The Philosophers' Cocoon

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

It would be useful to talk more about the back-up career paths for mint philosophy PhDs. And how to switch to them. This is more necessary than ever since Covid19 will disrupt the already competitive academic job market. If people like me had some hope before the pandemic, now university cuts on jobs and post-docs lead us to face reality: fresh PhDs have passed from having little chances to zero chances — not only in Humanities. So, many would be grateful if even more space could be given to non-academic careers in either the US and Europe. At least, I see also the positive side-effect: the situation will push to think more about the prospectives philosophers have outside academia. Thank you in advance!

This is a really important query, for obvious reasons–as the academic job-market is almost certainly going to be a disaster this year (even more so than normal, sadly). Anyway, here are a few resources to begin with:

• The APA's Beyond Academia Network: mailing list for philosophers searching for non-academic opportunities.
• Phil Skills: a website of interviews with philosophers in non-academic careers.
• Helen's series of interviews with philosophers outside of the academy at The Philosophers' Magazine.
• Our own Alt-Ac Workshop and Alt-Ac Jobs series featuring tips and guest-posts.
• Free range philosophers: more interviews with philosophers with non-academic careers.
• A helpful 'Plan B' article with practical tips at Chronicle of Higher Education.
• Beyond the Professoriate: a website and membership service featuring free (?) career events as well as (paid?) job-search courses, coaching, and other resources (I just discovered this and have no idea whether it's any good).

Finally, because I was curious, yesterday I did simple Google searches for "philosophers in industry", "philosophers outside of academia", and "philosophers non-academic careers. Because (1) to my astonishment I wasn't able to find anything like a list or directory in 15 seconds (let alone after a little more digging), (2) as we've discussed before networking is how the vast majority of jobs are found and filled, and (3) ex-academic philosophers are probably the best people to appreciate the talents and job situation of philosophers, I just decided to create a Philosophers in Industry Directory of my own. As of now, I am taking suggestions for additions, updates, and deletions by email: marvan@ut.edu. I hope some of you find it helpful, especially those of you who need a job or will need one soon (e.g. post-graduation).

Basically, I just did a little bit of digging and decided to list people alphabetically by last name, linking to their professional pages and listing their line of work. Although I imagine an individual listed here or there might email me asking to have their name removed or whatever, given that all I've done is list publicly available information on LinkedIn, an informal directory like this seems to clearly fine to put together–especially given that it might drive viewers and talented new employees to their company. Who knows? Among other things, I think it's kinda cool to see in one place all of the interesting and diverse things ex-academic philosophers have gone on to do in their careers. And if the directory turns out to be more trouble than it's worth, then I can always take it down. Until then, enjoy – and feel free to suggest additions, etc.!

In any case, do any of you have any helpful tips or resources for the original commenter?