Jerald M. Jellison’s Life after Grad School (Oxford University Press, 2010) is a good resource for those considering leaving the pursuit of a tenure track job in order to follow another career. While he acknowledges that there remain some positives in staying within the standard academic career, he argues that there is significant in pursuing a career outside of academia, whether that be support staff at the university, work in government or in business.

It is a helpful book to pick up and glance through in order to do any of the following:

• Pick up networking tips, including describing yourself (and/or your research) using words that leave the listener responding with curiosity instead of “that’s nice.”
• Consider what leaving academia might look like;
• Get resources for finding a job outside of professor and research positions;
• Re-marketing the skills that you picked up doing a master’s or PhD;
• Determining what non-academic things it might be helpful to do in order to get experience and a picture of life outside of the academic world.

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