[Grad-postdoc-assn] 4 Tips on applying for jobs outside of academia

[Valerie Sloan]

Good afternoon,

Here is a useful article from The Chronicle of Higher Education.  I have
included Tip No.3 below, and attached both the link and a PDF of the
article.  Save it for yourself - there is some good advice in here.  It
helps to hear how an academic background is valuable in the
private/gov/industry sectors.

- Val Sloan
4 Tips on Applying for Jobs Outside of AcademeiStock
By Ben Dumbauld DECEMBER 11, 2019
https://www.chronicle.com/article/4-Tips-on-Applying-for-Jobs/247684?cid=wcontentgrid_hp_9

Tip No. 3: Do the opposite (mostly) of what academic applications
require. What’s
most important on an academic application might be least important on a
nonacademic one. Outside the ivory tower, the "Ph.D." label after your name
already distinguishes you from other applicants. We assume your doctorate
means you are very good at research, can self-manage, and are extremely
dedicated to work that interests you. Those three letters do a lot of work
for you.

One of the strongest pieces of advice I can give someone applying for
nonacademic jobs is to simply remember: The person looking at your résumé
likely has *no* background in the specific culture of your academic
discipline. We don’t know whether the journals you’ve published in are
top-notch or pay-to-publish scams, whether the awards you’ve won are
prestigious, whether the conferences you’ve presented at are well-attended.
And we are not going to spend our time trying to find out. Instead, we’ll
skim through all of that to get to what is all too often on the second page
of a Ph.D.’s résumé — the work experience and qualifications we actually
care about.

What tenure-track jobs at a research university tend to value the least may
very well be what nonacademic jobs value the most:

   - Seeing evidence of service shows you are capable of working with other
   people and managing events and projects — a vital skill in most jobs.
   - Seeing that you’ve published in general-interest magazines or websites
   means an editor found you can write well (or well enough) for a broad
   audience.
   - Seeing that you gave talks outside of academe — at public events, book
   fairs, music festivals, public symposiums — shows you interact well with
   different people in person.

The two exceptions to this general rule are for skills equally valued both
within and outside of higher education:

   - Grants: They’re the lifeblood of most nonprofit groups. Showing that
   you know how to write successful grant proposals can only benefit you. It’s
   far more important to list your grants than your academic honors.
   - Teaching: Never underestimate the "employable" skills you develop
   through teaching. Classroom experience shows you know how to explain
   difficult concepts, are used to public speaking, can work under time
   constraints, and, let’s be honest, probably have some experience managing
   difficult people and situations. That said, as an employer, I’m interested
   in variety over specialty: I would much rather see you list the summer-arts
   program you ran for middle schoolers than yet another intro-level course
   you taught.
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