University Affairs

To thine own self be true: a good mantra for academics too!

Great news – the Non-Academic Careers panel from Congress 2009 has been posted! This session features four grad students who were hired into the federal government through the Recruitment of Policy Leaders program.

One of the aspects of this particular session I appreciated the most was the discussion about the cultural aspects of working in the public service. The speakers describe the reality of working in an environment where no one but a publicly elected official has final decision making ability. Likewise, an ‘original’ idea is unlikely in a context where people have been thinking about how to solve the same problems for many years.

These two aspects alone would disqualify a career in public service from the lists of many PhDs I have known. It also raises an important, but rarely discussed aspect of selecting a career – choosing one where the cultural and ideological premises are in alignment with your core values.

This is also one of the aspects that can be most difficult to ascertain without spending at least some time in a work environment – or talking with people who have spent a lot of time there. After all, how many of you were dismayed to discover what academe was really like once you shifted from being ‘just a student’ to being an employee as well?

Having some idea about what you value in a work environment is critical to finding a position that you find satisfying. But this will take a little digging and a lot of ‘critical thinking’ – it’s not just rhetoric – it really does matter. Issues around who gets to make recommendations, what sort of ideas can be entertained, and what gets rejected, what is considered to be important and who makes that decision, whose ideas are more privileged and why – these are the just some of the issues that can make a position unbearable or a ‘dream job’.  Surprisingly, what you spend your day doing, can pale in significance compared with these less tangible issues.

The learning: when scoping out a job – either inside or outside academe, do your best to unearth not just what gets done in that role, but how, with whom and under what conditions. And if you don’t like what you discover, dig deeper – why are things done that way? There could be very legitimate reasons that may not be apparent on the surface.  For instance, the system of checks and balances in the government prevents a single civil servant with a personal agenda from having undue influence on public policy, which is a good thing – but may leave some feeling disempowered, or even voiceless. In other words, know yourself, and shape your career decisions around this knowledge rather than trying to squeeze yourself into a role that is less than a great fit.

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