The "Shadow Resume": A Career Tip for Grad Students
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.
Theres a very real possibility that one will ultimately be unable to find a suitable academic position.
Having a PhD can seriously hurt ones 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 didnt 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 wasnt 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. Youre almost certainly anal-retentive when it comes to grammar and usage. These are things that dont 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 thats 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