A Selection of Excellent Resources

Professional & Beyond Academia

What Color is Your Parachute? 2018: A practical manual for job-hunters and career-changers. Bolles, Richard Nelson. 2017.
Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life. “In this book, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who or where we are, what we do or have done for a living, or how young or old we are.”
Getting from College to Career (Revised Edition): Your Essential Guide to Succeeding in the Real World. Pollak, Lindsey. 2012.
Now What?: The Young Person’s Guide to Choosing the Perfect Career. Lore, Nicholas. 2008.

“Inside HigherEd”: Contains occasional columns about nonacademic careers: E.g. advice for talking to your adviser about nonacademic career plans. https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2016/11/07/how-talk-your-adviser-about-your-nonacademic-career-plans-essay or preparing for the non academic interview.

Lord, Alexandra, “BeyondAcademe”: This resource is primarily written for historians seeking employment beyond academia, but has good general advice on constructing resumes, CVs, and informational interviewing.

“Sociology at Work”: provides articles, videos, podcasts, graphics and other resources to promote the excellence of applied sociologists and to support the career planning of sociology students.
“ASA Career Research Department”: Reports on jobs and careers, including topics such as academic careers, careers with a bachelor’s degree in sociology, the job market for sociologists, mentoring and networks, and work and family.
“100 Reasons Not to Go to Grad School”: Mission statement of this Blog: “This blog is an attempt to offer those considering graduate school some good reasons to do something else. Its focus is on the humanities and social sciences.”
“Top Jobs for Sociology Majors”: This website offers a list of possible jobs for sociology majors, as well as a detailed list of skills sociology majors possess and can offer to employers.
“Chronicle of Higher Education”: Contains articles about non-academic careers and non-faculty jobs at universities, in their advice section.

Phd Alternative Career Clinic. USA. “This concise guide gives PhDs an insider’s look to employers’ thinking process and field-tested advice to help PhDs improve their odds of success when competing for careers outside academia” Chin, Jane Y. 2011.

ASA’s “Trends in Sociology” site, see particularly the specific links to Employment and, separately, Faculty Salaries.

The annual AAUP Faculty Compensation Survey is the largest independent source of data on full-time faculty salary and benefits at two- and four-year colleges and universities in the United States. Comparison charts for salaries by institution and rank for hundreds of institutions Latest edition 2016-2017.
Polk, Jennifer, “From Phd to Life”: A comprehensive list of resources (including books, websites, podcasts, and etc.) for academics’ career planning outside of academia
“#Alt-Academy”: is both an edited collection and a grassroots, publish-then-filter approach to networked scholarly communication. Compilation of essays and perspectives about “alternative” career paths for humanities and social sciences (Last update 2014).
“Versatile Ph.D”: Online platform dedicated to non-academic and non-faculty careers for PhDs in humanities, social science and STEM. The platform exists since 1999.
“NCIS” (National Coalition of Independent Scholars): Formed in January 1989 to facilitate the work of independent scholars.
“Beyond the Professoriate”: This is an online networking community for graduate students and PhDs — at any stage of their career — to connect with like-minded people in a safe space to explore career options. It also offers free 7 day course online.
“Alternative Phd: Thinking of Quitting”: Diverse resources, including blogs, personal accounts, and websites containing about quitting academia.

“Academic 360”: Offers a comprehensive job search site for university jobs not limited to teaching.