Career Advice in U.S. Academia’s Moment of Crisis

Photo credit: K. Kelsky

Dr. Karen Kelsky, author of “The Professor Is In”, reflects on the second edition of her career advice book for PhDs and the state of academic career advising more generally.  Her comments are especially timely in the context of the current turmoil confronting American higher education.

By Karen Kelsky with Patricia A. Maurice and Janet G. Hering

9 December 2025, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17115526

Karen Kelsky is the Founder and Executive Officer of The Professor Is In [1], which provides advice and consulting services on all elements of the academic and post-academic career. Her book The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. Into a Job [2] is a best-selling handbook on academic careers (with over 2000 ratings on goodreads [3]).  The second edition is forthcoming [4].  Karen also speaks internationally on topics related to Ph.D. professionalization [1].

A former tenured anthropology professor and Department Head with 15 years of experience at the University of Oregon and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [5], Karen makes it her mission to translate the unspoken cultural norms of academia into legible scripts. Her goal is to level the playing field for marginalized scholars and those without backgrounds of academic privilege. She tells the unvarnished truth about the collapse of academic hiring and the necessity of non-academic careers. She works to demystify academic labor, challenging “Life of the Mind” elitist gaslighting and encouraging academics to prioritize sustainable mental and financial health.

We (Janet and Patricia) are extremely thankful to Karen for her willingness to be interviewed and for sharing her expertise and advice in this blog post.  She is practical, witty, and spot-on. 

What are the key messages of the second edition of your book The Professor is In?

The key message of The Professor Is In 2.0 is that the academic institution will never love you back [6]. Thus, you must be self-interested in your career pursuits, whether that means establishing realistic boundaries around your academic job search and career, or making the decision to depart academia entirely. This requires conscious resistance to any gaslighting about the “higher” nature of intellectual pursuits, and a prioritization of your own mental, physical, emotional, and financial well-being.  This is especially urgent as ongoing assault decimates U.S. higher education institutions and budgets, leading not only to continued reliance on an exploitative adjunct economy (which has prevailed since the 1990s) but also newly destructive conditions in tenure-track and tenured academic positions in terms of overwork, micromanagement, political targeting, and inadequate pay.

What did you learn from the first edition of your book and why did you decide to write a second edition?   

The first edition had a gratifyingly positive reception and allowed me to reach a far wider audience than my blog. One thing I learned from the first edition is that no matter how big one’s online platform, an old-fashioned book will still open many different doors. In my case, this was particularly true for speaking invitations around the U.S. and internationally.  

Also, in the decade since 2015, I have watched my pragmatic anti-gaslighting career advice go from being seen as shocking and enraging (to some) to becoming quite accepted.  My approach has been broadly replicated at university career advising centers across the U.S. and, incidentally, widely copied by a host of imitators.  I don’t love the imitators (it’s a unique sensation to discover people are taking one’s work without appropriate credit), but I do love that I’ve done my part to get the following key messages out to academics. 

Academia is not some special place outside capitalism. Much of academia relies on a structural underclass of adjuncts who handle some 75% of all instruction at every rank and type of institution. This is the product of specific political and economic choices – in rare cases, non-tenure track positions may deviate from this exploitative model [7]. The likelihood of any PhD securing a tenure track job offer is only approximately 5-15%. Academic job searches and careers run on predictable systems of prestige, elitism, hierarchy, and targeted deliverables in terms of high-ranking publications, etc. These systems can be taught and learned, but PhD programs routinely fail to do so. PhD job seekers can strategize both their records and their application/interview performance to maximize their chances of getting an academic job, but even so, the odds of success are against them. At the same time, PhD job seekers are enormously skilled and qualified to move on to non-academic careers.  The transition to a non-academic career often involves an emotional journey of grief, anger, and regret that must be confronted head on for the transition to be successful. Nonetheless, many PhD job seekers may well be happier outside academia.

What do you hope that the second edition of your book will accomplish? 

The second edition, first and foremost, updates the framing of my advice for the current moment. What that means is, the key messages I lay out above remain unchanged. But the way I explain them is completely updated. I have moderated the haranguing, judgmental tone of advice-giving in order to avoid discouraging readers. While acknowledging the limits of my own expertise, I take great pains to reflect diverse experiences of job seekers, whether this diversity arises from race and ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, ability, economic class, or other aspects of identity.  I draw extensively from the writing of marginalized scholars. The second edition also includes three entirely new, long, somewhat scholarly chapters. In these new chapters, I address the collapsing conditions of academic work and the harms inherent for many (especially marginalized) scholars within the academic career.  I also include suggestions for making an academic career less harmful and more sustainable. Finally, and (in my view) most importantly, I highlight the value and unexpected joys of seeking careers outside academia. 

How does your writing relate to your consulting activities?

My book relates in several ways. First off, many people use the book alone to overhaul their thinking about the academic job search, about how to write their documents and interview, and whether they might depart academia. People regularly contact me to tell me how large an impact the book had on their lives, even though they never worked with me personally in any capacity. This makes me happy!

Then in turn, many people read the book and get in touch for more in-depth personalized help. The book lays out my principles and methods exhaustively, so people know just what they will get if they ask for individual help. This means that my consulting/coaching clients are wonderfully well prepared for the hard work of editing their job application materials and/or interviewing techniques, and the process usually goes very smoothly. (Conversely, on the rare occasion that a client comes to me without having read the book, they are often shocked at what they experience as the “harshness” of my approach. But my approach is not harsh, it’s just blunt and anti-gaslighting, and many academics are not accustomed to that).

Finally, the book is an inexpensive “assigned text” for the individualized editing/coaching work. I am able to assign chapters for each type of work, whether it’s a basic job document like the CV or cover letter, practice for an interview, campus visit, job talk, help with a negotiation, or work on a grant or postdoc proposal. This streamlines our process and vastly improves outcomes.

More broadly, my goal is not to deliver arbitrary edicts, but to explain structural norms and cultural logic of academic judgment, including those that relate to its elitism, white supremacy, and productivity fetishization. In this way, clients leave their work with me empowered to help themselves – and serve as their own best advocates – as they move forward in their careers, without needing additional help from me. So in this way, my goal is always to “teach you to fish,” and not just hand you a ‘fish’, in the form of a revised document, etc. 

Looking ahead, I am currently hoping to publish a new book called The Professor Is Out: The Essential Guide to Leaving Academia as a follow-up to the current book.  It is extremely urgent that PhDs get comfortable with the idea of non-academic careers and are well trained to pursue them. I hope the new book will find a home and in turn become the go-to text for this transition the way The Professor Is In is the go-to text for the tenure track job search. I am particularly committed to helping mid-late career academics make the transition, given the many extra challenges of potential ageism, inexperience, and disorientation.

The new book will in turn become the required text for the coaching that we offer on making the post-academic transition.

How should readers contact you if they have questions or want to pursue some of the recommendations in your book? 

Readers can contact me at gettenure@gmail.com and also visit my website [1]. Let me just make two comments here. First, it delights me to say that I now also work extensively on tenure and promotion packets, including promotion to Full Professor. This focus has grown as my clientele have moved steadily through their careers since 2011!  Second, we also offer help on leaving academia and have been doing this since 2011. We are always updating and innovating on that front to meet the intensifying need.

Conclusions and questions for further thought

If I had to encapsulate all my advice, I would say: don’t personalize a structural failure. The causes of academia’s contraction and collapse are macro-economic and forty years in the making. You didn’t cause it, and you cannot fix it. Do not martyr yourself to try and ‘save’ the institution or any constituency within it.  Yes, the undergraduate students are often neglected and ill-served (especially in research-intensive institutions) and deserve better. You as an individual, however, cannot be their rescuer. Your attempt to be that will only lead to your own burnout, exhaustion and harm. Put on your own oxygen mask first and prioritize what is reasonable and sustainable FOR YOU. If this is hard for you, which may be especially true if you were socialized as a woman, then just remember that you are modeling healthy boundaries for those coming behind you.

Here are some questions for readers to consider:

●      How are you allowing yourself to be harmed by academia?

●      What can you say no to, that will improve your emotional/physical/financial health?

●      What makes you stay in academia, and if it is fear, what might help you face and overcome that fear?

References, notes, and links

[1] https://theprofessorisin.com/

[2] https://theprofessorisin.com/buy-the-book/

[3] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24811991-the-professor-is-in

[4] https://theprofessorisin.com/2025/03/27/check-out-what-is-new-in-the-professor-is-in-2-0/

[5] https://theprofessorisin.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/kelskycv2011-doc.pdf

[6] This post draws on the excellent work of Fobazi Ettarh on “vocational awe,” as well as on work by Erin Cech, Sarah Jaffe, and Miya Tokumitsu.

[7] Note from the editors: Both of us are aware of cases, particularly at private universities, where specialized faculty tracks are fairly compensated and non-tenure track faculty are well satisfied with their situation.