What kind of job search help do you actually need?

Dear Reader,

“I have a PhD and I need job search help” can mean at least six completely different things. Let’s get into it!

I know this because I hear from professors, postdocs, and other PhDs looking for help with their careers all the time.

1. You don’t know what you want

You know something needs to change. Maybe you’re unhappy in academia, or you’ve already left but your current work isn’t right either. (Very common!)

Except that you don’t yet have a clear picture of what you’d rather be doing.

That’s a career clarity problem. And it’s in no way a personal failing.

Applying for more jobs, more frequently isn’t the move right now. Neither is rewriting your resume.

What is? Self-reflection, for starters.

You need to spend some time figuring out what matters to you now, what you’ve learned from your experience so far, what you want more and less of, and what a better working life might actually look like.

2. You know roughly what you want, but you don’t know what’s out there.

Like, you know what you want, in your own words. Awesome. That’s no small thing!

Maybe you know you want work that involves research, writing, facilitation, data analysis, policy, or working with particular kinds of people.

But you don’t yet know which roles, organizations, or sectors might give you those things. What do these places call the work you want to do, in what units are those folks working, etc?

That’s an exploration problem.

You need information. Info from reading job ads, conversations with people, research into organizations and fields, experiments, perhaps some strategic networking.

This isn’t about finding The One Right Answer; instead, it’s about learning enough about the world outside your current experience to identify possibilities worth investigating further.

3. You’ve identified possibilities, but you’re struggling to choose one target

This is different again.

Maybe you’ve got three plausible directions. All of them have advantages. None is obviously more right than the others.

At this point, generating a list of 25 more things you could do… no, don’t do that. Stop brainstorming.

You need to compare your options, decide what matters most, investigate the important unknowns, and determine which direction is worth pursuing first.

And “first” matters here. You don’t necessarily need to choose what you’re going to do for the rest of your life. (Phew!)

You need to choose what you’re going to explore or pursue next.

4. You know what you’re targeting, but your search isn’t getting traction

Now we’re actually getting into job-search strategy.

If you’re applying for roles that make sense for you and you’re consistently not getting interviews, something isn’t working.

But even here, “fix my resume” may or may not be the answer.

Are you targeting appropriate roles? Are you communicating your value clearly? Are you relying entirely on online applications in a field where relationships and referrals matter? Do employers understand how your experience relates to what they need?

The problem needs diagnosing before you choose the solution.

5. You know what you’re doing, and you need help with a particular job-search skill

Maybe you’re getting interviews but struggling to answer questions well.

Maybe you’ve found a great job and need to tailor your resume.

Maybe you know networking would help but have no idea how to approach a conversation.

Great! That’s a much more specific problem, and specific problems are often easier to solve.

You may not need career coaching per se or a months-long program. You may need targeted help with the particular thing standing between you and your next step.

6. You want something to change, but you’re not yet up for engaging with the process of changing it

Sometimes you know (intellectually) that you need a different job. You might desperately want your current situation to change.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re able or willing to do the work involved in figuring out what comes next.

Sometimes this manifests in deciding very quickly that every possibility is a bad fit. “Nope, nope, nope, already considered and rejected all that, everything is wrong.”

Sometimes it’s going through the motions—scrolling job boards, sending off a few applications—and concluding there’s nothing out there for you. “See? I’m right, everything sucks.”

And sometimes it’s much simpler: you’re not actually making time for this work.

There will always be reasons not to. You’re teaching. You’re exhausted. Work is particularly busy. Something came up at home. This week is terrible, so you’ll get to it next week.

Those can all be completely legitimate reasons. (Truly; I feel you and let’s not get into guilt or shaming here.)

But if changing your career matters to you, at some point it has to become enough of a priority that you actually spend time on it.

That’s different from moving slowly.

Career change can be exhausting, scary, and full of uncertainty. You can be burnt out. You can grieve the career you thought you’d have. You can take a long time to figure things out.

You don’t need to move quickly. You don’t need to feel ready.

But you do need to be willing.

Willing to make some time for the work. Willing to get curious. Willing to investigate possibilities before dismissing them. Willing to question some of your assumptions. Willing to try things and see what you learn.

Because this isn’t magic.

No career coach can hand you clarity. No program can make progress on your behalf. No networking contact or list of “top careers for PhDs” can substitute for your participation.

You don’t have to launch a full-scale job search tomorrow. You don’t have to know what you want. You don’t even have to feel excited about leaving.

But if you want something to change, at some point you have to participate in changing it.

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These six situations call for different kinds of action and different kinds of support.

If you don’t know what you want, an excellent resume writer can’t decide that for you.

If you don’t know what’s out there, more introspection probably won’t give you enough information.

If you’re getting interviews but no offers, you don’t need to start your career exploration over from scratch.

And if you’re not yet willing to engage with the process, another career resource probably isn’t the answer either.

So before you look for “job search help,” try asking yourself, “What problem am I actually trying to solve right now?”

And then, “What kind of action or support would actually help me solve it?”

You might know the answers immediately. You might need help figuring them out.

If you’d like my thoughts on where you’re stuck and what kind of help might make sense, reply and tell me what’s going on.

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!

Jennifer Polk, PhD