Sellout - Other Resources

s e l l o u t

Other Resources

More information for PhDs pondering a vocation outside the ivory tower.

Career Web sites

Some of the better career Web sites:

Beyond the Ivory Tower The Chronicle of Higher Education runs regular columns on fresh ways to put your PhD to work.
Getting a Silicon Valley job, 10 things to learn in school, and getting hired at Yahoo! Worthwhile articles by Silicon Valley fixture Guy Kawasaki.
Journeyman: Getting Into and Out of Academe "The life of the mind is highly portable."
Beyond Academe Written for history PhDs, but applicable to anyone in the humanities.
Salary.com Gives an idea of what pay to expect for entry-level-and-up jobs in your area. To get started, try some of the positions in the "Internet and New Media" and "Training" categories.
Vault.com Employee insights on thousands of companies, plus regularly updated career advice information.
Re-envisioning the PhD A two-year research project poses the question: "How can we re-envision the Ph.D. to meet the needs of the society of the 21st Century?"
PhDs at work Philip Greenspun's achievement gallery of "people putting their advanced training to good use." Avoid if humor upsets you.
A Yellow Wood Alternative-careers site for humanities PhDs. Sponsored by the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation Encouraging humanities PhD students who interact with the world outside academe.
FastCompany Careers Cut through FastCompany's Lexus-and-lox lust and you'll find great career information.
NY Times Job Market Weekly career articles plus links to other Web job resources. Free registration required.
Craigslist.org writing and editing jobs Heaps of work here in the San Francisco Bay area. Links will take you to Craigslist sites in other cities around the world.
CareerBuilder Search classified ads in newspapers across the U.S. Free registration required for some services.
Fortune's 100 best companies to work for Fortune has never seen a corporate boot it wouldn't lick (see its past fawning over Enron), but still a good list to scan for companies that practice humanist values.

High Tech Web sites

If you think software or some other high tech field might have a place for you, poke at these sites.

New York Times Technology page A window on the high tech field but without sacred-language snootiness.
CNET Tech news and trends.
ZDNET Same basic content as CNET, only more sprawling.
Red Herring The name comes from a preliminary SEC filing and the magazine is about nerdy people, their money and their companies.
Business 2.0 Like Red Herring, a dot-com survivor that's worth a look.

Your university career center and web site

Start browsing the internships. Find one that piques your interest and take it. If you hate it, you get to leave. If you love it, they might just offer you a job.

Books

So What Are You Going to Do With That: A Guide for MAs and PhDs Seeking Careers Outside the Academy Written by Princeton English PhDs Maggie Debelius and Susan Basalla, this book offers plenty of advice on the mechanics of researching and landing a job.
Outside the Ivory Tower: A Guide for Academics Considering Alternative Careers By Margaret Newhouse, Harvard's assistant director of career services for PhDs. Tales of PhDs who find personal and financial satisfaction outside the university.
Monument in A Summer Hat James Armstrong's poetry reminds us of the joy in wandering. This fine book will help you find your next calling.

Newspapers and magazines

If you're thinking about a career that involves a paycheck, there's one paper to read:

The Wall Street Journal Read for insights on the diversity of career opportunities in business, government, and non-profits. Thankfully, the wall between the Comstockian editorial pages and the rest of the newspaper is robust. The online WSJ is not free. The copy in your local library is.

For an international perspective, get The Economist. Along with a steady diet of international job listings, this British newsmagazine delights with some of the wittiest headlines and captions around. The writing is sheer delight.

Organizations

Professional societies and organizations offer a way to meet others from a prospective field. Attend a local chapter meeting and scan the society periodicals. Here are two of the better-known tech societies. For other professions, ask your librarian or try searching the Web.

Association for Computing Machinery SIGs The ACM has a special interest group for just about every aspect of computers.
Usability Professionals' Association The UPA will introduce you to the field of user research.
Society for Technical Communication The top technical documentation organization.

People

You have friends, neighbors, and relatives. Ask them what they do. Networking yields.

It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality.
-Virginia Woolf