Dear Reader,
It often seems like the hardest part of leaving academia is figuring out how to “sell” yourself to employers.
For example, a PhD wrote to me last week with this concern:
“I really want to be better able to communicate my skills, knowledge base, experience, and overall potential to contribute meaningfully outside of academia.”
Sound familiar?
On the surface, it looks like a small, tactical hurdle, well described: if only your résumé and cover letters were stronger, you’d be set.
Maybe you could even hire someone to polish them for you.
And honestly? That’s a completely understandable place to start.
But here’s the thing: the real problem isn’t how you’re communicating. It’s what to communicate, calibrated to a specific audience.
Think about students who use genAI tools such as ChatGPT to write papers.
The essay they turn in might read well, and make plausible arguments.
But you, as the expert, can immediately spot the issues: lack of depth and nuance, no original thought, sometimes outright nonsense (“hallucinations”).
Even when it’s grammatically correct and flows nicely as a piece of text, it’s missing the thinking behind the words.
It’s the same with resumes.
Whether you hand your CV to ChatGPT, an inexpensive resume writer, or even a well-meaning (but not expert on you) friend, you’ll only ever get back what you put in, along with a bunch of generic blah blah blah.
If what you’re uploading is your academic CV, you’re providing a record of teaching, research, and service that may make sense to hiring committees in academia, but that’s missing the raw material non-academic employers care about:
- outcomes,
- impact,
- collaboration,
- creativity,
- problem-solving,
- initiative,
- teamwork, and
- all that other good stuff you do have but aren’t demonstrating.
The issue here isn’t communication; rather, it’s unfinished thinking.
You’d tell a student to go back and do more research, reflection, and analysis before rewriting their essay, right? And that’s your task as well.
The real work is:
- getting clear on what matters to you in your next career move,
- identifying specific roles that genuinely excite you (not just “outside of academia,” because that’s way too vague), and
- reflecting on your skills and experiences in that particular context.
Only then can you create application materials that powerfully communicate why you’re an excellent fit for the jobs you actually want.
You can do this on your own using the insights you’ve gathered (don’t forget about informational interviews). Or you can do this with support from a human or an AI tool.
Either way, because you’ve done the advance research and thinking work, you’ll have the expertise to evaluate and refine the output, just like when you grade student work.
So, to repeat myself: That communication problem identified above isn’t the real problem you’re facing as a job seeker.
But the good news is that solving what’s actually in your way—lack of clarity about what you want in the first instance—is absolutely doable.
It may take more time, energy, and courage than you expect. Just like you might tell your students.
I believe in your ability to do this, just like you believe in what your students can learn and accomplish, with the right guidance and approach.
If you’d like structure and support while you do this work, especially if you know you sometimes get in your own way (said with love and respect), that’s exactly why the PhD Career Clarity Program exists.
There isn’t an “easy button” for this, but there is a path forward.
👉 What do you think? I’d love to know how what I’m describing aligns with your own experience, either in the classroom or as a job seeker.
Cheers,
Jen
P.S. Want to explore working with me? Visit my Services page to learn about options, or reply to this email and let me know what you want my help with!
