I teach graduate students and postdocs how to seek non-academic employment, I show faculty how they can help their graduate students, and I show faculty and administrators how their programs can better support graduate students in that effort from the beginning.  If you’re interested in having me work with your students or your program or speak to your group, please contact me.  Here’s a selected list of places I have taught and given talks; here’s the outline to my four-hour course, The graduate students’ guide to the non-academic jobsearch. For new posts and updates, follow me on Twitter @akrook.

I offer free resources to help graduate students and postdocs who may want to learn about or enter the non-academic workforce:

• How faculty can help grad students and postdocs interested in the non-academic workforce
• Still in grad school?
  • They’re not “transferable skills”; they’re just skills 
  • how to get ready to enter the non-academic job market while in grad school
• Going to enter the non-academic job market? 
  • your core message to a non-academic employer
  • thinking about getting your next good job
  • do this first
  • do this second: the interim job
  • a checklist
  • impostor syndrome is like rain in Seattle
•  Before the search starts:
  • overqualified – what does that mean?
  • can non-academic careers be Plan A yet?
  • when I interview people with PhDs, here’s what I sometimes don’t find
  • information for international students
  • how to read non-academic job postings
  • understanding common terminology in non-academic job postings
  • guidance for how to address specific topics on your resume
  • 10 things to check as you write a résumé from your CV’s data
  • describing your skills in a  job letter for non-academic job applications (and some specific phrases you should not use)
  • writing samples for non-academic job applications
  • information about non-academic references
  • take care of your professional contacts
  • suggested reading for academics in transition to the non-academic workforce: help getting a job, skills you’ll need there, and stories of people who made the same transition
• Thinking of going into business for yourself?
  • Flying solo: in business for yourself, full- or part-time
• During the search:
  • non-academic interview logistics FAQ
  • a list of interview questions for non-academic jobs
  • what to do on the day of the interview
  • what (not) to ask at non-academic job interviews
  • home for a holiday, or, talking to family about your PhD program and your job prospects
  • excellent advice from a former colleague of mine on handling the slog of a job search
• After the search
  • the emotional aftermath of leaving academics: old and new colleagues, new and old places, family and friends (with special notes for non-traditional students), reclaiming what you miss

I also offer free resources to help graduate students and postdocs with their academic work and entering the academic workforce:

• building a thesis schedule:
  • from the deadline backwards
  • from today forwards
  • common myths about schedules
• talking to your family about your academic progress and job prospects
• PhDing and job searching away from your home country
• from the way-back machine, interview guidelines for an academic job that I wrote with a colleague.  They were written for people applying for literature jobs, but are broadly applicable to those working in humanities fields generally.

Here’s a talk I gave at UAlberta at their conference on new directions for humanities PhD programs (March 2015).  Here’s a talk I gave at McGill about reforming PhD programs to better engage with the non-academic workplace. (May 2015) Here’s a post in which I ask whether non-academic careers can be plan A yet, and spoken of as such in graduate programs. (September 2015)  Here’s an interview with me in MITACS on the changing face of the PhD and the academy in Canada (October 2015) Here’s advice for faculty members who want to support their graduate students and postdocs as they seek non-academic work.