In this, the final blogpost of three in this series (see part 1 and part 2), Lewis Wade responds to a post on advice for ECRs and the question: what advice would you give to other ECRs or to students considering further study or applying for jobs?
There is, in fact, a lot to unpack in this question.
The advice I would give to students considering applying for Master’s/PhD programmes is very different from the advice I would give to ECRs and PhD students (soon to be) on the job market. I’ll take each in turn.
As this entire series has made clear, the academic job market is in especially rough shape, and there is little reason to believe it will get better in the coming years. Students considering Master’s and PhD programmes need to approach applications with this reality firmly in mind. Why are you applying? What would you want out of a PhD? If you want to pursue the challenge of developing your own independent research, and are willing to accept the opportunity costs involved in that, then by all means proceed in accordance with the resources at your disposal. (I could not have afforded to do an unfunded Master’s or PhD; I was fortunate to be accepted to a funded PhD without needing to do a Master’s; students reading this may find themselves in a wide variety of positions, and only they can decide what is financially feasible for themselves.) If you are seeking a career in academia, however, then you are gambling on a strategy analogous to purchasing lottery tickets in the hopes of winning the jackpot. If lottery tickets don’t strike you as a viable path to security and wellbeing, then be sure to reflect hard on what this means for how you approach academia. As another ECR noted, there are a lot of career paths that will allow you to pursue similar interests and develop similar skillsets without having to face the aleatory nightmare of academia today.
For those of us who have already finished the PhD, or are finishing up, the reality of the job market lottery is something we have no choice but to face head-on. One ECR spoke of the ‘Early Career state of mind’, and this hits home for me. It can feel like a lonely and isolating experience, but ECRs and PhD students should know they are truly not alone. We are in the same boat, although our own experiences of the voyage are assuredly shaped by a great many factors outside our control: class, race, gender, disability and (mis)fortune, among others.
Still, solidarity can be so powerful in reducing (if not eradicating) the impact of these factors, and it is something we can all do together. In part 2, I discussed how senior scholars in French history can support ECRs. Yet we can, and must, support each other too. If fellow ECRs ask me to look over drafts of chapters, articles, applications or anything else, I will do my utmost to help; if anybody asks me for copies of my successful postdoctoral applications to help them in putting together their own, I’ll happily send these across (be assured, I will do the same for anybody who is reading this); I frequently work with other ECRs to propose conference sessions that bring senior scholars into dialogue with fellow ECRs and PhD students; I regularly write emails to put ECRs and PhD students in touch with each other or with senior scholars who have similar interests and/or are able to support applications; as book reviews editor for the International Journal of Maritime History, I’ve made a concerted effort to bring ECRs and PhD students on board as reviewers, and have also gone out of my way to ensure that ECRs’ books are reviewed, even if that has required back-and-forth discussions with publishers to secure review copies. I say none of this to be self-congratulatory, but to offer examples of how we can lift each other up, even in the positions of precarity in which we find ourselves, while playing to our strengths in the process. ECRs reading this will likely be supporting others in similar or entirely different ways, and this is exactly what we need.
Solidarity does a lot of things for us as ECRs, including creating a community we can rely on for support. This is important for developing the best possible mindset for the academic job market. Surrounding ourselves with the right people is an essential ingredient for success. Going further, we are often told that developing a ‘thick skin’ is necessary to survive the market, but less often are we given/signposted the resources to help us with this. Saying that our self-value is not tied to our work (and, by extension, how the market treats us) is one thing, but truly embodying it and accepting it is quite another thing. It matters, though, because as I noted in part 1, even extraordinary ECRs will be facing a lot of rejections, and handling this in a healthy way is essential. The High Performance Podcast series comprises interviews with leading figures in industry, sports and so on. In the process, the series draws on peer-reviewed literature in psychology and management studies to offer practical guidance on how to develop resilience and a sustainable sense of self-value. For me, the series has been instrumental in shaping how I approach my work and the job market: while my work greatly influences my life, it is not all I am, which is essential to recognise in the face of the inauspicious odds of finding a permanent position. Furthermore, British universities are increasingly offering staff access to counselling services; ECRs and PhD students should not be afraid to make full use of these services, as we are all worthy of being at our best. Other ECRs have signposted other excellent resources and services too.
None of this is intended to be a glib response to the realities of the ‘Early Career state of mind’. Working on developing the best possible mindset is a hard and continuous process – it is one I make no claims to have mastered – but it is not a solution to the systemic problems of the market. I’m also not saying we should never let ourselves get frustrated about the market; on the contrary, this is natural, healthy and necessary. Getting my frustrations about job rejections off my chest has been absolutely vital for me in moving on and bouncing back quickly – because, after all, these rejections are truly not worthy of my time and emotional energy. My friends and colleagues are there for me to rant to in these moments, and in turn, I am there for them. This is another way we can lift each other up in a market that seems determined to push us down.
Leaving aside the issues of mindset, there are some very practical realities to face. The textbook postdoctoral strategy for applications can be summarised fairly easily: we apply widely, and we hope that at least one application will work out. However, there simply aren’t enough positions in Britain alone for the strategy to work, so it is becoming increasingly necessary to make applications abroad too. For me, without applying abroad, my journey in academia would almost certainly have ended in September 2023.
This is not a point I make casually. Leaving behind one’s support network to live abroad brings a huge swathe of challenges, especially for ECRs with family responsibilities and/or with disabilities. My mobility as a single man without dependents has allowed me (and is allowing me) to live in beautiful places and make wonderful friends during my postdoctoral life, but this is a double-edged sword. I built a life for myself in Leiden over the last two years, but then had to pack it into two suitcases and leave at the conclusion of my fellowship. Coming back to the UK, those suitcases did not only bear the weight of my belongings. Academic precarity often pushes back the milestones that shape our lives, and that takes a toll sooner or later.
Simply put, we make a lot of sacrifices to pursue a career in academia. My goal in these blogposts has been to paint a clear picture of the difficulties of being an ECR in French history today, while offering ways in which we can all work together to face these difficulties as a community.
Lewis Wade is an incoming Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Bamberg.
