5 Steps for Going ‘Alt-Fac’

In my previous article, I argued for adopting “alt-fac” as a third way of thinking about the career trajectories of graduate students, one that is distinct from faculty and other types of “alt-ac” employment. Not only that, but I hope that I made the case that alt-fac careers are worth actively seeking out; they need not be something that you just fall into, but are rather viable and enjoyable jobs for which the average Ph.D. holder is eminently qualified. They are also abundant, and they don’t [all] warrant derision as manifestations of “administrative bloat.”

In fact, the reality is that universities are vast and complex machines that employ more people in staff positions than faculty positions. Plenty of these positions require, welcome and benefit from folks having a terminal graduate degree in any number of disciplines. At my current institution, for example, we have or have recently had Ph.D.-holding staff working in our offices of fellowships and student research, career and professional development, lifelong learning, and university advancement, as well as in the centers for international education and teaching and learning.

So, what can you do to prepare yourself for an alt-fac job?

1. Get additional nonteaching and nonresearch experience.

I like to joke that one day, when I’m in charge of graduate education in America, I will require all universities to give Ph.D. students the option of devoting at least one academic term of their graduate funding to an apprenticeship in some other university office. In my work with undergraduates on nationally competitive fellowship applications, there are times of the year when I would give my left arm to be able to hire a graduate student to help out, and I know I’m not alone.

When I was in my Ph.D. program, I served for two years as my department’s liaison to the teaching and learning center. When I got hired for my first (faculty) job, I collaborated with the teaching and learning center to redesign an online course for my department. I also volunteered to serve on a fellowships committee to try to get some experience with nationally competitive awards. As I was looking for nonfaculty jobs, then, I focused on positions within those two areas in particular; I now work with students on nationally competitive fellowships in an office that is physically located within our teaching and learning center.

2. Network and seek out informational interviews.

I know, I know. It’s basically mandatory for any sort of advice article like this to preach the benefits of networking, but maybe that’s just the universe telling you to do more of it? Back before the world shut down in 2020, I attended the annual professional conference for my academic discipline and participated in a roundtable session for people seeking nonfaculty employment. One of the graduate students who attended that session followed up with me afterward, and I helped her out over the course of that year as she applied for positions within the world of fellowship advising. And it worked! She took a job for a couple of years in the middle of the country working in a fellowships office, and she quickly parlayed that into another job with an education nonprofit back on the East Coast.

As I prepared to make my own career pivot, I conducted informational interviews with folks at my current institution who had Ph.D.s and were in nonfaculty roles. Part of what was useful about those conversations was just learning about the other opportunities that existed and being able to wrap my head around what a nonfaculty job looked like day-to-day. That way, when I started applying for jobs in fellowship advising, I had a nodding awareness of what it meant to be a fellowship adviser.

3. Take advantage of the resources you currently have.

If you are currently a graduate student, your university’s career office is a great place to start, and don’t be surprised if you find a number of Ph.D.-holding staff working there. Not only are they wonderful people, but they can help you turn that CV into a résumé and understand how to tailor a cover letter for a nonfaculty job. Additionally, see if your university has institutional access to online resources such The Versatile PhD or Beyond Graduate School and Beyond the Professoriate.

If you are currently a faculty or staff member looking to shift careers, find out about your university’s tuition assistance program. Many colleges provide as a benefit for employees up to $5,250 of tax-free tuition assistance in a calendar year. This could cover additional coursework that you complete at your current institution, or an online class or two through any number of certificate programs.

4. Look for specific jobs that play to your strengths.

Different jobs at the university will play to different skillsets, so rather than casting a wide net and applying for positions in admissions and student affairs and undergraduate research and corporate and foundation relations, figure out what you most like about a university and seek out jobs within those units. The best part about nonfaculty job postings is that they tell you exactly what the minimum and preferred qualifications are, and the hiring committee will typically stick to that (unlike with faculty hires, where the job ad itself typically represents a loose framework, but the actual area of expertise that the committee hires for may have little to nothing to do with what they said they were looking for).

Finding these jobs is another matter altogether. If you know where you’d like to be, I’d recommend regularly scouting the human resources pages for whichever university or universities you’d hope to work at. Beyond that, there are the major job repositories such as Inside Higher Ed’s. If you know the kind of work you hope to do, every major alt-fac career type has a professional society, and many of them have job boards freely available online. Here is a sampling:

• NAFA: National Association of Fellowship Advisors
• NSPA: National Scholarship Providers Association
• NAFSA: Association of International Educators
• NASPA: National Association of Student Personnel Administrators
• POD: Professional and Organizational Development Network (for jobs in teaching and learning centers and educational development)

5. Be realistic.

In the same way that you would never expect to go straight from being a graduate student to getting hired as a tenured professor, don’t expect to get hired immediately into a senior staff position. If you are applying straight out of a Ph.D. program, you are likely looking for positions with job titles that include the word “assistant” in them; if you have some faculty experience, including as an adjunct faculty member, then job titles with the word “associate” in them might be appropriate.

Once you’ve identified the jobs, calibrate your salary expectations accordingly. These days, a lot of entry-level staff positions for which Ph.D.-holding applicants might be applying will pay in the $50,000 to $70,000 range; mid-level positions could run the gamut from $70,000 to $100,000, but will likely fall somewhere in between. That’s still not a ton of money given your credentials, and it still may keep you below a tenure-track faculty member’s salary at your same career stage, but one consolation is that staff positions come with the same benefits that faculty receive. And I’m not just talking about health insurance and retirement benefits; I’m also talking about tuition discounts and education assistance for yourself and any dependents, and even mortgage benefits at colleges that offer it. In other words, universities are often great employers regardless of whether you are faculty or staff.

Concluding Thoughts

I’m a huge evangelist for the alt-fac life, but I don’t want to pretend that it’s all sunshine and rainbows all the time. While there are plenty of little things that can be hard, such as having less control over your schedule, the hardest aspect of the alt-fac life that I have found is the faculty/staff divide: It is real, it is everywhere, and it is intractable. I especially struggle as a staff member with not having a voice or a vote in conversations about curricular issues that I cared deeply about as a faculty member and care deeply about still, but you may find other parts of it more challenging.

Still, do I regret my career pivot? Not a bit.