Here are 4 questions every PhD can ask themselves to determine if they should quit the academic job market.

1) Is academia the right career for me?

That might seem like a silly question, but it’s an important one.

What do you love about the academic work you’re doing, and will a tenure track job allow you to do this kind of work? At Beyond Prof, we interview PhDs who realized that, while they loved certain parts of their academic career, a tenure track job wouldn’t allow them to do this kind of work in the future.

You may really love teaching, but learn that many teaching-focused institutions have large class sizes, lots of online instruction, and high levels of service to the profession. You may love doing research, but learn that PIs spend most of their time writing grants and sitting on committees, and a lot less time at the bench.

There is also no guarantee that you’ll land a job that resembles your advisor’s position. Academia is a prestige economy, and schools tend to “hire up.” Look at where alumni from your program work, and interview them about their life as faculty.

Is this the academic career you want?

2) What are my chances of landing a tenure track job?

How many new PhDs graduate each year in your field, and how many new jobs are posted? What are the odds that you’ll land a job?

To determine this, you can use the Survey of Earned Doctorates to see how many PhDs graduate each year in your field. Look at job advertisements, either on Academic Jobs Wiki or through your professional association’s job board.

How many jobs are you eligible to apply to? Don’t consider stretch jobs or open positions. Just look at the number of jobs and estimate the number of PhDs.

Consider the prestige of your program. Remember, academia is not a merit based job market, it operates on prestige. Unfairly, people from highly ranked programs are more marketable than people from lower ranked programs.

In my field of early American history, realistically, there were 5 – 10 jobs each year that for which I was a match. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a top program in early American history, which gave me a competitive edge. But, the longer I was on the job market, that competitive edge declined. By year three on the job market, I was receiving fewer interviews. When I was ABD, I was interviewing at R1 schools. By my third year on the job market, I was lucky to be receiving interviews for teaching-intensive visiting assistant professorships.

While advisors and friends encouraged me to continue on my job search, I looked at the evidence and determined that it was time for me to move on. I was becoming less, not more, competitive.

Are you becoming less, or more, competitive?

3) What are you doing to add prestige to your CV?

Adjuncting is not prestigious. Teaching is not prestigious. Many postdocs are not in labs led by rock star PIs.

To remain competitive in academia, you need to be winning fellowships, grants, and awards, and publishing your work in top journals and university presses in your field.

This is incredibly difficult to do when you are an adjunct or as a visiting assistant professor. It’s difficult if not impossible to be teaching enough to pay your bills, publishing, presenting at conferences, and applying for academic positions. It’s not a failure if you can’t manage it all; it’s a Herculean effort few can manage.

It is also incredibly difficult to do as a postdoc in a lab if it is not cutting edge or at an elite institution in your field. It’s not enough that you supported the work of another scholar – you need to prove that you, too, can also shine.

If you are not actively adding prestige and accomplishments to your CV, then it’s probably time to find another career path.

Academia rewards prestige. And even then, there are too few jobs for all the talented people.

4) How much money are you prepared to lose?

There are many financial costs to remaining in academia. Starting salaries in industry and non-profits pay more than most adjunct and many post-doc positions. Many companies provide benefits to employees.

For humanities and social science PhDs, not only are you losing out on lost wages and paying out of pocket for health care and other necessities, there’s the cost of funding your own research to stay competitive, or traveling to conferences to present.

The average salary of an adjunct in the US is about $25,000. You can do almost any other job and make more money. Starting salaries, even in non-profits, start close to $40,000. According to one study published in Nature Biotechnology, a PhD who remains on as a postdoc in academia instead of moving into industry will lose about $250,000 in lost earnings over the first 15 years of their career.

Then there’s the cost of moving between one visiting appointment or postdocs. These moving costs are seldom covered.

Plus, if you’re moving, and making low wages, you’re not able to purchase a house, pay off student loans, or make significant contributions to your retirement account.

How much money are you prepared to lose to pursue an academic job, with the risk that you’ll never land one?