The "Shadow Resume": A Career Tip for Grad Students

[ashling]

Last edited Sun Aug 11, 2013, 06:12 PM - Edit history (1)

There are a few facts that every graduate student must come to terms with:

Adjunct teaching is exploitative.
There’s a very real possibility that one will ultimately be unable to find a suitable academic position.
Having a PhD can seriously hurt one’s “civilian” employment prospects.

I developed a strategy to address all these problems simultaneously, which I called the “shadow resume.” Basically, I worked on a freelance basis in the “civilian” sphere during grad school (and beyond, as it turned out). This had several benefits. First, the work was better-paying and less time-intensive than adjuncting would have been — and I could work from home for the most part, meaning it didn’t really interfere with my classes, etc. Second, and perhaps most crucially, it gave me a plausible resume for the “civilian” world, one from which I could omit my overeduction while not thereby creating a huge inexplicable hole in my employment record. Finally, it created a “lower bound” for my stress levels, because I felt like I had alternatives — it wasn’t a choice between a tenure-track job and Starbucks.

Now whether that was really the case is unclear, since I did not actually have to make use of my “shadow resume.” Just trust me, though, when I say that there were concrete possibilities presented to me. So I think this is something to consider.

In terms of making this work, you first need to think about the skills you have as a grad student. You have research skills. You have writing skills. You are basically an information processing machine. You hopefully have some language skills. Depending on your discipline, you might also have some advanced math or stats skills — in any case, you probably know how to use standard office software better than the average office worker does. You’re almost certainly anal-retentive when it comes to grammar and usage. These are things that don’t take any pre-existing special skills, and there are plenty of companies that need help with all of that. (And if you do have pre-existing special skills like programming or web design, then that’s just another advantage.)

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on edit: sorry I forgot the link

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/08/09/shadow_resume_career_advice_for_graduate_students.html

[Tobin S.]

1. Thank you

I'm not a grad student yet, but I might be in a couple of years.