Dr. Jenn Williamson
Jenn Williamson, PhD, is Vice President of Gender and Social Inclusion at ACDI/VOCA, an international development non-profit. She develops and oversees global gender equality, female empowerment, and social inclusion strategies across the ACDI/VOCA Family of Companies (ACDI/VOCA, Tanager, and AV Ventures). In addition to leading research studies, conducting trainings, and providing technical assistance to ACDI/VOCA’s worldwide programs, Dr. Williamson serves as the Gender and Agriculture Systems Advisor for the five-year, USAID-funded Advancing Women’s Empowerment (AWE) program. She previously served as the learning coordinator for the Women’s Economic Empowerment component of the USAID-funded Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO) project, which published the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture (WEAI) Intervention Guide (2016). Prior to joining ACDI/VOCA, Dr. Williamson worked as the headquarters Gender Technical Specialist for Counterpart International. Dr. Williamson began her career in education, teaching at high school and university levels as well as working in higher education administration. Dr. Williamson holds a B.A. in Studies in Women and Gender and English from the University of Virginia as well as an M.A. and Ph.D. in English, with a concentration in gender, race, and intersectionality, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Dr. Williamson first shared this piece on our Professor Is Out private mutual support group. Please go there to find a safe and supportive private community to share your questions, concerns, stories, and mutual advice about moving ahead with your PhD.
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Identifying a Core Focus
When I decided to leave academia, I honestly didn’t know what I was going to leave it for, but I was at peace with the decision. I knew I had skills and was capable, and I just had to take some time to breathe and figure out one next step. The rest of the steps would come after that.
A little aside: my father is a financial entrepreneur, so his work is about as far away from a literature PhD as it gets. But I consider him a fantastic life coach, and he has always been incredibly supportive. Even though I was nervous about calling him to let him know that I had spent almost a decade preparing for an academic career that I was about to “abandon,” I knew I’d get support… and some real talk. After listening to me, he was quiet for a moment, and then he said a phrase that I’ve continued to carry with me. He said: “You know what, Jenn? My entire life I’ve always known exactly what I want to do. Right up until the moment I changed my mind. Then I did something different. The key is listening to yourself and not treating what you did before as wasted time or knowledge. You’ve learned things along the way. Use it. Build on it. And keep moving forward.” Wise words. And he’s right. As usual. I should note that this is a guy who did an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering, then a law degree. He practiced labor law before moving into starting a business in financial advising. So he knows something about changing career fields!
I had no idea what I could do with my current qualifications and the PhD I was about to receive. I also knew how likely it would be that this decision would be met with disapproval or worse from faculty and possibly other graduate students, so I had to stay very quiet about it. I felt very, very alone. I felt nervous and scared. But also excited — there were new opportunities ahead, if I could figure out what they were.
I liked teaching, but not so much that my first impulse was not to jump toward a teaching career. I had worked as an editor, but that field didn’t strongly draw me.
So what did I know? What might I do, now that I could pretty much do anything? (ok…not really, but I was brainstorming — if I could do anything, what might that be?) I knew that the whole reason I was interested in spending an entire PhD focused on gender inequality, racial inequality, sexuality, and poverty, as well as the history of those things in American literature and culture is that I am passionate about understanding and addressing social inequality. I could start there, so I began to brainstorm:
What kind of jobs outside of academia involve identifying and promoting social justice in these areas? What organizations do this work? What kinds of work do people do? What do they do in their daily jobs? What kind of skills do they use? What kind of skills do I have that would translate?
Since I couldn’t really answer those questions, I needed to apply two key skills I did have particularly honed as a PhD: research and networking!
Research
If I wanted to do work to promote gender equality, racial equality, social justice, and help people in this world, there are a lot of ways to do that and a lot of organizations that do that work. I just didn’t personally know about a lot of them or what kind of work they do. It never occurred to me to look at things that way — I had always been focused on becoming a professor and addressing these issues through research and teaching. Suddenly, new avenues opened up, and I started becoming curious in new ways about what this work looked like.
I also realized I had accepted, unquestioning, many stereotypes and myths fed to me from academia that had made other fields less attractive. In doing desk research about organizations ranging from the ACLU to NARAL to Planned Parenthood to Human Rights Watch to the NAACP and more, I saw that there were extremely rich opportunities for applied research, learning, writing, publishing, and teaching that academics (at least in my own field) had often suggested or outright claimed happens only behind the walls of educational institutions.
There are also rich opportunities for partnerships with academia that involve the very kind of academic work we do, but brings that work to new areas and applications. I recognized how frustrated I had been that academic research seems to be kept behind walls, and how frequently I had sat in conferences and listened to researchers share fascinating data and studies that are rarely shared with groups who can act on them. I was so tired of flying thousands of miles to read a paper to a room full of other academics, many of whom were just there to pontificate rather than listen, learn, expand, and act.
By reading about their activities and programs, looking at their job ads, and reading about their organizational structures, I began to see work and organizations I could be excited to be part of and where I could have a role to play.
Networking
Making connections with a wide range of people is absolutely essential for changing fields or careers for a variety of reasons.
Talking to people in different organizations gives you a better sense of what different jobs look like, the skills it takes to do those jobs, and whether you might be a good fit for that work. For one thing, it can help you better understand the vocabulary or terminology used in a particular field of work, which can be quite different from your current one.
For example, I started out saying I was interested in “program and policy development” when I first started networking because it sounded good, and I thought it summarized areas I might want to work in. However, these terms have different meanings in different fields! If you say “policy development,” it will mean different roles, work, and skill sets for someone who works in the US Government, an NGO, or in advocacy. And in Washington, DC, this matters — I got a few puzzled looks when I couldn’t clarify whether I was interested in program development OR policy development, which I better understood after speaking to more people. Second, through various conversations, I realized that I wasn’t really interested in policy as much as I was interested in “program implementation” — the programming work and activities designed to address social issues “on the ground.”
It’s also important to talk to a wide range of people to build connections who may be interested in helping link you to job opportunities. Keep in mind that very few people are interested in talking to someone they’ve heard from randomly or who know absolutely nothing about their industry. Most people are very busy but are willing to speak with someone they’ve been linked to through a personal connection.
Since I was worried about the negative repercussions of publicly declaring my plans to leave academia, I started my networking process very carefully. I began by seeking out other PhDs who had graduated from my own program but were not working in academia. They were delighted to help me, and I met some truly fascinating people I am still in touch with. At the end of each conversation, I asked if there was anyone else they would be willing to connect me with, especially given my interests. Doing this helped me continue to grow my network.
After some time, I did confide about my non-academic job search to professors and academic mentors I trusted. Those I confided in responded with encouragement and support; they kept my search confidential until I was ready to “go public.” A professor was actually the person who connected me to a former student, who was then working for an INGO, which then led to a further connection that was hiring for a position and turned into my first role in international development.
This may be hard and exhausting for more introverted personalities, but it can be made manageable if broken up and/or worked into a schedule that doesn’t feel too overwhelming. I was very organized with my notes, so that I could keep track of who I spoke with and how they were connected, which helped me schedule the calls at a frequency I could manage.
Regardless, all of the different networking calls provided me with valuable insights and many still remain personal or professional connections.
Connect to the Industry
Once I was fairly sure I wanted to concentrate on international development, I made the commitment to familiarize myself with the industry in person as much as I could and to be available for in-person meetings. (Obviously, this was pre-pandemic times.)
Chapel Hill, NC, was a long but manageable drive from Washington, DC, a major hub for international development. So I arranged my teaching and research schedule in my final semester to be able to drive up to DC as often as possible to attend industry happy hours and public seminars. It’s very common in international development for INGOs and donors to host knowledge sharing events that are open to the public, so it’s a great way to get familiar with the field (and figure out what skills I have that are relevant) as well as network.
If a networking contact wanted to meet for coffee or lunch, I tried to schedule a few on the same day and get up to DC to meet in person. This not only reinforced the connection, but they could put a face to the name/voice and would hopefully help them keep me in mind if an opportunity came up.
A little aside: with the pandemic, in many ways it would be easier to do this regardless of location as industry events are being held as virtual seminars, which means anyone can attend wherever they are! People are meeting via video call. So there are more ways to build personal connections and get access to events that are now available online.
To be continued…
Dr. Williamson first shared this piece on our Professor Is Out private mutual support group. Please go there to find a safe and supportive private community to share your questions, concerns, stories, and mutual advice about moving ahead with your PhD.
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