution. Actually, this was more like an informal conversation about exploring career pathways beyond academia. In the middle of the workshop, one of the questions that a student quietly asked was: “Am I a failure if I decide to leave my doctoral program?” 

This was a very brave question, and I immediately responded, “No, you are not a failure if you decide to leave your doctoral program.”  

It was easy enough for me to respond to in the moment. And I think I because I had shared my own journey of deciding to leave a tenured faculty position and pivot into a different career ... this perhaps created the space for the student to summon up the courage to ask this question in front of their own peers. 

Because what I’ve gathered over the years, is that these types of questions are not often asked by students to their professors for fear of being judged, for fear of experiencing consequences such as the pulling of funding, or for fear of disappointing their advisors.

And another factor is that the departmental culture is one that upholds the expectation that PhD students in their program will enter the professoriate. The students that go on to hold academic positions are the ones who are celebrated. They’re featured in departmental newsletters, on the alumni page on the website, and they are invited back to give talks. 

In this kind of environment, grad students can seem like they’ve somehow missed the mark if they choose not to pursue the academic track. Or even worse, that others will think that they’re a failure.

But they’re not. And we know that.

But they need to hear that. From faculty. And more than ever, they need support and encouragement from faculty in this current moment.

I want to circle back to the question of: how do you support grad students in their non-academic career explorations?

Supporting PhD Students in Non-Academic Career Explorations

I think the first step is to just be more intentional about creating spaces— perhaps brave spaces—for your grad students to discuss these concerns about the non-academic job market with you and to be able to do so without fear of reprisals. 

Rather than have grad students explore alt-ac careers or non-academic careers on the down low (because pro tip: that’s what they’re doing!), think about ways to make this exploration less taboo in your department. 

Perhaps that could mean inviting graduates of the program who pursued careers in industry, entrepreneurship, or the non-profit sector. And think farther afield than the more traditional “applied” areas related to your discipline that you’ve probably already featured in your programming.

And third: a reframing or a mindset shift is necessary. Sure, it is super impressive to see the roster of recent and previous PhDs at various academic institutions. I’ve seen many of these kind of pages on departmental websites of high-ranking programs.

But what about those graduates of those programs who chose not to go down the academic tenure-track? Is there a place to acknowledge and celebrate them? I think this comes down to reframing what success looks like in this new higher ed landscape. 

And I should say this is hard b/c the metrics for success that are placed on faculty by their institutions rely on faculty’s ability to place their advisees in academic jobs. So this is really baked into the system.

This may be the hardest one to change on a systemic level. But I think it can be done at an individual or even departmental level, if there’s intentionality.

Resources for PhDs Who are Considering Non-Academic Careers

There are a growing number of great resources on this topic that you can share with your students. 

A few that come to mind are: 

• engaging with the career services office on your campus, 

• the Beyond Academia non-profit organization started and run by UC Berkeley graduate students, 

• Gertrude Nonterah’s interviews with 100 PhDs, 

• services provided by companies like Next Draft 

• as well as career coaches like Jennifer Polk and Ashley Ruba, 

• and the recently published volume: Higher Education Careers Beyond the Professoriate.

I’m going to go ahead and put those links as well as other helpful resources in the written transcript for this episode—so make sure to check that out.

In a future episode, I’d like to continue this discussion of how you can mentor graduate students on a career pathway that is very different from your own. This does not mean that you have to become a de facto career coach. But there are a few practical steps and resources that I would like to share with you that may make this kind of mentoring a little bit easier.

That’s it for today. 

Stay strong and stay well.