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Job-Market Reporting Thread (2025-26)
Job-Market Discussion Thread (2025-26)

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Are the job-market/academia worth it?

In our February "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

Does anybody think this is worth it? Sorry that this is a grim question. But after a few cycles on the job market, I am wondering whether anybody thinks that this is worth it (and endorses that belief). I see so many intelligent kind friends absolutely burned out by the job insecurity, the constant moving, the two body problems, the low pay during prime saving years, the barriers to starting a family. I know we all know these things and we commiserate with each other – but then we just keep doing it. Line up again for another job market year, keep "crossing fingers". Has anybody figured out a defence, other than inertia, for why they keep doing it? If so could they share it, so that I can have their hope and reasoning as well?

I'm so sorry that the OP and others on the job-market are going through this. I spent seven (or was it eight?) awful years on the market wondering the same thing, and although I finally lucked out and ended up in a tenure-track job, I must confess that I still don't think that I have a good answer. Did a tenure-track job make that tremendously awful better-part-of-a-decade worth it? And would it have been worth it if I hadn't lucked out? I don't know how to answer either question, and I suspect there may not be any generalizable answers. Maybe it's all worth it in some cases but not others? But what about in comparison to relevant alternatives? I've heard a number of people who have left academia for industry joba report being far happier. Then again, maybe they are a non-representative, self-selected group of "alt-ac success stories"? 

In any case, it may be good to have a frank and open discussion of these issues, hearing the perspectives of people in different situations, including those on the market, those who have stayed in academia, and those who have left. 

Does anyone have any experiences or insights they're willing to share? Please do feel free to discuss away and commiserate.

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26 responses to “Are the job-market/academia worth it?”

  1. been there

    I can say that it was worth it for me (coming from a middle-of-the-pack grad programme and ending up at a tail-end R1) after five market runs (including an ABD year and that awful pandemic year with no jobs), but I also recall that my fifth year on the market was one that I had determined to be my final go. I managed a string of postdoc and VAP appointments, but financially I couldn’t justify continuing on the contingent track. In that final year, once all the apps were sent out, I actively turned to cultivating contacts in tech and sending out resumes to companies and consulting groups (I have some background in programming). Luckly, I ended up with two offers from good places, and truth be told I think the motley assortment of teaching and research experiences that I had accrued during my wandering years played an important role in ensuring a good ‘fit’ for those two jobs, but I couldn’t have predicted this result. Now that I’ve been on a few hiring committees I see just how stochastic the process is, how little control applicants can exert, and how we’re awash with candidates boasting ever-longer CVs brimming with accomplishments. At the same time, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see how year after year a decent portion of my friends who have been on the market for two, three, four cycles do manage to land at great places. So where does that leave us? I guess, whether it’s worth it is an individual question, but from my experience it was helpful to: assume that I would have to deal with the turmoil of many market cycles (and I had folks on my committee prophetically mention that it could likely be three of four cycles before I ‘landed’), find a way to highlight the assortment of teaching and research experiences that you might accrue on the contingent track, and begin putting efforts into making non-academic contacts and considering (in the words of another advisor) ‘all the possible yous’. I also found it liberating to set a “final” year, but who knows whether I would have actually gone through with it. But being able to start saying my goodbyes and considering myself “out” of academia with nine months of paid salary still in front of me was mentally worthwhile. Good luck.

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  2. Veteran

    I am a five-year job marketeer who got a tenure-track job. (I even went on the market again after getting a TT job for funsies.) It would not have been worth it if I didn’t get this tenure-track job or at least something permanent. Grad school would have been worth it because it was an enjoyable way to spend my twenties. But the five-year slog of disappointment and constant moving? No sir.
    Since I did eventually secure a TT job, was it worth it? Yes, but only barely. I lucked out with a supportive department and colleagues. If the job were worse… yeah, let’s not think about that counterfactual.

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  3. been there

    Addendum: I think if I hadn’t secured a job on that final year, and did transition to a consulting or tech-facing gig that more likely than not I would not have thought that the five years I spent moving around the world would have been worth it. At least, I feel like I would have had to sell a pretty big lie to my future non-ac colleagues and myself about the “value” of my time on the market.

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  4. that guy

    Don’t mean to be that guy, but it’s always good to remember survivor bias. If I had left academia, I would never visit this website (sorry, Marcus!) All of my friends who have left academia never take part in these sorts of online conversations. Maybe that’s one of the perks of leaving! Never having to revisit the pain, suffering, and disappointment that one encountered in the 5+ years of the market.
    That said, for me, the job market was totally worth it ;).

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  5. Probably Not Worth It

    I’m 5 years on the market post-PhD and actively working on getting out. I have a contract for next year, but I probably will not go on the academic market.
    For me it probably was not worth it, though it’s hard to say exactly. I do think I improved philosophically, which I value highly. But truthfully, I no longer find academic jobs all that attractive anymore. As much as I love research, I absolutely hate teaching, from the bottom of my heart and with the fullness of my being: I would rather fill out meaningless paperwork than teach, or count the blades of grass in the park. Industry pays much better and comes with better working conditions. I can choose where to live. Plus, I genuinely think I’d have as much time to get research done in industry as I would in most teaching jobs — close anyway.
    Would it have been worth it if I got a 2/2 job, w/ TAs, in a nice geographic location? Sure, but that probably was never in the cards for myriad reasons.

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  6. also probably not

    I and the sole breadwinner for a family of four given that I have landed in the UK. It costs so much money to get the working visa. The cost of living is going out of control. My partner sacrificed a decent and easy job. My kids are now disconnected from their cousins. The local economy is continuing to deteriorate and the government seems to have no policy in mind apart from blaming migrants. (If you think that this will result in locals being hostile to migrants, you are correct.) Sometimes I think I should just quit and move back to my wealthy home country.
    So if you have a family to feed and the job market will land you in the UK, maybe just quit as early as you can.

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  7. Derek Bowman

    I decided after two years on the market that it clearly wasn’t worth it to continue. I’m glad I made that initial effort, so I could be sure that I wasn’t just letting my own negative thinking from preventing me from trying. But it was too much effort for too little reward.
    Ultimately I’ve come to believe that if the lofty claims we often make about the value of studying philosophy and the liberal arts are true, those of us who’ve devoted our lives to studying them should be able to do better for ourselves and for one another.

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  8. Bill Vanderburgh

    I got lucky and secured a tenure-track job within the first year of graduating, so I spent only one semester in a lecturer position while not in grad school. Even that sucked. But something I think we don’t spend nearly enough time talking about is that landing a tenure track role is no guarantee of something good. My first job was in a city I didn’t like at all, with colleagues who were not particularly friendly and in some cases hostile, where the teaching load was high and the support for research was minimal; plus the pay was horrible and the dating prospects were dismal. It wasn’t until I earned tenure and then escaped my department by doing administrative work that I felt more fulfilled. I think many people end up in jobs/cities that are barely okay, or less.
    So, to answer the OP’s question: It might not be worth it even if you do land the tenure track position, even without considering the terrible chances of landing such a position.
    [To add to the list of harms of being on the market for a long time: Missing out on making appropriate contributions to retirement savings in your 20s and 30s is a HUGE disadvantage.]

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  9. Trevor Hedberg

    Even among these limited responses, it’s clear that the question is hard to answer without taking into account what the ultimate outcome was. It’s a guarantee that the time spent on the job market will involve significant psychological, emotional, and financial costs. (The financial costs are mostly tied to the opportunity costs associated with having to take temporary jobs, moving, etc.) Whether it ultimately pays off will largely depend (1) whether you find permanent employment, (2) how long it takes to find permanent employment, and (3) whether the place you get permanent employment is worthwhile. There’s no way to know how things will pan out in advance, so it’s a gamble. The better question to ask is whether it’s “worth it” to take the gamble, and I’ll admit I’m genuinely unsure of the answer.

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  10. The Real SLAC Prof

    I mean, no. Sorry, but no.
    I was going to sit this one out because, while I have certainly had my job-seeking disappointments, I have largely been lucky on the job market. But even from this perspective, the answer is no.
    I mostly like (or am at least resigned to the downsides of) my current job: I am grateful for the flexibility, and tenure, and the opportunity to spend hours reading, thinking and discussing philosophy each day, and being a philosophy professor is a huge part of my practical identity. Nevertheless, life is full of interesting and fulfilling professions and projects! Even when the working conditions are good, being a professional philosopher, like other professions, has its opportunities and its downsides.
    I’m sorry you are suffering, OP. But I would caution you against basing any part of your decision about what to do next on narratives provided by those who spent several years suffering in the academic trenches before landing more stable employment. Most people have a tendency to want to provide a narrative according to which their suffering was redeemed in some way.
    There is no shame in walking away, and there are certainly many amazing opportunities that you are denying yourself by staying. Take care.

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  11. William D’Alessandro

    I guess my defense for keeping at it (not that I was always sure I would) was something like:
    1. In a non-comparative sense, my life before getting a permanent job was quite good, and I was happy. I got paid enough to do the things I enjoy. I lived in interesting places, met smart people, made new friends, taught fun classes and did work I felt proud of.
    Was it worse than it could have been? In some ways, sure. Worse than it would otherwise have been? Who knows? I don’t find that question very interesting. Worse than it should have been, in some cosmic-fairness sense? Suspiciously easy to convince yourself that the answer is yes. But compared to almost everyone else who’s ever lived, I have trouble feeling that sorry for myself.
    2. I find struggle and failure motivating. The job market is a game of chicken you’re playing with life, and there’s a kind of do-or-die thrill in refusing to be the one to give up first.
    3. The last thing is probably related to being a first-gen from nothing and hating the thought of slinking obediently back to my place. I felt a duty to my fellow nobodies to bag a win.
    4. I’ve had great mentors who helped me a lot and really believed in me, and I didn’t want to let them down either.
    5. Academic hiring is a demented carousel of horror, but it’s not entirely random. People who are smart and determined do seem to mostly get good jobs eventually. Of course there are painful exceptions, and no guarantee you won’t be one, but at least you can exercise some agency to make yourself a better candidate and reasonably believe it will help.
    I’m not saying those are reasons which would or should convince anyone else; as much as people act like there’s a knowable correct answer here, I think these kinds of choices are partly leaps of faith based on deeply personal feelings. But the OP asked why we kept doing it, so there’s one story, for what it’s worth.

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  12. sahpa

    William says: “Worse than it would otherwise have been? Who knows? I don’t find that question very interesting.”
    This seems to me to be a very dangerous way of thinking, especially if, like OP, you are trying to make a prospective rather than retrospective assessment. You are simply not deciding in a rational way if you are not comparing options with one another.
    I want to echo the warning about survivorship bias, while we’re at it.
    I personally think that the opportunity costs of an academic career, for the kind of conscientious, smart, driven people who typically go for them, is immense. As I get older, and gain dependents, and start to plan for elder care, retirement, etc., these loom very large. I also think that the enrollment cliff that is coming in the next few years is a major threat to our hopes and dreams — exactly how bad it will be is uncertain, but if you think the job market is even going to stop getting worse (forget get better!), you aren’t being serious.
    These days it doesn’t seem worth it. Let the rich kids and the superstars have what crumbs remain. The sensible should just leave this leaky ship.

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  13. Michel

    It’s not worth anything or everything, but I think it is worth a lot. My parents are doctors, and I saw how hard they worked; ever since I was quite young, I wanted to do something that would leave me a good deal of free or unstructured time, so I could spend it doing the things I love most with the people I love most. My full-time non-tenure track job does that (in spades). The pay is pretty good, the benefits are decent, and I (1) have way more time off than any non-academic I know despite the fact that I work most summers, and (2) even when I’m working, apart from the time I have to spend in-class, I’m free to allocate my time how I will.
    Those last two perks are all I’ve ever wanted, so yes, it’s absolutely worth it to me for those alone. I have a three year-old, and I’ve been able to spend almost all that time at home with him, instead of hustling out there. There may be other jobs where that’s possible, but this is the one I found. Everything else is just icing on the cake (well, I don’t like icing, but I didn’t make up the expression!).

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  14. EuroProf

    I’m a professor now at a large university in continental Europe. But even as someone in a quite comfortable position, I think my answer will be: no.
    The years on the job market were hard, for all the reasons we all know so very well. In my case, I was already married and had three kids during that time, and was also the only one in the family with a real income. Things like job insecurity and moving places put a lot of stress on my marriage and my relation to my kids.
    Things are better now, I’m still married, my kids are teenagers, but looking back, I see that I wasted a lot of time in those early years fighting the academic struggle while not paying enough attention to my family. Today, I pay the price. I wish I had spent more time and energy on my wife and kids. I sacrificed a lot of my personal life, and what did it get me?
    A professorhip, alright. But the thing is: while the pay is good and having job security is nice, the reality is that being a professor is not really what I always imagined it would be. I thought I’d be spending my days reading philosophy, discussing ideas with my students, writing books. I sometimes actually do this. But a lot of my time is spent on sitting in committee meetings, writing grant applications that get trashed, writing reviews for journals, publishers, scholarships, writing reference letters, grading tons of student papers, organizing events and also answering way too much emails.
    Honestly, I think that now that I’m a professor of philosophy, I spent less time actually doing philosophy than before.
    Lots of people here are probably dreaming of landing a job like the one I have, and here I am complaining about it. But for me, the sobering truth is: I personally would probably have been better off overall if I had had a safe, stable job in a place I like, leaving me enough time for my friends and family, and reading some good philosophy books over the weekend.

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  15. Kapto

    It was worth it for me, but for reasons I don’t think generalize. I entered a PhD program in my 30s, having done other things successfully, because I just couldn’t imagine spending my life doing anything but academic philosophy. And I got lucky with a job at the end. But while I don’t regret it, I’m pretty sure I decided foolishly, given the risks. I used to romanticize my philosophy-or-nothing mentality as the mark of a true passion. But I think more likely it’s a pathology; I know it’s irrational, even though I couldn’t shake it. If you can liberate yourself from that mentality, I’d say get out, but maybe try to find an alternative way to benefit from having the PhD anyway.

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  16. Amma

    I have an enjoyable permanent job in a great location with a low teaching load and good colleagues—and I still wonder whether it was worth it. . .yet. The the 4 years I spent on the market were horrible and traumatizing (no doubt I’m a very sensitive person, though). How many years of happiness compensate four years of pain? Maybe after a decade at this job I love, it will have been worth it on the balance.

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  17. postdocs are pretty good

    Just to add yet another perspective. I’m still on the market, so not in a position to assess my experience in light of the outcome. In Europe I’ve had, and will likely continue to have, a pretty good time as a postdoc. I don’t teach too much – in some cases, I wouldn’t have to teach at all; I’ve lived in or visited cool cities and met great people; I’m free to research and write what I want; and I’ve been paid pretty well.
    There’s of course another side to being on the market: constant rejections, anxiety, and feeling like I’m never enough. That’s bad, though hard to say if I’d feel very different in another field. I’m reaching a stage where this second side is getting too much, and some security would be nice, but in no way do I regret the postdoc time.

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  18. David Slakter

    I received my PhD in 2012. I have never held a full-time academic position, but I did spend nearly seven years in industry.
    I realized after years away that I enjoy teaching. I started a program to earn a teaching certification, so at least I could teach high school, if not college. My partner is the primary earner, but doesn’t earn that much more than 1 would with a full-time academic position.
    I did have an interview for a TT position yesterday, and the chair said I was “outstanding.” Maybe I’ll win the jackpot this time. Even if not, I have had plenty of time to spend with my child and never felt that we were in any danger of poverty. So it has been worth it for me.

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  19. worth it (for me)

    I was able to land a non-tt permanent position after 3 years on the market in a location that is pretty good. For me, it was totally worth it. I get paid well, good benefits, a lot of autonomy, and the job isn’t that hard. One thing to keep in mind too is how much time off academics get (I don’t count research as “working” because I enjoy it so much, so I’m talking about time off from teaching). If you combine summer, winter, thanksgiving, and spring breaks, I’m off almost 6 months out of the year!!! Not to mention that I usually have two days out of the workweek where I don’t teach. If you love philosophy and don’t mind teaching, that’s about as good as it gets professionally. If I hadn’t landed this gig I think I would’ve stuck with it for a long, long time before leaving academia.
    Also, I entered grad school after working a 9-5 office job for a few years. I think people who have spent their entire professional lives in academia often don’t fully appreciate how soul-crushing and oppressive that kind of situation can be. Remembering back, I think I had maybe two weeks paid vacation days for the entire year? I feel like it may have even been less than that.

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  20. for me: yes

    For me, it has largely been worth it.
    There may be an element of survivorship bias here, it’s true, as I was recently offered a (to me, very desirable) TT position. But I was actually thinking about this question a few weeks back when I assumed that I’d have to give up on academic philosophy (after more than five years of being ground down by the job market) and to transition to a non-academic career. And even in my more despairing mindset, it seemed worth it to me, for four reasons.
    (1) I’m very proud of much of the work that I’ve done since finishing my PhD. As I was wrapping up my dissertation, I took a chance pivoting my research to a very different sub-field of philosophy than the one I’d worked in up to that point. Undaunted by the demands of prudential rationality, I then branched out into another, very different sub-field a number of years later. These (extremely risky!) gambles paid off, it turns out: I hit on some novel ideas, found some underexplored bits of logical space, and I’m now best known in the field for my work in these areas.
    (2) Time off over the summer, winter break, spring break, etc.–in my case, nearly five months of unstructured time each year. Some of the best times of my post-PhD life have been over the summer, when I’ve been able to read, write, and travel freely with my spouse, with no/few teaching or administrative responsibilities. I, too, have worked in more traditional 9-5 office settings (both before and after my PhD) and have found them absolutely stultifying.
    (3) I enjoy teaching quite a lot without investing too much it emotionally, and I’m reasonably good at it without putting in a punishing amount of effort. Also, I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to develop some fairly specialized courses, some of which helped push my research along or helped me branch out into other sub-fields of philosophy. In addition to being (mostly) fun, my experiences teaching have allowed me to get over the fear of public speaking that I carried with me throughout my graduate school days. So, I went from (a) seriously considering medicating myself with prescription drugs to calm down enough to give talks to (b) presenting papers without anxiety or any need for mental rehearsal beforehand.
    (4) Perhaps most importantly (for me), my several years on the job market mostly did not interfere with my spouse’s career, which still astounds me to this day. (They are also an academic!) It certainly did delay our having children, though, but given how much we love the child we have now, it would be pretty weird to regret doing things differently–non-identity problem and all that.

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  21. Survivorship bias is real yo

    I’d love to hear from more people who didn’t land a great, ongoing academic appointment.

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  22. maybe not?

    For me: perhaps not? But even admitting that while on the market yet again now doesn’t feel great. The Cocoon discussions on loneliness last year (linked below) are especially relevant to my thoughts. I like teaching and doing philosophy, but that doesn’t exhaust my interests. Going from a (for me, at least) socially secure graduate program where there’s community to precarious jobs in new states where I didn’t know anyone and no faculty (some grad workers are welcoming) care to make any real effort to invite me in (combined with always being scheduled to teach during colloquium and the like) really undermines both the intellectual benefit of being around other philosophers and the social goods of, I dunno, life. The lack of research funding undermines the academic goods too; like so many others I’ve had to turn down various conferences that would have been really good for me philosophically/academically because despite some early hope it turned out there was no funding for mere adjuncts like me, and my salary sure as heck isn’t enough to cover such travel. The teaching is enjoyable, but it’s depressing when students start asking what I’ll teach next year so they can sign up and I have to answer that I don’t know that I’ll even have a job that term.
    There’s much I do enjoy in my professional life, but is it worth it? I’m starting to admit to myself that I very much have to question if it is, and it doesn’t feel great to ask that question of myself. That reaction might be part of my answer… If I knew I’d always be in such precarious 1-year or 1-semester jobs, then no. But I’m holding out hope (perhaps irrationally)…
    Oh and the overall economic cost of this decision… retirement or homeownership simply isn’t in my foreseeable future while on this academic path.
    Aforementioned previous discussions:
    https://philosopherscocoon.typepad.com/blog/2023/10/loneliness-in-academic-life.html
    and
    https://philosopherscocoon.typepad.com/blog/2023/10/tips-for-grappling-with-academic-loneliness.html
    Appreciate the Cocoon always being open to such discussions!

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  23. AnonAnon

    I’m not on the market yet, but have resolved (unless something atypical and unlikely occurs) to even remotely debase myself for the job market. Graduate school is great. The bleak pessimism sociologically and factually about the job market is by itself absurd. The fractured and non-streamlined or optimized application process is just a bureaucratic hurdle that could be easily re-designed for everyone’s benefit. But then, 7-8 years of Ph. D poverty, 5-8 years of unstable, high workloads, and constant moving – itself sending one back into poverty – to hope for something better. That’s irrational and extended so far overtime human memory qualitatively breaks down (5-6 years) to where securing a TT job sounds more like forgetting the manifold ways a life could be better spent over 5-8 years on a job market. In my view, no it’s not worth it, especially as more universities defund, cut, and whatever else their philosophy departments which means each cycle requires competing with all those networked and experienced layoffs.

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  24. good riddance

    I left academia in 2019 for good. I received my PhD in 2014 from a Russell Group University in the UK. I graduated with 3 publications and then got 2 more the first year. I spent 5 years on the job market. Those 5 years were the worst years of my life. I experienced extreme stress, anxiety, and depression due to the uncertainty and insane competition. I couldn’t get anywhere! Nothing I did made any difference to job results–talk about learned helplessness! I value the philosophical skills I obtained, as I think philosophy is the most important subject mankind can study. But as far as whether it was worth it economically and psychologically. No. It wasn’t. I don’t want to exaggerate, but I honestly think pursuing philosophy professionally almost killed me. I mean I only slept like 3 hours a night for an entire year due to stress. I still check this website and occasionally report my experience, because the survivorship bias gives a wrong impression to young students about the chances of success.

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  25. mossy

    What makes a thing “worth” something? Judging by many of these comments, it is determined by the final outcome, which you can not know in advance of embarking upon the quest. It seems to have to do a lot with identity, of course. If you think of yourself as being a philosopher, then what choice do you have? If you aren’t independently wealthy or have a patron, then you must deal with academia. After being socialized into being a philosopher for so long, it’s hard to give up that identity. For those who leave the profession, how long they are on the job market before they leave is probably a function of how strong their attachment to this identity is. And for those who stay, they were lucky enough to get a permanent job before they ran out of time on this attachment. So, really, it’s all a matter of how much time a person is willing to invest in something they want that has long odds. Ideally, there should be no regrets, regardless of the outcome, as long as the time you’ve decided to invest in it is time that you’ve essentially already “written off” as it were. I think the problem arises when one is so attached to this outcome that they can never give it up and so may wind up stuck in contingent positions for their entire career instead of trying something else. Or when a person comes to believe that, besides academia, they are “useless” so they have no choice but to keep trying. But these are obviously irrational. The choice is yours.

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  26. happy leaver

    Another happy leaver here. My last years of grad school were so bad I didn’t even try the job market, and in hindsight it was a great decision for me. In the moment it was very emotionally difficult, and I don’t want to downplay the internal turmoil this kind of change can bring on.
    But ultimately, why play a game you don’t like for a prize you’re not even sure you want…?

    Reply

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