Post-PhD and feeling like I'll never get an academic job....

[heroineinahalfshell]

Hello all. I'm new to this forum and wondered if I could pick brains/ask advice. Apologies if this turns into a treatise!

I received my doctorate (humanities subject, RG institution) in early 2016 and was fortunate to go straight into a 6 month teaching fellowship at another RG. At the end of that post I applied for a FT lectureship at that institution, and didn't get shortlisted ... The HoD told me I had more teaching experience than the eventual hire, but that I shouldn't apply for any other FT lectureships until I had publications (I had 2 articles under review at the time). Those 2 articles have since been published, both in highly regarded international journals. But I have only managed one academic interview since then, for a TF post I missed out on to an internal candidate. I'm continuing to go to big conferences in my field to try and stay in the loop.

I'm now working in a full time permanent post at a post-92 uni in learner development (basically teaching study skills and pastoral support). I enjoy my new role & the stability it offers, but desperately miss teaching, and am continuing to apply for permanent posts/longer TFs with no luck.

I am really torn about what to do next - I know I need to start putting together a monograph proposal and get it under contract, but I'm finding it hard to get motivation/time to do it on top of working FT. I feel like I'm not good enough for academia after so long out of it and seeing friends get great roles ahead of me. My current role feels like a safe option, particularly considering I'm not particularly mobile due to DHs job (and if we want to have kids in near future, mat leave is tempting). But theres not much opportunity for progression, and I DO want back into academia, and DH feels like we made a lot of sacrifices for my PhD and now I'm "not trying" to get a job.

What are my best options? Try to wrangle monograph into shape & then apply for jobs with a contract in my back pocket? Forget monograph for now and publish more articles? Apply for a Leverhulme/BA? (I've no idea what my next research project will look like right now...) Or bite the bullet and start applying for short TFs again that will decrease my job security? Feeling a bit lost and would appreciate any and all wisdom.

Godstopper you sound like a really great academic who is just looking for that foot in the door, the fact people are actively encouraging you to apply for all these schemes is promising and suggests they also see a bright future for you. I'd also say, if you are in philosophy, that for whatever reason, there are few women and although I'm not in it personally, I imagine the issues of sexism and gender to be very acute- there are a few women battling against it but it's enormously tiring and makes it just that bit harder at every stage of the way (unconscious of course, as the male professors all probably see themselves as 'right on' and encouraging to females but fundamentally identify with the males who are 'like them'). So, that's another factor which perhaps is similar to STEM (and less the case in some social sciences, I work in a field which is more 50/50 women with quite a few leading women as well as men).

Portraying me as someone who simply hasn't listened is unfair.

You are taking something personally that wasn't directed at you specifically, but more generally.

Yes, you may have had bad advice from your immediate colleagues - this happens to many of us. But for all of us it is up to us to figure out success chances at prestigious fellowships, research grants, getting permanent jobs etc - that can mean doing some research on the success rates by ourselves, rather than relying on out of date knowledge of older people.

A general comment, not directed at anyone on this thread: ECRs are quite often aware of the statistics but somehow think that they are not part of these statistics i.e. they have a better than average chance.

The other thing is- and I know I'm guilty of this- I can't be honest with those who I don't think will make it. I just can't. I'm not even sure I should be- is it for me to say 'I just don't think you've quite got the intellectual calibre plus motivation plus drive plus sparkle' to be a professor, and anyway, I've been wrong- we had one student who took years and years to do a PhD and was generally considered a duff candidate, but walked into a permanent job, no idea how. So, my problem is that I find it hard to level with people about their likelihood of success- which is why I think if people are actively searching for grants for you, suggesting collaborations, still interested, willing to be co-authors and so on, these are good signs you have what it takes and should pursue it- but only on your own terms and if you want to, of course.

Yes Summer. Rather than employ a permanent teaching person, or lecturer, dept's are now choosing to employ temporary teaching fellows (often on exploitative contracts). I realise this might have been the norm in some disciplines, but it's only really proliferated in philosophy over the past few years.

I find it deeply worrying for a number of reasons and chose to remove myself from contention. I applied for 3 that looked o.k in the end, and was interviewed for 2. That seems a good strike rate to me. But the jobs themselves were not what was advertised, and I'm by no means desperate enough to take them. My not having an official paid job right now (officially on a 'fellowship' still) is by choice, and I don't really care if this is seen as a gaping hole on my c.v. I've already started my own v. small business and feel relieved to be partly out the door.

It does feel a bit strange. I thought I'd feel thoroughly depressed. But I really do feel mentally lighter right now. I don't know if/when I'll feel ready to be immersed into academia again. I may not, and this strikes me as no bad thing.

Well, this year I have:

• Paper contracted for a special issue (subject to approval, but looks v. likely).
• Co-authored papers planned with external collaborators.
• Invitations to speak at major international conferences.
• 4 invitations to speak at workshops for non-philosophers who want to know about my project.

Basically, what's happening this year is everything that should have happened last year until a full-time teaching load got in the way. But, unless/until a grant materialises, I won't be devoting too much time to the project: it's being done purely out of interest at the moment. I think that's a sensible way to proceed.

My PhD did take significantly longer than most others. Not because I lost my grip on the research. But because I had a significant operation, and then a period of adaptation. It can be tricky to explain that as, going purely by dates, it looks like I lost the plot: in fact, said operation was partly done so that I would be on a more equal footing as everyone else (except, that seemed a bit naive of me in retrospect).

Honestly, the only people I know who've finished PhDs fairly recently and then gone on to get permanent contracts have had periods abroad. The easiest place to get a contract seems to be China, but I think being open to working anywhere increases your chances massively. You don't have kids yet, so now is a good time to be going for jobs abroad.

I personally didn't rely upon out of date knowledge, and familiarised myself with success rates: some schemes I didn't even bother applying for given the investment of time with little hope of success. Better to use that time more productively. I'm simply saying that I wish more senior academics in my discipline had a better appreciation of the reality for many, and would stop giving out questionable advice that, although well-meaning, is often unhelpful. I also wish that more would speak out and try to change things rather than, as far as I can tell, contributing to some of the problems in the discipline.

Thanks Summer. You're completely right about there being, like STEM, few women. My dept. is one of the better ones in this regard, but the stats are pretty grim on the whole. I also found out this year that there are only two-three-ish (!!!) black academic philosopher's in the U.K, and the stats for disabled philosophers (of which I am one) don't make for happy reading either.

Remember that senior academics across all subjects are under immense pressure of their own. ECRs often don't look beyond getting a permanent contract but those of us with permanent contracts often have ludicrous workloads and expectations. Sometimes contribution to the problems the field may come from senior academics, but it may not be as easy as one might think for this to be changed because of performance targets etc.

Indeed, user. There's are very few sinecures now and I spend a lot of my time on advising, reading, feeding back to recent post docs - many who were not even my own PhD students. This is time which would otherwise be used entirely for my own research. I get no adjustments to my workload for this. Indeed my workload expands year on year.

But I do it because I want to keep the best of my students and turn them into colleagues. I always discuss a Plan B but several of our postgrads have since said to me that they wished they had listened!

Should I stop encouraging Postdoc applications? I don't think I should, but @Godstopper your logic suggests I should.

And I can't tell hopeful candidates that they should give up. Although recently I've been observing the weird phenomenon of my rather less talented postdocs getting teaching fellow posts while I have 2 truly brilliant young recent PhDs who can't get a foot in the door. It's partly about the completely xenophobic visa requirements and restrictions.

What are the chances of a getting a lecture post after PhD generally?

Especially if you are over 40 when you finish?

Niki it depends on your discipline and even your sub-discipline to some extent. Go on jobs.ac.uk and set up an alert for jobs in your discipline and in your preferred location and start to see what comes up- are there lots? Are they paid ok? Or are they few and far between? In humanities, there's the least, I think. In social science, it very much depends on the discipline, a straight lectureship in anthropology would be very competitive, as there are not many departments that do it. Plus most people do post-docs which is post-doctoral work on grants for years before securing a lectureship anyway, although if you are in a very in-demand area you may be able to speed this bit up. It's not about age, it's about the match or mismatch of your particular PhD to the market, which a lot of PhDs don't seem to understand.

It's not supposed to be affected by your calendar age - the thing that's important is what you've achieved in however long it is since you completed the PhD (and often universities don't like to see a full time PhD taking more than 4 years, honestly).

Our two latest junior permanent hires have both been people in their 50s. Not that we asked them at interview (that's illegal anyway). They were the best suited for the posts - the most relevant experience, and the best fit with the department.