Navigating the Job Market

Lightly edited from Zoom’s automatic transcript, so expect some transcription errors. Speaker labels come from Zoom, and […] marks a passage that was cut.

Elisa D’Amico Okay, I think it's recording, it appears… yes, it appears to be recording. Alright, let me share some slides. with you all, Do you see… Something that looks like a presentation. Amazing. Okay, cool. Okay, so just for a frame of reference, I have been on, like, on the international job market for a few… years, actually, maybe, like, two full, full cycles, and… Sorry, let me just hide myself. For a few cycles, and I… Yes, I was successful because I got a job, as an assistant professor, but before that, I had a postdoc, and I've had a few different offers as well. So I was trained in the States, so I have a very, like, North American, training of the job market, and a lot of that comes through… But I think that helped me on the international job market quite a bit, especially now that so many American PhDs are leaving the States to go in the international job market. We, like, these people are now our competition, and So it's good to kind of know how they operate.

Elisa D’Amico And how things sort of stack up in general. So… Let's get started. So, is this gonna click? Okay. These are all the materials that you will need for the academic job market. Cover letter, CV, honestly, the CV… the more comprehensive, the better. It doesn't need to be that short, the cover letter should be kind of two pages. Teaching statement, research, statement, research, proposals, depending on the position, and this actually can go for some non-academic jobs as well. Especially, like, Sort of, like, short-form, like, grant consulting-based, jobs, or almost, like, freelancing. And then research, proposal, letters of rec, okay. So, going into some of these in more detail. So, the cover letter is not supposed to be like, hello, my name is such and such, my dissertation is this, and then I also did this for this one professor, and I have this other thing that's co-authored. Like, what we want to see and this was a big difference between how I performed the first round I went on the job market and the second round I went on the job market, because I had this advice. But rather than sort of a laundry list of everything you've done throughout your PhD, the hiring committee wants to see that you, like, know yourself as a scholar, and you have, like, this comprehensive sense of, like.

Elisa D’Amico I'm so-and-so, I do this, and I do this, and this is how they work together, and, like, this is all of the… this is how I got here, and this is what I'm gonna do in the future, all related to this very beautifully articulated agenda that I have. And so this is what you want to do, and then this is how you should start it, and then your whole cover letter should read this way. I think you should have a general version that is, like, very much tailored to you, and not tailored to any positions. This is strongly my preference, because a lot of times, even when, especially for professorship, even when positions are specific. The… it might just be because the university needs you to put something like environmental in there, but they might be looking, like the committee themselves, for literally exactly who you are. So it… and it can kind of show when you're over-tailoring it.

Elisa D’Amico So, it's, like, perfectly fine to have some, like… and I do… a little bit of, like, the environmental stuff as well. Like, that's fine to have, as long as it's, like, it is true to who you are as a scholar, and that really comes through. And I have a lot of cover letter suggestions. in general, that I'd be happy to share my materials on and sort of a walk through, and there's quite a few things that you kind of need to hit, like, you need to hit, like, your… Especially for North American places, but this is kind of true for international… less true, but for international applications as well, but you need, like, this job market paper, and you have to kind of, like, hit that early on. This was my dissertation. This is my job market paper, which is, like, my excellent paper, my most promising whatever.

Elisa D’Amico And then, like, you go into your broader agenda, like, what you have in the pipeline, things like this. Then you have to hit other research skills you have, and then you have to hit, like, if you have any data skills, and then teaching. Honestly, teaching comes a little bit later in most of the cover letters, no matter what, even if it's a more teaching-heavy position, because you're still a scholar. Yeah, and then you need some… it's good to have something about, like, I do this sort of service in my department, or, like, have been on these committees, or organized this symposium, things like this. And then any non-academic policy outputs that you have is also really valuable, to put in there, because a lot more institutions are focusing on impact and, like, outreach of, like, how your research reaches the broader public.

Elisa D’Amico Okay, so that's the cover letter for the CV, so… this is how my CV is organized, and I've had my CV looked over at various periods of time by, like, quite a few senior scholars, and they kind of told me to put this… put it this way. So, you should be able to list where you're currently at, and these will be… if you're on the academic job market, these will be your academic positions, and, like, this can be quite a long CV, right? It's, like, better to look like you've done a lot at this career stage. And then immediately you want, like, publications. Like, no matter what, like, put working papers. put what's under review. It doesn't need to be actual publications. If you have a preprint, you can put that as well and hyperlink it. Like, all of these things are fine, but you want to look like there's a little bit of volume there somehow. Even if it's co-authored or whatever, or if it's, like, your book project from your dissertation.

Elisa D’Amico Or standalone papers from your dissertation, like, you need to look like you have a publication pipeline, even if you're not published yet. Like, that's totally fine and normal. Education… So, publications are the most important, and then education, education can also be right after employment as well, as long as it doesn't push publications down too far. And then you're going to almost always put research experience before teaching experience, unless it's a teaching-heavy position, you could maybe flip them. Research experience could be, like, any of your RA stuff, anything that you've done in consulting, You can also, like… yeah, do some ad hoc projects you've done, and show, like, kind of, like, the research experience you've done in that way. And then teaching experiences, like, I TA'd this, I was the instructor of record that. I get… I even put, like, when I was first on the job market, I would put, like, guest lectures.

Elisa D’Amico Make it look a little bit filled out, like you're not, like, unfamiliar standing in front of a classroom. And also you can ask your friends if you can guest lecture for them, just to say, or even faculty, just to be able to, Just create a little bit more volume here. And then, mentorship experience, this is not something you normally have at the stage of being on the job market, but, like, if you did any, like… I think I did, like, when I was a PhD student, I did some undergraduate research. Internship-type thing, so if you have anything like that, but it's normal to not have that. Conference presentations, so if you have… if your publications themselves aren't that full. you can beef out your conference presentations a little bit more and, like, put the whole title and everything, but as you go to more and more conferences in this, and you get more and more publications, like, as that dial sort of, like, shifts, you're gonna wanna just put, like, which conferences you attended and when. So I'll be like, ISA… 2022, 2024, 2025, 2026, and, like, like, you'll list them a little bit differently, because this means that your conference papers have now probably turned into publications, ideally. And then invited lectures and presentations.

Elisa D’Amico This could also be where you put guest lectures, this… This is where I snuck in all of my job talks, because it shows that you're, like, competitive on the job market if people want you to, like, come to job talks, or… and you are doing, like, these invited presentations when you're doing these job talks. But this will just happen naturally if, like, as you progress as well, or if you're invited to speak about some climate forum, blah blah blah. This doesn't have to be academic, really. Grants and awards, again, just beef this up as much as you can at your career stage. It's not very common to have that section be huge, but if you have anything that you can put in there, like anything at all, even maybe even from undergrad, that's fine. Honors is just, like.

Elisa D’Amico kind of similar to awards. I don't even know how I… I can't even recall how I differentiate these, they can probably go together. Professional affiliations, this will be, like, I'm a member of the… APSA Migration and Citizenship section, things like this. And there's also other professional associations that you can be part of, like, also graduate student things. You'll know it when you see it. Professional and community service, so this is where I put… service to the discipline, so if I'm a reviewer for a journal, or, like. I think back when I, like, did different, like… I was the president of the Graduate Student Advisory Council, like, that sort of thing can also go there as professional service. And then community service can go here as well. And then just any more training that goes beyond your education education, I think is valuable. This is kind of like the technical section at the end here, and then any certifications, computer techniques, technical skills, if you've built databases.

Elisa D’Amico Languages and nationalities, I just put my nationalities kind of when I was on the job market to indicate that. like, I was available for a fly-out from any of these places, without… and trying to show that I'd be more willing to move type of a thing. It can be a little bit valuable for that. Okay. So your research statement builds on your cover letter, and you don't need to pack in every single detailed thing about your research statement into your cover letter. Like, you could just be like, and I have, 3 working papers with Professor X on climate laws, in the pipeline, or something, and… you don't have to say any more than that in your actual cover letter, because your research statement is where you say this. And some jobs will ask for the research statement, especially in Europe, will ask for the research statement after you have been invited to interview, but most North American jobs will ask for it up front, no matter what.

Elisa D’Amico And again, this should probably be no more than two pages, sometimes I see a little bit more, like, maybe two and a half. Three, And this is showing what you've already done, you can talk a bit about your dissertation, but again, you want to sell yourself not as somebody that has completed a dissertation, because every PhD student has done that, but somebody that is, like, a cohesive scholar. So you're gonna talk about what you've done, what's in the pipeline, what you're doing right now, and where you see yourself, like, in the future as a scholar. It's like, some people be like, in 2 years, I hope to have done this and this and this, and be moving more towards this, and then in 5 years, I'm hoping that I'm getting grants to do this and that. Like, you can… kind of, like, build it out and be like… you can even, like, make some, like… you can do some explaining as to why you're on different publications as well, like, well, like, gender isn't a super tight part of my research agenda. I've done this because I find myself as a computational social science, but then this is… that's my computational stuff, this is my substantive stuff, you can do sort of things like that. But it wants to, like, you want to sell it, like, I do this, this, and this, this is how they work together, this is why this is a sustainable research agenda in the future, and I'm interested in exploring these different pathways.

Elisa D’Amico Okay, research proposals. So this is… more, obviously, if you're applying for various postdocs, or non-academic roles as well, this is where you cater to the position, obviously. But I would have, like, a couple research… proposal ideas on deck, because some postdocs are, like, quite open. Like, in the UK, the JRFs, these junior research fellowships, a lot of them are pretty open. And internationally, actually, in general, you have a lot of… you can just do whatever your own research is sort of opportunities, and in the US too, I guess, in North America. But, like, I always had one about, like, climate displacement and, like, getting funded to create some sort of an index blah blah blah. So, Yes, this is… and I… and I would start thinking about this now, and I honestly might not, like, make a research proposal until you see the first job that is calling your name, and that's fine, but it would… it's a good thing to hone.

Elisa D’Amico What else did I say here? Yeah, and a lot of, like. I had, like, some sort of base research proposals, and a lot of them were adaptable to sort of, like, spin-off things that had more of a tight fit, Okay… yeah. And then, I guess, so this is just another thing that's, like… if… Your research proposal is so incredibly unrelated to who you are as a scholar. I don't want to say it's not worth applying, because you should cast a wide net, but you should try to make it yourself as much as possible, and hope that they like that fit, rather than overreaching to the fit. because they'll be like, oh, well, this is a pretty decent proposal, but, like, red flags, they look at the rest of their materials, they're clearly not the scholar. So, it's just kind of like a careful line to walk. But you want to make sure that you're… confidence in yourself as a scholar comes through in all of your materials, no matter what. So the teaching stuff is actually a whole thing, and this is another thing that I think set me aside… on the international job market, coming from an American institution, because we have teaching portfolios in North America, and they didn't really almost ever ask for that here, even for, like, full teaching positions. And so whenever I could submit extra materials, I would submit my teaching portfolio, which I feel like, compared to somebody with none.

Elisa D’Amico like, looks really, really good. So I would encourage everybody to do this, no matter what job market you're on. The teaching statement is exactly what it sounds like. There's, like, there's a million examples of, like, decent teaching statements on the World Wide Web. I definitely need to update mine. And this… you will do, depending on whether you've taught or not, you can still just put, like, what's important to me in the classroom is, like. meeting students where they are and creating, like, a space that fosters, like, all different types of learning, like, whatever. Or sometimes people are like, well, my goal is to give students very practical skills in my class so that they each walk away with something, blah blah blah blah blah. So that's your teaching statement or teaching philosophy. These are interchangeable. And then you're gonna put, again, your teaching experience here. It can look like it does on your CV, but usually it's built out maybe a little bit more.

Elisa D’Amico Any mentorship experience? Again, this is optional if there is none. Student reviews, student evals. So, if you do some guest lecturing, or if you don't have the opportunity to teach, but you still can do a little bit, you can maybe field, like, a little survey. I know Katie's doing this right now with some teaching thing that she just did, to get feedback, and you can put your feedback into your teaching portfolios. Occasionally, places will ask for your, like, actual, like, physical copies of the reviews, but that's pretty rare. Like, I see that very rarely. So you can just put some select reviews in there, honestly, like, the good ones, but then you can also be, like… do the ratings, right? Like, if you do… if you are instructor of Rhett. Like, I'm a 4.7 out of 5 on… like… effectively translating material, like, whatever. So you can kind of cultivate that, like, to how you… what suits you.

Elisa D’Amico And then, also, I put a lot of personal stuff, like, every time a student had sent me, like, a personal, oh my gosh, I loved your class, you really changed the way I thought about blah blah blah blah blah, I would just redact all the information and put it, in there as well. Service statement and diversity statement. are two things that I would see occasionally sprinkled in, like, in the job market. Like, certain applications would request these. service statement is much more rare, but diversity statement the first time I was on the job market was a huge thing. They would want a standalone one, so now I just build all of this into my teaching portfolio, because I feel like People that aren't caring as much about the diversity statement anymore. But yeah, service statement is just gonna be like, I've done this and this for my department, for my whatever. It's, again, building out on what you've already said about service in your cover letter CV. Diversity statement is, like… This is something that can be a little bit more tricky, because it should be clear throughout your teaching and research, like.

Elisa D’Amico like, I would be like, I'm a first-generation college student, I come from a family of, like, refugees, which is why I study refugees in my research, and I'm very attentive to, like. people with this sort of background in my teaching, like, you know, like, it's… you have to, like, cultivate it and kind of, like, pull it all together, Nicely, and that takes a little bit of time. And then all of your syllabi, so at the end, it's almost gonna be, like, an appendix of, like, syllabus, syllabus, syllabus, or just one, like, however many you have, and, like, I also always put syllabus, syllabi that… of, like, a couple classes that I've never taught, but I want to teach. And they can be super short. You can just, like, make it, like, almost like a… class idea, especially if you don't have any teaching experience. It's, like, better than nothing, and shows that you're versatile, and that you've, like, actually thought about it. And again, like, if you're going up against people in the job market that aren't submitting a teaching Portfolio, and you have this, like, you know, Okay.

Elisa D’Amico Letters of recommendation, so… Ugh. Okay, so this can be hard. I don't ever want it to be the case where you're not applying for a job because you feel stressed about continually asking your letter writers for letters. So, the way that I got around this, and what's really common in the States, I don't… And in the States, they have jobs, a lot of jobs through Interfolio, like the platform anyway, but I've never seen that abroad, actually, now that I think about it. But it's still good for letter writing. Okay, so what Interfolio is, is, like, this interface where you can, like, upload all of your job market materials. And then when there's a job ad through Interfolio, it's super easy to, like, attach and submit, whatever. But even if you don't use it for, like, your other materials and job applications, what it's really good for with the letters of REC is that you can upload anonymous, like, your letter writers can upload letters that just live in the Interfolio universe, and it generates an email link where instead of, like, and if you pop that in the application portal, instead of them Sending out, like, a… actual message to your supervisor, or whatever, like, it'll send it to this link that immediately sends back the letter of rec. And so, I would ask, like, my letter writers to write, like, a few generic ones, so I think I had one that was more… Like, one for assistant professorships, one for postdocs and fellowship-like things.

Elisa D’Amico And then I had a couple, like, some… one of them was a computational social science letter that kind of, like, beefed up that more, and then one of them was more environment, but otherwise it was, like, very… like, who I was as a scholar, like, that was the most generic one. And so, they just would, like, upload these with these little tweaks, and I would just, like, send them out, like, that allowed me to apply for, like, a ton… like, a big volume, right? Like, a ton of jobs, at scale. So I highly recommend this, especially if you have, like, a letter writer that you really don't like to keep bothering, because, like, maybe they're, like, really, really important and busy and stuff. This can be helpful. And then… Yes, so when I was like, oh my gosh, I would be the actual perfect fit for this job, I would ask them to, like, write a specific letter of rec or something like that, but otherwise, I didn't really do that.

Elisa D’Amico And when you start assembling your materials, you can, like, ask them to do this way early on, and then, yeah, it's very anonymous, it's… it's lovely. Okay. So timing is different depending on what job market you're going on. So in North America, it's definitely… the autumn before… like, say… like, the autumn before you would want the job in the following autumn, if that makes sense. So, like, if I want to be… if I'm finishing my dissertation in… what year is it? 2027, spring, I'm gonna go on the job market this fall. So this should be how you're preparing, at least. So that means the summer before your final year, which may seem early, but extremely necessary, the summer before your, like, last year of your dissertation. This is when you start putting your materials together, because if it comes fall, and you get a job, like, and you get the perfect job, you want those to be super polished, and it actually takes a long time to polish these things, because you want supervisors to look over them, friends to look over them, you want to, like, workshop them and really tighten them up, so you need to start preparing the summer before your final year.

Elisa D’Amico And then, organizationally, If you're going on the job market, that includes North America. I mean, includes North America especially. You're gonna want to be so ready to start, like, getting your list of job, like, applications that you want to apply for, like, in August. Like, by mid-August, even early August, sometimes you'll start to see them, like, coming in. And so you want, like, a running list of the applications, the deadlines. I'll show you some of what I did in, like, maybe a slide or two, and how I organized that. I didn't do this, but I would recommend doing this. I would weigh… Until a couple of days. before the deadline to submit, if you have things under review, or if you have things, like, in the pipeline. Like, if you think, oh, I might get an R&R before this, wait until a couple… get everything together and get it ready to go, but just wait until a couple days before, just in case you do get that, and then you can send it out.

Elisa D’Amico I would recommend that. I didn't do that, but… It's a good idea. Obviously, like, check your job boards constantly. I would just, like, have Sunday afternoons, I would look at all of the job boards, create my list of applications, and then write, like, Monday I'm applying for this one, Tuesday I'm applying for this one, that sort of thing. Again, the US starts in August, the UK is completely rolling, like, all the time. I don't under… I literally do not understand. why their job market system works this way. It's really… it's, like, really difficult to be on the job market for, like, a whole entire year. But especially for postdocs, these will come live sort of more ad hoc. But even for postdocs in the US, like, they kind of respect the… that the autumn is, like, the job market season. And if you're only going for, stuff in the U.S, pretty much by December, you're like.

Elisa D’Amico you're done with the job market season. It's, like, really intensive for the autumn. And then, like, flyouts, things like this start happening. Yeah. So… and then the EU is hard. I think they're more rolling as well, but it can really vary. I have no advice about accessing, like, the Sweden, Norway, Finland job market, because I tried to penetrate that job market, and I literally could not. So I can't really help there. But… a lot of the European ones are quite rolling, too, and you'll just have to, like, dial into different job boards, and I would be very happy to answer any questions about this. Okay. So, for organization, this is what I did when I was on the job market. So, I do this in Notion, but you could do this however, in Excel, however you need to. But I would put the job, what type of job it was.

Elisa D’Amico Which one of my fields it suited, when it was due, the location of the world that it was in, the link to it, and… then here is where I… I mean, we're looking at the tab right now that was my actual interviews, but I had, like, many, many, many, many, many that I was rejected from that you're not seeing right now. And then I also had, like, the status. So I would recommend doing this, then you can, like, sort of sort by day, and, like, just keep things really organized, especially because the job market is so hostile that you're gonna have to do a lot of volume, and it can be really overwhelming. For the job talk, so the North American job talk is, like, a whole thing. It's, like, you… Maybe up there for at least an hour, talking about your whole dissertation, your job market paper, who you are as a scholar, being extremely impressive, and then getting grilled for, like, 30 minutes after.

Elisa D’Amico And, like, when I did my first flyout, I didn't… I, like, did not expect to get a flyout, and I had not prepared my job talk in advance. I had to, like… really, really quickly deal with that, and it was a bit of a nightmare. I would start practicing your job talk with your friends, other PhD students in, like, the early autumn. like, August, September time, because if you get a flyout, you want to have that sort of polished. So this really means you just create slides. I would do two versions. I would do a short version, because, like, in Europe, like, my European and UK… Job talks were almost never more than 15 minutes, and so that's mostly about, like, your job market paper, and then, like, a little bit about your agenda. That's easy, at least start there. But, like, the North American job talks are, like, can be extremely extensive, and you want that super polished.

Elisa D’Amico And long. So, I would create two versions, and at least start practicing the short one as soon as possible, or just… Create the version that suits wherever. You're… whatever job market you're on. Yes, so again, this is going to be mostly your job market paper, and then, like, a little bit here and there about how this fits into your broader research agenda. Interviews? So, again, North American and international… and, I guess European and UK interviews are very different. very, very, very different. Like, in the States, you will prepare to meet with a bunch of faculty all day, every day, for, like, a couple of days. maybe teach, do a teaching demonstration, maybe talk to the graduates, actually always talk to the graduate students, like, there's a lot of that sort of thing that you have to do.

Elisa D’Amico But honestly, especially for the job talk itself, which is the scariest part, like, you're the expert on every single part of your presentation. Like, they're not gonna trick you on anything. Like, it's actually impossible to trick you on anything, like. if they're like, oh, well, why didn't you do this method? You're like, you know what? I've thought about that a lot, and I think that the future iteration of this blah blah blah might do this for a business, but here's what, you know, like, it's… it's fine, like, nobody's gonna, like, like. catch you red-handed. Like, you're gonna be great. Like, you're… you're the actual expert. I started, like, as I went along, like, would start, like, taking a lot of time between when they asked me questions and when I answered, so I would, like, especially on virtual interviews, I would, like, be like.

Elisa D’Amico hmm, like, let me have a think about that, like, write notes, like, clearly, like, and really am thinking about it, or sometimes, like, really quickly scanning through my existing notes, But, like, that's… it's fine to take time, and to, like, be like, oh, I don't know, like, let me actually organize my thoughts, and sometimes I would be like, hmm… hmm… for, like, a good… 20 seconds, 30 seconds, like, that's also fine. And again, like, the branding yourself as a researcher, you want that to be cohesive, I hope that comes through no matter, like, what. what else about interviews, honestly? I feel like there's a lot more to say than this, whatever, I'm happy to answer questions. Again, I think it's good to have a more generic cover letter. I think… yeah, that is more true to you as a scholar, and it also helps you really reflect on that.

Elisa D’Amico I will share my Overleaf with all of my materials with literally anybody. There's so many girlies that are, like, on my Overleaf as, like, viewers, so I will… and I will share all of my materials. Networking at conferences at least the year prior is really important, and some conferences will have, like… like, APSA, for example, has like, interviews… like, little interviews sometimes built into it, built into it in the fall, and it's really normal also, at least in North America, but probably maybe widely as well. To email the hiring committee person and be like, oh, is anybody from your department going to such and such that would be willing to have a chat about the role? Like, this is something that I was taught to do, and that I did do my first year on the job market. I don't know how much it helped my first year, but I would recommend doing this anyway.

Elisa D’Amico Any networking is good networking, because especially if you're on the job market, like, a second year, like, your name will be circulating, you know, like, and you'll have grown as a scholar, so it can't hurt. Yes, okay, and then just with networking, like, go to all the receptions and pre-conference workshops and stuff like this, or any workshop, or online workshops, things like this, if possible. This is how my overleaf is organized. I would recommend putting… your materials on Overleaf, at least for the CV, because the CV and the spacing in other platforms can be really, really difficult, and just not look nice. And especially with AI, like, this is a super easy, like, template to copy. And so, yes, this is just how I organize all my materials. It's just another suggestion to put your materials on Overleaf. Like, for my cover letter as well, I would have, like.

Elisa D’Amico just, like, filler, like, like, little areas where I, like, would, like, enter the university name, the position, blah blah blah. Like, I had, like, all these fields at the top that I would just adjust, and then it would render the cover letter that is tailored to the position. Like, this saved me so much time. Okay, I'm so sorry that I'm just getting to this at the end. Okay, so… I will just… and the reason why I'm not speaking as much about this is because I… I mean, I've had data science jobs, I've had a lot of, like… I've done consulting stuff, I've done, like, research assistantship stuff. But I was on the academic and non-academic job market the last 2 years, more the last year. Given the state of the world, and I… did not get a single… offer from a non-academic job that I was applying for. Partly because I think having a PhD kind of, like, positions you kind of weird with the jobs you want versus the jobs that they would be okay giving you, and you also, they want some experience.

Elisa D’Amico no matter what that looks like, and the PhD, 5 years doesn't always count, so this can be really tricky. But the jobs that are out there, like, most PhD students I know. take data science jobs for the money, the ones that leave academia, so, like, this is really common. This is this first tech industry research, like, this… you can make a ton of money if you leave the PhD with these skills. There's research firms like RAND, I mean, there's… there's a lot that are… in the U.S. that are having, like, oscillating levels of funding in general, but there's a lot of really good ones internationally as well. And then, you could do consulting. To be honest, I don't even know what consulting is, so I'm just gonna… what that kind… what that kind of consulting is, so I'm just gonna skip it, but a lot of people go into this. This also makes a lot of money. If you want to stay in maybe your field, there's, like, data jobs and, like, research jobs.

Elisa D’Amico for, like, ACLED, V-Dem, UCDP, these other groups, there's a lot of them that are, like, quasi-academic, you know? Like, they're very academic-adjacent friendly, and this might scratch that sort of academia itch as well. government statistics… this is definitely a thing that is really cool that a lot of people work on. Again, this is more of, like, the, like, data science track, These can pay well, and it can also be good to get a security clearance job for a lot of different reasons, because that sets you up to get other security clearance jobs, and they have really good pensions. And then climate stuff. There's a lot of climate stuff going around. A lot of climate, like, startups, think tanks, research, just, like, there's a ton of this. Like, I think there's some people here that could maybe answer some questions about that as well.

Elisa D’Amico And there's also freelance work, but… ugh. Okay, so then this is what Kasia was supposed to deal with, because I don't… unless… I did more of the data science track, so I don't know what, like… Kasia's, like, one of my… one of my co-authors, and we were on the job market together, and I did my postdoc with her, and she's qualitative, and so she's been applying for non-academic jobs more in, like, the policy world. And I think she made this slide. So this is what they look like. There's a lot of UN agencies that, like, love these master's and PhD level skills. There's think tanks as well, for both of these research skill sets. Ngos are friendly with this as well. Peace and conflict, like, it is honestly the same as this other slide, but just maybe, like, slightly tweaked in some regards. But there's a lot of, like.

Elisa D’Amico Also, academically funded… are funded through academic institutions, like, consulting things that you can do, without a PhD as well, but also with a PhD, that will secure you… I mean, it's, like, temporary, because it's tied to a grant to some degree, but it will secure you for some time, and it could be, like, a really good project and really good for your CV as well. And there's government stuff, of course. Okay. Oh my gosh, so many of you are still here! I hope that… I tried to be comprehensive. I hope that… that was comprehensive, and that that was useful for some of you. I know it was a lot. Does anyone have any questions?