Interviewer: “You realize this is a not a music director job and you are not the boss?”
Me: “Yes. Thank you for pouring salt in the wounds of my underemployment. But actually, I would thrilled to move up the ladder from underemployment to marginally-better-underemployment.”
Those weren’t the exact words. But that was the sentiment.
I was underemployed, very underemployed, and had been for almost a year and a half.
Thankfully, I got that 10-hr/wk interim job, and I started the 2nd Sunday of Advent last year.
Fast forward to this past Sunday—yet another 2nd Sunday in Advent—and I was working as the full-time Minister of Music in a new church and a new city.
As I sat at the piano, lightly playing “Angels We Have Heard on High” as Christmas Pageant angels danced up the aisle, I thought about the huge changes in my life since last year.
Who Needs Another Post-Ac Story?
My story is very similar to others who’ve earned a humanities PhD but decided to pursue a career outside of academia. In fact, my “post-ac” (or, “post-academic”) story is so similar that I thought it wouldn’t worthwhile to write about.
But as I was deciding to shift my career path, I needed stories like these. I needed to know I could find satisfying full-time work outside my first choice of university professor. And I needed to know how to find it.
So you if you’re in the midst of shifting your career path—and maybe your identity too—this story is for you.
Ministers and other musicians who read this blog—you might find my story story completely irrelevant—no worries, I’ll be back in January with more on my usual topics. But if you’ve found yourself in a career you didn’t expect, you might enjoy the read.
Preparing for a Career Shift
By the time I was midway through earning my PhD, I realized I wasn’t likely to get a job as a university professor. I had decided to follow my husband’s job locations (3 in 3 years o_O), so getting a full-time academic job would have been very unlikely. And getting one I wanted would have been practically impossible.
So for the last years of my doctoral work, I did all the right things:
- I read about post-academic and alternative-academic employment.
- I explored all the post-ac materials I could find like Beyond the Professoriate conferences, Versatile PhD, and individuals’ essays and blogs.
- I read books liked What Color Is Your Parachute? and did all their self-knowledge exercises. What am I good at? What do I enjoy? What make my skillset and interests unique?
Then I worked my butt off building up my portfolio for my intended profession while finishing my degree and growing my family.
If you’re reading this as a graduate student looking for post-ac career advice, here it is: do what I did.
My preparation to shift careers is exactly the path that I saw other successful post-ac people on, and that’s because it actually works.
- Explore your interests and skills.
- Explore professions that interest you via conversations with people who work in that sector, volunteering, and part-time employment.
- Build up your resume in the area that you settle on.
- If possible, do so while still in graduate school, not after you’ve graduated/lost health insurance coverage/can’t pay your rent because you’re not making a graduate stipend anymore.*
It’s exactly as difficult and as simple as that.
*Yes, it can also be a great idea to stop graduate school if you decide academic employment isn’t for you. I decide to continue my program because I had a decent stipend, and I treated my dissertation process as a paid book-writing apprenticeship. How many writers get paid for years to be coached by people who’ve written a bunch of fantastic books? I did.
Exploring My Post-Ac Options
Because of the exploration I did, I knew the elements I wanted in a career: developing and sharing ideas through mediums like writing and speaking, making music and leading others in making music, and leading in a religious community.
When I started graduate school, I expected those elements would align to two different roles. One, a university professor. The other, a part-time or volunteer musician in a church.
But as I explored my post-ac options, I realized almost all of my goals could fit under the umbrella of directing a church’s music program. (Writing was less of natural fit, unless I made it so.)
Like other people on the post-ac path, I identified where my resume was strong (e.g. almost 20 years of experience) and weak (e.g. lack of graduate degrees in performance, something common among full-time church musicians).
I wasn’t going to rectify the biggest weakness of my resume by earning yet another graduate degree. But I knew I could show that I had a competitive skillset by creating my own opportunities.
By starting a podcast and developing a blog in my field, I showed prospective job search committees that my research degrees were relevant in the world of church ministry. And by giving solo organ recitals, I showed them that I was able to perform music at a high level without graduate degrees in performance.
Initial Results = Not Great
At first, my results were pretty awful. Not awful in the sense of, I didn’t like my jobs. In fact, I really enjoyed them. But they were awful in the sense that 10-15 hours a week is not a full-time job.
My “main” job was so part-time that on Christmas weekend last year (Christmas was on a Monday, remember?), I played for 5 services, in 4 different churches, in 3 different denominations.
Too much “Joy to the World,” imo.
I know why I couldn’t find a suitable full-time job until I moved this spring. It’s mostly because churches don’t usually want to hire a full-time employee that they know will move soon.
But my 2 year stint of unemployment, then underemployment, and finally slightly-better-underemployment really pushed me to build my skills and resume as creatively as I could under the circumstances.
(Also yes 100%: having a two-partner household expands your financial options, and having a baby gives you a viable reason to not work full-time if you can afford it. If you want the details: I was unemployed while a full-time graduate student and primary care for a newborn, and I began a part-time job a few weeks before submitting my dissertation.)
On Luck
As I was reading others’ post-ac stories, I heard a consistent refrain: “I worked smart and hard, but in the end, I was lucky to get a job I love.”
That’s my story too.
I did work really hard and smart. I played to my strengths and I identified and improved my weaknesses.
But in the end, I was really lucky.
There were two full-time positions open in St. Louis when I started applying to jobs. I got an offer on one—and took it! And the other job? I literally didn’t hear back from them after they confirmed receiving my application.
Talk about terrible odds.
But I think that the lesson here is a true one: work hard and smart so when the right opportunity comes—when “luck” knocks on your door—you’re ready for it.
Fighting My Fears
When I applied for my current job, I realized what terrible odds I had, both in the “only 2 open positions in a 3 million metropolitan area” sense, and in the sense of knowing that more qualified people were applying for this job.
My first inclination was to be too cool for school—to hold back a bit, so that if I failed, I could have a reason other than “I’m not good enough.”
Fortunately, my second impulse won out.
I did my utmost to prepare for my job audition and at every step, I did my best to show my interviewers how much I wanted the job and how well suited for it I was/am. (Y’all, I even made handouts.) It wasn’t a perfect audition, but it was my best.
The Hardest Parts of Being Post-Ac
I’m six months into the full-time job I’ve worked toward for years. 18 months post-graduation. And it’s been 3.5 years since I moved away from my university’s campus and the last time I taught a class.
Here are the two hardest parts of being post-ac, for me.
First, lack of instant credibility.
It was a huge benefit to introduce myself to prospective research participants as “a doctoral candidate at Duke University.” I’m in the midst of pursuing an academic affiliation at a local university in hopes that will help me get interviews for my ongoing research.
Second, the identity shift.
Maybe I’ve experienced the identity shift more radically than others, since I shifted careers in the same years that I married, gave birth, and lived in multiple states. But even if you’re shifting careers while in the same city and same relationships, you’re still changing more than what you do for 40 hours each week. You’re changing something about how you see yourself— who you are, what your life means for you and for your chosen community.
I believe that a well-lived life includes constantly discovering and rediscovering ourselves, in all our vast and beautiful humanity. But intentionally crafting a different identity throws that discovery into overdrive.
Honestly, by turns, I’ve been delighted and exhausted by that heightened state. Much as I love my family, my new city, and my job, I don’t feel settled into my new identities.
It’s a very Advent feeling. The journeying. The anticipating. My own life’s continuing without a tidy “The End.”
Edit: A few weeks after I posted this essay, Dr. Karen Kelsky of “The Professor Is In” wrote this piece, suggesting “real-ac” as a far better term than “post-ac” or “alt-ac.” I completely agree! Real-ac it is!
