1.1 Stipends

Stipends considerations are critical, as most recent graduates cannot afford to accept a postdoctoral position that offers no monetary compensation. Although there are some informal supervisory arrangements to gather postdoctoral hours toward licensure that are unpaid, the large majority of formal postdoctoral positions are funded. As recently as 2020, there were a total of 224 APPIC-member postdoctoral programs, with a total of 1040 full-time positions (APPIC, 2021a). The three agency types offering the most positions included VA medical centers (386 positions), consortia (139), and medical schools (108). Among APPIC member postdocs, the median salary in 2020 for full-time funded slots was $50,200 (APPIC, 2021a). However, the range of salaries and benefits varies tremendously and often depends on factors particular to the institution, sector (academic vs. industry), geographical area, and funding source of a given position (Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy, 2000). The highest paid full-time postdoctoral trainees, based on 2020 APPIC-member programs, were in military settings (mean salary $109,800). In contrast, the lowest paid postdoctoral trainees were in psychology department settings (mean $39,000; APPIC, 2021b). For individuals pursuing a research-focused postdoc, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) sets stipend levels each year for its Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Awards (NRSA) that fund F32 and T32 fellows. At the time of this writing, the 2020 stipend level for a beginning F32 or a T32 fellow is $52,704 (NIH, 2020).

1.2 Training Emphasis

The training emphasis of a postdoctoral position is one of its most salient features and typically a primary criterion for choosing a particular position. Most postdoctoral programs emphasize either research or applied/clinical training. Fewer offer training in both domains and those that do tend to be more highly structured (see below). In evaluating programs, it will be important to examine the relative emphasis placed on research, academic, and applied/clinical training and the fit with your own training goals, as most positions will prioritize training in one of these areas more than another.

Although funding and training focus may be persuasive features of a postdoctoral position, other factors, including structure and setting, should also be considered. With respect to structure, postdoctoral training programs are frequently distinguished as providing either “formal” or “informal” training. “Informal” training usually occurs when supervision is provided within the context of a traditionally defined job. In contrast to this informal on-the-job training, “formal” postdoctoral training takes place in an organized educational program designed for the expressed purpose of developing advanced competencies and expertise (Belar et al., 1987). In defining formal requirements for postdocs related to professional practice, APPIC recognizes APA-accredited postdoctoral training programs as meeting its formal criteria for professional practice. For other programs, APPIC has designated 14 criteria necessary for meeting APPIC Postdoctoral Membership (see www.appic.org/About-APPIC/APPIC-Policies/Postdoc). Example criteria include: (1) the program is coordinated by a designated psychologist responsible for the integrity and quality of the training program; (2) the program (minimum 1500 hours) may be part-time or full-time but must be completed in no less than 9 months and no more than 24 months (2 years part-time); (3) the institution has two or more licensed psychologists on staff and a training faculty that includes at least one psychologist with expertise in each area of training offered; (4) at least 2 hours of regularly scheduled individual, face-to-face supervision of psychological services per week; (5) at least 2 hours of additional learning activities (e.g., case conference, seminars); and (6) professional psychological services account for a minimum of 25 percent of the fellow’s time.

Looking beyond the clinical focus of some of these characteristics, a more general contrast can be seen in the relative emphasis placed on education and training. This is perhaps the most defining feature of formal postdoctoral programs as compared to the informal, on-the-job, supervised training that may also be pursued to fulfill licensure or other experiential needs. In weighing the merits of formal versus informal training, the trade-off is typically financial. Formal training programs typically offer lower financial rewards, with an understanding that part of the trainee’s compensation is the education gained through structured mentoring and training experiences. Because informal postdoctoral training often happens in the context of supervised employment, these positions may offer more financial incentives, but fewer organized educational opportunities, such as seminars and dedicated time for mentoring, supervision, writing, and other professional development activities.

Although survey data suggest that new psychology graduates express a preference for informal over formal postdoctoral training, those who have completed formal programs might be more satisfied with the training they received (Reference France and WolfeFrance & Wolfe, 2000). In a survey of 117 psychologists who completed formal postdoctoral training, Reference France and WolfeFrance and Wolfe (2000) found that 68 percent rated their experience “very valuable,” 27 percent as “valuable,” and 5 percent as “somewhat valuable.” None of the psychologists who completed formal programs judged their experience to be “not valuable.” In contrast, only 38 percent of 189 psychologists surveyed who completed informal postdoctoral training rated their experience as “very valuable,” 34 percent judged their postdoctoral training as “valuable,” 21 percent as “somewhat valuable,” and 8 percent rated the experience as “not valuable.” Given the changes in professional training and practice since the 2000 publication of France and Wolfe’s survey, updated surveys are needed to evaluate more recent cohorts’ training preferences and experiences.

1.3 Setting

The primary settings offering postdoctoral training in psychology are freestanding hospitals, academic medical centers, and universities, although positions are also available through government agencies and private practice. Differences between the institutional missions of these settings and the type of work they support might affect whether a particular postdoctoral position is best suited for your training needs. For instance, hospitals and some academic medical centers might be more likely to focus on applied aspects of both research and clinical practice, given their primary mission of service delivery. Accordingly, trainees whose interests lie in the treatment of particular types of medical or psychiatric disorders might be better suited for this setting than those whose work focuses on basic theory or other issues whose implications for improving health, development, or quality of care may be less direct.

An informal postdoc within a private practice setting may offer the opportunity to acquire clinical hours toward licensure while potentially also learning about the business-related aspects of a private practice. These types of informal training arrangements are typically initiated by the postdoctoral fellow. Some may be employed positions within the practice that provide the supervision needed by the postdoc while others involve informal arrangements between postdocs and licensed clinicians. Regardless of the setting, the postdoctoral fellow in a private practice setting may need to pay for clinical supervision either through reduced salary or directly out of pocket. Further, in contrast to a hospital or consortium setting, there may be limited exposure to a range of supervisors/mentors and a limited range of client populations. It may also be difficult to integrate research experiences.

Indeed, it is important to keep in mind that the setting of one’s postdoc position will likely affect the types of training experiences available. Hospitals and academic medical centers might be more likely to offer hands-on and interdisciplinary training opportunities, such as treatment teams and grand rounds presentations. Although formal classroom-style teaching opportunities may not be included, there may be opportunities for mentoring or teaching in other formats (e.g., supervision or mentorship of predoctoral trainees or research assistants). It is common for more clinically oriented postdocs to be found at sites that provide predoctoral internships (i.e., VAs, private and state hospitals, etc.; Reference Forand and ApplebaumForand & Applebaum, 2011). In contrast, research-oriented postdoc positions (e.g., such as afforded through NIH T32 National Research Service Award institutional training grants) are typically offered in academic medical centers, universities, or VA medical centers (Reference Forand and ApplebaumForand & Applebaum, 2011). Academic medical centers and university psychology departments typically offer more opportunities to teach and mentor, which could be useful for obtaining a university or faculty position. Such institutions may also have greater opportunities for learning skills relating to academic jobs, such as grant writing, manuscript review, or presenting research results at conferences.

Postdoctoral positions in industry are usually geared toward creating marketable and profitable products. They typically offer stricter time limits on duration of training, well-equipped research facilities, exposure to industrial culture, and the opportunity for teamwork. Salaries in these positions may be above the average range. However, industry positions might also offer fewer teaching opportunities, less choice about one’s particular placement, and limited ability to take ownership of projects. The work during the fellowship may have an exclusive focus on marketable results as well as restrictions on information exchange for proprietary reasons.

Lastly, training positions in government facilities typically occur in the context of large national laboratories that may be unique in scope of research and size of research group. Like academic medical centers, they might offer more interdisciplinary training, more interactions with other divisions and researchers, and participation in joint decision-making. However, government facilities might offer fewer teaching/mentoring experiences as well as less flexibility in determining the direction of one’s work.

A summary of the pros and cons of the various training settings is presented in Table 25.1. It is important to again note that the variations presented above do not necessarily constitute differences in the quality of the training offered, but differences in the types of opportunities or training activities that may be available. In addition, because there is variability within each category of training setting, it is important to take time to learn about unique aspects of each postdoctoral opportunity one is considering. For example, some postdoctoral training experiences within university settings will offer the ability to accrue supervised professional practice hours for licensure whereas others may not. Such differences will arise again later in the chapter when we discuss how to evaluate potential postdoctoral training opportunities.

3.1 Specialty Training

Postdoctoral training can provide opportunities for advanced clinical or research training in a particular specialty area (e.g., pediatric psychology, neuropsychology, geropsychology, behavioral health, forensic psychology, etc.), with a particular population (e.g., patients with chronic schizophrenia, cancer, substance abuse, etc.), or a certain age group (e.g., infancy, adolescence, older adults, etc.). Such specialty training may render individuals more marketable for desired jobs. For example, a postdoctoral fellow with specialty training in inpatient pediatrics will likely be preferred over a recent graduate from a more general clinical child internship for a medical center position in pediatric oncology. Specialty training is considered mandatory within some areas of clinical practice: For example, in accordance with the Houston Conference Guidelines, a trainee must complete a two-year postdoctoral fellowship prior to independent practice in clinical neuropsychology. Similarly, academic institutions may perceive a candidate who utilized postdoctoral training to publish papers and begin an independent program of research to be a surer bet for a faculty position that requires obtaining external grant funding in order to sustain the position and advance academically.

Specialty areas of applied practice have been organized into formal specialties and subspecialties through a system developed by APA under the auspices of the Commission for the Recognition of Specialties and Subspecialties in Professional Psychology. These specialty and subspecialty distinctions are particularly important for those who might seek postdoctoral training for the express purpose of training in a particular area of research or practice. As specialty areas define themselves, they have begun to require specific types of training experiences for new psychologists seeking recognition or certification in that area. As of January 2020, there were 18 specialty areas (e.g., clinical health psychology, behavioral and cognitive psychology) recognized by the Commission for the Recognition of Specialties and Subspecialties in Professional Psychology (APA, 2020b). Table 25.3 lists the 18 specialty and 3 proficiency areas recognized by CRSSPP at the time of this writing. A listing of these areas and their related links may also be found at www.apa.org/ed/graduate/specialize/recognized. The APA taxonomy for education and training in professional psychology health service specialties and subspecialties (APA, 2020a) provides a list of terminology that provides a structure with which to label the intensity and type of training in professional psychology programs (i.e., doctoral, internship, postdoctoral). These terms, in order of least to greatest intensity of training and education, include “exposure,” “experience,” “emphasis,” and “major area of study” (APA, 2020a). For example, according to this taxonomy, in order for a postdoctoral program to state that it offers “emphasis” training in a recognized specialty area, the program would need to follow the guidelines established by that specialty and at least 80 percent of the program’s time would need to fall within the specialty area of study (APA, 2020a). It should be noted that varied terminology has been utilized to describe depth of postdoctoral training in a particular area. For example, the term “focus area” training has been used to describe postdoctoral training experiences that do not fall within a recognized specialty area (APPIC, 2021b). In summary, obtaining formal postdoctoral training in a specialty or focus area is advised if a trainee plans to pursue a career path in which these skills are central (Reference Silberbogen, Aosved, Cross, Cox and FellemanSilberbogen et al., 2018). This may be an important consideration for some trainees weighing the pros and cons of pursuing a postdoctoral fellowship.

3.2 Professional Licensure

In addition to providing opportunities for specialized training, postdoctoral positions can provide an opportunity to obtain the supervised postdoctoral clinical hours needed to qualify for clinical licensure. In an informal survey of current and former postdocs, as well as postdoc mentors, acquiring supervised hours and experience for licensure was cited as the most common reason for pursuing a postdoctoral position (Reference Forand and ApplebaumForand & Applebaum, 2011). However, state requirements vary in the type of required experience and changes in licensing laws have shifted such that 14 states now permit entry into the profession following predoctoral internship (Reference McQuaid and McCutcheonMcQuaid & McCutcheon, 2018). In addition to the variability in requirement for postdoctoral clinical training, state requirements vary on the minimum number of supervised postdoctoral clinical hours (most programs require between 1500 and 2000 hours), the length of time allowed to complete training, the kinds of activities allowed during training, and the amount of supervision required (1–2 hours per week is typical). Clinicians seeking to work even part-time in professional practice or conduct research with patient populations will likely need to become licensed, and obtaining postdoctoral clinical hours within a formalized training system usually facilitates licensure in that state and may allow for greater flexibility if one wishes to later relocate and become licensed in another state. Those knowing the state(s) in which they ultimately might wish to practice will want to increase their familiarity with the licensure requirements for those states. Information about individual state requirements can be obtained by contacting a state’s psychology board or reviewing the board’s website, which will have copies of relevant statutes, rules, and regulations regarding psychology licensure. Alternatively, The Handbook for Licensure and Certification Requirements is published by the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards (ASPPB) and contains information about specific postdoctoral requirements, such as number of hours and supervision requirements. This and other information concerning professional licensure can be obtained at ASPPB website, http://psybook.asppb.org/.

3.3 Professional Development as a Clinical Scientist

For those interested in research or academic careers, the postdoc can be an important training ground for professional development as a scientist-practitioner. More formal programs may provide didactics relating to teaching, research, or grant-writing skills. There are often opportunities to work closely with a mentor in a variety of more advanced professional activities, such as writing research papers, developing professional presentations, assisting with the review of papers submitted to journals, and the development of one’s own research studies and grants. The majority of postdoctoral training programs listed in APPIC’s Universal Psychology Postdoctoral Directory (UPPD; www.appic.org/Postdocs/Universal-Psychology-Postdoctoral-Directory-UPPD) either make research training an available or required component of the postdoctoral experience. Based on an analysis from the first year of the UPPD in 2017, 43.7 percent of postdoctoral openings stated a research participation requirement and 31.5 percent stated research opportunities were available but not required (Reference McQuaid, Aosved and BelangerMcQuaid et al., 2018). At this time, APPIC-member and APA-accredited programs were more likely to offer and require research (Reference McQuaid, Aosved and BelangerMcQuaid et al., 2018). For those with applied interests, postdoctoral training can provide a level of in-depth training in applied settings that is often difficult to obtain in graduate school and internship. The guidance of an experienced mentor can provide invaluable opportunities for integrating research and clinical skills as well as for learning to negotiate the politics and hierarchies involved in doing research in interdisciplinary settings composed of individuals with divergent professional backgrounds and interests.

3.4 Potential Drawbacks of Postdoctoral Training

While there are many benefits of postdoctoral training, as part of the decision process it is also important to consider potential drawbacks. Table 25.4 summarizes some of the factors that might weigh against the decision to pursue postdoctoral training. One of the biggest struggles encountered in the decision to pursue postdoctoral training is the one between making the transition to becoming a full professional and prolonging one’s trainee status (Reference Kaslow, McCarthy, Rogers and SummervilleKaslow et al., 1992). Personal issues, such as finances and relocation, are often an important part of this decision. Postdoctoral training almost certainly entails a continuation of financial sacrifices for another one to two years. You may also need to relocate for a given type of training and then, perhaps, move again in order to obtain a professional position. Other personal issues such as cost of living, dual career demands, family goals, and relationship commitments need to be carefully factored into postdoctoral training decisions, as these matters can sometimes outweigh the professional advantages of, or perceived need for, additional training.

3.5 Postdoctoral Training Versus University Faculty Position?

Following completion of predoctoral internship, some trainees interested in pursuing research or academic careers may deliberate between pursuing postdoctoral training or applying for university-based faculty positions. This is often a difficult decision, again with pros and cons associated with each choice. In the increasingly competitive job market, one advantage of pursuing research-based postdoctoral training is the opportunity to advance one’s research career in a position that offers “protected” research time that may be used to write up the dissertation or other publications, develop a grant application, or make other types of progress in defining your research program. Another concrete advantage to pursuing postdoctoral training is that data collected on a new project during the fellowship will be available to analyze during the first few years in a junior faculty position. For individuals pursuing tenure-track positions, this can be helpful in maintaining a continuous stream of publications and providing new graduate student mentees with publication opportunities, as the first few years in a faculty position are often spent getting one’s laboratory up and running and beginning to collect data. This opportunity can greatly facilitate academic productivity by providing manuscripts that can be written up for publication while establishing one’s own research program at a new site. Postdoctoral training programs that offer formal or informal opportunities to develop grant-writing skills may also give the trainee a competitive edge when it comes time to apply for faculty positions, particularly if the trainee submitted their own extramural grant application during postdoctoral training.

While there are advantages to pursuing postdoctoral training, there may also be strong reasons to apply for faculty positions and forego postdoctoral training. One practical consideration is the yearly fluctuation in available faculty positions. Faculty jobs are often filled in the year they are advertised, and it may be worth pursuing an opportunity that is an excellent “fit” in terms of research focus, geographical location, or type of institution. Similarly, given that the market for tenure-track positions is competitive, many trainees give themselves two or more years to apply for academic faculty positions instead of waiting until the end of postdoctoral training. This may mean that the trainee applies for faculty positions in the middle of postdoctoral training. Finally, trainees who have a strong record of research productivity by the end of their predoctoral internship may not need the “boost” provided by additional research time within postdoctoral training. In this case, the financial and other personal benefits (e.g., not having to relocate for postdoc) of securing a faculty position may outweigh the potential benefits of further research training provided by postdoctoral training.

Ultimately, you must decide how each of these factors affects your personal and professional goals. Whatever path you take next will likely entail some level of personal or professional sacrifice. For example, some trainees may be unable to relocate for a postdoctoral specialty training position because of a variety of personal factors, such as limitations in the geographic flexibility of a partner’s job, the impact of losing extended family supports, financial obligations, or a need for an income that is consistent with their stage of adult development (e.g., purchasing a home). Yet other trainees may decide to pursue advanced training because their partner’s career is relatively mobile or they are less financially constrained. Potential variations of this scenario are endless, illustrating that the particular sacrifice that any one person is able or willing to make is highly idiosyncratic. Those considering postdoctoral training may wish to rate the relative importance and flexibility of their family, social, relocation, financial, and developmental needs/goals and compare these ratings to the perceived importance of postdoctoral training to their career goals, a subject we turn to next.

5.1 Locating Potential Positions

There are a variety of ways to locate potential postdoctoral positions. One good starting place may be talking with your predoctoral internship training director and graduate program director of clinical training. In addition, the UPPD, which was developed out of recommendations from the APPIC Postdoctoral Training Summit held in 2016, serves as an excellent resource. The UPPD includes all postdoctoral APPIC members; however, in order to be listed in the UPPD a postdoctoral fellowship site does not have to be APA-accredited or an APPIC member. Currently, the Directory includes over 1000 postdoctoral fellowships, with the ability to search according to a variety of preferences, including emphasis or focus area (e.g., assessment, health psychology) and amount of research time. Applicants should be aware the UPPD does not “vet” programs, so applicants should evaluate the quality of individual programs accordingly. Also, unlike predoctoral internship, the UPPD is not set up to facilitate a matching process. As mentioned previously, not all postdoctoral fellowship opportunities are listed within the UPPD. For example, applicants searching for heavily research-focused postdocs or university-based fellowships may find that some opportunities (e.g., investigator-funded postdocs) are not listed. Information about the UPPD can be found at: www.appic.org/Postdocs/Universal-Psychology-Postdoctoral-Directory-UPPD.

Information about various types of postdocs, including investigator-funded positions, is frequently distributed through relevant professional organizations, such as the American Psychological Association, American Psychological Society, and Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, or their specialty divisions. Organizations may also advertise for postdoctoral positions in their professional publications, such as the APA Monitor, APS Observer, and the Behavior Therapist, and can be accessed on the organizations’ websites (www.apa.org, www.psychologicalscience.org, and www.abct.org). Neuropsychology focused trainees are advised to utilize the Society of Clinical Neuropsychology (APA Div. 40) website (https://scn40.org/) as well as the Association of Postdoctoral Programs in Clinical Neuropsychology (https://appcn.org/). Positions may also be posted on job sites such as the Chronicle of Higher Education website (http://chronicle.com) or psychcareers.org. There are also other structured and formal training programs that, while not listed in the APPIC directory, may offer comparable experiences. Similarly, professional societies and organizations may be a good resource for postdoc opportunity announcements in your desired area of specialty training. For instance, the Society for Pediatric Psychology or other APA division listservs frequently offer such announcements. Silberbogen and colleagues’ 2018 publication also provides advice on searching for postdoctoral positions.

Although published announcements are an excellent reference, many opportunities are never advertised and are made known through word of mouth or email on professional list serves. For this reason, direct emails to specific persons with whom you might like to work can be a profitable means of identifying potential postdoctoral mentors. This type of networking might include contacting members of your graduate dissertation committee to see if they can recommend (and potentially even put you in touch with) potential postdoc mentors who would be a good fit for your interests and goals. Don’t be timid about using your professional relationships to network! In addition to email, setting up a meeting via videoconference (e.g., Zoom) may be a helpful way to connect with a potential postdoctoral mentor. Similarly, communicating with internship advisers about who they know might also yield additional leads. Several internet groups have also formed for new or soon-to-be new graduates. Some of these member groups offer forums for discussions about professional development and even share announcements for postdoctoral and professional positions. The APPIC “Postdoc-News” e-mail list serves as a source of information about postdoctoral programs listed in the Universal Psychology Postdoctoral Directory and can be joined by sending a blank email to: [email protected]. If looking for an investigator-funded research postdoc, you can search the NIH Reporter website (http://projectreporter.nih.gov/reporter.cfm) for researchers who have recently received funding in your research areas and then email these individuals to see if there may be open postdoc positions (Reference Forand and ApplebaumForand & Applebaum, 2011).

Finally, particularly for those applicants interested in a research-oriented position, it may be worthwhile to look into funding your own postdoctoral fellowship through training grants offered by NIH or other professional organization. Information about NIH fellowships, such as the NIH F32 National Research Service Award training fellowships can be found at the following website: https://researchtraining.nih.gov/programs/fellowships. Private foundations also serve as a potential source of independent funding. As an example, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) offers a two-year Postdoctoral Fellowship Research Innovation Grant (see https://afsp.org/research-grant-information). Independently funded fellowships require that you write a grant application and be competitively reviewed in order to receive funding. A critical step in this process is to identify a mentor who can assist you in the application process. Further, it is essential to set aside several months to complete the application process and be aware of the individual grant timeline. For example, the AFSP Postdoctoral Fellowship application is due mid-November, which would require identifying a potential mentor and beginning the application process well in advance of this deadline. Additionally, some grant applications may need to go through several review cycles (i.e., revised and resubmitted) before a final decision is made about funding.

7.1 Evaluating Potential Postdoctoral Opportunities

As previously stated, the needs and goals of various postdoctoral training positions may range from well-funded programs at institutions committed to training and high-quality services to sites where postdoctoral fellows are little more than inexpensive labor and clinical service is prioritized over training needs. It is your job as the applicant to assess where on this spectrum a potential position falls. The following considerations may be helpful in making this determination:

• Is the position organized around the trainee’s or institution’s needs?

• What are the clinical demands in terms of billable hours or direct patient care required?

• What is the supervisory structure?

• How satisfied are current postdocs?

• Are there formal didactics in place?

• How many hours are dedicated to individual and group supervision?

• Are there a sufficient number of clinical hours built in to meet licensure requirements?

• How much time is protected for research activities? (One-year postdocs are not ideal for individuals interested in improving their research portfolios, as there is a relatively small amount of time to collect data and publish prior to beginning a job search.)

• How many licensed psychologists are available for training and supervision?

• What is the stipend?

• Is medical insurance offered and at what charge to the postdoc? Are spouses and children eligible for coverage?

• How much time is allowed for vacation, sick leave, parental leave, and professional leave?

• Is there a possibility of being hired within the institution after completion of postdoctoral training?

• Does the site offer access to your specific population of research/clinical interest? For example, if you are interested in studying/treating mental health sequelae of trauma/immigration, it would be helpful if the institution is connected to a refugee center.

Information relevant to these questions may be obtained in a variety of ways. Read all program descriptions on the website carefully, attending to the stated training goals and agency mission (Reference KoocherKoocher, 1997). Take note of whether the program and agency promote themselves as a training site or talk about their educational mission. Review all listings of supervisory staff, their interests and career paths to assess their fit to your particular training interests and needs. For example, a program staffed by well-published, faculty-appointed psychologists will probably offer different training than a staff of experienced direct-service providers. Although one is not necessarily better than the other, one may provide a better fit to your training needs.

7.2 Evaluating Potential Postdoctoral Mentors

Most postdoctoral fellows work with a mentor who takes primary responsibility for the postdoc’s training program and with whom the postdoc works most closely. Choosing a mentor can be an important part of the decision process. For applicants interested in further developing their scholarly skills, it is especially important to seek out a postdoctoral fellowship that includes identification of a research mentor and structured mentorship plan, as this has been shown to increase the likelihood of success in outcomes, such as submission of peer-revised manuscripts (Reference Williams, Sayegh and ShererWilliams et al., 2018). Both the mentor’s prestige and mentoring abilities should be considered in balance. Ideally, you should select a mentor who is an expert and productive in your area of interest. It is desirable to arrange a personal meeting with a prospective mentor, or at least a series of phone/virtual conversations. It is important to consider the potential mentor’s management style and how this style may fit with your own needs and preferences. Talking with current or former postdocs who have worked with that person and organization can also be quite helpful. Your communications with potential mentors and other informants should answer most, if not all, of the following questions.

• What are the mentor’s expectations of the postdoc?

• Will the mentor or the postdoc determine the content of the training program?

• How many postdocs has this mentor had? What positions did they obtain after the postdoc?

• What do former and current trainees of this mentor think about their experience?

• Will the mentor have sufficient time for mentoring or will it be necessary to seek out other mentors?

• How many others (grad students, staff, postdocs) now work for this mentor?

• How many papers are being published? Where are they being published?

• What are the mentor and institution’s policies on travel to professional meetings? (e.g., Is the trip only paid for by the institution if you present a paper? If so, how many trips are covered?)

• What is the mentor’s policy on authorship and ownership of ideas?

• If you value a collaborative approach to research, does the mentor share this view? Does the mentor have lasting productive collaborations with other faculties? Will the mentor support you in developing new collaborations within the department?

• Is there time and opportunity to develop skills in grant writing, teaching, oral presentations, manuscript preparation, manuscript review?

• Can you expect to collect data or be a part of data analyses or manuscript preparation after completion of the postdoc?

• How are issues of authorship negotiated for projects where data collection extends beyond the postdoc’s tenure?

• How long is financial support guaranteed? On what does renewal depend?

• Can you count on assistance with locating and obtaining your next position?

Finally, it is important to acknowledge that there are numerous ways that mentors can provide guidance. In addition to primary research or clinical content areas, these domains may include: scientific methods and publication, professional development, funding, identification and development of goals, work/life balance, specific skills (e.g., how to give a talk), prioritizing and time management, strategizing for promotion and advice on relevant departmental/institutional policies. Another important role of mentors, senior mentors in particular, is sponsorship (i.e., using one’s position to intentionally influence the advancement of mentees). For example, contacting other professionals to advance the research ideas of mentees or connecting them with a nationally known researcher to advance their research. It is likely that no one mentor will be able to provide guidance in all of these potential areas. Thus, there may be advantages to postdoctoral training structures that provide opportunities to work with more than one mentor, even when a primary mentor is clearly identified.

7.3 The Final Decision

If you are considering several postdoctoral options, your final decision may not be an easy one. The APPIC Postdoctoral Committee’s Postdoctoral Selection Guidelines (APPIC, 2021b) serves as a helpful guide for both programs and applicants by setting forth a timeline for the notification/selection process, including a Uniform Notification Date (UND). In addition, the APPIC Postdoctoral Committee has made available several resources, including graphic timelines for postdoctoral selection with different timelines for clinically focused, neuropsychology, and research-focused programs (www.appic.org/Postdocs/Selection-Resources/Timelines-for-Postdoctoral-Selection). A growing number of clinically focused programs appear to be adhering to the UND. As recently as 2019, 85 percent of clinically focused programs within the UPPD said they would adhere to the guidelines (APPIC, 2021a). However, it is important to be aware that not all programs adhere to the APPIC UND for postdoctoral positions. For example, research-focused positions may be less likely to adhere to the UND. This may occur for a variety of reasons (e.g., the postdoc may be grant funded and the grant cycle may not align with the UND). It is also is important to keep in mind that although the UPPD is meant to be a “go-to” place to find psychology postdoctoral fellowships, many postdoctoral training opportunities are not listed in the UPPD and thus may not follow the UPPD UND guideline. In addition, within neuropsychology, many but not all postdoctoral training fellowships participate in the Association of Postdoctoral Programs in Clinical Neuropsychology match. The variation in notification dates may lead to applicants feeling that they should accept an expiring offer from a lower-choice program when they are waiting to hear back from a more preferred program. APPIC has recently provided guidance to applicants who receive an offer, before the UND, from a postdoctoral training program that is not their first choice. In this situation, APPIC’s (2021c) Reciprocal Offers: Dos and Don’ts for Applicants and Postdoctoral Training Directors document advises applicants that they can “Request to hold the offer from the program that made the early offer until the UND or a shorter hold period” and “Request a reciprocal offer from (their) top ranked program.” Applicants may find it useful to review the APPIC website (www.appic.org/Postdocs) for additional guidance on the subject of navigating the reciprocal offer process (APPIC, 2021b).

When making a final decision, it may be helpful to revisit your prioritized list of benefits and drawbacks in light of the specific positions you are considering, although you may find that some of your priorities have changed. Be sure to gather enough information to adequately assess what you and your potential mentor(s) each expect from one another and the experience of working together. You should have a rough “roadmap” of expectations and goals that seem appropriate to your position and overall career objectives. Once you accept a position, use this roadmap as the basis for outlining a more specific training and work program with your new mentor/supervisor.

7.4 Accepting a Position

Although it is typically difficult to negotiate aspects of a postdoctoral fellowship, such as salary and benefits, there may be aspects to the fellowship that can be modified. For example, a trainee accepting a research-focused position may desire to accrue clinical hours toward licensure and may wish to clarify whether this opportunity exists. Before accepting a position, many applicants also wish to ask about factors, such as sick/vacation time and parental leave. Information about these can sometimes be found on the human resources website. After accepting a position, you should expect to receive an appointment letter stating the basic contractual framework for your appointment, including your title, the sponsoring institution or department, the beginning and ending dates, stipend level, and benefits received.

2.1 Doctorate Degree Holders

In 2017, 82 percent of psychology doctorate holders were employed, while 15 percent were not in the labor force (for reasons such as school, illness, or retirement) and only 2 percent were unemployed (APA, 2018a). Of those who were employed, 79 percent were employed full-time while 21 percent were employed part-time. Psychology doctoral holders worked in 61 of 129 occupational categories (APA, 2018a). About half (47 percent) of psychology doctorate holders were employed in two occupations: psychologists (including clinical and counseling psychologists, school psychologists, industrial/organizational psychologists, and other types of psychologists) and postsecondary teachers of psychology/psychology professors. The remaining half was employed in a range of occupations (Table 26.1, Figure 26.1).

Figure 26.1 Occupational categories for psychology doctorate holders.

Source: APA. (2018a). Careers in psychology. [Interactive data tool.]

There are two clusters of occupations worth highlighting. The first cluster is leadership or management occupations, such as top-level managers, executives, and administrators, education administrators, medical and health services managers, other mid-level managers, and other management-related occupations. The second cluster is professors or postsecondary teachers in fields other than psychology, such as education, mathematics and statistics, computer science, business, other social sciences, and health and related sciences. Collectively, these postsecondary teacher categories represent the third most common occupation for psychology doctorate holders; they also represent about one third of psychology doctorate holders who work as professors.

To take a broader look beyond occupation titles, we also analyzed primary work activity and work sector to show the types of work psychologists do in their day-to-day jobs. The majority of doctorate degree holders performed professional services as their primary work activity (52 percent; APA, 2018a), a category which includes health care, counseling, financial services, and legal services. Professional services was followed by research (15 percent), teaching (15 percent), and management (12 percent) as the other top primary work activities. The most common work sectors were educational institutions (35 percent) and self-employment (30 percent). Smaller percentages of individuals with psychology doctorates reported working in private for-profit (14 percent), private non-profit (11 percent), and government (10 percent) work sectors. Many of these work sectors are ones you may expect (self-employed private practitioners or academia), while others are less obvious. Within these sectors, psychology doctorate holders may find employment at a variety of organizations, such as pharmaceutical companies, tech companies, organizations that provide social and community services, private research centers, policy-related organizations, and federal agencies.

You may suspect that being employed in such a wide spread of occupations, work sectors, and work activities would result in less use of psychology in their jobs. On the contrary, the vast majority (97 percent) of psychology doctorate degree holders reported that their job was related to psychology (APA, 2018a). Furthermore, 85 percent reported that their job was closely related to psychology (85 percent). These findings suggest that there are many ways to use psychology education at work.

2.2 Master’s Degree Holders

In 2017, 76 percent of psychology master’s degree holders were employed and only 3 percent were unemployed, while 21 percent were not in the labor force (APA, 2018a). Of those who were employed, 74 percent worked full-time and 26 percent were employed part-time. Psychology master’s degree holders worked in 74 of 129 occupational categories (APA, 2018a). The top occupations form a cluster of practitioners, including counselors, psychologists (by occupation and not necessarily by licensure status), and social workers. Collectively, these three practitioner occupations represented about one third (35 percent) of psychology master’s degree holders (Table 26.2 and Figure 26.2).

Figure 26.2 Occupational categories for psychology master’s degree holders.

Source: APA. (2018a). Careers in psychology. [Interactive data tool.]

As expected, the most common primary work activity was professional services (49 percent; APA, 2018a). A notable finding was that the second most common activity was management (21 percent), further supporting the role of psychology in leadership. Work sectors for master’s degree holders varied, with most working in educational institutions (33 percent), followed by private for-profit (20 percent), self-employment (20 percent), private non-profit (17 percent), and government (10 percent). Similar to psychology doctorate holders, psychology master’s degree holders work in a wider variety of organizations than you may expect.

A high proportion of psychology master’s degree holders reported that their master’s degree was somewhat or closely related to psychology (89 percent; APA, 2018a). Furthermore, 70 percent reported that their jobs were closely related to psychology. Given the breadth of occupations, work settings and work activities performed by psychology master’s degree holders, this demonstrates the versatility and broad application of psychology in the workforce.

2.3 Trends in the Health Service Psychology Workforce

Approximately 102,000 individuals in the United States hold doctoral-level psychologist licenses (Reference Lin, Conroy and ChristidisLin et al., 2020). The 2015 APA Survey of Psychology Health Service Providers (APA, 2016a) explored the employment characteristics of licensed psychologists. Most psychologists worked in private practice as their primary employment setting (45 percent), hospitals and organized human service settings (24 percent), and education settings (19 percent; APA, 2016a; Figure 26.3). In terms of work hours and work activities, licensed psychologists reported a mean of 36 work hours per week in their primary position with a median of 40 hours per week (APA, 2016a). They spent the most time on direct services (mean = 18.4 hours per week, median = 20 hours per week; APA, 2016a). This indicates that about half of health service psychologists’ work activities fall under health services. The most common primary specialty areas included clinical psychology (45 percent), clinical child and adolescent psychology (16 percent), and counseling psychology (9 percent; APA, 2016a). In looking at trends over times, most practice patterns in the 2015 survey were comparable with those found in to the 2008 survey of health service psychologists (Reference Michalski and KohutMichalski & Kohout, 2011).

Figure 26.3 Primary position work settings by career stage.

Source: APA (2017). Career stages of health service providers: Special analysis of the 2015 APA Survey of Psychology Health Service Providers. Copyright © 2017. American Psychological Association. All rights reserved.

The health service psychologist workforce exhibits differences in primary work setting by career stage. Career stage was defined as early career (1–10 years post-doctorate), mid-career (11–20 years post-doctorate), late career (21–30 years post-doctorate), and late senior career (more than 30 years post-doctorate). Generally, earlier career psychologists were more likely to work in hospitals and organized human service settings, whereas later career psychologists were more likely to work in private practice (APA, 2017). It is uncertain whether these shifts represent typical career pathway patterns in which psychologists start out in hospitals and organized human service settings and then move into private practice at later career stages or whether the shifts represent differences in employment patterns corresponding to the changing nature of healthcare delivery and an increased emphasis on integrated care. It is probable that both patterns influence these shifts; further research will continue to address this topic.

2.4 Trends in the Academic Psychology Workforce

In 2019, approximately 29,300 psychology research doctorate holders worked in faculty positions (APA, 2019a). The majority (70 percent) worked in four-year colleges, and top primary work activities included teaching (45 percent) and research (33 percent). For those working as postsecondary teachers/professors, the majority (69 percent) were psychology professors, while the remaining 31 percent worked as professors in other fields such as education, other social sciences, and health fields. This finding is important because it highlights that psychology is interdisciplinary and connects to many other fields. About 4600 (16 percent) faculty worked in leadership positions (e.g., provost, dean, chair). Between 1995 and 2015, female representation among faculty increased from 37 percent to 53 percent, and racial/ethnic minority representation among faculty increased from 8 percent to 22 percent.

The proportion of tenured/tenure-track positions has been shrinking during the past two decades. In 2015, approximately 76 percent of the academic psychology workforce held tenured/tenure-track positions and 24 percent held non-tenured positions. Over the last two decades, the number of faculty in tenured/tenure-track positions increased by 39 percent, whereas the number of faculty in non-tenured positions increased by 179 percent. The proportion of tenured/tenure-track positions decreased from 86 percent to 76 percent between 1995 and 2015, while the proportion of non-tenured positions increased from 14 percent to 24 percent (Figure 26.4).

Figure 26.4 The academic psychology workforce by tenure status, 1995–2015.

Note: Percentages may not add up to 100 percent due to rounding.

Source: APA. (2019a). The academic psychology workforce: Characteristics of psychology research doctorates in faculty positions (1995–2015). Copyright © 2019. American Psychological Association. All rights reserved.

2.5 Salary Benchmarks

Not surprisingly, median salaries increase as degree level increases. Using the 2017 National Survey of College Graduates (NSF, NCSES, 2019), we identified salary benchmarks for psychology master’s and doctorate degree holders. In comparison to the median salary for psychology bachelor’s degree holders ($50,000), psychology master’s degree holders earned a median salary of $60,000, representing a 20 percent increase above the median salary for psychology bachelor’s degree holders. The salary premium was larger for psychology doctorate holders, who earned a median salary of $86,000. This represented a 72 percent increase above the median salary of psychology bachelor’s degree holders and a 43 percent increase above the median salary of psychology master’s degree holders.

3.1 Examples of Essential Skills

Your psychology education is a learning experience for essential skills. Perhaps you have never thought about your education as work experience. For example, you may have gained the ability to create hypotheses, design study methods, analyze data, lead teams, synthesize literature into cohesive writing, apply science to practical problems, and generate future directions with measurable outcomes. Similarly, theses, dissertations, independent research projects, teaching, internships, practica, and graduate assistantships are all examples of relevant work experiences that build essential skills. You should give yourself credit for the essential skills you develop through those experiences. You may take your essential skills for granted or not recognize their value. You may not have learned the language to describe your essential skills. As you go into the workplace, having concrete examples that demonstrate essential skills are critical to a successful job search strategy. Indeed, essential skills are the most in-demand skills in the workplace and are highly valued by employers.

One example of an essential skill is behaviors that influence others. This is one view of leadership. For example, a leader could use individual- and situation-specific approaches by making decisions about whether to direct, coach, support, or delegate someone on their team. Leadership can also be demonstrated by serving as an informal mentor, which could happen by serving as a peer mentor, working closely with team members in any kind of work environment, informally supervising someone without having formal supervisory responsibilities, or serving in a leadership position in a student organization or professional association. It is also important to consider leadership potential, especially if you are a student or are at an early point in your career. Given where you are in your career, you might not have many demonstrated leadership examples, but you may have examples of these informal mentoring experiences that could demonstrate leadership potential.

These next two examples of essential skills are similar and highlight two slightly different skills. The ability to identify actionable insights in data demonstrates critical thinking skills. Identifying actionable insights could also draw in data literacy skills and making judgments about how to use those data appropriately. As a related example, the ability to describe actionable insights in data demonstrates communication skills. This skill brings insights to the people who need them for informed decision making.

Another example is working on a group project. This demonstrates teamwork or collaboration. You may not have enjoyed these projects, and it may be difficult to see how these projects relate to the real world. However, they are learning experiences for teamwork skills that will serve you well in your future workplace. Group projects can teach you about how people work together, effective (or sometimes ineffective) strategies for collaboration, and how to set goals and meet deadlines. It is especially important to learn how to work with people from different kinds of backgrounds who may have different skills, expertise, and contributions to make.

An additional example is teaching. The skills used in teaching, such as planning and organizing a course schedule, presenting information, and leading discussions, apply beyond the classroom. The ability to effectively engage in a classroom discussion, especially if it involves differing viewpoints, translates into the ability to facilitate effective meetings. Keeping discussions respectful, productive, and on topic happens every day in both classrooms and in the workplace.

A final example is the ability to use the scientific method. This could demonstrate research management as well as project management. Project management is a skill that does not always show up specifically, in part because it overlaps with many other skills. Project management involves taking a complex task and breaking it down into more manageable, smaller pieces. This is an essential skill for completing a research project of any kind, such as a thesis, dissertation, or independent study. The way to achieve the goal is to focus on the smaller pieces and make steady progress toward those individual pieces.

This list of examples is not exhaustive. If you have a particular job in mind, you could identify the essential skills that are required to perform that job and generate examples of essential skills that you have demonstrated through your own experience. You could probably think of many additional examples of essential skills to add to this list.

4.1 Characteristics of Early Career Health Service Psychologists

Early career psychologists, defined as those within 10 years of earning their doctorates, have greater racial/ethnic diversity than the workforce as a whole. For example, when looking at health service psychologists, racial/ethnic minority groups represented 22 percent of early career psychologists, compared to 14 percent of health service psychologists across all career stages (APA, 2019c; Table 26.5).

Early career psychologists also reported a higher level of cultural competency in working with diverse groups of populations. When asked to rate how well their graduate training prepared them to provide services to diverse populations (on a 5-point scale where 1 = not at all prepared and 5 = extremely well-prepared), early career psychologists scored a mean of 3.88 (APA, 2017), much higher than psychologists in later career stages. Early career psychologists also reported higher knowledge ratings for working with most population groups compared to psychologists in later career stages (APA, 2017). One notable exception was older adults, in which psychologists in later career stages reported higher knowledge ratings for working with older adults than psychologists in earlier career stages. The health service psychologist workforce is not only becoming younger and more diverse but also more culturally responsive to the ever more diverse US population (Figure 26.5).

Figure 26.5 Knowledge ratings for working with specific populations by career stage.

Source: APA (2017). Career stages of health service providers: Special analysis of the 2015 APA Survey of Psychology Health Service Providers. Copyright © 2017. American Psychological Association. All rights reserved.

Explore data on career options.

The APA Center for Workforce Studies has a series of interactive data tools that address workforce and education pathways topics. The Careers in Psychology data tool (APA, 2018a) shows occupations, work activities, work sectors, relatedness of the job to psychology, and other employment characteristics by level of psychology degree. The section of this chapter on employment characteristics for psychology doctorate and master’s degree holders was entirely based on the Careers in Psychology data tool. Another resource is the O*NET occupational database (National Center for O*NET Development, 2020), which contains profiles on over 1000 jobs and can be searched by skills, knowledge, industry, career clusters, and other employment characteristics. O*NET also includes tools for assessing interests.

Be planful.

The APA Individual Development Plan (IDP; APA, 2016b) is a five-step plan to help you explore your interests and career goals and generate a plan to achieve those goals. It is important to recognize that your career goals may shift. It is okay to change your mind. As you gain experience, you may learn that there are some things you don’t want to do. Sometimes insights about what you do not want to do are just as valuable as learning what you do want to do. The IDP is built on knowing yourself. Indeed, self-reflection is an important tool in the career exploration process. An informal way to begin self-reflection is ask yourself, “Where have you been? Where are you now? Where are you going?” Another way to do this is to examine the skills you have and the skills you need. If the skills you have match the skills you need, then use that knowledge to look for career pathways that will allow you to use those skills. If the skills you have do not match the skills you need, then look for opportunities to acquire new skills or further develop the skills you already have. In either situation, look for job descriptions that would enable you to use those skills and interests. Look carefully at the duties, responsibilities, and qualifications for those jobs. Start to think about your own experiences and generate language to describe your background. You can try to mimic or mirror the language in the job descriptions. You can begin looking at job descriptions at any point in your career exploration process, even if you are not actively seeking employment.

Use career services.

For current students, career services at your institution may have a broader range of career resources than faculty. For alumni, you may be eligible to use careers services at an institution from which you recently graduated. Psychology professors will be good resources for how to navigate the academic job market. This makes sense as their own career pathway included going to graduate school (most likely in psychology) and then becoming a psychology professor. This is a sizeable pathway in the psychology workforce, but it is a fairly narrow pathway. Similarly, psychology professors in health service areas will be knowledgeable about the behavioral health job market. Your faculty mentors and advisors may be less knowledgeable about the broad range of job options available to individuals with psychology backgrounds. This is where career services may be able to fill in a gap by providing realistic career planning information. Keep in mind, however, that not all career services have relevant resources for graduate students. For example, career services may provide guidance on how to write a résumé but less guidance on how to write a curriculum vitae (CV). On the other hand, many career resources are broad enough that they can be adapted to the unique needs of graduate students.

Learn about career options through informational interviews.

These are interviews where you ask questions about people’s careers. They typically cover education pathways, the type of work activities they engage in on a daily basis, the skills they use, and strategies for obtaining a similar job. The purpose of an informational interview is to learn about career options rather than to solicit a job offer. Do not be surprised by a lack of response to a request for an informational interview, especially if the request was a “cold call” to someone you do not know personally. Try tapping into career services, alumni networks, mentors, and other channels to find people in careers you find interesting.

Build relationships.

Some jobs are advertised through informal channels. Let your network know about the types of career pathways you are interested in pursuing. The more information you share about your career goals, the better able others are to guide you toward appropriate opportunities to reach those goals. You can leverage your relationships for possible informational interview connections. Also remember that you can and should have more than one mentor. Mentors with differing backgrounds can provide guidance for specific aspects of your career pathway, such as one person for clinical advising, another person outside of academia or psychology, or any other person with relevant expertise.

Keep learning.

People who can adapt to change, be flexible, and learn new things will have an advantage in the future of work. Learning is a continuous lifelong process. Your education does not end when you earn a degree. Your formal education may not provide you with all the career-relevant skills you need, such as skills related to operating your own business (whether this is a private practice, consulting organization, or another type of self-employment), how to serve as a constructive journal article reviewer, or how to write bias-free recommendation letters. You may have opportunities to learn these skills on the job or by working closely with a mentor.

1.1 What Are Your Primary Job Responsibilities?

My primary job responsibilities are twofold. First, my original position specifications were to serve as an in-house quantitative methods consultant and data analyst, focused on the application of advances in latent variable methods and random coefficient/multilevel modeling methods without the expectation that I develop my own program of research, lead papers of my own or secure my own grant funding or any criteria that are typically associated with independent investigatorship; this part of my job remains unchanged from when I originally began my career at RTI in 2003. The second part of my position has evolved into that of an independent investigator who leads my own grants (I’ve had five NIH grants as PI since 2006 including two currently active R01 grants), publishes in peer-reviewed journals, reviews grants for NIH study section, and all of the obligations (minus teaching) that are typically associated with a tenure-track or tenured professorship at a major Research I university.

1.2 What Does a Typical Day or Week Look Like – What Do You Work On and How Is It Different From a Traditional Academic Position?

A typical week would find me working on leading a new and/or revised manuscript, conducting data analysis for manuscripts I may be leading or are being led by co-I’s on my grants, mentoring my co-I’s postdocs virtually on training in advanced data analysis methods or supervising Masters-level data analysts on grant and/or contract projects that I am a co-I on. I also have service obligations such as manuscript reviews, study section review, etc. Much of my week looks very similar to an academic, but with mentoring loads of my choosing and no teaching or course prep. If you strip away what is common to academic and grant-focused research institute (RI) settings for a quantitative psychologist (e.g., publications, grants, service to the field), the primary difference boils down to trading teaching for internal statistical consulting. For prospective candidates in other areas (e.g., Clinical, Developmental) there would be the use of their skill sets in study design, study implementation and interpretation of study findings, etc. much like my quant skill set would be used for data analysis – not much different than what you may be doing as graduate students in your mentor’s lab, just with a different salary structure.

1.3 What Are the Biggest Benefits to This Type of Position?

This type of position offers pretty good professional and personal flexibility. I’ve been able to move my schedule around at a moment’s notice due to illness, appointments, etc., particularly necessary when raising small children. So long as the work I pursue funding for is under the general umbrella of Behavioral Health, I feel like I have sufficient freedom to pursue that work and submit that work for publication to the audiences I feel are most appropriate to my interests. This is in contrast to my experience in academic settings where there was considerably less “academic freedom” regarding what and where I published my work.

1.4 Any Drawbacks Compared to Academia?

Within RIs, both small and large, there is a pressure that comes with securing external funding that is literally existential in ways that are not as immediately salient in academia (although they, of course, exist in academia too). Often, when one begins their career outside of academia in a RI, the initial projects that they are brought in to work on can set the tone for what type of career trajectory a person will have. If someone begins their career on contract projects, particularly those that do not offer opportunities for publishing, it can make it virtually impossible to be competitive for grant-focused funding mechanisms at NIH, CDC, FDA, etc.; as an aside, contract projects do have a more immediate impact on policy than do grants. It can also make it impossible to move back into an academic setting if one is not careful to ensure their CV remains competitive; leveraging the work you may have been doing in graduate school into additional papers and small grant applications/funding will be key to that.

Doctoral students sometimes feel pressure to enter traditional academic positions, focusing on research productivity. When did you realize that you could have an impact in other important ways and what was that decision like for you?

My pursuit of a non-academic position was the cause of department-wide consternation among the plurality of faculty of my department, not only from the faculty in Quantitative and Clinical but from faculty housed in other areas of the Department (e.g., Social, Developmental). I speculate that this was because I had offers for one tenure-track position at major R1 universities and two advanced quantitative methods postdocs that I was essentially walking away from. My decision to take my original position at RTI was fairly easy despite external pressure: (a) my teaching experiences during my graduate training were not enjoyable, (b) I enjoyed statistical consulting and wanted to get credit for it at an RI in ways that a quantitative psychologist in academia never will (see discussion of this in Reference Aiken, West and MillsapAiken et al., 2008), and (c) I still felt that, despite the “pitfalls” of taking a non-academic position and its potential negative impact on publication/grant productivity, I could develop a program of research that could resemble that of someone in an academic lab. I also had personal parameters coming into play, as my then wife was expecting twins when I was in the middle of my job market cycle.

In many ways, I can have my “impact” cake and eat it too. I’m still able to have an impact on science that may be equivalent to someone who would be going up for Full Professor at an R1 university in the not-too-distant-future, but I’ve also seen my work on projects that were never publishable have an impact on State and Federal policy, particularly on legislation in local educational settings and juvenile justice contexts.

1.5 How Are You Using Your Education in Psychology? How Do Your Skills Apply in Important and Impactful Ways?

There has been a continual feedback loop between how my quantitative methods training influences the ways in which I ask questions regarding the diagnosis and treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other psychiatric disorders. That same feedback loop has used my clinical training to identify problems that have come up in noticing issues and problems with the way we think about psychiatric disorder measurement and how there may be solutions to those issues in other areas (e.g., survey methodology, educational testing). For example, PTSD – and every other DSM disorder for that matter – requires a count of symptoms to meet criteria for a disorder, with no regard to specificity of combination of symptoms that make up the symptom count. But this makes little sense clinically, nor does it make much sense psychometrically. Clinicians know that certain symptoms “matter more than others” in the manifestation of an underlying psychiatric disorder. Psychometrically, we generally find that “mattering” can manifest itself in variation in factor loadings/discrimination parameters across symptoms of a disorder in using advanced factor analysis (FA) or IRT methods. Generally, these scoring methods are generally eschewed for total scores or symptom counts that assume every symptom of a disorder has equal weight. So, much of my current work uses FA/IRT to illustrate the consequences for this disconnect on errors in assessing overall treatment outcomes, individual-level clinically significant change, and potential errors in making a psychiatric diagnosis in-and-of-itself – with the eventual goal of incorporating symptom weighting in diagnostic criteria within the DSM.

1.6 Any Resources or Advice You Have for Someone Who Would Like to Pursue a Career in This Employment Sector?

I’d encourage those interested in working in or hearing more about RIs, particularly early in their graduate training, to employ multiple strategies. For example, one can take notice of investigators who are doing work they are interested in during conference presentations/symposia who are not housed in academic departments. At many conferences, RIs will have recruitment tables that may be embedded among other tables for book sales, assessment tools, etc. that may not always be obvious. Many RIs will advertise for positions within society- or conference-specific listservs, so connecting with these early can help. Wikipedia has a pretty handy listing of RIs as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Research_institutes_in_the_United_States

2.1 What Are Your Primary Job Responsibilities?

My primary job responsibilities are designing and launching surveys to better understand the experiences (and problems) people have on Facebook. I analyze the data, write up results, and present insights to different teams.

2.2 What Does a Typical Day or Week Look Like – What Do You Work On and How Is It Different From a Traditional Academic Position?

In a typical week, a lot of the work I do is very similar to the types of things I did in grad school. I spend a lot of time writing up research plans, guiding projects through a process very similar to IRB review, conducting surveys, writing up results, and making presentations to different teams. Even the topic of my research is not too different from what I worked on in grad school. I work on a team called Community Integrity. The mission of our team is to minimize bad experiences for people on Facebook. We conduct rigorous, ethical research on the definition and application of our community standards to build safe, inclusive experiences on Facebook. Given the nature of this work, our team is actually filled with other academics, most of whom have MAs or PhDs in the social sciences (primarily psychology, survey methodology, or political science).

The thing that’s different is the pace of the work. In grad school, I often got bored of my projects because it took so long to complete a project, especially the publication part. In my current position, the entire cycle of a project from beginning to end is usually closer to a month or two (or six months maximum) rather than a year or two. While that pace probably would have sounded stressful to me right out of grad school, I actually really like it. I love that I can move on from a project once I’ve reached the point of diminishing returns instead of getting into the weeds running a bunch of extra (and probably inconsequential) analyses to appease Reviewer 2.

2.3 What Are the Biggest Benefits to This Type of Position?

This may come as a surprise to some, but work–life balance is one of the biggest benefits of my position. In grad school, there is a culture where it’s normal to work nights and weekends. Many grad students (myself included) felt like no matter how hard we worked, the work was never done. And many of us felt guilty if we weren’t working overtime. In my current position, I almost never work on nights or weekends. I close my computer at the end of the day and I don’t feel guilty about it. There is a misconception about working at a big tech company: that the reason they have snacks and ping pong tables is so you won’t be as mad when you have to work nights and weekends. That has not at all been my experience or the experience of my colleagues.

Another huge benefit of my job is the opportunity for collaboration. In grad school, collaboration always felt relatively asynchronous (e.g., you write up results, share a document with a colleague for feedback, the colleague makes updates to the document and sends it back to you, and so on). It often felt like everyone was working in a silo to advance their own separate body of work. That’s not because we didn’t care about each other (my peers and mentors in grad school offered an abundance of guidance, feedback, and support!), it’s because academia rewards based on publishing your own papers and not much else. In my current position, the reason collaboration feels so different is because my teammates and I are all working together toward common goals. We set our goals together as a team each half and work together to achieve them. When we encounter problems, we brainstorm solutions together and each tackle different aspects of solving the problem. While this is sometimes also true in academia, it doesn’t feel the same when only one person reaps the full benefit of first-authorship.

Last, I have to mention salary. Industry jobs often pay much better than academic jobs. It’s not necessarily the most important benefit, but it’s certainly something I appreciated after living for six years on a graduate stipend.

2.4 Any Drawbacks Compared to Academia?

A common thing you’ll hear former academics say about industry jobs is that you don’t have much freedom in setting your own research agenda. That’s definitely a drawback depending on where you land in industry. For me personally, I’ve found that I still have quite a bit of freedom on what research projects I take on within the scope of the team. Thankfully, I found a team whose mission aligns with topics I care about so I’ve generally been pretty happy with the level of autonomy I have.

2.5 Doctoral Students Sometimes Feel Pressure to Enter Traditional Academic Positions, Focusing on Research Productivity. When Did You Realize That You Could Have an Impact in Other Important Ways and What Was That Decision Like For You?

The realization that I didn’t want to go into academia was gradual for me. I think I was in my third year when I finally made the decision to talk with my advisor about my plan. The conversation went really well and my advisor was supportive. I was lucky to have other students in my program who were also interested in non-academic jobs and we were able to support each other in figuring it out. In my last couple years of grad school, my program also started inviting speakers who had transitioned to industry.

I think the realization that I could have an impact outside of academia came when I realized how many people I could reach by applying the things I learned to make change in the world. My first job outside of academia was with a small start-up non-profit with four employees, all with a psychology background. The organization worked with progressive organizations and start-up civic-tech companies to improve political participation through empirical research. We worked with organizations to experimentally test interventions designed to help people do things like vote, join a march, or call their elected officials. Realizing that I could have a tangible impact like that was really exciting to me and a big reason I left academia.

2.6 How Are You Using Your Education In Psychology? How Do Your Skills Apply in Important and Impactful Ways?

The most important things I learned from grad school are survey methodology, statistical analysis, and data visualization. I’d recommend investing heavily in these skills during your time in grad school because they’re skills that will pay off regardless of whether you go into academia or industry.

2.7 Any Resources or Advice You Have For Someone Who Would Like to Pursue a Career In This Employment Sector?

Yes! I put together a document (https://docs.google.com/document/d/15IpwOnxmefzOQtaE4WAvWMKHqQpy633WoEMqxIGSKjc/edit) with some resources for psychology students who are interested in transitioning to the tech industry.

3.1 What Are Your Primary Job Responsibilities?

I wear many hats. I see patients in my private practice. I serve as part of the leadership team and provide guidance on study design and support training and supervision at CHOP on ongoing grants. I consult with private and public organizations. I continue my writing and blogging on CopingCatParents.com, Psychology Today, and Thriving Mind, now focusing primarily on finishing up my most recent book to help parents build resilience and enhance stress management in their children.

3.2 What Does a Typical Day or Week Look Like – What Do You Work On and How Is It Different From a Traditional Academic Position?

Every day and week is different as I juggle the many roles and responsibilities. I keep blocks of time dedicated to each role – clinical days, writing days, consulting days, etc. and try to shift as different deadlines approach. I am also a mother of two active tweens, so to say I’m always juggling is an understatement! Even though I stay very busy, I feel noticeably less stressed than when I was in an academic position because I know my “funding” is in my own hands and that I can turn on or off the flow at my own discretion.

3.3 What Are The Biggest Benefits to This Type of Position?

The biggest benefit to working in private practice is that I get to be my own boss. I don’t have to attend meetings unless I choose, write grants unless I choose, see clients unless I choose, teach … you get the point. I also feel grateful for the financial stability and flexibility the practice offers that allows me to pursue a variety of interests as well as giving me peace of mind that I can be available for my family when things come up (as they do!). My husband is no longer in start-up mode, but I am very happy to stay on this “uncharted” career path I’ve chosen.

3.4 Any Drawbacks Compared to Academia?

I wouldn’t be in the position I’m in if I hadn’t started in academia. I love research and teaching. I think I would have missed it if I had gone straight to private practice. I also feel more confident in my expertise having learned from and worked alongside academic researchers and pioneers.

3.5 Doctoral Students Sometimes Feel Pressure to Enter Traditional Academic Positions, Focusing On Research Productivity. When Did You Realize That You Could Have an Impact in Other Important Ways and What Was That Decision Like For You?

I had been “raised” in a culture of research and academia and really intended to stay for my entire career. When it became a necessity for my family the choice was already made. Now seeing what can be done outside of academics makes me want to share with doctoral students the possibilities available to make an impact outside of research. In many ways research cycles hinder dissemination. Working with organizations, agencies, schools, hospitals, and the private sector directly to implement evidence-based programs has been highly rewarding and often comes with more immediate results.

3.6 How Are You Using Your Education in Psychology? How Do Your Skills Apply in Important and Impactful Ways?

My work, research, writing all are 100 percent based on the clinical and research training I received and continue to receive in psychology. I feel pride and fulfillment in seeing children, adults, and families improve the quality of their lives after having been in treatment or in a research trial. It also gives me immense joy and satisfaction to see my books, manuals, and online programs being used in schools, hospitals, clinics, and in homes and hearing about the benefits that people have felt from the content.

3.7 Any Resources or Advice You Have For Someone Who Would Like to Pursue a Career in This Employment Sector?

Become an expert – listen, watch, read, learn as much as you can to become an expert in your area. Once you have the skills and knowledge, many options become available to you.

4.1 What Are Your Primary Job Responsibilities?

Similar to those in many academic positions, I am fortunate to have the freedom to pursue my own line of research – as long as I am able to procure 100 percent of the funding to cover my own salary, the salaries of my staff, and the related program and research expenses. As a result, grant writing is my constant companion. With that comes budget management, report writing for funders, and the many administrative tasks that are part of leading project implementation. These are the necessary parts of my work. The fun parts are all the rest! I focus on community engagement, so I always partner with community-level organizations and non-profits to define the needs, barriers, and questions that I seek to address. We work together to identify, implement, and evaluate solutions. I never stop learning, discussing new ideas with these colleagues, and collaboratively integrating cutting-edge findings into program development and improvement. With partners in early childhood, K-12 education, and child welfare, I work to develop training modules, coaching models, and intervention components that support the well-being of all children, but are particularly critical for those who have experienced significant adversity in their lives.

4.2 What Does a Typical Day or Week Look Like – What Do You Work On and How Is It Different From a Traditional Academic Position?

One of the best – and hardest – parts of my job is the unending variety of tasks across each day and week. I spend time reading, thinking, and planning for project improvements or future initiatives. In collaboration with community partners, I develop curricula, deliver interactive trainings, and spend time observing in schools and early childhood settings. I develop research plans, implement evaluations, supervise data collection and cleaning, and conduct analyses to assess outcomes and improve processes. I collaborate with community providers and state-level systems to integrate lessons learned into existing infrastructure. Finally, I deliver talks and write reports, policy briefs, and academic papers to share what we are doing and learning with a broad variety of stakeholder audiences. I believe that those in traditional academic positions also engage in many if not all of these tasks. The biggest difference lies in the task prioritization, or the proportion of time spent with this community-based participatory research. I have far fewer administrative or teaching responsibilities and more freedom to pursue action and dissemination at the stakeholder rather than purely academic level.

4.3 What Are the Biggest Benefits to This Type of Position?

For me, the largest benefit of this position has been the freedom to structure my time and work to focus on community-level engagement and action. My office is based in the community rather than on campus, and much of my time is spent traveling the state to visit schools, early childhood centers, and departments of social services. This immersion in the community has greatly improved not only my understanding of practical issues with implementation and evaluation, but also my ability to speak in plain English and translate science to practice. Perhaps more importantly, it has enhanced my ability to listen to the experiences and perspectives of those in the field. My academic assumptions are regularly challenged by those out there doing the work – and let’s be clear, the on-the-ground professionals are the ones who know the real issues at hand! Without these constant reality checks, and the relationships that come with two-way discussions and respect for experience, I would certainly miss key elements of partnering with professionals to promote authentic and sustainable change for children and families. I have been greatly, and rightly, humbled by this work.

4.4 Any Drawbacks Compared to Academia?

The role of Research Scientist certainly comes with drawbacks as well. Foremost among them is funding: as I mentioned, 100 percent of my salary (and that of my staff) is based on soft money. This means that none of it is guaranteed or underwritten by the university. Funding relies on my continued ability to procure support from federal grants, state contracts, corporation philanthropy, and foundations. This means considerable investment in grant-writing and maintenance of relationships with funders of all types. In essence, I am an entrepreneur supporting a business, albeit with phenomenal access to university colleagues, infrastructure, and resources. I cannot downplay the importance of the university setting for providing accounting, grants management, administrative support, and a general atmosphere of multidisciplinary inquiry and scholarship. My colleagues keep me energized and focused, while always challenging me to think critically from new perspectives. And my relationships both within the university and across the state, along with my focus on answering questions important to the community, has kept the value of my team’s work visible to funders.

4.5 Doctoral Students Sometimes Feel Pressure to Enter Traditional Academic Positions, Focusing on Research Productivity. When Did You Realize That You Could Have an Impact in Other Important Ways and What Was That Decision Like For You?

I always knew that I wanted to focus on applied work rather than basic research. Although both are critical to progress in the field, I have always been driven to get my hands dirty and wallow in the nuances, uncertainty, and messiness of community-level research. I want to see what it is like to put the theoretical ideas into action, to see the changes in adults and children with my own eyes, and to wrestle with the challenges of promoting and sustaining change. Rather than doing this on a micro level as a clinician, I opted for working at the macro level with systems and organizations, but it is no less gratifying to watch the change in action. For me, the only question was, “where do jobs like this exist?” In graduate school, I had no exposure to positions or roles like the one I have ultimately adopted, but now I see them everywhere: research directors at non-profits or within school systems, investigators at child-focused research organizations, or employment with the many university-based policy centers. These roles are out there, and finding one was the perfect fit for me.

4.6 How Are You Using Your Education In Psychology? How Do Your Skills Apply in Important and Impactful Ways?

I am not sure I can even begin to list all the ways in which my education in psychology supports my current work. In brief, I see four key areas: content knowledge, clinical skills, research design, and statistical skills. In terms of content, I am constantly applying my understanding of developmental psychology, neurobiology, group dynamics, and behavior change to my work on self-regulation and trauma-informed care. My clinical focus taught me to listen, probe, communicate, read reactions, and prioritize relationships and empathy. My many courses on research design constantly guide my selection of sample, methodology, and measurement. Finally, my statistical training enables me to plan answerable questions and carry out analyses to answer them, as well as to interpret the findings of others in the field. The combined training I received in clinical and quantitative psychology has been invaluable in supporting my community partnerships and actionable research plans.

4.7 Any Resources or Advice You Have For Someone Who Would Like to Pursue a Career in This Employment Sector?

These jobs are out there, don’t worry that academia is the only road available to you! First, carefully consider both your passions and your specific skills and strengths to decide both the topical area(s) you wish to pursue and the job tasks that you want to undertake. Then explore the groups doing this work now: are there state- or national-level non-profits pursuing this research and practice agenda, funders or think-tanks taking up this calling, independent consulting groups working on community-level change in this area? Find a few projects that excite you and talk to the people involved. Even if they don’t have open positions, they very likely have ideas and connections that can guide you. Begin building relationships, share your enthusiasm and ideas, join task forces or local advisory groups. These are the connections that keep my projects and funding alive, and keep me both grounded and energized for the next big idea.

5.1 What Are Your Primary Job Responsibilities?

As a Scientific Review Officer, my responsibility entails organizing scientific peer review meetings to evaluate grant applications and contract proposals submitted to the NIMH. I identify and recruit scientific and technical experts, domestically and internationally, to evaluate applications and proposals submitted for review. In addition, as a federal official at the meeting, I am also responsible for generating summary statements, the official documentation of the discussion at the review meeting.

5.2 What Does a Typical Day or Week Look Like – What Do You Work On and How Is It Different From a Traditional Academic Position?

I spend my time reading grant applications, reviewing current literature, and identifying scientists and industry stakeholders to participate in peer review meetings. In a four-month cycle, I facilitate two to three review meetings that may include up to 50 reviewers for a single review panel. Thus, in a year, I may reach out to more than 500 people worldwide to secure the expertise to cover all of the applications in my review meetings. In addition, to my daily and weekly duties, I attend professional conferences, symposia, and workshops to keep current on the field and identify potential reviewers.

5.3 What Are the Biggest Benefits to This Type of Position?

After leaving the 10+ hour-work-day of private industry, I needed more control over my time. The pace of my day and the scheduling of my review meetings are based on my calendar. I can plan review meetings around family demands and professional events. I especially enjoy being at the forefront of new ideas in the field. Review meetings allow me to listen to researchers and stakeholders discussing new ideas and approaches to significant public health issues facing children, youth, and families. Although federal positions are not as lucrative as private industry, financial stability and predictability are quite nice.

5.4 How are you using your education in psychology? How do your skills apply in important and impactful ways?

My education is in play, whether I am reading a journal article or grant application, identifying the expertise I need to build a solid review panel, or facilitating a “lively” discussion during a review meeting. Specifically, my breadth of knowledge in research methodology, quantitative and qualitative research, psychopathology, and clinical psychology are significant to my position. To ensure that I can build the most appropriate peer review panel, I must stay current with psychology literature and pursue trends in the field.

5.5 Any resources or advice you have for someone who would like to pursue a career in this employment sector?

The federal government has numerous careers opportunities for individuals with a psychology degree. While people may not consider the federal government exciting, it offers much. There are research, clinical, and administrative careers. Government positions abound, from bench science to field-based work in our Nation’s communities and neighborhoods. The federal government is vast; so narrow your search to federal agencies aligned with your interests, skills, and personal mission. With any career pursuit, you should keep an open mind, seek guidance, and continue to explore.

5.6 Doctoral Students Sometimes Feel Pressure to Enter Traditional Academic Positions, Focusing on Research Productivity. When Did You Realize That You Could Have an Impact in Other Important Ways and What Was That Decision Like For You?

It took a while to consider that there are multiple avenues to achieving my goals. However, once I was comfortable with my decision to leave academia, pursuing a career in a “non-traditional” psychology position was the obvious choice. In addition, the awareness of the versatility of my degree afforded me the push I needed to understand that my goals could be obtained through many different pathways.

6.1 What Are Your Primary Job Responsibilities?

As a private practice psychologist, I provide individual CBT (and other evidence-based treatments) to adult patients, most of whom have anxiety, and many of whom are new parents. As a writer, I compose diverse types of pieces, including books/book chapters, articles for popular parenting websites and my personal blog, and social media posts. My aim is to translate evidence-based CBT/Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)/Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) strategies for new parents who are struggling to cope with the myriad stressors of raising babies and small children.

6.2 What Does a Typical Day or Week Look Like – What Do You Work On and How Is It Different From a Traditional Academic Position?

I split my time evenly between clinical work and writing/speaking/media work. Three days per week, I work at my own private practice where I treat individual adults using CBT and other evidence-based approaches. I have an office in a town near my home. The other two days per week, I work on my own material – mostly writing, but also doing other tasks like preparing for talks, posting on social media, and making videos. Like a true CBT therapist, I set an agenda and goals for myself on the days I write.

This differs a great deal from what a typical academic does during the day. I don’t teach or supervise/mentor or sit on any committees. While most academics carve time out to write, like I do, they write very different types of things (journal articles, treatment manuals, scholarly book chapters, grants). Also I am able set my own schedule, whereas academics’ schedules are often dictated by their teaching times, meeting times, etc.

6.3 What Are the Biggest Benefits to This Type of Position?

Flexibility! As I mentioned, I make my own hours, and decide how much and when I want to work. This has been a godsend for me as a parent.

I also appreciate that the only work pressure I feel is self-imposed. I don’t ever have to worry about whether I’m publishing enough to make tenure, or what senior faculty think of me, or whether I’m billing enough hours as a member of a group practice.

Related to not feeling pressured by others is the freedom I feel to do exactly the type of work I want to do. Many of my friends in academia are stuck doing some things they don’t like – serving on committees, for example. But I have the freedom to choose what I do and do not want to do. For example, if a potential patient approaches me for treatment, and I do not feel they are a good fit for my practice based on my specific skills, I can refer them elsewhere.

6.4 Any Drawbacks Compared to Academia?

I don’t feel this way now, but early in my career, after I’d decided to jump off the academic track, I struggled with the fact that I’d chosen the less-prestigious career route. My graduate program highly encouraged careers in academia, and for years I felt like somewhat of a failure because I didn’t pursue a tenure-track job. Unfortunately, this also contributed to self-doubt early on in my writing career. I felt that because I wasn’t on faculty at a prestigious university or hospital, no one would see me as an “expert” or care at all what I had to say. That turned out not to be true, but it took a number of years for me to realize it.

Another thing that frustrated me early in my career was that I didn’t feel like I was putting many of my specialized skills (writing, extensive training in evidence-based treatments) to use. Once I started writing, this changed, but early on I was seeing “all comers” in my practice (as everyone who is trying to build a practice does) and didn’t get the opportunity to flex clinical and writing muscles that I knew I had.

Also, being affiliated with a large research institution affords you instant “street cred.” If someone sees that you work at a well-regarded hospital or university, they immediately view you as an expert. But if you’re a private practitioner, you really have to earn that “street cred,” by treating a number of people successfully and/or producing content that other people respond to. It takes time for this to happen. Because I attended a prestigious undergraduate university and graduate program, I grew used to the instant “street cred” that came with that. When I started my practice, I had to adjust to being just another one of the countless private practice therapists in my area. It took time for me to distinguish myself.

Also, starting your own practice is a far more risky financial proposition than working in academia. You alone are responsible for bringing in clients and therefore dictating your salary. Tenured faculty don’t have to worry about that. Although there are also potentially greater rewards (i.e., a higher salary than you’d have in academia) if your business does well.

6.5 Doctoral students sometimes feel pressure to enter traditional academic positions, focusing on research productivity. When Did You Realize That You Could Have an Impact in Other Important Ways and What Was That Decision Like For You?

Honestly, the realization that I did not want to pursue a research career came before the realization that I could have an impact in other important ways. I had a phenomenal research mentor in graduate school who inspired me to craft a really interesting dissertation study. I felt like I could work on studies with him for the rest of my career. But I also realized that I didn’t want to be the PI myself and didn’t want to work on research projects without him as a mentor. I knew this by the time I was finished with graduate school.

As I mentioned earlier, I pursued private practice work because I believed that it was the only non-academic career option available to me. When I started my practice I felt like I was having an impact on my individual patients; however, I longed to have a larger impact. That desire to have a larger impact and reach more people was what inspired me to start writing about CBT for popular parenting websites. Once I started doing that, and getting responses from people all across the country, I realized that I could make an important contribution without having to be an academic.

6.6 How Are You Using Your Education in Psychology? How Do Your Skills Apply in Important and Impactful Ways?

I use it every day! In my clinical work and my writing I’m committed to evidence-based practices, which I first studied in graduate school and continue to study to the present day. I continue to consume psychology research, and it informs my clinical work and writing. I have remained active in professional organizations, like the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT), which enables me to keep tabs on the groundbreaking work of the foremost clinical psychology researchers. I have always endeavored to be “research-adjacent,” even though I no longer participate in research myself.

6.7 Any Resources or Advice You Have for Someone Who Would Like to Pursue a Career in This Employment Sector?

A few tips, in no particular order:

1. 1. Get yourself on social media, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Social media is a great way not only to promote your writing to your audience but also to connect with fellow psychologists and other people working in your space.

2. 2. And speaking of connecting with other people working in your space, take time to see what other successful popular press psychology writers are doing. Don’t hesitate to reach out directly to these people – if my experience is any indication they will be happy to help you and share advice.

3. 3. Don’t get discouraged! As I mentioned above, it takes some time to develop a career in popular press psychology writing and to develop your voice as a writer. The same is true of building a private practice – it’s a process. Don’t let early rejections stop you from putting things out there.

4. 4. Try to put out a variety of content. So while you’re writing longer pieces, consider writing super-short pieces (tweets, etc.) as well as making short videos about key concepts. And make sure to have a great website where you can house all of this content. Investing in a professional web designer is one of the smartest things I did when I was starting out.

5. 5. I think it helps to view writing as a “side hustle,” for two reasons. First, as I mentioned, it takes a while to build a career in popular press psychology writing. And second, there’s very little money in writing! So you’ll want to be doing something else to actually make a living wage.

1.1 Dr. DiLillo (Liberal Arts College)

I am a professor of psychology at a small liberal arts college in the Midwest. I was hired as an assistant professor at my school 16 years ago and have since worked my way through the tenure and promotion process. Additionally, I recently finished a term as department chair. Prior to my current position, I spent about 6 years as an assistant professor at an academic medical center in a non-tenure track position that was 100 percent extramurally supported. I left my previous position because the political climate was becoming less hospitable to non-physician faculty members.

Although it varies from school to school, most psychology faculty members in institutions like mine spend the majority of their time in activities related to teaching, including classroom teaching, supervision of independent projects, and advising. In my department, faculty members teach three courses per semester, every semester. We do not have TAs or the opportunity to buy out a course with grant funding, although faculty members in part-time administrative roles (e.g., associate dean) receive course reductions. We each have about 20–25 advisees as well. A program of productive scholarship is also typically very important to success as a faculty member at a liberal arts college, although activities that constitute “scholarship” may be more flexible than at a Research I university. For example, at my institution extramural funding is highly encouraged, but not mandatory for promotion and/or tenure. Furthermore, publications in high-quality peer-reviewed journals are emphasized, but other types of publications (e.g., book chapters, monographs) are seen as respectable as well. In addition to teaching and research, liberal arts faculty members are expected to engage in departmental and university service. At my institution, these opportunities range from service on elected committees, to appointments on ad-hoc committees, to participation in admissions events, and advising of student groups on campus. Depending on the particular service activities in which a faculty member is involved, these responsibilities can be quite time-consuming. University-wide, faculty evaluations at my institution are based 60 percent on teaching, 30 percent on scholarship, and 10 percent on service. I believe that this breakdown is fairly typical for liberal arts schools. It is relevant to note that, although faculty evaluations are based on the 60/30/10 formula described above, the actual proportion of time spent engaging in these activities is rarely consistent with this breakdown; it varies from semester to semester and year to year, depending on individual, departmental, and university priorities.

1.2 Dr. Clark Harvey (Behavioral Health Advocacy Organization)

I am the Chief Executive Officer of a statewide advocacy organization that represents mental health and substance use disorder clinics that collectively serve over 500,000 clients. I am often asked about what attracted me to a career in advocacy and public policy. I share the story of how I felt “restless” during graduate school. I was never appeased by the thought that I was training to be a “scientist/practitioner”; the idea of having to pick between science, practice, or a combination of both seemed limiting. I wanted to get a PhD so that I would be afforded the platform to do whatever I wanted to do; I just could not figure out what that was. After leaving the Midwest to return to California to complete my internship and postdoctoral training, I reflected on the common thread throughout my research and clinical work: everything I did centered around being a voice for vulnerable communities. That is when I decided to explore careers that would allow me to utilize my training and impact systems and structures that many of my clients interacted with on a daily basis. I moved to the state capitol and worked as a fellow in a Senator’s office. From there, my career in public policy took off and I was quickly promoted to being a Chief Policy Consultant. I made history as the youngest, first female, and first Black Chief Consultant for the policy committee I led. After 6 years at the capitol, I was recruited to be the lobbyist and Policy and Legislative Affairs Director for the organization I now lead. It has proven to be a perfect way to merge my clinical training, research, policy experience, and passion for advocating for behavioral health agencies and the vulnerable communities they serve. When I am not being CEO or “Dr. Mom” to my two toddlers, I volunteer on community and national boards.

1.3 Dr. Hussong (Research Intensive University)

I am a tenured professor in a Psychology Department at a research-intensive university; the same department in which I began my academic career in 1997. My responsibilities include research, teaching, and service such as serving on committees in the department and university and working with national organizations like the National Institutes of Health. For seven years, I worked in an administrative position, directing a research center and training program. Over the years, what constitutes my workload and day-to-day activities has changed. When I started this position, I spent most of my time on research and teaching. Post-tenure, my service commitments began to grow as I said yes to more invitations. For example, when I was an assistant professor, before I had children, I probably averaged 60 hours a week in the office during the academic year, taught four classes, and spent probably 40–60 percent of my time on teaching, mentoring, and training activities, 30–40 percent on research, and the remainder on service. In my mid-career years when my children had entered school, I used grant funding to buy-out of some of my teaching commitments and taught one course, directed two research projects, mentored 3–4 graduate students and served as the Director for Undergraduate Studies. I probably averaged 40 hours a week in the office during the academic year and spent 10 percent of my time on teaching, 50 percent on research, and 40 percent on service.

1.4 Dr. Kamholz (Hybrid – Academically Affiliated VA Plus Small Business)

Revising this chapter seven years after its original publication, I’m struck by how much my career has changed, and also by guiding principles that have remained constant.

For many years after I completed my postdoctoral fellowship, I worked exclusively at one academically affiliated VA Healthcare System. Eight years ago, I opened a very small private practice, while maintaining my full-time work at the VA. Over the last several years, my work has shifted so that I now split my time across an academically affiliated VA (half-time) and a small business that includes direct clinical care and consulting/contract work for a variety of groups and causes that are important to me. For lack of a better term, I consider this a hybrid career, comprised of elements I have the luxury of choosing. It’s one I never thought I wanted, but now find incredibly meaningful.

At the VA, I serve as Associate Director for Outpatient Mental Health Services, which is part of the leadership team for a large Mental Health Service that includes over 300 Mental Health employees across three major medical centers and six community-based outpatient clinics. Across these geographic sites, Mental Health includes Inpatient, Residential, and Outpatient Services. My role is primarily administrative, with some time allocated to training. Crucially, when I shifted to half time, I made sure that my scope of responsibilities was explicitly and concretely downsized to match the new schedule. This is critical to avoid doing the same job for half the compensation.

Administrative tasks include a range of activities, from those that are obviously central to patient care and well-being, to mundane details that leave me wondering why I spent over 20 years in school! Most interesting and satisfying are the former, and they include projects such as redesigning services at a small community-based outpatient clinic to maximize efficient and effective care; developing systemized processes to facilitate transitions in care from Inpatient to Outpatient Mental Health Services; and centralizing and overseeing key processes that inform Veterans’ evaluations for benefits. Of course, all such projects involve the efforts and collaboration of many people. Working with smart, dedicated professionals is another favorite aspect of my position. In addition to large projects, other administrative responsibilities include overseeing specific programs within Outpatient Mental Health Services (e.g., Suicide Prevention), developing resource requests to procure new (or backfill existing) positions, contributing to decisions about allocation of clinical resources, staff workload, and clinical duties, completing annual employee performance appraisals, serving on hospital committees, and participating in recruitment, interviewing, and hiring of new Mental Health staff.

Although I have opportunities to contribute to psychology training, my academic and training efforts are focused on training psychiatry residents and contributing to the missions of several mental health organizations. I oversee a 4-year cognitive-behavioral training curriculum for psychiatry residents, and provide some limited mentorship for other trainees. I also have served on various committees and governance teams of organizations such as the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies and the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

Within my business, I divide my time across direct patient care, and consulting/contract work. At this point, I consider “consulting” to be any work for a group or organization that is based on the mental health expertise that has been my bread-and-butter for over 20 years (e.g., training in healthy coping for the stressed staff of a large research project, educational programming for a professional mental health organization). I consider “contract work” to be any work for a group or organization that is informed by my behavioral expertise and related skills, but represents a newer application of them (e.g., organizing or communications for an advocacy group). The distinction is mostly in my own mind! But it’s useful for me as I consider my level of expertise, the nature of my potential contributions, and the associated fee structure.

My professional life provides many, varied opportunities to collaborate with interesting, knowledgeable colleagues, including trainees, junior professionals, and experts in their respective fields. The combination of different types of work and collaborators is engaging and challenging, and allows me to be an expert/teacher in some domains, and a newer learner in others. I once considered a hybrid career to be a chore, or a (problematic) sign that there wasn’t a job that would meet all my needs. I now experience it as a luxury of flexibility and freedom, allowing me to shift mindsets and methods of contributing to the community at large, learning from different people and experiences, and enjoying financial stability with creativity and excitement.

Of course, there are challenges. Different types of work (and the continual shifting set that goes with it) can be exhausting. “Swerving” (as Michelle Obama would say) into new areas mid-career can leave me uncomfortable or embarrassed by things I don’t yet know. In addition, many opportunities mean that time management is always a challenge, and I’m chronically just a little (or more) behind where I want to be. (My former self judges me harshly on this point. My husband routinely jokes that my epitaph will read, “It’s later than I thought.” More on this later.)

1.5 Dr. Lloyd-Richardson (Masters Granting University)

I am a tenured professor of psychology at a masters granting university in the northeast. I was just recently promoted to Full Professor and have been at this university for nearly 12 years, coming here from a non-tenured research faculty position at an academic medical center. I left this position when I was pregnant with my third child (all very close in age) and realized that I wanted a less time-demanding position that offered more financial stability. My institution is a Research I university, with just under 10,000 students enrolled in more than 40 undergraduate and 25 graduate degree programs. Psychology is one of the largest majors on campus, and our department has three graduate masters programs (Clinical, Research, and ABA).

My contractual responsibilities are threefold: teaching and advising, scholarly and professional activities, and service. While a typical teaching load is three courses per semester, course releases are available for grant-funded research and supervision of master’s theses, so teaching two courses per semester is more common for research active faculty. I am responsible for providing academic advising to about 35 students each year, in addition to the students that I supervise on their individual research. While there is no documented requirement of grant funding for tenure and promotion, there is a clear expectation that faculty will seek and obtain grant funding. Scholarly and professional activities are wide-ranging, from peer-reviewed publications to books, book chapters, monographs, and presentations. Faculty are expected to contribute service to the department, university, and local community. In my early, pre-tenure years, my time was generally broken down to approximately: 40 percent teaching, 50 percent research, and 10 percent service. Since tenure and promotion, it is worth noting that expectations for service have increased significantly, due in part to increased expectations to take on service roles as one becomes more senior in the department and field of study, but also increased demands from the university (perhaps due to changes in the financial landscape of many universities, which have led to a corresponding increase in demands on faculty time for service expectations). What was acceptable before is often no longer considered enough service work in the current climate, and yet it’s never quite clear how much service is enough to be considered “acceptable.” At present, my workload during the academic calendar year is typically 55–60 hours per week. I commonly teach two graduate-level courses per semester, supervise 2–3 graduate students on theses and various research projects, submit 2–3 grant applications per year, and have 3–5 manuscripts being worked on at any one time. I actively collaborate with an international research group in my field of study. While my position is a 9-month contract, scholarship work really continues throughout the summer, as does development of course materials and service work.

1.6 Dr. Rivers (Leadership Consulting and Executive Coaching Private Practice)

For the past 10 years, I have led a leadership consulting and executive coaching private practice. The portfolio of my work has been quite varied based on the needs of an individual client or partnering organization. I have developed and facilitated training modules, written curricula, and helped individual clients align organizational missions, strategies, and processes, enhance their influence across their organizations, lead cross-functional and globally dispersed teams, and navigate change initiatives. My executive coaching clients have ranged from newly appointed managers to seasoned, senior-level executives from diverse sectors including healthcare, entertainment media, government, financial services, manufacturing, non-profit, and higher education. I have also integrated my research and experience in health psychology and neuroscience to support executive coaching and development initiatives designed to enhance resilience and improve workplace climate.

After years of walking alongside leaders and organizations as an external consultant, I became curious about using my consulting skills from within an organization. An opportunity emerged for me to gain the internal perspective I desired when a coaching colleague invited me to join her in the Human Resources division of a highly ranked private university. As a Human Resources leader, my tasks and responsibilities are also quite varied. I have served as the chief architect for strategic initiatives designed to improve engagement and belonging and integrate equity, diversity, and inclusion best practices within the Human Resources function and across my organization. I also lead the university’s professional development strategy through the design and delivery of open enrollment and custom leadership development experiences and the provision of organizational development consulting and professional coaching services.

Whether working externally or internally, I frequently draw upon the analytical and clinical skills that my PhD training in psychology afforded. Most importantly, I love that I am able to leverage my competencies in ways that strengthen the vocational trajectories of my clients and contribute to the health of the organizations in which they serve.

2.1 Dr. DiLillo (Liberal Arts College)

It’s not unusual for me to talk with someone who assumes that life as a college professor at a small liberal arts college is not terribly time-consuming or demanding. I’ve heard more than one graduate student comment, usually in the throes of qualifying exams or the hundredth revision of a manuscript, that someday they want a “cushy” liberal arts job. They seem to imagine that the only responsibilities of a liberal arts faculty member are teaching classes and keeping office hours, and that the rest of our time is “free.” In reality, of course, formal classroom teaching is only one of a wide range of responsibilities (some of which I mentioned above) in the academic life of a liberal arts faculty member.

Another misconception I’ve heard expressed is that faculty positions at liberal arts colleges do not require any particular preparation and are relatively easy to obtain. In my experience, a successful candidate for a job at a liberal arts college has, in addition to a productive program of research involving undergraduates, significant teaching experience with evidence of teaching excellence (e.g., a teaching award). Many search committees also look for formal training (e.g., completion of a certificate program) in college teaching. Most liberal arts faculty I know engaged in very intentional training and sought out specific experiences to prepare them for this type of position. I don’t think it would be accurate to view a job at a liberal arts college as an easy “fall back” position or a safe bet.

2.2 Dr. Clark Harvey (Behavioral Health Advocacy Organization)

When I worked at the state capitol, some colleagues were curious about why a psychologist would pursue a career in public policy. Most of my peers had a background in law, policy or politics. I think there is a common misconception that psychologists are prepared to only teach, research, or provide clinical services. This is held by those outside and within the field as well. I often explain to colleagues and students that we have sought-after skills that can be utilized to impact and transform systems. Our unique training has equipped us to teach, counsel, supervise, and lead within various sectors.

2.3 Dr. Hussong (Research Intensive University)

Often when I speak with graduate students about career planning, they offer the unintentional dig, “Oh, I don’t want a position like yours. I want to have a life. I want to have a family and to see my children.” This response reminds me that we shouldn’t make assumptions about what people do outside of the office. Just because all you see me do is work does not mean that this is all that I do. I think the flexibility of an academic position can be incredible and has many of the same challenges and rewards as running your own business. Once you are clear on what is expected from the university, the rest of your responsibilities are the commitments you make. I value being able to craft a schedule that clears late afternoons to share in my children’s activities or summers where we can spend more time together. A second misconception comes when students sometimes fail to see the journey involved in academic (or other) careers. Although some women take on both roles – mother and academic – at the same time, most take on one and then the other. The path to doing both together is often more gradual. Students who judge the position by those established in the role may misperceive the journey. This is akin to the third-year student who declares her graduate career a failure because she isn’t achieving at the same level as her mentor, a senior full professor. Well, of course that mentor was not achieving at that level either when he or she was a third-year student. So, my advice is to stay open to possibilities, trust that you will adjust to the circumstances in which you place yourself, and know that you will have more information when you need it.

2.4 Dr. Kamholz (Hybrid – Academically Affiliated VA Plus Small Business)

Many people assume that there’s no flexibility in a VA system, and that a sole business would be extremely flexible but lonely. In the broadest sense, large federal organizations do lack the ability to quickly shift to accommodate individual needs. However, my experience is that this is also quite variable depending on the specific organization, and the type of position within the organization. Different VA facilities have different cultures (including the extent to which they support staff having multidimensional lives), and this influences interpretation and implementation of policies. In addition, the VA has multiple missions – clinical care, research, and teaching. Professionals most heavily involved in direct clinical care may have the least flexibility because patient schedules dictate those of clinicians. There seems to be more obvious flexibility in the research, teaching, and administrative arenas. That said, the issues of who you work with and how hard you work have a huge influence on this, irrespective of your type of position.

Ironically, I experience my business as less flexible than the VA in many ways. Similar to clinical work at the VA, the clinical work in my business is largely dictated by patient schedules. Clinical sessions are more difficult to reschedule than meetings with colleagues. In addition, in the newer contract work that I’m pursuing, I’m typically the person with less experience and/or political capital. That means I’m working around others’ schedules. This relative lack of flexibility is offset by not working full-time in this area. As for possible loneliness, I haven’t had that problem. I imagine that’s partly because my clinical work is small (6–8 hours/week), and partly because my consulting/contract work is highly collaborative.

2.5 Dr. Lloyd-Richardson (Masters Granting University)

When I moved to my current position, I was told by a few in administration that my eight years in the academic medical center and the work that I had done there counted for very little on the road to tenure. They were right. It was at that time that I realized that medical schools and universities may not always speak the same language. Each of these institutions thinks “the grass is always greener on the other side.” Medical school staff may envision university professors as teaching an occasional class and then having hours on end to discuss theory or research problems and design with students eager to learn and engage. What they don’t consider is the amount of time it takes to teach a large course, or advise 35 students (yes, that’s right – advising 35 students on their course selection, career considerations, and how to get along with dorm roommates!). University faculty, on the other hand, imagine medical school-based research psychologists as devoting all of their time to the creative and exciting process of writing grant applications, and fail to consider the near daily struggle to maintain soft-money funding, and balancing clinical caseloads with research responsibilities. Truth be told, there is much more to both, with neither position being easily completed in a standard 50-hour work week.

2.6 Dr. Rivers (Leadership Consulting and Executive Coaching Private Practice)

As opposed to having misconceptions, individuals who learn that I am a leadership consultant and executive coach often respond with curiosity and additional questions. Of course, there are some who hear the word “consultant” and immediately think of the stereotype of hourly billing or high-dollar retainers for “cushy” work. The concept of “executive coaching” tends to be even more elusive because of the more recently popularized role of “life coach.” Thankfully, questions regarding my work are often entry points to conversations in which I can more fully describe my vocation. At some point in the dialogue, I usually refer to my training in clinical psychology and how my work has allowed me to integrate my understanding of individual differences and systems thinking in service of leadership and organization development as opposed to clinical problems. The intrigue often deepens when I add that I am also able to use my psychological assessment training in service of normative, lifespan developmental, and vocational issues and that my therapeutic and counseling skills provided a helpful foundation for my training and credentialing as a coach (although the work is distinctly different). If there are any misconceptions, they most often center around the hard work, diligence, and full range of relational, technical, and business management skills that are needed to successfully lead a consulting practice.

3.1 Dr. DiLillo (Liberal Arts College)

My son is now 14 and was born after I had been in my current position for two years. Because of my previous faculty position, I was considered for tenure and promotion early. As a consequence, I was tenured at the end of my third year, and was promoted the following year. (At the time, promotion and tenure were not linked at my institution, which is quite unusual.) Although I would have preferred to be a bit more established in my position before having a child, I was also very aware of the risks and potential complications I could encounter if I waited significantly longer (I was in my mid-30s at the time). I knew that the timing of my pregnancy could be stressful in relation to the tenure and promotion process, but I don’t think that there ever is an ideal or particularly low-stress (ha!) time to have a child.

I do not think that the transition to motherhood substantially changed the quality or amount of work I accomplished, but it did require me to restructure my work habits. As a true morning person, I learned to make good use of the early hours while my son was sleeping to answer emails, prepare for class, and write. I intentionally left work a bit earlier, but learned how to be more efficient while I was physically at the office. I’ve also become more intentional about my institutional service commitments, choosing to serve on committees that do not routinely meet during evening hours. Additionally, I am very fortunate to have several colleagues across campus who are also trying to juggle academic life with parenthood. Through the years, we have provided social support to one another and have come up with creative ways to resolve some tricky parenting challenges. For example, on some unexpected snow days when elementary schools were closed, but our college was open, we took turns supervising kids in an empty classroom so that none of us needed to cancel class. This group of colleagues certainly enhances my work-related quality of life, which in turn helps me maximize my effectiveness and productivity.

3.2 Dr. Clark Harvey (Behavioral Health Advocacy Organization)

I have two sons ages 2 and 4. Unlike the plans I made to prepare for my education and career, I have never been one to dream about or plan my future personal life. I always believed that things would fall into place when they were supposed to. I remember when my husband proposed to me, my first words were “I thought I told you my plan wasn’t set yet?” Of course, moments later I was full of excitement, but my first response illustrates how I have always put “career first.” After eight years of marriage, we still laugh about my initial response to the engagement. What I did not anticipate was the difficulty we would face when I was finally ready to explore starting a family.

After two years of fertility treatments and the loss of one of my twins, we were blessed with our first son. Almost two years later, we welcomed our second son. Both of my pregnancies were high-risk, but my work pace did not decrease. I remember confessing to an older woman in my family that I was nervous about how I was going to handle a high-powered career and also be a mom. Her response was interesting, “Well, it depends what kind of mother you plan to be. You can be the type that moves forward as if nothing happened, or you can be the type that talks about her kids all the time.” This response told me a lot about her, the expectations of working mothers in her generation, and the perception that being transparent about your motherhood/career journey was perceived as a weakness by some.

The benefit of being established in our careers was that we were financially prepared for the costs of raising children. However, the cost of being a “Supermom” began to surface after having my second child. Although I did not change anything about my work pace after having my first son, and in some ways I think I was trying to live up to the bad advice I received from a family member, I realized that I needed to reprioritize everything once I had two children. I had to become skilled at graciously declining invitations to serve on boards, speaking opportunities, etc. It was time to pay it forward. I began sharing opportunities with mentees and colleagues who were establishing their professional careers. It was also time to focus inward. I realized that I needed to get better at asking for and receiving help. I hired a nanny to assist with my second child, I let friends and family cook meals for me during my maternity leave, and started working from home on Fridays. I continued my leadership positions, but sometimes brought my baby with me to meetings. I decided to be transparent about my challenges with “balancing it all” as a mother and career woman, and as a result, numerous women and men began to reach out to me echoing similar struggles. It was liberating to share the realities, the successes, and moments of challenge being a working mom.

All in all, I challenge the sayings “lean in” and “achieve balance.” Balance is illusive – we all have times of great productivity when we lean in to complete a task, but it is important to build in a break to rejuvenate yourself too. Earlier this year, I was diagnosed with pre-cancerous cells that, in combination with my family history, indicate that I may develop an invasive breast cancer during my lifetime. I will continue to work, mother, and enjoy my life. I know that the lessons I have learned – working hard, reprioritizing and leaning on others – will now be tested more than ever. I hope breast cancer does not ensue, but if it does, I look forward to announcing that I beat it while working, mothering, and advocating for vulnerable populations.

3.3 Dr. Hussong (Research Intensive University)

More than one graduate student has complimented me on the seemingly impeccable timing of my entry into motherhood vis-à-vis my career trajectory. But like many career development stories, things are not always what they seem. Three years into my tenure-track position, my husband and I decided that we were ready to have children. It took another three and a team of endocrinologists before those children emerged, one year after I was granted tenure. I now have twin girls – who turned 16 the year in which I’m authoring this essay. The three years in between our decision to have children and our having children were challenging, but I am thankful for them. They are a reminder to be open to the opportunities around me and to hold in check my strivings for control over things that I do not control. I have to credit one of my students for summing this up when we talk on this subject. She writes about academic motherhood, “you can’t plan for it and there really is no ‘perfect time’ to have kids, but your job and lifestyle will allow for it whenever it happens.”

3.4 Dr. Kamholz (Hybrid – Academically Affiliated VA Plus Small Business)

I have one child, who is 12 years old. We welcomed her to our family when I was at the VA full-time and in the “acting” version of my current VA role. I accepted the permanent position when she was six months old. The transition to motherhood while also transitioning to the new professional role was a little tricky. My administrative position was far more public than my previous one. The rookie mistakes that I made at the office (partly due to learning the ropes, partly due to sleep deprivation) were more noticeable and frankly embarrassing than they might have been under different circumstances. In addition, as a new mother, it’s challenging to be questioning yourself on both the work and home front simultaneously.

On the positive side, I felt lucky to be navigating an enormous transition at home under what felt like very safe circumstances at work. I had been with this VA for over eight years, and was a known entity. Although the challenges of my promotion were certainly present, in general I didn’t feel like I had to prove myself. My colleagues and supervisors knew me well, and could readily contextualize bags under my eyes or word-finding difficulties. The VA in which I work is a family-friendly one, which also contributed to my feeling broadly supported. I was (and remain) grateful for that, and also for not being brand new to my career or this particular workplace when I became a parent. Although it can obviously be more difficult to start a family in your 30s or 40s, I felt the professional benefit of having done so. (An important note on this: I did not postpone having a family to focus on my career. It was a happy coincidence that I was in a more established place professionally when I wanted to start my family.)

In terms of my business, it is no coincidence that I started it when my daughter was around four years old. When she was younger than that, I wanted my work life to be as circumscribed and predictable as possible. Being at the VA full time (with no outside venture) fit that goal perfectly. But as my daughter got a little older (and she understood more and was, frankly, awake and interactive for longer each day), I felt comfortable being away from her a couple of evenings each week. My business expanded further when my daughter was about eight years old. As she’s gotten older and has more independent activities herself (and isn’t interested in spending as much time with me!) I’m more comfortable with less-predictable hours and a varied schedule that includes periodic weekend work and travel. She is also now old enough to understand how I value and juggle multiple priorities.

3.5 Dr. Lloyd-Richardson (Masters Granting University)

Looking back, I can see a clear correspondence between my children’s arrival and my career decisions. I was a junior faculty member at an academic medical center when I became pregnant with my oldest. I am extremely lucky to have had healthy pregnancies that allowed me to accomplish a great deal at work. Indeed, I found myself working on preparing a career development award up until the final hours of my first pregnancy. Receipt of that award allowed me 5 years to devote to this research agenda, and it was during this time that I also had my second child (16 months after my first). Upon finding out that I was pregnant with my third, I realized that, while I enjoyed my work setting and cared for my colleagues, I found it hard personally to divide my attention between the care I wanted to give my young children while also devoting the necessary and significant amount of time my work demanded (not to forget the 2-hour daily commute which ate into my work and family time). These issues became the catalyst for my searching for a meaningful, satisfying academic career that would not deprive me of the time I wanted to spend caring for my young children. I began applying for area Psychology department-based positions and accepted my current position while I was on maternity leave with my third child. It’s been 10 years since the first edition of this chapter was written, and my children are now 17, 15, and 13 years old. Holy cow, how did this happen?! They aren’t babies anymore, but they still need and want me to be involved in their busy teenage lives. No matter how busy my hours can get with my current position, I am continually grateful that it affords me the flexibility I need and desire to be active in my kids’ lives. I am mindful of how much I work at home around my children, because I want them to see me aspiring to juggle career with my family life and my own personal goals. But I also hope to set an example for them of how their mother can also be a competent professional helping to educate and improve people’s lives.

3.6 Dr. Rivers (Leadership Consulting and Executive Coaching Private Practice)

Immediately after having my first child, my family relocated because of my spouse’s work. We were ushered into a welcoming community, and I was quickly recruited to become an adjunct professor at one of the local colleges in the area. In light of the transition and my love for teaching and training, I thought the part-time position would be a great fit and accepted the offer. After the first semester, I was invited to become a full-time visiting professor and later accepted a tenure-track position. I knew that I wanted to shift my career toward organizational psychology and consulting, but I recognized that the professorship provided a platform to establish greater credibility in the community, network and build relationships that would be crucial to building a practice, and have greater autonomy over my schedule than a traditional 9 to 5 role. In order to align my academic efforts with my future goals, I elected to teach organizational psychology courses and manage my department’s outward facing co-op and internship programs. Eventually, I connected with others who were involved in leadership development and coaching initiatives at a neighboring university medical center and was invited to train and serve in their leadership coaching cadre. I had my second child 2 years later, and it became clear that I would no longer be able to juggle mothering two small children while managing my academic responsibilities and a growing consulting and coaching practice. After a period of soul searching and discernment, I decided to take a leap of faith and leave the professorship behind – despite the financial uncertainty and risk that this change would impose. Thanks to a remarkably interesting series of events, I found myself interviewing to become an adjunct coach with one of the most respected and consistently ranked global leadership education organizations in the world within a few months of my formal departure.

The breakthrough opportunity that I had been seeking had finally emerged and also offered the flexibility I needed at that time to fulfill my chief priority, which was serving my family. My children are now 11 and 15, and their increasing maturity has afforded the opportunity to take on additional roles and challenges. My goals and priorities are still the same, however. I want to be present for my children and to model authenticity and the ongoing pursuit of a meaningful and fulfilling life.

I witnessed an important mentoring conversation about work and family between a wise and gregarious banking executive and a somewhat younger group of professional women. She reassured her audience in the face of questions regarding “balance,” by stating “you can have it all, just not all at the same time.” While there might be some who would disagree, I appreciated the perspective. Once we identify and gain clarity on our “anchors” – those values, beliefs, and imperatives that ground us and serve as guideposts – we can clarify our paths, choices, and the timing of when we elect to pursue particular goals. That said, we must embrace even this idea with self-compassion and acknowledge the inherent uncertainty of life.

4.1 Dr. DiLillo (Liberal Arts College)

The aspect of my job that helps me effectively manage responsibilities at both work and home is the control I have over my activities and day-to-day schedule. This control allows me some flexibility in terms of scheduling classes so that I can make it to my son’s soccer game, take him to a doctor’s appointment, or chaperone the occasional field trip. I work as many hours and as intensely as I did when I was employed at an academic medical center, but the increased autonomy and flexibility I currently have translate into less stress and an overall higher quality of life. I also have significant flexibility during the summer months. While faculty members at my institution are on 9-month contracts, most of the psychology faculty spends a significant amount of time in the office during summer months on research activities that are difficult to accomplish during the school year when classes are in session. However, the summer atmosphere is quite relaxed, and the absence of teaching responsibilities enhances flexibility, which in turn facilitates my ability to manage both work and home responsibilities.

An additional factor that greatly facilitated my transition to motherhood was my institution’s generous maternity leave policy. As a rule, new mothers are granted a one-semester paid maternity leave during which they are free from all regular faculty responsibilities, including teaching, advising, and service activities. Research activities are a little trickier to manage given that it may not be feasible or desirable to truly hit the pause button on a program of research for an entire semester. I had the good fortune of giving birth to my son at the beginning of the summer and took maternity leave the following fall. As a result, I was able to spend about 7 months at home with him before returning to work full-time. It’s notable that both departmental and institutional support for this policy are quite strong; I was assured that I was in fact expected to take maternity leave. In my experience and observation this type of maternity leave policy eases the adjustment to parenthood and ultimately enhances productivity upon return to full-time work.

While I have benefited enormously from the flexibility and autonomy in my job, it is not without challenges. The professional life of a faculty member at a liberal arts college is not confined to the classroom, and it is important to be actively involved in multiple aspects of the campus community. Consequently, many work-related activities take place outside the confines of a typical 9 to 5 workday. For example, faculty members at my institution frequently participate in evening faculty meetings, admissions events, departmental activities, and functions related to student organizations across campus. This assortment of activities can complicate childcare arrangements and may make it challenging to plan for quality time at home.

Another issue that poses a challenge is the fact that many aspects of academic work have no clearly defined end or limits. Of course, this can be said of many other types of work (including stay-at-home parenting) as well. While certain activities do terminate when a semester ends, most (research, course development, advising, committee work …) are ongoing. As a result, the work can easily expand to fill whatever time I allow. This characteristic of academic work, combined with the fact that technology makes me highly accessible to students at almost any hour of the day, can make it more difficult than I would like to keep some degree of separation between work and family life. I consistently strive to set reasonable limits for myself at work (and at home) to avoid burnout while maintaining both my productivity and my sanity.

4.2 Dr. Clark Harvey (Behavioral Health Advocacy Organization)

When you dream about your future, dream big and do not compromise. Women can do so much, and if you have the opportunity to shatter the glass ceiling, and this is what you dream of, then do it. I do not mean to sound simplistic or naive about the real life dilemmas many women face, but I have watched many short-change their professional dreams out of fear that they would not be able to swing work and motherhood.

While our country lags behind others in providing appropriate paid leave to mothers and fathers, I encourage every mother to take full advantage of the leave afforded you by your employer. If there is room to negotiate, do it. I remember having a boss who changed the medical policy in our handbook, because he needed extra medical coverage for a procedure. When I became pregnant, I went to him, reminded him of how flexible he was with his own medical needs and asked him to revise the maternity leave policy, and he did. I also negotiated professional development days so that I would not have to use my paid time off to cover my time volunteering at board meetings (many of which I brought my infant to). Last, I requested to be able to work from home one day a week.

In sum, if you do not advocate for yourself, who will? If there is flexibility to negotiate for your future personal needs up front, then build this into your job offer. Although we are “super women” we also have families who rely upon us. You cannot turn time back so the more you can do to create a work schedule and culture that will afford enough flexibility that you can attend to multiple aspects of your identity, the better.

4.3 Dr. Hussong (Research Intensive University)

In the introduction to Mama PhD, you will find the following veracious words written by Reference Evans and GrantElrana Evans and Caroline Grant (2008):

Their words strike a chord with me. On the whole, across the semesters, contexts, pauses, and challenges, I enjoy my experience of a life that includes both an academic career and a family with children. My own personal definition of balance then is that enjoyment.

I believe that academic positions are highly flexible and compatible with parenthood for many, although not all, individuals. True, there are really many versions of the academic position, and I have been fortunate to work in a supportive environment. When I left my twin four-month-olds at home to go back to work regularly, I decided that there must be a reason for doing so, and I set out to define what that reason was for me. In the academy, I’ve often been able to create the job that would hold my interest, a job that I would like most of the time and even love some of the time. This is a key ingredient to me in juggling the responsibilities of the Mama PhD life.

In my opinion, many of the challenges that academic mothers face are common to working mothers everywhere and simply revolve around not having enough hours in the day for managing the lab and the household, writing the manuscript and the grocery list, and consulting the statistician and the babysitter. I am certainly more likely to be late on deadlines than I was pre-kid, but I care less. Other challenges that await the academic mother may differ from pre-tenure to post-tenure status. The pre-tenure academic job holds performance to an external standard, requires a certain level of productivity, and provides the challenge of doing many things for the first time and at the same time. These factors mean that pre-tenure positions often feel less flexible and perhaps more overwhelming than post-tenure positions. Then there is perhaps the more demanding part of the job, defining and meeting our own standards and figuring out how to deal with external feedback when those standards clash with those of the academy. This second part of the job does not change post-tenure for most of us and indeed begins far before that first tenure-track position.

But I’d be remiss if I didn’t address one of the core challenges of an academic position – the unending and seemingly limitless bounds of the work an academician does. When am I done writing the talk, preparing the course, advising the student? How many talks, courses, and students do I take on? Because it can be difficult to know exactly when we are done, it is vital that we work hard to avoid over-committing at work or at home. This relates to one of the most important skills to master as academic mothers; that is, saying “No.” I often hear from my junior colleagues that they believe that they cannot say no to requests to contribute to their departments or fields because they fear for their tenure. I am not sure that this fear is always well-placed and I strongly encourage women to check out that belief with senior colleagues before they pile on the commitments. But again, learning to set those boundaries, to un-commit to commitments that turned out to be something else, and to leave work aside to play are all challenges for any working mother, and perhaps even more so for the academic mother.

4.4 Dr. Kamholz (Hybrid – Academically Affiliated VA Plus Small Business)

This is the million dollar question, and I don’t believe there is an easy or one-size-fits-all answer. I would argue that it’s incumbent on each of us to identify our own values and priorities, and to try to act in ways that are consistent with those. We need to be our own barometers.

The guiding force of values and values-based behaviors has received lots of attention over the last two decades, highlighted by the work of visionaries in acceptance- and mindfulness-based approaches to mental health, such as Marsha Linehan, Steve Hayes, Liz Roemer, Sue Orsillo, and others. The importance of values in job and career choices is an important application of these ideas (e.g., Reference Yu and WrightYu & Wright, 2015), and several work-related values exercises have been developed, accordingly (e.g., https://media.capella.edu/CourseMedia/CPLU1100_CPL5100/WorkValuesCardSort/wrapper.asp). My dear friend and colleague, Dr. Risa Weisberg, and I have also spoken on the topic at various conferences (e.g., Reference Kamholz, Weisberg, Comer, Tsao, Stoddard and WilhelmKamholz et al., 2016; Reference Weisberg, Aloia, Bach, Becker, Kamholz and RoemerWeisberg et al., 2016), and it would be hard to overstate her influence on my thinking here. Although I can’t offer an easy or universal answer to this question, I can highlight the ways in which certain values have influenced my own choices at different times (as I’ve alluded to previously), as well as their dynamic nature.

Just some of the professional values relevant to my choices (and my satisfaction with those choices) are: the importance of doing “good,” autonomy, influence, enjoyable relationships, financial stability, clear boundaries between my work and personal life, and status. Throughout my career, I have placed a premium on being able to “do good,” have meaningful autonomy over my work while also enjoying relationships with colleagues, and maximizing financial stability. (I have a remarkably low threshold for fiscal risk.) In the earlier years of my career (from finishing postdoc until my daughter was about 5 years old), it was also very important to me to have influence within an organization, have clear (rigid?) boundaries between work and personal time, and to have a certain amount of professional clout or status. My then-full-time VA leadership role matched those priorities extremely well.

As I became more senior in my traditional psychology career and my daughter got older, my priorities shifted. Now mid-career and feeling like I’ve “proven myself,” status is no longer a significant consideration. As I mentioned elsewhere, I’m also more comfortable with more permeable boundaries across work and personal domains. Although consistent across my career, my perspective of doing “good” broadened considerably as the landscapes of politics and social justice shifted dramatically leading up to the 2016 elections and beyond. Perhaps more accurately, my understanding of reality shifted, and I wanted to take action on a larger scale. Similarly, although my value on influence remains, its focus has broadened and become less self-referential. In addition, as I achieved a certain amount of mastery in my work, I sought new and exciting challenges. Expanding my professional life to include my own business has allowed me to have the best of many worlds, continuing meaningful work at the VA while exploring exciting new ventures in areas that matter to me.

Of course, all choices have consequences, and it’s important to understand them as you make decisions. I have made values-based choices that “cost” me professionally. For example, my ascent through academic promotion was significantly slowed by both my professional focus (e.g., shifting from soft-money research to a hard-money position as early as possible for many reasons, including financial security) and personal priorities (e.g., how much time I wanted to spend with my family). I became an associate professor long after many of my peers were promoted to full professor (an academic rank that I will never achieve). I have also made values-based choices that “cost” me personally. For example, spending hundreds of hours on political work that took me away from family, friends, sleep, good nutrition, and exercise!

Values-based choices are complicated, deeply personal, and change over time. We can’t achieve a perfect state, but we can work towards what matters to us.

4.5 Dr. Lloyd-Richardson (Masters Granting University)

I find it important to allow myself freedom and flexibility and to not put too much emphasis on “balancing” work and personal demands. “Balance” assumes that we ultimately have more control over our environments than we may actually have. To that end, my current position allows me great flexibility. Aside from my being expected to teach my assigned courses and hold regular office hours, nearly half of what I do can be accomplished on my own schedule, and in my home office if I choose. As long as I plan accordingly, I can build in daily morning exercise and time for chores on our farm, transport kids to various activities in the evenings, and any other demands that may arise. Of course, the downside to this arrangement is that work demands may always feel like they are lurking and needing attention. Technology makes it all too easy to access and engage in work, making it nearly impossible to set clear boundaries between “work” and “home.” Here are a few things that I find helpful in sorting out how to keep my internal compass aimed in the right direction:

4.6 Dr. Rivers (Leadership Consulting and Executive Coaching Private Practice)

As described in a previous response, having control and autonomy over my schedule informed several of my career choices after having children. Serving as a professor and independent consultant allowed me to carve out time that I needed during traditional business hours to run errands, volunteer at my children’s school, work from home when needed, and care for my children when they were sick. A consequence of these choices was that I often found myself at my desk at night working late to meet deadlines and finish tasks that could have been completed earlier if I had kept regular business hours. Despite the late nights, having the additional control and flexibility reduced my stress and allowed me to be present in ways that were meaningful to me. I also believe in delegating the things that are either not important to me, I am not good at, or that are simply not efficient uses of my time. I happily order take out and family meal packages, hire sitters, and engage housekeeping services when possible.

It is important to acknowledge that these options are not always affordable or otherwise feasible for some, but need often creates amazing opportunities for novel solutions and partnership. I had a friend with a full-time nanny that she wanted to retain. After my friend’s son entered preschool, she began to have trouble offering the number of hours her nanny desired. I had been searching for a reliable sitter but only needed a few hours of care per week. Our quite different circumstances created the perfect opportunity for us to share a nanny. The caregiver was fully engaged and satisfied through this partnership, and we were both relieved.

At times, simply acknowledging or asking for help can be a barrier to greater satisfaction. The “superwoman complex” and false and misleading images that “strong” women can “do it all” should be deconstructed. I would encourage readers to honestly assess their circumstances and unique needs and to then draw upon their resources to create the support structures that they uniquely need, without apology or guilt.

5.1 Dr. DiLillo (Liberal Arts College)

There are a few things I try to keep in mind as I attempt to juggle my responsibilities and roles at work and at home.

First, I rely heavily on planning, organization, and the maintenance of a schedule. For example, I have learned that I can be particularly productive during the early morning hours when I am the only one awake, and I regularly use this time to make progress on preparations for class, writing projects, etc. I also maintain a master calendar in the kitchen with commitments for both work and home (including “appointments” for fun activities with my family) so that I can keep the time frames for various goals and activities in mind from day to day. This strategy helps me prioritize so that I can use my time most efficiently.

Second, I have to frequently remind myself that, in spite of all the efforts I make to plan effectively and control my schedule, many things happen (often at the last minute) that I cannot even pretend to control … my son gets sick, a critical meeting is called, the carpool cancels, etc. In my experience, many of these changes result in work–child care conflicts that require significant flexibility, not to mention a sense of humor. Although it certainly did not address all the complications that arose from unanticipated changes, when my son was younger, I did try to plan ahead by keeping some toys and snacks at my office. I also maintained a list of students who expressed an interest in babysitting in the event that my son unexpectedly needed to spend an hour or two with me at work.

Third, I think it’s important to discover what helps you manage stress most effectively, whether it’s yoga, meditation, or making time to read something other than journal articles. For me, both regular physical activity and active solicitation of social support are key. In particular, I find it helpful to maintain a system of social support involving friends both from within and beyond academia. I have found that having a range of supportive people in my network facilitates creative problem solving, reciprocal logistic support, and the ability to look at potential stressors from a different, often humorous, angle. Whatever your preferred stress management strategies, don’t forget to implement them.

Finally, I often remember what a good friend once told me. She said that it isn’t really fair to compare yourself now to the “you” you were before having kids in terms of energy, efficiency, productivity, priorities, etc. I use this sentiment as a reminder to strive for realistic expectations of myself both as an academic and as a parent. Could I supervise yet another research project? Sure. Could I spend even more time prepping a lecture? Very likely. Could I produce a handmade Darth Vader costume for my son? Probably. But there isn’t enough time in the day to do it all, or to do it all perfectly. It’s a matter of discovering what is meaningful and reinforcing for you, what is consistent with your values and work ethic, and what works best for your family. I see that process as a challenging, constantly evolving, and very worthwhile journey.

5.2 Dr. Clark Harvey (Behavioral Health Advocacy Organization)

The concept of balance is overrated in my opinion. The way we have been socialized to believe that there is some magical state that we must reach where all is in order and harmony is achievable is unrealistic, limiting for many, and can be more damaging than helpful. It was during a leadership retreat that I heard the words that helped me drop the guilt for being lopsided in my priorities, and better understand that having so-called balance between my social, personal, spiritual, and professional aspects of my life could look different.

The speaker shared a study of some of the most successful people in the nation. It showed that not one of them had equal amounts of energy focused on these four aspects of life. Instead, there were times when these individuals had a task that required almost all of their energy. They poured energy into a task – skipping sleep sometimes to complete it. Importantly, what they all also had in common was some sort of pre-planned hiatus or sabbatical built in. This looked different for each person, but it served as a respite and time of recharge to look forward to. In essence, there should be no guilt about burning the candle on both ends to complete a project, but there should be time planned to reconnect with yourself and with your family and celebrate your hard work.

Over the years, I have picked up a few tips that serve as guiding principles for my professional and personal life. Someone once challenged me to articulate my mission statement for my career. A mission statement is a reflection of one’s values and passions. I encourage this activity as it can help one think about the purpose and meaning behind their professional pursuits.

5.3 Dr. Hussong (Research Intensive University)

I believe all the sage advice I have to offer has already been said. Nonetheless, here are my thoughts on home–work balance. This balance is a striving, rather than a state of being. When we judge it relative to a set of “oughts,” rather than our internal standards, we are bound to feel failure. When we assess it within the moment, rather than over the long haul, we are bound to feel failure. When we focus on our downfalls, rather than our successes, we are bound to feel failure. And when we attribute our life challenges repeatedly to the pressure of “achieving balance,” rather than the many other sources of challenge present in our lives, we are bound to feel failure.

So what is my advice? Define your own standards for performance and criteria for judging how you are doing. Think about striving toward balance as a process over time, rather than something to achieve in each day, week, or month. Celebrate your successes, no matter how small the party. And then, there is the wisdom of the otters …

Two quotes posted on the walls of the Otter House at the High Desert Museum in Bend Oregon await you outside the cage of Thomas, the river otter. I never thought of myself as identifying with otters before, but after reading these quotes, I see that Thomas gets it. Attributed to Ed Park, the first quote is simply, “If an otter can’t have fun doing something, it simply won’t do it.” As much as possible, work and teach on topics you care about, with people you like being around. Have fun doing your job as much as possible. Do the same thing at home. There is time for this. Not all the day, all the time, but there is indeed time for this.

The other quote is attributed to G. Maxwell and reads “Otters are extremely bad at doing nothing … they are either asleep or entirely absorbed in play or other activity.” As contemporary psychologists, we recognize the element of mindfulness in this attitude. Be where you are as much as possible, and be absorbed in it. Know when you are working and when you are mothering.

Despite these brave sayings, I do often find myself caught up in the struggle of finding time to make it all work. I look up from packing sandwiches for school the next day as I simultaneously review therapy tapes for clinical supervision at 10 pm on a Tuesday night. For this reason, posted in my living room are two Brian Andreas prints that partner to comfort me. The first speaks to my sometimes unrealistic standards for parenthood, and reads “She asked me if I had kids & when I did she said make sure you teach them what’s right. & I said how will I know? & she nodded & said, good point, just don’t teach them any obvious wrong then.” The other speaks to the time pressures we all feel, and reads “Everything changed the day she figured out there was exactly enough time for the important things in her life.”

For me, family is first. But I remain devoted to my job. Right now, in this part of my career, they feed one another. It is a constant struggle, though, to remember why I do what I do and to make sure that I am making choices and rewarding myself according to the values and standards that I set for myself. Having a partner who gets it and lives it right along with me is the key to making this work for me.

5.4 Dr. Kamholz (Hybrid – Academically Affiliated VA Plus Small Business)

For me, guidance can be divided into philosophical approaches and practical strategies. Philosophically, I try to focus on my values as much as possible (within the parameters of reality, like financial responsibilities, priorities of the people and institutions for whom I work, etc.). I have addressed that philosophy earlier in this chapter, so I’ll address more practical issues here.

5.5 Dr. Lloyd-Richardson (Masters Granting University)

Career success requires hard work, combined with passion. The work that we’ve chosen to pursue is born out of a need to help make a difference in people’s lives. Whether this work involves writing a book or a research grant, teaching classes, working with clients, supervising trainees, or advocating for mental health, passion is key to the success of these activities. But, how do we find our own “ideal” balance? How do we realistically make this happen on a daily basis? A weekly basis? This is where carefully aligning our actions with our values is critical. As others in this chapter have also referenced, regularly reminding ourselves of our core values and assessing our thoughts and actions for how they match up will help us stay grounded and true to our own ideals.

Career success also requires the ability to handle frustration and failure. Many of us have heard this advice with respect to rejection of scholarly articles or research grants. But have you considered your ability to handle frustration and failure with respect to balancing career and family? Life has a way of twisting and turning, whether related to career or family. Learn to trust yourself and to listen to what feels right when it comes to making decisions involving your career, your family, and your own passions. Don’t be afraid to change course when you feel you’re heading in the wrong direction, as you’ll often find that some doors may close, but many others will open for you. Trust your instincts!

5.6 Dr. Rivers (Leadership Consulting and Executive Coaching Private Practice)

When considering this question regarding the “dynamic art of juggling,” I think it is important to acknowledge my complete rejection of the construct of work–life balance from the start. I prefer to lean more heavily on the concepts of resilience and sustainability. Informed by Tony Schwartz’s integrative work on energy management, Kate Rademacher’s writings on rest and sabbath, and numerous neuro-leadership researchers, my approach to sustainability is grounded in the continuum of activities across the many domains of my life. I have made it a practice to notice how I am experiencing different aspects of my work, avocational interests, and personal life in order to increase the intentionality of selecting those activities that are going to help maintain my energy and vigor, while also being conscious of those activities that deplete my energy. With this deliberate focus, I can better regulate my thoughts and actively cope with more challenging or difficult situations. To put it simply, there are aspects of my work that are incredibly energizing while some are draining. Similarly, I find that some aspects of my personal and family life are energizing, and others are draining. If I were to try to balance the hours spent focused on both areas without a deeper understanding of self and experience, I would likely feel very out of sorts and quite “imbalanced.”

While not perfect, this overall strategy informs choices about time off, vacation, sabbatical experiences, and perhaps most importantly, my daily choices. With conscious awareness, I have crafted a “menu” of self-care practices and habits that I have found to be helpful. I then experiment with and deploy options from my “menu” based on my circumstances, tasks, and to-dos on a given day. For example, one simple best practice for me is to ensure that meetings are adequately spaced in order to allow for reflection, renewal, and appropriate planning for any needed follow up tasks between appointments. If I cannot achieve the desired spacing due to constraints outside of my control, I build recovery time into my schedule that allows me to decompress and complete necessary follow-up tasks. If I can successfully deploy this practice, I am often able to end my workday with a sense of calm and move on to my more family-focused “second shift” with greater resolve. Although this one strategy may sound like a small thing, sometimes the additive benefits of seemingly small gestures or behaviors can have a big impact on overall well-being and sustainability.

While I may always be a planner at heart and rely on my analytical skills to come up with efficient routines and approaches to managing responsibilities, I have learned through experience that these approaches are not fail-safe and can even lead to distress or “performance guilt” in some instances. Learning to integrate thinking and planning with more emergent approaches that incorporate elements of mindfulness has enabled greater adaptability and agility in the face of the all-too-common “curveballs” and uncertainties of work and family life.

6.1 Dr. DiLillo (Liberal Arts College)

I would suggest looking for an environment where a healthy commitment to work and other activities is modeled. Because most interviews last a couple of days, you might get a sense of the general atmosphere by listening to what current employees talk about during some of the less-formal interactions. For example, does anyone mention family, hobbies, volunteer work, or children? Is information about activities outside of work volunteered? Additionally, if I were applying to a college or university, I would seek out the institution’s faculty handbook (which can frequently be found online) to investigate the family leave and other relevant policies. I might also investigate whether there are institution-affiliated childcare facilities on campus. Finally, if you receive a job offer, I would be certain to assertively negotiate. Women are often hesitant to ask for a higher starting salary, more start-up funds, or something else that could impact their future success. Do not hesitate to seek out advice from a trusted mentor about this process if you need it. You only have one opportunity to negotiate for these important resources; don’t miss it!

6.2 Dr. Clark Harvey (Behavioral Health Advocacy Organization)

The job hunt after graduate school can be a difficult exercise for many. After years of following a script for success outlined by educational institutions, students are thrown to the professional world, and expected to figure out how to navigate the transition. No matter how many mentors you have, or how clear cut you believe your path to professional success will be, the change from student to full-time professional is something no one takes an academic course in. This is because there is no syllabus or script for your path. Everyone’s journey is different, and you must learn to navigate it for yourself. Many will turn to their mentors in specific settings eager to learn about their career path and seek to emulate it. While mentorship and being inspired by others can be helpful, I challenge students to be open and flexible as they think about their future.

When you land that first job, there are a few items I suggest women consider. First, where you start is important. Too many women are reticent to ask for more during job negotiations. This can be a higher salary, additional benefits or time off. Here are some suggested questions to consider asking:

• Ask if there are policies around professional development activities. For example, if you are serving on a board that requires you to be present for meetings during the week, or if you plan to take time to study for a licensure examination, request time outside of your allotted vacation time to participate in these activities.

• If you are thinking about starting a family, make sure to ask about policies around maternity leave and childcare credits/allowances.

• Inquire about opportunities to advance. If you are going to continue to grow, then understanding the potential for advancement within a workplace is critical.

• Also, inquire about opportunities for mentorship from other women at the organization. Remember, no one gets where they are at alone. Having professionals who have navigated the path ahead of you will help you get a sense of what is possible within the workplace.

6.3 Dr. Hussong (Research Intensive University)

Often, students making the transition of applying from undergraduate to graduate school have to change their criteria for selecting programs from university rankings to person–environment fit. In my experience, those individuals who are most satisfied with their graduate training are the ones who chose their institution because it offered what they wanted, rather than what someone else wanted or because of the reputation of the institution. This is harder than it seems, of course, because you first have to know what you want. What type of environment best fits you?

The same challenge presents itself in looking for the first job. Knowing how important it is for you to work in a women- or family-friendly environment, relative to other criteria for job selection, is a personal decision. Your goal is to optimize the fit between what you want and the opportunities and demands of the work environment. That said, there are a variety of guides that help women think about what is important to consider in identifying work settings that are women- and/or family-friendly. Without reviewing those here, let me highlight just a few questions you might ask to make this assessment:

• Do you see women in positions of authority in the department (tenured full professors, area heads, chairs, deans)? Are there supportive role models?

• What is the history of women getting tenure in the department? Is that any different for women who are also mothers?

• Are there a lot of demands on your time at night or that require travel that are non-negotiable or that would negatively impact you if you chose not to attend?

• Do any of the faculty members ever bring their children into work for a few hours in a pinch? How do other faculty members respond when that happens?

• What are maternity and paternity leave policies? Is there an option to delay the tenure clock because of maternity leave or extended family leave?

• Is there a women’s faculty center on campus to support the development of female faculty?

And where do you get the information? Read the personnel documents that lay out employment policies (e.g., leave, sick time). Talk to women and men in the workplace (students, staff, and faculty). When possible, talk to people who have left this work site to see if any of these issues was part of the reason. You may not always get reliable and valid reports, but I would suspect that the reports would be as good as you might expect to get on most topics you might ask about the worksite.

6.4 Dr. Kamholz (Hybrid – Academically Affiliated VA Plus Small Business)

As it was explained to me by a colleague years ago, the degrees of freedom that most strongly influence job searches are typically location, job type/duties, and salary. I would tweak that model to subdivide one variable (that is, dividing job type/duties into structure and content), and add one more factor – the people with whom one works. For a first job, most people will have to prioritize one factor. The very lucky individual enjoys two out of three. It’s up to each of us to decide what’s most important to us.

Beyond the basics (mentioned above), I think a key aspect of any job are the people you work with (including opportunities for mentorship). Related to this is the tenor of the organization. Do people talk about their lives outside of work? Have friendships with each other? What is the leadership like (at all levels)? Do they have outside interests, families, hobbies? Those personal and interpersonal characteristics will be mirrored in the organization and in your own position.

Finally, remember that your starting point in an organization will significantly influence the trajectory of your position (and, potentially, career) in terms of both responsibilities and salary. Regarding salary in particular, that cuts both ways – if you start out underpaid, that is likely to continue (or you’ll spend a lot of energy catching up). If you start out at a very high salary, you’ll end up building a life based on that income (e.g., mortgage), and it may be very difficult later to pursue opportunities that pay less.

Across all variables, it is important to ascertain what will be expected of you and what is valued in the system, to best evaluate your likelihood for happiness and success in the position. Be sure to understand opportunities for advancement and salary structure, and don’t apologize for wanting appropriate compensation for your efforts.

While sorting through everyone’s advice, remember there’s no easy ticket. Whether you want to cultivate a multidimensional life, or you want to focus on only one aspect of things and get on the fastest track, you will have to work hard, be flexible, and collaborate if you want to succeed (however you choose to define success).

6.5 Dr. Lloyd-Richardson (Masters Granting University)

Responses by my co-authors provide many helpful suggestions and questions to ask when searching for that first job. I wish I’d had access to all of this in my early career days! My advice comes from a slightly different angle, and pushes you to consider from the beginning how to ensure that your “ideal” includes time for you to explore your personal passions and be your authentic self. During my postdoc years, I noticed that my friends who had not pursued advanced degrees had thriving personal lives, replete with healthy non-work-related interests (i.e., “hobbies”). My friends pursuing advanced studies, on the other hand, had for so many years given their time, energy, and “down time” over to their studies, their profession. Perhaps necessary at the time, at a certain point, I found myself asking “Is this all there is?” When is a good time to pursue these other interests that add to the richness of life? There’s no better time than the present, I would assert. So when you find yourself looking for that first job, ask questions not only about the work environment, responsibilities, etc. … but ask about what people do for fun. Do they have time for creative outlets or non-work interests? Can they tell you about some great venues around town for music or outdoor recreation? Or do they let you know that there’s little time outside of work? I think that part of being a successful psychologist is being a happy, healthy, balanced individual.

A primary reason that I chose the position I am in now was for the “quality of life” – what does this mean? The flexibility the job offered, the ability to have more time available in the summers, to pursue passions that sometimes diverge and sometimes overlap with my academic career. When I received my tenure and promotion, I expanded our farm and got my horses. I’d tested the waters and decided that I could indeed build the full, well-rounded lifestyle that I was aspiring to. Over the years, we’ve expanded to include goats, chickens, and a miniature donkey. Everyone in the family rides, some of us competitively. This has led to a separate line of clinical research involving animal-assisted interventions and my certification as an equine-facilitated therapist. What began as an effort to create a well-rounded lifestyle for myself and my family has also led to very rewarding professional service and a new line of intriguing research.

As others have commented, this is a matter of goodness of fit with a particular position, at a particular time in your life. Women – and men – will obviously want to consider whether that position will allow them the flexibility to enjoy their families, personal time, etc. … It’s also important to be realistic about the amount of work that will need to be completed in order to earn a desired salary. I think it’s important to consider ALL of the options available to you, whether clinical, academic, or administrative. The perspectives offered here in this article are diverse and honest. I hope they will help to raise questions and flag concerns as you consider your next career steps.

6.6 Dr. Rivers (Leadership Consulting and Executive Coaching Private Practice)

It is never too early or too late to begin to practice Stephen Covey’s second habit, “Begin with the End in Mind.” Former tech CEO Shellye Archambeau illustrates this point in her book Unapologetically Ambitious (Reference Archambeau2020), noting that people often “take opportunities they [find] right in front of them, instead of strategizing to create their own options.” With these insights in mind, I challenge you to envision your career trajectory and imagine the long-term opportunities that you want to create for your future. Having some understanding of where one ultimately wants to land and thinking strategically before one begins to review job postings and announcements are crucial precursors to a successful search. Therefore, engaging in a season of deep reflection regarding one’s life vision and sense of purpose and vocational calling is a perfect first step of preparation.

Begin with the following questions: What impact do you want to make and what populations do you feel called to serve through your work? Reflecting on prior educational and professional experiences can also be crucial to this mindfully strategic approach. What tasks or roles have you found to be life-giving? What aspects of your training and work have you found to be draining? In addition to helping identify longer-term career objectives, the answers that emerge from your reflection can help you gain insight on focus areas or specializations that provide meaning and fulfillment and nuances regarding how or in what settings you prefer to work. Similarly, thinking about values that inform lifestyle choices like where you want to live (e.g., city vs. rural, population size and diversity, cultural affordances of a community) or proximity to family, friends, and loved ones are also important.

Once these broader variables are identified, I recommend that you pay close attention to the culture of the institutions you are vetting. If growth and development are a priority, select organizations that provide support for promotion and advancement and have a demonstrated history of investing in their people. Prioritize conversations with potential peers and colleagues to get a sense of how institutional values are really operationalized. Stated views and values are not always reflected in practice. Finally, invoke your mindfulness skills and notice how you feel during the interview process and on in-person visits. Moving from tracking the analytical score card of a position or institution to one’s experience of community and connection (or the lack thereof) can also serve as a crucial measure of fit.

4.1 The Vita

The vita, also called the “curriculum vitae” or “CV,” is a summary of your main accomplishments. Often, it is the document that hiring institutions look at first. If your vita does not fit the profile of the person they wish to hire, they may look no further. Hence, a strong vita is essential to your success.

The most basic elements of a vita are your (a) name; (b) contact information (postal address, phone number, e-mail address, fax if you have one); (c) present status (e.g., graduate student, postdoctoral fellow); (d) degrees (including anticipated ones), listing what they are, where they are from, and when they were conferred; (e) job experience, including consulting; (f) honors and awards, including scholarships and fellowships, if any; (g) publications, if any; (h) talks you have given and where you have given them; (i) teaching experience, if any; (j) special skills, such as in foreign or computer languages or in specialized techniques of laboratory work; (k) clinical experience, if any; (l) relevant volunteer experience; (m) reviewing you have done for journals, if any; (n) teaching interests; and (o) research interests (where relevant). Many people also list family information (such as whether they have a spouse and/or children), although this information is optional.

Do not list your social security number or birth date. Such information can be stolen and used against you. Also, do not list recognitions from before your college years, such as that you were valedictorian of your high school class or that you won a prize for an essay you wrote in middle school. Do not list irrelevant skills, such as that you sail or ski. Such listings might suggest you are less than serious. If you want, bring up such skills in the interview, perhaps in passing during the course of a conversation at dinner.

When you list publications, you should list both published and in-press articles. If an article is submitted for publication you may wish to list it, but do not say to where it has been submitted, as you may later be embarrassed if the article is rejected. Make sure that anything you list you can produce. Listing a paper that you cannot provide on demand marks you as deceptive. And listing things on your vita that are not true (e.g., phony degrees, papers as accepted that are not accepted, and so forth) can be grounds for you to be terminated from a job if the falsifications later are discovered. Hence, put yourself in the most favorable light, but never fabricate.

A strong vita is an important basis for getting a job. Hence, you should start building up the vita as soon as possible. Keep in mind the categories above, and try to fill them in. But remember that quality will usually be more important than quantity. A few good publications often are worth more than a smattering of not so good ones. Hiring institutions look at the quality of the journal in which the articles are published and are likely to be less impressed with publications that appear in weak or non-peer-reviewed journals. At the same time, not all your publications have to be in top journals. Sometimes, specialized journals are simply more appropriate for a given line of work.

Google analytics publishes statistical information on scholars, such as (a) total number of scholarly citations; (b) h-index – the number of publications, h, that have been cited at least h times; and (c) i10 index – the number of publications that have been cited at least 10 times. Normally, for a first job, such statistics would be of little relevance. If you are significantly past the date of conferral of your PhD, however, you might want to consider setting up a Google Scholar page and listing the three statistics above (number of citations, h, i10). It is an unfortunate fact of contemporary life in academia that some search committees are paying more attention to statistics than they are to reading the publications on which the statistics are based.

4.2 The Personal Statement

Although some job candidates integrate the personal statement with the vita, I recommend keeping them separate, as they serve somewhat different functions. For academic jobs, one generally should have separate teaching and research statements. For clinical jobs, one may wish to prepare a statement regarding one’s clinical experience and aspirations.

The personal statement is important, because it helps define who you are both as a professional and as a person. A good statement tells a story. It might tell about how your teaching or research interests developed, or it might tell how your various projects tie together. It is worth putting a lot of time into the statement and getting feedback on it from multiple faculty members and other colleagues. Be sure the statement shows a sense of purpose and represents a coherent research program. Although there is much to be said in many respects for being a dilettante, academic institutions tend to prefer candidates who have a clear, focused, and scientifically important research program.

Whereas a strong statement can generate interest in you, a weak statement can kill that interest. Statements may be weak for several reasons. Probably the most foolish thing you can do is not proofread what you write. Who wants to hire someone who turns in a statement with spelling, grammatical, or capitalization errors? An unfocused statement is also not likely to help you. Hiring institutions like to see focus, clarity, and coherence, not a stream-of-consciousness approach that seems incoherent to the reader, however coherent it may seem to you. Also, do not just say what you are interested in. Say what you have done about your interests. Make clear, to the extent you can, what is special about you. Why should the institution hire you and not someone else? What do you uniquely have to offer?

When and if you write a research statement, keep in mind that a major factor in hiring for a research-oriented institution is that you will have a research program that will keep you busy for the next several years, not just one that kept you busy in graduate school. So be sure to spell out in some detail not just what you have done, but also, what you plan to do. It also helps if you can show how the research you are doing does indeed form a coherent program rather than consisting of isolated bits with little relation to each other. Professionals making hiring decisions want to see that you have both a set of goals for where your research is going and a sense of how you are going to reach those goals.

It is especially helpful if you can draw connections between your research and the research currently being done at the potential hiring institution. How do you fit in with the people and programs of research already at the institution?

When and if you write a teaching statement, keep in mind not only your own interests, but also the needs of the institution. Almost all teaching institutions expect new faculty to teach some service courses, such as Introductory Psychology or Introductory Statistics. You are also more desirable to an institution if you can teach lower-division courses. So, when writing about your teaching plans, be sure to list lower-division (basic) courses as well as more specialized seminars. Also, I recommend you mention that you make clear that you are flexible with regard to teaching responsibilities – that the courses you are listing are only examples of what you would be willing to teach. You generally do not know when you write your teaching statement exactly what the hiring institution’s teaching needs will be. They may not yet know either!

4.3 Letters of Recommendation

Letters of recommendation are required for almost all jobs. You cannot directly control what your recommenders say, of course. What you can do, however, is choose your recommenders carefully. Choose people who know you well and who, to the best of your knowledge, have a positive view of you – the more positive, the better, of course.

In the real world, it also matters who the recommenders are. Chances are that a recommendation from a person of distinction will carry more weight than a recommendation from someone who is unknown or, worse, who has a bad reputation. Sometimes, in choosing recommenders, you have to trade off how well known the person is with what you think the person will say. But given the choice between a more well-known recommender and a better letter, I would advise you to go for what you believe will be the better letter.

Most important is that the person really knows you. No one is impressed to read a letter, even from a well-known person, when it is obvious that the person writing the letter has only the faintest idea of who the person is for whom he or she is writing the letter of recommendation. Also, people who knew you a long time ago but have not kept up with you tend to be poor choices as recommenders. It usually is obvious from their letters, even if they do not explicitly say so, that their knowledge of you is not up-to-date.

If you are more advanced, perhaps a postdoctoral fellow, you may want to include recommenders who know your work even if they do not know you well personally. Later in your career, many recommenders will know you only through your work.

Sometimes job applicants wonder whether they should include “political letters.” Such letters might be from actual politicians (e.g., a Senator or a member of the House of Representatives) or might be from people who are supposedly “connected,” such as a member of a Board of Trustees or a major donor. In my experience, such letters are much more likely to backfire than to have a positive effect. Unless you absolutely know that such a letter will be received warmly, do not arrange to have it sent. It sends a message about the kind of person you are, and probably not the message you want to send.

Also, do not send letters from people who are experts but in irrelevant fields. For example, if you took a course in a far-flung topic, perhaps just out of interest, and did exceptionally well in it, avoid the temptation to seek out a recommender whose professional expertise is far away from that of the area in which you work. For example, it may be great that you excelled in an art or English-literature class, but ask yourself whether the expertise of the letter-writer would have any relevance to the job you seek.

Sometimes, letters from people not directly in the field but whose work is relevant can be helpful. For example, if you are applying for a job in cognitive psychology, letters from professors in allied fields such as philosophy, computer science, neuroscience, or linguistics may be viewed with great interest.

4.4 Publications

For academic and even many non-academic jobs, you may be asked to provide sample publications. If you do not have any, of course, publications are not at issue. These days, it is increasingly difficult to get hired for serious academic jobs with no publications; it is not impossible, however, especially for jobs that emphasize teaching. If you do include publications, be sure to include them with appropriate citations. If you have the luxury of having produced a number of publications, you may wish to select only those you and your advisors consider to represent your best work. You can also send in-press and submitted or even to-be-submitted papers with your credentials. But do not send anything that seems half-baked.

A question of contemporary interest is whether to send material that is Internet-based, such as blog posts or articles that have been published by online outlets, such as medium.com. In general, I would use as a principal criterion whether the material has been professionally refereed. Many psychologists are active on social media these days. Probably, no hiring institution will tell you completely to stay away from social media. But hiring institutions may be reluctant to hire candidates who believe that social media postings are a substitute for publication in rigorously refereed journals. When applying for a first job, you want to show that you understand the coin of the realm in the hiring institution, whatever it is. Of course, if you are seeking a job at a company that specializes in social media (such as Facebook or Twitter), your Internet work may seem extremely relevant. You have to judge what to include, based on the hiring institution.

7.1 The Job Talk

The job interview may have many elements, but the central element almost always is the job talk. There is no one formula for a successful job talk, but there are elements that are common to many successful job talks.

• The job talk is a performance. Remember that when you speak you are performing. Good performances always require a great deal of preparation. If you give the talk off the cuff, it will show. And you most likely will not get the job. Some professionals appear very spontaneous. In fact, it is their enormous amount of practice that enables them to appear to be spontaneous.

• Keep your audience in mind. You may know the meanings of all the jargon-words you use in the talk. Typically, though, the audience for a talk is quite broad, including many people who have only a vague knowledge of the area in which you work. Therefore, prepare for a general audience. Usually, the audience will have good background in general psychology, but not necessarily in your specialty. On the one hand, you don’t want to insult the audience by being too elementary. But you are much more likely to lose the audience than to insult it. Therefore, explain all terms that are not generally known and make sure the talk is comprehensible to almost everyone.

• Motivate the talk. Don’t expect your audience to know why your work is interesting or important. You need to motivate your talk up front by explaining why you are doing what you are doing and why anyone in his or her right mind should want to learn about it! Starting off your talk with a concrete example of the phenomenon about which you will be talking often helps. Often, speakers get or lose their audience in the first minute or so. Therefore, start strong.

• Be clear on what question or questions you are addressing. Always be clear about what question or questions you are addressing. If you are not, your audience is likely to be confused about what you are trying to do, and why.

• Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. I generally encourage job candidates to give the job talk at least three times before presenting it for real. Virtually no one gives their best presentation the first time they present. The more similar your audience is to the audience to which you will present your job talk, the better. Often, lab groups scheduled research meetings provide a forum for practice talks.

• Time yourself. It is embarrassing to finish a job talk with too much time to spare. You look underprepared. It is no better to have much too much material, and either to stop in the middle of the talk or to start rushing at the end. Rushing does not work. And remember to allow time for interruptions.

• Organize. A good talk is like a story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end (at least, the end up to wherever you are in the story). Say what you are going to say, say it, and then, at the end, say it again. Make sure that anyone in the audience can follow your talk. Disorganized talks often bespeak disorganized minds, and given the choice, most institutions would prefer to hire people who think in an organized way.

• Be enthusiastic. Enthusiasm often is contagious. If you are enthusiastic about your work, others may well be. But if you sound bored, others are likely to be bored, no matter how intrinsically interesting the work may be.

• Cite relevant work, especially of people in the audience. Audiences expect you to be aware of the relevant literature in your field, and of the intellectual antecedents of the work you have done. Therefore, be sure to cite near the beginning of the talk past work that led up to yours. If someone in the audience has done work that is relevant, it is essential that you cite that work. It makes no sense to insult someone who might have a potential say in your being hired!

• Be prepared for questions. Sometimes, job candidates give a good talk, only to blow their chances of getting the job during the question period. By rehearsing your talk, you can get a sense of what kinds of questions you are likely to get. Have answers prepared to the tough ones. But there may always be questions that are unexpected. Therefore, you need to be prepared for the unexpected. It is very rare that a question demolishes a talk. (It has happened to me once in my career, and it was truly a drag.) Chances are no one will demolish you. But some people may try. Never respond defensively; it makes you, not the questioner, look bad. But do not feel like you have to agree with everything everyone says, just because you are on a job interview. People who capitulate too easily appear to lack spine. Give an honest, constructive response. If you just cannot answer a question, tell the truth. People usually can tell if you are faking it. You may be able to think of an answer later, and then respond. I often start off my talks by saying that, during the talk, I welcome questions of clarification, but prefer that questions that go beyond clarification wait until the end. If people ask whatever comes to mind during the talk, the risk is that you will finish very little of what you prepared, no matter how well you timed the talk in advance.

• Never demean or insult a questioner or give a flip answer. Inevitably, you will sometimes receive questions that undermine your faith in humankind. How could anyone ask a question that stupid? Never, ever demean or insult a questioner. There are several reasons for this. First, you probably do not know who the questioner is. I’m sorry to say that when I applied for my first job, I got a question from a member of the audience – who looked like a graduate student – that I thought was quite silly. I gave a flip answer. Unfortunately, the questioner was a senior faculty member in the area to which I was applying for a job. I didn’t get the job. Second, what for you may seem like a stupid question may not seem to be a stupid question to the questioner or others in the audience. A flip or insulting answer may therefore be viewed as quite inappropriate. Third, you portray yourself in an unflattering light when you react in a flip or insulting way.

• Do not be a slave to your audiovisuals. Over the course of a career, almost everything that can go wrong will. There will be PowerPoint projectors that do not work. There will be problems with lighting and microphones. There will be rooms that are too small or too large. You need to be prepared for all eventualities. I usually try to make sure I have backup. So, if PowerPoint does not work, I have handouts in reserve. Or I can manage with no audiovisuals at all. One would like to believe that major screw-ups never happen during job talks because the talks are so important, but they happen with some frequency. You can lose valuable time if you are not prepared. So be ready for the unexpected and don’t be totally reliant on one source of audiovisual aids.

• Get the level of detail right. The right level of detail for a talk is a sometimes hard-to-find middle ground. When you go into great levels of detail about your participants, materials, procedures, and so forth, you bore people; but when you give insufficient details, you lose them. In a talk, it is important to distinguish the forest from the trees, but to make sure that you tell enough about the trees so that people can understand the nature of forest.

• Have a clear take-home message. Make sure that, at the end of the talk, people leave with a clear take-home message regarding what you tried to show, what you did show, what it means, and why they should care.

What are the principal mistakes candidates make in their talks? There are many possible mistakes, but I would highlight five:

1. 1. Too much content. The candidate wants to show everything he or she has ever thought of and done. The talk is over-packed. People can’t follow it. Usually, the talk ends up being rushed, ensuring no one will understand it. They are not impressed. You need to be selective in what you present.

2. 2. Lack of motivation for the work. The candidate does not make clear why he or she did the research, and why anyone should care about it. They think the research will sell itself. It doesn’t.

3. 3. Too technical. The speaker wants to show how expert or technically sophisticated they are. They are talking only to the most technically sophisticated in the audience. The rest have no clue what is going on.

4. 4. The candidate gives irrelevant, incoherent, or nonsensical answers to questions. The result is that the talk seems to have been written by an advisor rather than by the candidate.

5. 5. The candidate does not say and show where the work is going. The audience is unclear as to what follow-ups there will be, if any.

6. 6. The candidate is boring. They read, or speak in a monotone, or speak too softly so people can’t hear, or don’t seem interested in the work, so the audience isn’t either.

7. 7. The candidate can’t admit to a mistake or to not knowing something. It happens during talks that the speakers make mistakes or show that they cannot answer a question. If you make a mistake, admit it and say you will look into it and correct it as necessary. If you can’t answer a question, say you will look into it and get back to the questioner if they would like.

8. 8. The talk is too narrow or too broad. If the talk is too narrow, it just does not appeal to people outside the field of the work. If the talk is too broad, it may sound like the candidate knows a little about a lot but a lot only about a little.

Sometimes, especially at institutions that emphasize teaching, there will be two separate job talks, one a research talk and the other a teaching talk. In these cases, you must prepare appropriately, making sure that each talk is geared to satisfy the purpose for which it is given.

7.2 Informal Conversations

Although the center of the job interview is the job talk, another important aspect of it is the series of informal conversations one typically has with potential future colleagues, such as faculty members or practicing psychologists, sometimes with graduate students, and sometimes, with administrators outside the unit in which one is to work. These conversations, almost as much as a job interview, can make or break a job offer. Therefore, keep in mind some important tips about the conversations:

• Find out about your potential future colleagues in advance. People almost inevitably are flattered when you know about them and their work; some people, especially more senior ones, may be insulted when you do not. Before you go to the interview, learn as much as you can about the people you are likely to talk to, and then show your knowledge (unobtrusively) in your conversations with them.

• Show your interest in the work of the people with whom you speak. One of the worst but most frequent errors of job candidates is to appear self-preoccupied and interested only in their own work. Egocentric people make bad colleagues and are not prime candidates to be hired. By showing an interest in the work of others and in what you can contribute to it, you not only paint a flattering portrait of yourself, but you also open yourself up to learning experiences you might otherwise never have.

• Show your interest in the institution. You want to show that you know the institution to which you are applying, and that you would be thrilled to receive a job offer. Communicating the message that you do not really want to go to a place is a pretty good way of not getting a job: No institution wants to be turned down!

• Be modest but not self-effacing. No one likes a show-off. So maintaining an appropriate level of modesty helps show that you have a perspective on yourself and your work. But do not belittle yourself: If you do not have confidence in yourself, you may find that others will not either.

• Disagree if you must, but don’t lose your cool. Most likely, one or more of your conversational partners will challenge some of your work, especially if you talk to people after the job talk. Conversations during job interviews are terrible places to lose your temper. You do not have to be disingenuous and pretend to agree with others when you do not.

• Be yourself. People can tell when you are faking it.

• Watch out for your non-verbal signals. When you are in a job interview situation, you are likely to be nervous. You also are likely to leak non-verbal signals showing how you really feel, regardless of what you say. Be wary, therefore, of any non-verbal signals you may leak.

• Do not speak negatively of others. People who interview you may dump on their colleagues, administrators, or others. They also may ask you about colleagues in your own institution about whom they are curious. People often share gossip, particularly negative gossip, in order to strengthen connections with others. But, even if you are invited to speak negatively, a job interview is not the place to tell what you really think either about your colleagues back in your own department or in the hiring department. You simply never know what will get back to whom. Negative comments are far more likely to hurt you than to help you.

• Do not be defensive. If your meetings are after your talk, or even perhaps if they are before, some interviewers may use the opportunity of a personal conversation to see how you take criticism. A job interview is definitely not the place to be defensive. Accept feedback gladly, even if it is negative, and show you value the feedback you get.

• If there is a cocktail hour or a dinner, minimize your drinking of alcohol or don’t drink any at all. The interviewers may actually want to see what you are like when you have had a few drinks. It’s up to you, regardless of what you are like after drinking, not to let them find out. You cannot afford to lose normal inhibitions and perhaps say or do something you later will regret.

2.1 In Your Head and With Others

Start by realizing this: It is almost certain that you will never feel that you are successfully balancing family and work (Reference CaplanCaplan, 2000). So what can you do (see Table 30.1)? You can assume community, or at least commonality. Know that, no matter how calm and secure other people may appear, anyone doing that balancing act is struggling. Long ago, I presented at a conference a paper about what I considered bizarre, unique problems at work that I figured must somehow be my fault. I was so ashamed that I introduced each example by saying, “One psychologist had the following experience” or “Another psychologist told this story.” I was so astounded to see people sitting up in their chairs and nodding vigorously that by the time I got to the third example, I felt more courageous, took a deep breath, and said, “Here is what happened to me.” As a teenager, I had the typical adolescent’s belief that my feelings and experiences were weird and probably proof that I was abnormal. Later, I came to consider that any feelings and thoughts I had were invariably shared by at least a few, perhaps carefully chosen people. Then finally, I realized that I come closest to guessing the truth if I assume that my feelings are virtually universal. My taking the plunge and being the first one to express confusion, fear, or a particular perspective has nearly always elicited sighs of relief from others who had considered themselves strange, stupid, or both. Simply acknowledging feelings of puzzlement and vulnerability can create a community as you speak about them.

Try to find work that you love, an aim whose importance cannot be overestimated:

• Graduate students can choose paper and dissertation topics they find compelling rather than routine, and if they fear that their committees will regard their preferred topics as unacceptable, they can brainstorm with other students or trusted faculty members about ways to design research that is likely to be approved by committee members while retaining their fascination for the students.

• Faculty members can design or modify courses in ways that suit students’ needs but are interesting and enjoyable to teach (e.g., if you’re told your department needs you to teach the introductory developmental psychology course and you find the textbook to be rather dry, you can teach it from a critical thinking perspective).

• After reaching a more secure employment level, such as a tenured position, you can design new courses based on what you most love to read, think, and talk about, then see if they can be added to the list of your department’s course offerings.

• If you are a clinician and have any say over what patients you see, try to refer to other people any prospective patients with whom you are unlikely to make a good, human connection, to be a solid, working “fit.” This is both good practice as a therapist and a way to maximize the interest factor in your work life.

Assume, and help create, community with people from various levels and in various realms – for instance, graduate students connecting with secretaries, faculty with cleaning or food service staff, psychology faculty with any of the above as well as with faculty from other departments or with psychology professors in other institutions. Breaking through these kinds of class and other barriers increases opportunities for everyone to present their different perspectives, offer different kinds of useful information about how the department or workplace is really run, and provide support for each other. It also brings members of different groups down or up to human scale, making distance and stereotyping of group members harder to maintain and humanizing campuses and other workplaces.

Related to the above, talk and talk and talk about the obstacles to finding balance between career and family. Know that by bringing up dilemmas and fears in conversation, you will help free others to do so, but you will also make some people exceedingly uncomfortable, even belligerent. The latter is all the more reason you need to reach out to others, give and receive support (see Reference CaplanCaplan, 1994, for specific suggestions).

Guard against blaming or pathologizing yourself if you are not balancing work and family with grace and aplomb. Make a mental note that you’d be unlikely to blame or pathologize others who are having that trouble. Keep coming back to the current systemic ills (see previous section) that make balancing so hard. This, too, becomes easier, the more you discuss it with other people.

Ask senior people for “clarity” about what is expected of you as a student or employee, a crucial practice in light of the power and number of unwritten rules, as mentioned earlier. The relevance of this point to the balancing dilemma is that, in the face of unclear expectations, many of us strive mightily to do far more than is acceptable. Because asking for clarity can make one feel extremely vulnerable, this is another instance in which it can be terrifically helpful to brainstorm with other people, whether in your field or outside of it, about how to word requests or suggestions in ways that reduce that feeling of vulnerability and help you maintain your dignity. It’s often good to include script-writing in the brainstorming because, when one is very worried and/or angry, one can get mental blocks, either making one feel paralyzed and completely silenced or making it impossible to think of anything to express other than in the forms of demands, threats, complaints, or intense anger.

Try to clarify with other adults, as well as older children, in your household the way you will distribute household responsibilities; time to do paid work, coursework, or dissertation work; time for fun together; and leisure time on one’s own or with others. Be aware, however, that these advance plans are often jettisoned, due to several factors:

• Most people have been subjected to intense social pressures to divide family responsibilities along traditional sex-typed lines.

• The continuing disparity in women’s and men’s salaries helps shape the decision in heterosexual families that, if only one adult will maintain full-time paid work while the children are young or when any family member is chronically ill or disabled, it’s the man who will keep his job, because his income will probably be higher than hers would be, so it makes economic sense for the woman to stay home and do the caretaking there.

• Men’s intelligence and achievements are often still likely to be assumed to be greater than those of women.

Keep in mind this apparent paradox: (A) Give yourself permission to take more time to do things in any realm, so that you don’t feel so pressured, but (B) aim to do them as quickly as possible. These two suggestions may seem to work at cross-purposes, but in fact they don’t, because both are ways to minimize pressure that comes from the impossible standards imposed on us from all around. This is reflected, for instance, in the raising of the bar in recent years: Workers spend significantly increasing amounts of time at work, hence the constantly heard complaint, “I am so busy, never have a moment to myself or to relax with my partner.” To explain part (B) a bit, in more than 20 years of teaching, I found that students and colleagues tended to overestimate the amount of time many tasks would take … and even assumed they were supposed to spend unduly extensive periods of time doing such things as writing dissertations or grant proposals. When I suggest to anyone that they try to do such projects in a single day or even one hour, they initially tell me that that is absurd and impossible. I then explain that of course they cannot finish the project in that time, but that they will undoubtedly be amazed by how much they can accomplish if they take seriously the suggestion to finish in a day or an hour. They invariably report back to me that this experiment showed them that they can work much more efficiently than they had realized. I also point out that they will have plenty of time to go over their work and fill in gaps, make alterations, or reorganize the material, but that all of that is easier once the most important material and the bulk of the structure are written or sketched out in that short period of time. The other function served by this advice is to remove some of the heavy emotional load that “Writing A Dissertation” or “Writing A Grant Application” tends to carry, a load that significantly impedes the process of completing the task. Once you discover that you can do some parts of your work in less time than before without losing its quality, you will know that you don’t have to work constantly under intense time pressure (see A above).

2.2 Change from the Top Down … Or from You

Never forget that, in an ideal world, changes that make balancing between family and career a task of human scale would come from the top down, through policies initiated, implemented, and evaluated at the highest levels of administration. You should not have to make this happen. Top administrators should set a tone of respect for all and warn that reprisals against those who take parental leave or use flextime or job-sharing will not be tolerated. Administrators should sponsor seminars for managers, other employees, and students about difficulties of the balancing act, and they should set a tone of compassion and support for those who are attempting it. Top administrators should initiate and fund studies of steps their universities or clinics could take to decrease these difficulties, such as pushing for adequate maternity and paternity leave for all. In fact, the authors of an American Psychological Association report hold that “administrators, especially department chairs and deans, must be held accountable for gender equality and climate in their units. Those who fail to make the corrections necessary for gender equity should be given feedback, and their effectiveness in correcting these problems should be reflected in compensation. If necessary, ineffective administrators should be replaced” (APA, 2000, p. 1). Despite this strong statement, however, few colleges and universities have yet taken steps to make this kind of thing happen. And of course, outside of academic settings, those same changes should also come from the highest levels.

Although change should come from the top, so that those who are already disproportionately burdened and oppressed need not take on the additional, onerous tasks of initiating and campaigning for change, some of you will feel you want, perhaps can afford, to take risks by creating initiatives for change. Ideally, you would take such action working with your peers and possibly more senior, supportive people. Trying to make change happen can be empowering precisely because it involves taking action rather than waiting passively, hoping needed changes will take place but feeling powerless. One example of such an initiative would be for graduate students who are becoming increasingly anxious about forthcoming comprehensive examinations to form a group and ask the faculty to make available examples of questions from past comprehensives. They may refuse you, but they may not, and making the request as a group will minimize the risk to each student insofar as that is possible.

If you choose to work for change, expect powerful resistance from those at the top or in middle management, and know that you may suddenly feel even more powerless than before. I cannot emphasize enough how much it helps to be prepared for resistance, setbacks, and even reprisals; it is crucial to consider what risks you may be taking. Similarly, assume that change for the better may come slowly. Of course, if you ask for change, you may be accused of being belligerent, demanding, or – an increased danger in arenas increasingly populated by women – needy, immature, or oppositional. As Canadian Flora McGrath said decades ago to her daughter, Maude Barlow, when Maude became a political activist and was first criticized, “Serious people have serious enemies.” Maude went on to become a prominent social and environmental justice advocate and never forgot those words, telling them to me at a time when I was being roundly criticized for my activism.

It is important to try to gauge the risk-versus-benefit situation and to make sure you document everything you have done, as well as the responses, so that there will be an accurate record in case you are accused of wrongdoing. Furthermore, be aware that change for the worse may come abruptly and unexpectedly, perhaps due to the visibility of your activism, such as a sudden reduction in the number of hours for which an assistant is signed to you or the announcement that a promised salary increase will not be forthcoming. Investigate whatever legal or other protection you might have in your setting against retaliation. Awareness of the risks can not only minimize the disappointment you may feel if change comes slowly but also keep you from setting a standard for change that is so high that you don’t notice small steps toward your goal along the way.

If you choose to push for changes, begin by choosing strategically which changes are most important to you or seem most doable, first making or finding a list of policies and practices that have been helpful at other universities or workplaces for psychologists (Reference CaplanCaplan, 1994, includes such a list, pp. 161–172). Actions can range from being on the lookout for discouragement of cooperative work and encouragement of malicious competitiveness, to establishing study groups for students and support groups at work for people struggling with the double load of family and workplace or student responsibilities, to systematic gathering of questionnaire data in order to identify and document the struggles and wishes of those who are juggling family and career. Other examples of specific actions include advocating for benefits for part-time workers such as health insurance, reasonable workloads, and clearly specified expectations would be helpful, as would fair and proportional financial aid for part-time students. If there is an existing union with which to join forces, that is of course helpful. If there is not, you may want to help organize one.

Above all, remember that for the major institutions of universities and mental health settings, it is simply not a priority to help ease the double load for anyone, and because the struggle for change will be long and exhausting, it will be tempting to give up. As the insightful, caring Dr. Patch Adams has written, the best, time-tested antidotes to burnout are ongoing contact with people who share your dilemmas and aims; an ability to remember that every step in a long struggle is important; and a whopping appreciation for irony and sense of humor. For the humor and humanity, read every word Patch Reference AdamsAdams (1998) writes.