Hello all. So I have about another year or so left of this old PhD malarky. Even at this early stage, I am thinking about life post PhD.

I just wondered what people who are near completion (or have completed already) have planned(did)? Are you looking for a post doc position? Where do you look for those? If you have left academia, where did you go? How did you decide? I am doing a PhD in the area of Psychology so I am particularly interested to know what people with a similar PhD have done. I was considering a post doc within my current department but its highly unlikely to be an option now.

Thank you :)

Hi Drmumphd,
For my experience, please have a look at my previous post. Love Kim

Oh my, KimWipes. How have you stayed sane and calm?!

Realistically I am going to carry on doing exactly the same job I am doing now (EFL teacher at a university). It is a good job but I would have liked to try for an academic career. The problem is that where I am there is not really a lot of chance of that happening and with three young children, I am not willing to move far from home at the moment. (Only just managed to leave a job with a long commute and it was awful). TBH I will just be glad to finish that at the moment, I really don't care if I never do anything academic ever again!! (Hopefully that feeling will pass though!)

I found my postdoc on jobs.ac.uk. I would like to stay in academia but I can't because I'm not prepared to travel round forever so I'm currently looking for an administration job in a university.

I'm not up for re-locating and chasing short-term contracts either, so it's unlikely I will stay in academia, although I will have a look at what's available. It does seem that with the current trend of offering insecure, short-term work, academia is restricting its pool of applicants somewhat!

I think I'm in the same position as chickpea. I'm also not looking for anything until I have submitted, as I know I'll probably get distracted.

I'm with Treeoflife, Chickpea and Hugh on this. I am close to completion but I am starting to sway more towards something outside of academia but based in a university e.g. professional services. I really don't want to be moving every year or two and coping with the stress of temporary contracts. However, ideally I would like to obtain a research/teaching job for the first couple of years after graduation but then move to something outside of academia and permanent after. By that time I would like to be looking into putting down some roots and buying a home etc. and permanent work is often required to do this.

One thing with postdocs is that you have to be prepared to do something totally different (obviously same discipline!) from your PhD. If you did your PhD in a topic of your choosing, this is a big change.

It's an interesting career path isn't it... I can't really think of anything else like it. Pilot maybe? But even they get to live in one place!

I honestly don't get all the complains about relocations. What did people expect? Everyone knows that the path towards a permanent position in academia looks like that. Never have I once met a Bachelor student who was not aware of that. It's an open secret and still people choose to follow this path, do their PhDs and then complain about the system as if they had not known that an average publication list produced at the same university does not get you a decent job in academia ;) If you want to settle in a certain region at a certain time, then academia was just a poor career choice and deep down we all already knew it for a long time and hoped we might be the few exceptions. I think it is as advertised and it has not been fundamentally different 10 or 20 years ago. Most of the professors I met and that are now in their 40s or 50s spent substantial time abroad and moved quite a lot. People who stayed at one University or a certain region in a country always represented a minority (unless they were exceptionally bright and talented). There is simply an excess of people who go for a career in academia. Not surprising that we all have (or will have) a hard time to find jobs after graduation, no matter if in academia or outside, and no surprise that the working conditions, salaries contracts etc. suffer when there are 50 scientists waiting to take the position.

I just started my PhD 6 months ago. A bit early to think about the time after that but it will strongly depend on publication output. If it's going well, I would consider the "risk" of a Post Doc position as long as it is application oriented with visible industry-relevance. If you have a competitive publication list you can probably get a scholarship and don't have to apply for whatever position is open at this moment. In the long run, a job in R&D or an environmental agency would be nice. I would definitely not spent the amount of time in academia that it usually takes to find out if I you are one of the chosen few ;)

I'm not sure it was a series of complaints, Dunham - the OP asked about people's plans and people are answering with their reasons. For what it's worth, I don't think it's good for any type of employment to rely only on those who can move around and chase short-term contracts - seems to me that it's going to be completely skewed in favour of younger people and those with no dependents/commitments, regardless of actual ability.

Why in favor of younger people? Most of the time you compete with people around your own age. If you commit to things that require you to stay in a certain location then you kind of made your decision and defined your priority. Most people could easily relocate. They just prefer not to. No PhD student has to get a mortgage, nobody needs to settle down, have kids or live in a certain area of the country (there are of course few exceptions like nursing family members or similar things). You just decided that you want these things and that's perfectly fine. It just seems a bit odd to me to expect that career opportunities adapt to your preferences. In an area like academia that provides so few opportunities to work you just have to move around. How many universities are there in most areas that can still be reached by daily commuting? 3 to 5? Imagine you were an engineer and decided to just apply at 5 companies. You would have a hard time as well. It's just obvious that you probably won't stay at the university you graduated from unlike you are really really lucky. If your career choice is hardly compatible with the private life you want to have then you made a poor career choice.

And the thing with the actual ability: Let's face it. Most of us are just mediocre. The people who have proof of their outstanding ability or outstanding accomplishments have also way more opportunities and can stay in their home country or maybe even certain areas. 90% just don't do outstanding but rather solid, mediocre work. In that case you just have to apply to more employers to increase your chances (like all other employees as well) and in academia that usually means move.

Dunham, you are attributing everything to personal choice, when in fact most people want to do things like have a family life, a decent place to live and a sense of community. It is not unreasonable to want those things as well as a job. If an entire employment sector dictates that you need to give up those things, then I say an unduly narrow field of applicants is the result. I don't think that is healthy for academia or the people who stay in it.

I agree with Chickpea here. Also, just to add my own experience to this Dunham, as an undergraduate I actually was under the impression that you could remain in one place or commute to nearby cities since all of my tutors at undergrad level either lived locally or in nearby cities where they had also gained their PhDs.