The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your PhD into a Job

UPDATED FOR 2026 • The definitive career guide for grad students, adjuncts, post-docs, and anyone else eager to get tenure or turn their PhD into their ideal job—now refreshed with new material to equip readers for today’s job market

“If you want unvarnished straight talk about the academic job market—and how to navigate it—then heed Karen Kelsky, and heed her now.”—Rebecca Schuman, education columnist for Slate

Each year thousands of students earn their PhDs, but only a small percentage land a job. For every tenured professor or well-paid former academic, there are countless underpaid and overworked adjuncts, and many who simply give up in frustration.

Karen Kelsky has made it her mission to help readers solve the mystery of the academic job market. As a former tenured professor and department head, and the creator of the popular and widely respected advice site TheProfessorIsIn, she has helped thousands land their dream careers. With The Professor Is In, Dr. Kelsky has poured all her best advice into a guide that addresses the most important issues facing any PhD, including:

• When, where, and what to publish
• Writing a foolproof grant application
• Cultivating references and crafting the perfect CV
• Acing the job talk and campus interview
• Avoiding the adjunct trap
• Making the leap to nonacademic work when the time is right

The Professor Is In addresses all of these issues—and now it’s been overhauled to arm the latest generation of readers. This revised edition features updates throughout and new candid chapters on the risks of academia, the importance of making it work for you, the need to rethink the search committee, and even the possibility of life outside the Ivory Tower.

KAREN KELSKY has run The Professor Is In blog and business since 2010, and today, she is the most widely recognized expert in the highly engaged world of Ph.D.'s attempting to navigate the transition to the job market. A former tenured professor and department head at two major research institutions, she knows (and shares) the insider knowledge of academic hiring.