I’m thinking about it y’all. I’ve loved doing my PhD and everything around it but I know my chances of getting a secure academic job when I finish are slim to none (I’m aiming to submit in a year’s time). I enjoy the research, the challenges, the variety of tasks you have to complete, but thinking about being exhausted, stressed and insecure for the rest of my life is becoming rapidly less attractive.

So...where do you go from here? I’m totally clueless about what else I would like to do or what I might be qualified to do. My PhD is in literature...something to do with books seems feasible and appealing. Librarian? Editor? Of course I know both of these careers would also be intensely competitive but I’d rather get some sense of the career path I’d like to attempt than wait until I finish and see what jobs come up. I’m too much of a control freak for that.

Is anybody in a similar position? Any recommendations for books or articles or just general advice will be greatly appreciated.

Try applying for consulting jobs - your PhD will add great value to you application

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Hi Keep Calm

I think you're doing absolutely the right thing in looking early. I finished my PhD last september and realised about 2 weeks into my first academic job that it wasn't the career for me - in retrospect I should have figured it out a lot sooner. I'm currently trying to extricate myself from my job and retrain into a completely different area. It's exciting, but immensely hard work.

I've found the Guardian website really useful - their careers pages have a forum and also they do these live Q&A sessions, there was one on 'breaking into publishing' a while back (I noticed because I was considering it myself). They are archived so you can read through them. Do you have any big conferences coming up in your field? In mine the various academic publishers all have stands at the big annual conference and I imagine it would give you a big foot in the door to be able to talk to people face to face if that is the sector you want to move in to. I think the only potential barrier is that publishing (like so many careers) seems to demand a lot of unpaid internships these days.

Regarding being a librarian, a friend of mine used to be a librarian in a 6th form college and had a masters degree in information management (i think). Something to do with being accredited through CILIP. Maybe ask at the university library if someone will talk to you about careers?

Sorry I can't be more help! Best of luck.

Hi Keep Calm,

I'm doing a literature PhD too (part time) and work full-time as an editor in a publishing house. In my city, publishers won't consider hiring you unless you have a relevant tertiary qualification AND some work experience, usually through low-paid intern work or even volunteer work.

My own academic/career path goes something like this: undergrad in Arts (Lit major), 1.5 year course work Masters in Publishing & Editing, started a very low-paid internship towards the end of the Masters to gain experience, then got my first salaried job as an editorial assistant in a larger publishing house 12 months later. Realised I needed a challenge so enrolled in a PhD on the side... left that company about 18 months later, travelled overseas for a year, came back and found a better job as a fully-fledged editor. And here I am, sitting at the office browsing through postgradforum when I should be working! Thesis is creeping along slowly but surely, due by the end of 2013. I'm anticipating that getting the PhD will give me some stronger career-clout, but I could be wrong - I'll start looking for a better job after submission though.

I'd definitely recommend a career in publishing, but make sure you choose a literary publisher that produces books that will interest you - it would be a terrible waste of your PhD-level literature brain if you ended up working with dull books. And yes, it's a highly-competitive field. When I applied for this job, about fifty applicants didn't make it past the CV stage. They then invited thirteen applicants to a group interview, crammed us into a meeting room and gave us a 2-hr written editing skills test. They then narrowed it down to three applicants for a final-round interview, and finally choose one. And after all that, as anyone in the industry will tell you, THE PAY'S NOT THAT GOOD!!! You just have to love working with books.

Other fields... librarian, journalist, author, literary agent? Teacher? Even if you don't think you'll find work at the tertiary level, have you considered secondary-school teaching? I remember that when I was in my final years of school most of the teachers of English and Lit had PhDs... you'd be working with books, sharing your knowledge, inspiring young minds...

Best of luck!