Finding your calling is an important first step towards creating a life that will make you honestly happy, whether you’re refining your academic career, leaving academia, or a few jobs out of higher education.
But it’s only a first step. The next step is turning that calling into something that actually pays you money.
Over the next few months, I’m going to be focusing the blog around ways to do just that. (I’d say that’s October’s theme, but you’ll notice August took two months. Oh well!)
We’ll be talking about
- How to imagine what kinds of jobs would fulfill your calling — and your personality.
- How to find job opportunities
- How to create excellent job application materials
- How to negotiate all of those pesky post-academic issues and questions, like why you left and what skills you really have to offer.
What questions do you have about the job search process that you’d like me to incorporate? Leave them in the comments, and I’ll be sure to cover them.
Late as always (I’m always like three weeks behind on my blogroll) but I just wanted to say that I’m growing more and more uncomfortable with “calling” language in an academic or post-academic context. The idea of the Holy Vocation is the source of immense amounts of abuse and exploitation (you’re doing this because you LOVE it! money doesn’t MATTER! you are building the FUTURE!) and I am tired of being manipulated in that way.
Now I’m not accusing you of manipulating anyone, Julie — I know you’re fighting the good fight. But I’ve come to the conclusion that for me personally, talk of “vocations” causes much, much more harm than good. Investing so much of one’s self-worth into one’s work is exactly what drives so many academics into depression and impostor syndrome in the first place. We need to be more comfortable with the idea of having a “job”. A good job, a satisfying job… but a job.
Incidentally, all the “calling” language kinda reminds me of the starry-eyed girl in the “So You Want To Get A Ph.D. in the Humanities” video (you’ve probably already posted it, but as I said, I’m behind in my blogroll).
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7451115/
Hope the discussion was productive! I don’t mean to be a spoilsport, but I did want to make my thoughts known.
ASG, thanks for weighing in!
I agree, the “calling” language can be a problem, especially because it can be used to continue to exploit people. (Hello, the structures of academia.)
But I also believe that not any job will do for any person, and you’ve got to figure out what will be satisfying to you — whether or not you call it a calling or think of it as “the only thing you can do.” (FWIW, I don’t think there’s ever ONE job or ONE career for any given calling. Calling is MUCH more subtle and interesting than that.) This may go double for people who did experience academia as a calling and are now feeling disillusioned, because trading in something that fed them for something they spend eight hours a day doing isn’t a great tradeoff.
That being said, I’m hearing you say that as you recover from academia, “calling” may do more harm than good, and I agree.