An Adjunct in the Real World: Or, Ten Reasons to Leave Your Higher Degree(s) Off Your Résumé
by Jude Fawley
On the second day of my last full-time (temporary) job, my shift manager, “Frank,” pulled up a chair and leaned in close. He wanted to know a little more about me. When I mentioned that I’d taught college for over ten years, he caught me by surprise by asking, “So you have the Ph.D., then?” I admitted I did, though I’d left it off my résumé.
Fortunately, Frank didn’t seem to care. My performance as a proofreader of packaging materials was evaluated weekly, based on my accuracy and average time per job. He cared more that I was reliable, worked hard, took direction, learned fast, and never turned down overtime.
Many of us who teach as adjuncts seek other full-time employment, either by choice or necessity. And it’s tricky to explain our situation to potential employers who may or may not know a lot about academia. I was grateful to have a boss for whom my higher degrees weren’t an actual disadvantage. I can’t leave my fourteen years of adjunct teaching off my résumé, since they constitute my single longest stretch of continuous semi-employment—a testament that one employer, anyway, thought me worth keeping around for that long. But ninety percent of the time, I leave off my Ph.D.
I’m not an expert on employment for adjuncts or the higher-degreed; I’m only an expert on my situation. I’m stuck in a provincial Midwestern city that lags behind other areas in job creation. I’m tethered to my wife’s tenured position with its health benefits. I’ve explored jobs elsewhere, and been interviewed for one dream job on the east coast. But none of them would have allowed us to move. My unwillingness to live separately from my family limits my opportunities. Perhaps the story is different for those living elsewhere, or for single people able to go anywhere. But my graduate education has proven an expensive, irrelevant detour, without any employment benefit.
Perhaps adjuncts shouldn’t expect otherwise. Ph.D.s are supposed to be terminal degrees—designed to fit us for a very specialized occupation. When the Modern Language Association debated programs to repackage humanities Ph.D.s for other professions, some members resisted the notion that a doctorate should be presented as preparation for anything but being a professor. “We already have a degree to prepare people for the workforce,” one MLA official told me he said to his colleagues. “It’s called the B.A.” Graduate degrees are simply not necessary to write marketing copy, practice public relations, work as a journalist or tech writer, write speeches, or do the other kinds of jobs that humanities Ph.D.s seek out.
Some of us might resist this admission. Maybe we’re reluctant to give up the unified career narratives we’d scripted for ourselves. Maybe we were misled by those hopeful articles after the tech bust, telling us how transferable our “skills” were. But I’ve found there are very good reasons for leaving my doctorate off my résumé.
1. The number one reason to conceal higher degrees (unless they are truly required) is that employers are afraid you will chafe at market-rate pay. That’s what “overqualified” means. Of course, if we’d really wanted to be paid what we’re worth, we never would have gone to graduate school in the first place—right? But non-academic employers don’t know that. They think degrees and credentials mean money. They’ve all read that endlessly repeated statistic about the lifetime earnings of non-degreed, degreed and higher-degreed people. The few times I’ve included the Ph.D., whether to be contrarian or because I believed it might help this one time, I was met with a question about salary. That question meant that my consideration for that position was at an end.
2. Your higher degrees are truly not relevant for most non-academic jobs. Face it.
3. Bosses may be concerned that you will be bored. They may not realize that proofreading packaging materials (for example) compares very favorably with grading student papers.
4. A Ph.D. says that the job you are applying for is, at best, a second choice. Although jobs are more unsettled now, your interviewer and potential boss is still probably someone who has worked by choice in one field or industry. If you have experience in the field, and are genuinely enthusiastic about working in it, talk about that. Why mention your academic detour beyond what is necessary?
5. Graduate students aren’t the only ones with idealistic views of the academy. Employers may think of you as simply a “professor,” have a grand idea of your status and pay, and wonder why you want to leave teaching to “slum” in their industry. This puts you in a bind. Your argument should not be, “I applied here because I lowered my expectations” (even if it’s true). But resist the urge to educate others about the realities of adjuncting. “Oh, no, you’ve got it wrong! We’re actually oppressed peons who make less than Wal-Mart clerks.” Steer the conversation to what attracts you to this position, and the contributions you can make.
6. Some employers retain quaint notions about the opportunities available to the higher-degreed. They may think you have more than you do, and might jump ship later. It’s up to you to persuade them that you are really interested in the field and are motivated to stay and build a career.
7. Your credentials may activate old stereotypes about academics as absent-minded, arrogant, out of touch, or poor communicators. These stereotypes aren’t fair, of course; most academics I know write much better than most businesspeople. But who said life was fair?
8. Your boss and potential co-workers might be insecure. You’ll have to smoke out whether anyone has insecurities about credentials or degrees, and decide whether you want to work with him or her. At one job, I let slip on the first day (to someone who asked me) that I had a Ph.D. The word got around, and that was enough, apparently, for one woman to see me as a threat to her job, even though we were assigned to different projects and didn’t work together. It took me months to figure out why she was so hostile when we barely had contact.
9. If you look age-neutral, or younger than your years, including higher degrees can give employers clues about your age.
10. Low-level HR people are the first ones who will look at your résumé. You don’t want them screening out your resume as “overqualified” based on your degrees.
One caveat: you may be required to disclose all your degrees on some application forms. Read the instructions carefully.
After your bosses and co-workers get to know you for the hard-working, pleasant, efficient person you are, after they learn that you communicate well, can take direction, and can work with anybody—in short, that you are an asset to the company —then you may want to share this part of your life with them. Maybe.
