Part of the isolation of struggling with academia comes from not knowing other people’s stories.

For every other major transition, you have people around you who tell you their story, or their best friend’s sister’s story, or what have you. Breakups, moves, marriage, parenthood, college graduation. But leaving academia? Who tells you that story so you can feel more comfortable in your own?

There’s so much more out there now than there ever has been to support you, but sometimes you just want to hear the stories.

So I’ve created a separate part of the site for people to share their stories. It’s new, and I’d like to invite you to share your story, whatever it is right now, so we all know we have traveling companions in this journey.

You can do by clicking here or by using the Tell Your Story tab at the top of the site. I hope you’ll share, and I hope you’ll come back to read other people’s stories.

Many of my clients get stuck right at the point where thoughts and dreams move into action — and for good reason. Leaving academia and entering a different career or job trajectory is more than a workplace change. It’s a cultural shift, and it brings along all of the baggage and translation problems and confusions that come with cultural shifts.

That’s why I’m really excited about two new courses I’m offering in the next few months and I wanted to let you know about them.

Overcoming the 3 Barriers to the Post-Academic Job Search

The first, Overcoming the 3 Barriers to the Post-Academic Job Search, is a free 90-minute teleclass designed to give you the practical tools you need to make the transition from academia to a post-academic job.

• 5 primary ways academics are misunderstood and how to demonstrate your difference
• Strategies for identifying and translating academic experience into non-academic skills and accomplishments
• 6 steps to running a successful job search outside of academia

You can read more about it, and sign up, by clicking here.

Becoming Post-Academic

The second, Becoming Post-Academic, is a six-week teleclass designed to help you craft a comprehensive and successful job search. It includes the following:

• Concrete action steps that get you to your goal
• A system that tells you which steps to do when – and that you can use whenever you decide to change jobs
• Evidence of your experience, skills, and accomplishments
• Strategies for researching companies and translating your talents into their needs
• Ways to succeed at interviewing
• Non-scary strategies for networking
• 9 steps to simplifying negotiations – and getting what you want
• The confidence to move forward and actually step into a new career

You can read more about it, and sign up, by clicking here.

Two weeks from today, Jo VanEvery and I are starting another round of our Choosing Your Career Consciously course. If you’re wondering what, besides academia, you could do with your life, we’d love for you to join us.

We started the class because we kept encountering smart, talented, skilled people who were convinced that they weren’t worth anything outside of academia. They’d say they had no experience or training or ability to do anything else, and so they felt either doomed to stay or completely at sea out there in the non-academic world.

But they aren’t doomed to stay in academia, nor were they actually rudderless in the non-academic world. And neither are you.

Academia can make us believe that it’s the only job we’re fit for, that it’s the only place that will make us happy. Occasionally, that’s true. But only occasionally. Most of the time, in fact, there’s a whole set of interesting, fulfilling, compelling, righteous jobs and careers that you would rock.

Finding that set, though, that’s where people get stuck. And that’s what this class addresses. We help you figure out what you have to offer, what kinds of jobs and situations you’re actually interested in, and where those jobs might be hiding.

If you’re considering leaving academia but don’t know what else you could possibly do, join us for this six-week class. We would love to help you find out. Just click here to find out more and sign up.

Questions? Drop us a line at joandjulie@joandjulie.com and we’ll get them answered.