Editor’s Note: Previously in the Career Talk series, our experts on doctoral-career counseling have offered advice on drafting CVs and cover letters, looking for industry positions, the dos and don’ts of negotiating job offers, and other career-planning topics.
Nothing embodies doctoral training more than the adviser/advisee relationship. It can be a productive source of professional support in your life, a complete interpersonal disaster, or anywhere in between. And no topic of conversation between adviser and advisee is more potentially fraught than one about Ph.D. career options.
It is easy to understand why. Compared with most professional relationships outside of academe, faculty advisers have far more power over their graduate students’ careers. The adviser/advisee connection is often much more personal than that of boss and employee, and may feature little oversight. All of those factors, taken together, mean that it can feel very risky to tell your adviser that you plan to deviate from the expected career path in your field.
Graduate students worry about disappointing their advisers in any number of ways. But when it comes to the job search, you may be stressed about revealing that you:
- Plan to seek both industry and academic jobs.
- Don’t want to pursue a tenure-track search at all.
- Have decided not to do a postdoc, particularly if you are in a STEM field.
- Have declined a tenure-track offer.
- Have accepted an industry job offer.
- Plan to accept a nonacademic job offer without completing your Ph.D.
Jorge Cham, an “engineer turned cartoonist,” illustrated this dilemma in one of his Ph.D. Comics that describes the differences between “the plan you tell your adviser,” the “real plan,” and the “secret plan.”
Ph.D. students often feel compelled to make their career plans in secret. As experts on graduate-career counseling, we both believe that the benefits of being honest with your adviser are worth the risk (in most cases). By being open, the two of you can:
- Discuss your research more productively in light of your actual career plans.
- Help you take advantage of professional opportunities that may require a letter of recommendation or a sign off from your adviser.
- Leverage your adviser’s network in ways that are most useful to you.
- Not waste time on things that you know won’t be helpful to your career plan.
- And finally, the sense of well-being that comes from not feeling as though you have to lie about your nonacademic search or sneak around doing industry interviews can’t be underestimated.
There is, in our experience, a high likelihood that the conversation will go better than you expect, especially if you prepare for it. Here’s how.
When should we talk about careers? This conversation is worth having at any point in your graduate career. Discussing your interest in multiple career options early on means that your adviser won’t be surprised or taken aback by your decisions at the end of the program. It also means that you can take advantage of opportunities that come your way with your adviser’s full knowledge and consent.
But the timing of this conversation may also depend on how committed you are to the tenure-track path. Some students enter Ph.D. programs already knowing that they will not pursue faculty roles. For them, being upfront about those intentions means the freedom to choose an adviser and committee members, and plan their time in the program, with an eye toward their ultimate goal.
Other students enter graduate school convinced that they want to be a professor — and change their minds. Or they realize they would only be interested in a faculty career in particular locations or at certain types of institutions and, therefore, need to plan an alternative pathway. If you fall into one of those camps, aim to have the career conversation with your adviser in the middle of your doctoral program, around the third or fourth year. That still leaves plenty of time to explore career options, expand your network, and even undertake a dissertation that would support your interest in a nonacademic career.
How do I tell my adviser? What should I say? That will depend on your particular mix of reasons for wanting to run a tandem job search (for both faculty and industry jobs) or only pursue careers outside of academe. Here are some ways to phrase your explanation:
- “The academic market being what it is, I want to ensure that I have options as I finish my program.”
- “I’ve been learning about nonfaculty careers for Ph.D.s, and I’m really excited about [fill in the blank].”
- “Finding a tenure-track position is my first choice, but I know I can’t do short-term or adjunct positions forever. I want to make sure I have paths to more stable employment.”
- “I want/need control over where I live, so I’m going to pursue both academic and industry jobs in the area.”
- “I’ve learned that academe might not be the best fit for me. I want to finish my degree, but I’m going to explore a range of career options for when I finish.”
Whatever your reasoning, explain it as calmly and confidently as possible. Practice the conversation, if you need to, with a trusted friend, partner, or family member. And resist the urge to apologize for your choices. Making decisions that feel right about your own future is not something you need to apologize for.
What kind of reaction should I expect? Once you tell your adviser that you will be (also or only) looking for industry jobs, the most common response will be support, coupled with confusion about next steps. Most faculty members know the tenure-track market but have little or no expertise in nonacademic careers. Your adviser may say something like, “You should do what is best for you, but I don’t know how to help you on the industry front.”
So it’s a good idea to spend some time thinking about exactly what it is that you want your adviser to do after this conversation. Among the possibilities:
- Nothing, just yet. Maybe, at this point, you merely want your adviser to be aware of your career goals and aspirations.
- Connect you with former students who are working outside of higher education.
- Keep an eye out for opportunities you might be interested in, such as internships, workshops, and training programs.
- Allow you to take time away from your doctoral work to apply for and attend those internships, workshops, and training programs.
- Work with you to design a dissertation that supports your professional goals.
Will your adviser try to talk you out of an industry search? Probably not. But your professor may try to reassure you that your scholarship is, indeed, good enough for you to pursue an academic career, if you chose to do so. Thank your adviser for their kind words but make clear that a lack of confidence in your own research isn’t why you are pursuing a career outside of higher ed. Don’t let praise dissuade you from pursuing your own goals.
Finally, your adviser may express disappointment, which can be really hard to hear. Doctoral students tend to be high achievers who want to live up to other people’s expectations — especially those of someone whose intellectual work they admire.
Try to reframe your adviser’s dismay. Make it less about you and more about a misalignment between the adviser’s expectations and your goals. Good advisers, disappointed though they may be, will deal with those feelings themselves. If their disappointment begins to feel burdensome, or becomes an ongoing source of anxiety, you might think of this as practice in setting boundaries. Consider the advice of Oliver Burkeman who, in his newsletter, The Imperfectionist, calls it “a critical life skill” to “get better at disappointing people.” He notes: “It’s never your job to spare someone the experience of disappointment, provided that the action that triggers it is, in other ways, the right one to take.” You cannot please everyone all of the time, and your life is your own.
What do I do if the conversation goes badly? Ultimately, you cannot control your adviser’s reaction — or overreaction, as the case may be. Here are some things you can do:
- Have a trusted friend or loved one ready to debrief with you about the experience.
- Give your adviser some time and space to think about what you’ve revealed. Some people may react poorly in the moment but eventually come around.
- Set up a meeting with another faculty member you trust to get advice on how to proceed.
- Depending on where you are in your program, the politics of your department, and the structure of your funding, you may want to consider changing advisers. We don’t suggest that you do this hastily, but if things get ugly, it may be your best option.
When is it OK to keep my industry career goals from my adviser? Only you can really judge your relationship with your mentor. If you feel that it would be truly detrimental to your career to share your decision with your adviser — and you are not in a position to change to a more supportive one — then it is OK to decide not to say anything. At some point, your career path will become obvious — if, for example, you decide not to go on the academic job market at all or decide to only apply to a handful of jobs. Steel yourself for what may be a very difficult conversation.
To be clear: We do not recommend going on the academic job market just to please your adviser. Nor do we advise hiding your true career plans. The academic job market requires an incredible investment of time and energy — from both you and your adviser. Don’t go on the tenure-track market just to avoid a tough conversation.
Don’t hesitate to seek support if the adviser-advisee relationship is causing you a lot of stress. One often overlooked resource for managing your relationship with your adviser is your university’s mental-health services. A trained counselor can help you unpack what might be happening with your adviser — the communication habits that you bring to the relationship and how you might change your approach to make these conversations more productive. A counselor can also help you strategize difficult conversations.
In our experience, the vast majority of faculty advisers want their advisees to succeed and live good lives. Sometimes advisers make assumptions about what success looks like, based on how it has historically been defined in the professoriate. Sometimes they forget just how variable people’s ideas of what constitutes a good life are. Yes, these career discussions can feel personal and dicey, but honesty is generally better than deception for any relationship, as is the assumption of good intent.
And if you are a faculty member reading this, wondering what you can do to encourage your own students to be candid about their career goals, here’s our advice:
- Don’t assume that your students came to graduate school for the same reasons you did.
- Ask questions about what they want from their careers and be open to a range of answers.
- Be willing to help when you can. Turn your excellent research skills toward investigating career resources to help guide your advisees.
- Help them take advantage of opportunities that come their way.
- Swallow your “disappointment” and, as much as possible, express support and enthusiasm.
