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Career Sense is celebrating the many thousands of PhDs who have gone onto successful non-academic careers. If you know someone who has a PhD success story they’d like to share, please contact me. For more PhD success stories click here.

This success story was submitted by the subject herself.

Name: Liz Koblyk

Position: Alumni Career Coach working with recent graduates to help them identify career paths, plan for further education, and conduct job searches.

Program: English Literature

Year of graduation: 2005

Previous experience: During my undergrad, I worked as an employment counsellor through FSWEP (Federal Student Work Experience Program), which I enjoyed but didn’t consider as a potential career direction. During my PhD, I worked as a TA and RA, and later as a specialized tutor for students with learning disabilities. After my PhD, I worked as a project manager with a community college disability services office, and then as a career counsellor at a non-profit.

Point at which a non-academic path was chosen: During the first year of my PhD, I began questioning my path because I realized my enjoyment of academia came largely from talking with others in small seminars, not from sitting in front of my computer for days at a time. After a lot of anguish, I committed (mostly) to pursuing a non-academic career shortly after completing my comps, though I also planned on completing my degree.

Primary reason behind this position: I love the energy of academic institutions. Universities are full of intelligent, idealistic people, and there’s nothing better than being on a university campus in September-and not having any marking to do in April!

How she found out about relevant positions: I went through my university’s Career Services office to identify some options as starting points for research. From there, I went through the initially nerve-wracking process of calling up people in careers that interested me to talk with them about what they do. Of the eight people who agreed to meet with me, two of them offered me a job right away, and my current job came about because I remained in touch with one of those early mentors.

Once I was ABD, I told everyone I knew that I was looking for a job, and an offer came along through a friend. My next job offer also came through networking; it was a casual job with poor pay and infrequent hours, but it led to two subsequent contracts doing more stable work in project management.

At the end of my second contract, I had a child and planned on staying home for a year. During that time, however, I joined relevant professional organizations to meet potential coworkers and employers, and to get a sense of the employment market and valued skills. I also co-created a small professional organization for newcomers to career counseling, so that we could support one another in our professional development, and my first job when I returned to work came from someone in that organization.

Writing this, the whole process sounds quite linear and straightforward. It wasn’t. It was filled with doubt, second-guessing, and dire warnings from people I respect and like that I would be bored outside of academia. I still like and respect them, but they were wrong. Life outside of academia is no less intellectually stimulating, but it does take some time to figure out how to identify your own skills and navigate the job market.

How many positions s/he applied for: I can’t remember. Many that I applied for seemed at the time to be tailor-made for me, but I wasn’t invited for an interview. Others that I was invited to apply for seemed out of reach based on the job description. In any case, I applied for many, but opportunities materialized mostly from talking with people rather than searching job posting boards.

Her strengths in the selection process: Writing (especially funding proposals) and public speaking. One mentor advised me that most people are scared of both and would happily offload these duties onto an employee. He was right.

My project work was in a disability services office. The work was interesting and enjoyable, but felt like a step away from my goal of working as a career counsellor. Yet my experience working with people with learning disabilities proved to be a big draw for all of my career counseling employers so far.

Finally, I’d have to say that being familiar with good storytelling has made a big difference. Job hunting, networking, and even career exploration has a lot to do with the stories you tell yourself and other people. Being able to tell a story that connected a seemingly disparate set of experiences made it much easier for me to transition into roles that appealed to me–and to explain my choices to family members who wanted to make sure I wasn’t walking away from an academic career prematurely.

What she likes about her/his job: Just about everything. I like working directly with people, instead of watching some people struggle in a classroom and feeling unable to help them. I like having a positive impact on people’s material circumstances by helping them find jobs, and on their happiness by helping them recognize their strengths or by supporting them through the uncertainty that is a productive but distressing part of career exploration. My colleagues are fantastic, and when we bounce ideas around to improve service delivery, it has the same synergy as a graduate seminar for me.

It has also been nice to have projects that end! When I was in grad school, I could never really leave work behind, but my current work allows me to see an appreciable impact on people in a relatively short period of time. So, a pleasant benefit is that I’ve also had time for life outside of work, and I’ve spent it watching my daughter grow, writing just for fun, and picking up projects just because they’ve been interesting.

Advice to others: If you’re thinking of leaving academia, try talking with people outside of academia. Most academics don’t have a lot of exposure to other types of work, and they can pass on misconceptions, despite their best efforts to mentor you well.

Just as talking with people outside academia is helpful, so is getting non-academic experience. Trying out different experiences, even through short-term (even one-day) volunteering opportunities, gives you more information to draw on when making your decision, and introduces you to people who might prove instrumental in your job search.

Finally, keep in mind that the reaction you may get from academics doesn’t reflect the way people outside of academia will see you. Unsurprisingly, no one outside of academia thinks it’s a cop-out to pursue non-academic work.

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