The Philosophers' Cocoon

A safe and supportive forum for philosophers.

Owned & Moderated by Marcus Arvan (University of Tampa)

Contact: marvan@ut.edu

Blog mission & moderation policy

IMPORTANT NOTE on how to ensure anonymity in commenting
Job-Market Reporting Thread (2025-26)
Job-Market Discussion Thread (2025-26)

recent posts

about

A job market dilemma: continue on or divest?

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

I'm having motivation problems. This is my 4th year on the job market and it looks as though, once again, I'm not going to get any traction whatsoever this year.

The thing is, I'm currently in the 1st year of a postdoc position that's part of a grant that I wrote for a 2 year project. So, I'm quite lucky in that I'm employed with another year and half to keep doing research and few other responsibilities.

However, given my complete lack of success on the job market (besides the postdoc position I've been in), I have no reason to think that accruing further publications is going to do much for my chances of landing a TT position. I've got what I think is a very strong publication record – it's comparable to what many people have who've gotten tenure. Yet, like so many others, it doesn't seem to have made the slightest difference in getting a job. Sadly, this is probably due, in part, to having gotten my PhD from a unranked department.

At this point, I'm basically counting on the fact that I'm going to go back into a construction gig once this postdoc is up. Given that I've written the grant, there's little penalty attached to being less productive for the remainder of it. Add to this, I have a wife and a toddler who I could spend more time with while I've got job flexibility, I'm finding it very hard to motivate/justify continuing to invest myself in what seems to be a almost certain dead end. How much time/emotional energy should I continue to invest?

I'm really sorry to hear that this reader is going through this. I went through something similar myself during my years on the market, and I deeply empathize: I remember all too well how hard it was for me to continue on, and to wonder what else I could/should be doing.

A couple of readers submitted follow-up comments. One reader wrote in:

I'm in similar shoes. My advice? Explore all your career alternatives now so that you don't have to go back to construction (unless that's your next preference). It's what I'm doing. With the dearth of entry-level tech jobs, I do believe it's hard to get decent white collar work with a philosophy background nowadays. People don't seem to appreciate that enough. Still, I think it's orders of magnitude easier than landing a TT job in philosophy — especially if you're doing "core" analytic or something like that. It's an uphill battle to get into industry, but at least you have a fighting chance.

And another wrote:

I'm in a similar situation, with a list of short-term postdocs that keeps growing. In Europe, where I'm based, this is perceived as the norm. Postdocs, whether self-funded with a grant or fellowship or offerred by a research group, are what an early-career researcher typically does. To most people here, I look like a *successful* early-career researcher. But I have no idea how I could move to a TT job, for similar reasons as the OP. I heard that getting a really big grant might allow you to negotiate a position in some European countries, but I'm not confident this is a sure route anymore. What my senior mentors keep telling me is that I'm doing fine and just need to wait (persist) long enough. It's tough.

While persistence can of course pay off, few things are as uncertain as the academic job-market–so I think the first reader above probably has a point. If the OP has the time to begin cultivating a better Plan B, they might be in a much better position in a year-and-a-half to secure a more attractive non-academic job if things don't work out. Personally, I wish that I had done this myself!

During my 4th year or so on the market, I received zero interviews, and I didn't know whether to continue on. But I had a relatively stable non-tenure-track position, so each year my spouse and I had difficult discussions on whether I should keep going. Fortunately, after a few more years, I finally began to get more interviews, and ultimately I landed a TT job during my 7th year on the market, the very year my non-TT job was due to run out. If I hadn't gotten a job that year, then I probably would have had to leave academia–and I didn't have any plan B whatsoever, so I had no idea what I would have done instead (which I do recall being pretty terrifying).

So, maybe the thing for the OP to do is to sort of split their energy between academia and cultivating a Plan B? What do you all think? If you agree, any tips for the OP on how to best develop an alternative career plan?

Posted in

19 responses to “A job market dilemma: continue on or divest?”

  1. maybe I should have given up…

    I did a nonacademic job as a university admin for a year. I landed a fixed term teaching position half a year into that job, and a stable position half a year into the teaching job. But I’m not exactly sure the risk was worth it. Moreover, I’m still not sure my living quality and overall happiness has increased. Part of the reason is that I am working for a less economically privileged university, while my first and second job were for very well-off universities, and my stable position pays roughly as little as my nonacademic job. Things are even harder given the two young kids I’m currently feeding, and the fact that there’s no free childcare until a kid reachers 3 years old where I now live poses significant constraints on when my partner can start working.
    I am extremely grateful that my phd supervisor kept having faith in me. But I’ve heard that the market is not much better compared to when I received my stable position offer. (According to sources, UCL had 700 applicants this round, just as an example.) Moreover, I think one is more likely to hear success stories on forums, so the information one gets might be highly biased.
    I sometimes wonder whether I’d just be better off staying in my first admin position, and climb the ladder to get paid more. At least I would be fulfilling my parental duties a lot better than being overworked and underpaid.
    Sorry about the ranting, and I know that I’m not following my own advice, but it’s really worth cultivating multiple options. Perhaps one should publish as much as one can, only accept jobs that lead to stability, and call it a life. This may involve getting a nonacademic job, don’t put it on one’s CV (I’ve been told that this can be very hurtful to the prospects of getting an academic job, but who knows…does anyone have any idea on this?), and keep applying for TT positions for one or two more years.

    Reply
  2. you are right

    To play the angel’s advocate (the advocate for the OP’s own considered position), I think you should put most if not all of your time/energy into alternatives. First, you make the fantastic point that, for this year at least, you have flexibility that you may never have again, or at least won’t have again for decades. This time, now, is precious and there is so much to be gained from being fully invested and present with your partner and young child.
    Second, I think you’re spot on when you state that, since you already have a decently strong publication record, additional publications are unlikely to make any difference. Once you have some baseline of publications, other factors become much more relevant, so putting your time and efforts into continued research can almost guaranteed to have decreasing returns.
    Third, if we adopt a certain picture of rationality, the best evidence of future success on the job market is your past performance on the job market. If, as you put it, for 4 years in a row, you have failed to get traction, that is pretty good reason to think that you will fail to get traction next year as well, regardless of your additional investment. This is especially true if you don’t really anticipate your record getting significantly stronger in the coming year, which you might take to be a fair assessment of your situation.
    More generally, I am blown away by the number of people who invest so much in a job market that is so unforgiving and bleak. To be more specific, I can understand, emotionally, why one would do so, but when we compare open positions to recent PhDs, the numbers just don’t add up. They don’t!

    Reply
  3. Greg Stoutenburg

    I left my full-time higher ed philosophy role in 2021 and my only regret is not having done it sooner. Tech has much of the culture we like about higher ed, minus a lot of the nonsense (plus some new nonsense), a good work-life balance (mostly, but nothing will be college summers off), and pay levels that will make your eyes pop if you’re used to 50k/year sounding reasonable.
    I’d be happy to talk to OP or anyone else interested in moving from philosophy to industry https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-stoutenburg/

    Reply
  4. Asst Prof

    I think a lot depends on what your AOS is. There are some areas that just have way more jobs than others. And other areas that may have one or two TT jobs each year. So, I would asses your situation in part on how many TT jobs one can expect in the future in your AOS.

    Reply
  5. sahpa

    Asst Prof: the supply of potential hires in that AOS matters too — in fact either factor in isolation is meaningless.

    Reply
  6. Bill Vanderburgh

    Getting more teaching experience, and some coaching on interviewing, are the only things I can think might help OP. They are right that getting more publications than they already have is not going to be the magic ticket.
    Pursuing other kinds of jobs, not just construction, might be worth thinking about. A job coach might be able to help find ways to connect skills and interests to employer needs. In OP’s position, I’d try academic administration–maybe in the grad school or the research office, where your publication record will be respected.

    Reply
  7. Trevor Hedberg

    I would also support others’ suggestions to explore non-academic alternatives, but as someone who progressed from an unranked program to two postdocs and now to a stable Career-Track job in the Honors College at the University of Arizona, I would be remiss not to mention that getting postdocs can significantly increase your marketability. It is not just that you get some additional publications but also that you become associated with a different institution, which can help counter the perception of coming from a low-prestige graduate program.

    Reply
  8. Valueless Theory

    To add to Asst Prof and sahpa’s points, my impression from years on the job market and friends in all areas suggest the following:
    Ethics/Political Philosophy/Social Philosophy (including race/gender): The best for A job, though not necessarily a research-heavy job. Even though there are a lot of people in these areas, the sheer number of courses that universities provide in these areas means that there are a lot of opportunities, provided you can publish with a significant or heavy teaching load.
    Philosophy of Science: Not that many exclusive jobs, but also not that big an area in terms of people specialising in it, I think. Lots of research postdocs going around to build up a good publication record.
    Logic: A lot of teaching to be done, but also an assumption that you don’t need a logician – even in the broad sense – to do it.
    Metaphysics/Epistemology: Brutal. Lots of talented people in these areas relative to the number of jobs.
    Aesthetics/Philosophy of Art: Maybe the most brutal of them all? Very few jobs specifically in these areas, BUT with the added difficulty that it’s hard to build up a publication record to be competitive for Open jobs. Even with the relatively small number of people in these areas, they still seem insanely challenging from my outsider’s perspective.
    Basically, if I’d just wanted a job in academia, I would have gone into Ethics/Political Philosophy/Social Philosophy. As it is, I have benefited from teaching these whenever the opportunity arose, even though they’re distant from my main research interests.

    Reply
  9. Noname

    I’ve known people who have publications but no luck in finding a job, like OP and some commentators, even when they did attend a highly ranked PhD program. I wonder if there are two necessary conditions research-wise for being hired: filling a specific need of a department; can make a decent portion of faculty see your research is interesting and important. My friends who fail to get a research-focused tt job all seem to be fail in one of the two ways. Piling up similar sort of research publications by itself does not help change the situation. e.g., too specialized/technical, little demand from students. If this sounds like the case for OP, it might be worth investing significantly in the alternatives, or a hard look at the personal happiness-suffering analysis.

    Reply
  10. Torre

    How are your job market materials? If they haven’t been independently vetted by some people in the know, doing that might do as much to improve your applications at this point than new publications would. I second what others have said. I would not stop applying for jobs, but I would stop trying to publish. Because of how slow the process is, it’s possible that what you submit soon won’t be accepted by the time next job cycle rolls around anyway. However, if you have R&Rs or near-finished drafts I would send those out for good measure unless they will take a great deal of work.

    Reply
  11. It makes you better

    Developing a solid backup plan is good not only for the sake of having a backup plan, but also for your odds on the market itself. You will approach the job market in a completely different way—and from a completely different psychological state—if you have an actual, workable backup plan.
    As an example: without a backup plan, it’s very very hard to talk yourself out of using some variant of the “apply to all the things I might remotely qualify for” approach to the market. It doesn’t matter much whether that approach is best or rational or whatever—if you don’t have an alternative, it’s just what you’ll probably do. Almost certainly your applications will suffer as a result. And taking this approach guarantees that both you and your work will suffer even if your applications don’t. But with a backup plan, you’ll find that it’s possible to do things like apply more selectively and be at peace with rejections and stuff like that. This will probably improve the quality of your applications. It will certainly the quality of your life while applying. This in turn will improve you as a person and a philosopher, making you a better candidate and so on.
    So yes: make a serious backup plan. Don’t just do it so you can bail, though. Also do it so you can do better on the nonbackup plan.

    Reply
  12. sisyphus

    OP here. First, let me thank everyone for the kind advice and words of support. It’s much appreciated.
    All these comments are helpful and I hope not only for me, but for all the folks who are in a position similar to mine. In that spirit, I’ll offer a few responses that are unique to my situation, though please don’t let my doing so derail comments that might be more widely applicable.
    My AOS is phil of sci, though I specialize in a sub-area therein. Unfortunately, there has not been a single TT job so far this year has mentioned that sub-area, and over the past 4 years the number of jobs that mention my sub-area seem to be dropping off.
    My postdoc is at a relatively fancy place, which, honestly is part of what’s been disheartening. I was hoping that being affiliated with a fancier place, in combination with having secured a large grant for a multi-year project, would add some shine to my applications. Seems as though it hasn’t. I also fear that this may make me look less and less appealing to teaching-heavy, community college-types jobs. (I don’t hear back from those type of jobs either, in spite of having an extensive teaching record.)
    As for publications, a bit more than half of my papers engage in a particular debate, and the position I advocate for within that debate is getting an okay response (a couple papers have been cited 10+ times.) I also have a couple other papers on different topics in the same phil sci sub-area. However, nothing I work on seems to be “hot” right now. I’ve thought about trying to pivot, but that is precisely the kind of time/energy investment I’m just lack the motivation for doing.
    I plan to continue applying to jobs for another year or two, as I have nothing to lose by doing so. My motivational dilemmas are in the day-to-day. For example, why bother submitting a paper to give a talk? Or, I have a decent idea for a new paper, but what’s the point in trying to write it given that it might only be published by the time I’m no longer on the market? Or, why offer to advise so-in-so’s senior thesis? It’s all feeling pretty pointless these days.
    Regarding the non-academic job market, I would be curious to know more about how people make that transition. Something that might work both for and against me is that I had a blue-collar “career” prior to going to grad school. Thus, my non-academic resume qualifies for certain jobs, but it makes me look very strange many for the types of jobs – often the kinds I see philosophers getting who’ve gone the non-academic route. Add to that, I’m not particularly tech savvy.
    Oh, and my application materials have been vetted. They may not be the absolute best, but I’m confident they don’t contain any red flags.

    Reply
  13. Another

    I think people are generally right about publications not helping in the circumstances under discussion (early career trying to break into a permanent job). I don’t have the exact stats, but here are some observations. I would appreciate feedback on these, as I’m in a somewhat similar position as OP.
    With tenure-track assistant-level posts, it seems that a non-trivial amount of people who get hired are ABD’s with no publications or one or two publications, some of which may have been co-authored with a more senior person. It is hard to believe that such succeeding candidates are close to being the most highly qualified of the hundreds of applicants, at least in terms of actual publication record. So adding more publications probably won’t help here because these apparently aren’t that important at the entry level. I’m wondering, however, if a book with an influential press, might make a difference (when added to a decent collection of articles, as the OP has).
    I would say that for long-term but non-tenure-track teaching positions, the publications in fact hurt, as OP has observed. For these posts, the department presumably just wants a teacher, and for a long period in that they don’t want to have to deal with putting on another search, something that they risk if they hire someone with a good research record. I’m wondering if this is an accurate impression on my part.

    Reply
  14. Derek Bowman

    Sisyphus,
    I lost my motivation after two years on the market while working poorly paid adjunct positions. I was ready to give up on academia at the time, but then I got a reasonably well paid 4-4 VAP. That position was nice while it lasted, but even as it was coming to an end, I couldn’t summon the motivation to resume the much-effort-no-reward academic job search. I also couldn’t go back to being paid half as much to teach the same courses as an adjunct.
    If I had your construction experience, I would have gladly done that instead. Certainly my family members who work in construction and electrical work have lived more financially stable lives than I have, and my plumber is making plans to retire in her 50s.
    Instead I spent more than a year unemployed, in part because I was traveling frequently to care for my mother who passed away early in this year, and in part because I wasn’t getting much traction applying to nonacademic jobs. I spent a lot of time volunteering with activities I enjoyed and organizations I supported, and I recently started a relatively low paid (but still better than adjuncting!) job with a social service nonprofit. I’m not sure what my next move will be, but I have no regrets about not trying longer or harder for an academic career.
    Anyway, if I were in your position I know I wouldn’t regret taking advantage of the extra time with my family, and I’d only be willing to sacrifice that for something I was confident would make me better able to care for them and/or better able to spend more quality time with them going forward. From that standpoint, your lack of motivation strikes me as a perfectly fitting response to the practical reasons at hand.

    Reply
  15. Noah

    I wish I had the ability to do skilled physical work like construction or (especially) contracting. Those are the jobs of the future. Between the increase of remote work (allowing more jobs to be moved to cheaper labor markets) and AI’s increasing ability to perform near or above human levels in more and more fields, it’s getting increasingly difficult to get office jobs, especially those that philosophy PhDs are natural fits for (entry level, not required by law to be done by humans, and often centrally involving writing). Perhaps the poor market conditions are just temporary, but I don’t see the above factors changing any time soon.
    If you are organized, present yourself professionally, and can do basic internet marketing you can make a killing as a contractor. That would be my suggestion.

    Reply
  16. re another

    another said
    “With tenure-track assistant-level posts, it seems that a non-trivial amount of people who get hired are ABD’s with no publications or one or two publications, some of which may have been co-authored with a more senior person.”
    Each has their own story. I have the bad habit of trying to find out who got the jobs I applied to. Often I would tell myself that it’s really fair enough. Sometimes I find myself in a lot of resentment. But there was more than one occasion where I discovered that someone probably had some forthcoming publication that wasn’t announced on PhilPapers, but was presumably on that person’s CV when they applied (at least that would be my guess judging from the dates of acceptance).
    That being said, I often wonder whether I should tell my students that it is rational to just try to get into one of those top programs where pedigree may help one to get some (unfair?) advantages.

    Reply
  17. a contractor?

    Noah
    You must be using the term “contractor” in a way we do not in my culture or social circles. A contractor is a person who does small construction type of work, carpentry, etc. Is that what you mean?

    Reply
  18. Derek Bowman

    In my experience the term “contractor” refers to the person or entity who is contracted to do a construction, maintenance, or installation job of any size. So the person I hired to paint my house was a contractor, but so are the people I know whose companies bid multi-million dollar jobs for power companies and carpet mills. Those contractors may also do some or all of the work themselves (either as an individual or as a firm), or they might hire ‘subcontractors’ to do some or all of the work. The same person or firm might also serve as ‘general contractors’ for some jobs and ‘subcontractors’ for others.

    Reply
  19. Noah

    “Construction worker”, in my mind implies a worker employed by someone else on a large construction job, like building an apartment or a bridge, etc. A contractor is someone who comes to your house and gives you an estimate for a small job (can be done within a few days) such as a remodeling a kitchen/bathroom, putting in HVAC, etc. They may or may not be employed by someone else. My understanding is that contracting, in this sense, is more lucrative than being a construction worker.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Discover more from The Philosophers' Cocoon

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading