2021 Updates
Academic Hiring Has Imploded Due to COVID-19
We are offering help with your job search and post-ac transition, and reducing rates across the board to be accessible to as many as possible.
#BlackLivesMatter
Since 2017, our publicly posted company policy has been to support Black and Indigenous women in the academy. Contact us for reduced rates.
Are You Tired of the Academic Run-Around?
…an Advisor Who’s Never In, a Grad Program That Doesn’t Care, Funding That’s Never Enough, a Job Market That’s in The Tank, and a Tenure System That’s a Total Mystery—And No One to Give You an Honest Answer
I am here to help. I am Karen L. Kelsky, Ph.D.. I spent 15 years as an R1 tenured professor, department head, and university advisor, and almost ten years as an academic career coach. I tell you the truth: the truth about grad school, the job market, and tenure. To the best of my ability.
On the ‘Pearls of Wisdom’ Blog (see the categories to the right), I offer the hands-on information you need now to get through the hoops of academia.
I also work with you, one-on-one, with complete confidentiality, on the writing, speaking, and interview skills you need to move closer to your professional goals. I focus on your particular strengths and challenges, and outline the steps you need to take to be successful in each of your specific applications and projects. Together we chart a path to make you competitive. I can’t guarantee a particular outcome, but I can guarantee that I will deliver to you, to the best of my ability, bullshit-free advising on your grants, writing, the job market, and tenure, as well as coaching on professional and career dilemmas.
I am the available and career-savvy adviser you need, that you should already have, but probably don’t.
Interested? Learn more about why to trust me and get in touch.
Testimonials
Recent Posts
Romancing the Academy for Fun and Profit, Part II – Novelist Guest Post
By Verity Lowell. Verity Lowell is a professor and occasional curator. She likes imagining and describing a world where art, ambition, and history provide the
Makeup Monday Returns: Pandemic Lips
There is probably not one day that has gone by in the pandemic where I didn’t think about wanting to write a new Makeup Monday
I Hate Dudes Like Bill in The Chair – Guest Post
By Tamara MC Dr. Tamara MC is an Applied Linguist and Middle Eastern Studies scholar. She researches and writes about women and spirituality, specifically her
Dr. Samira Rajabi, Assistant Professor of Media Studies at U of Colorado 
Boulder, joins us for a discussion of navigating ambiguous grief and trauma in the pandemic academy and the rest of life. Drawing from her research for her new book, 
