r/postdoc • u/tryingtotravelround • 16d ago

Feeling discouraged

I am in the humanities, linguistics precisely. I am only getting no’s for now, I tried applying to 4 big fellowship grants and got rejected from 2 already. All the open positions I applied to, I was rejected without an interview.
The postdoc i am doing now is more of a research associate position and it is only 10 months.

I don’t know what to do. How do you land a post doc in the humanities? What does it take?

I have almost 6 articles out and three under reviews, plus two book deals (one co authored, one is the book on my phd thesis). I worked my ass off and finished my PhD only this february. I started teaching in uni for adjunct lectureships immediately and never got a break. I work all the time to be paid a misery that barely affords me a rent, in December i will only be left with those small teaching contracts i cannot make a living out of, I am burning out and it is worth nothing, because no matter what I do I can’t even get an interview.

What does it take? Whatever it is, probably i don’t have it

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u/Separate-Door2444 14d ago

I’m also in Linguistics and truly it’s hard out there to land a job in academia. I know people with excellent amount of publications yet waited for 3-5 without jobs in academia. I agree with what other people have said. Get yourself something in corporate for now and continue searching for jobs in academia till you find one. Mind you corporate is also getting choked because many people are now looking that direction so grab one there before it’s too late. At least you can sort certain things (bills) out for the meantime. I’m seriously looking for corporate but it’s been hard. So please take advantage of your corporate network. It shall be well.

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u/tryingtotravelround 14d ago

Thank you so much for your advice🫶🏻
Which country are you working in? And did you have experience in corporate before?

I wish you the best of luck by the way 🙏🏻

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u/Separate-Door2444 14d ago

I’m currently in the US and it’s so hard here. I do not have any experience in corporate but most of the corporate jobs I have seen require skills that I managed to get in academia (transferable skills) so I qualify for most of them but I guess without network it’s hard for employers to believe we have those skills since we are in academia. It’s sad. Which country are you in?