$100 for 1 doc/hour
$200 for 2-3 doc/hours
$300 for 4-5 doc/hours
$400 for 6-8 doc/hours
$500 for 9+ doc/hours.

As a last option, for those in a great rush, you can consider the Quick Review options for your CV and Cover Letter, Job Application Research Statement, Teaching Statement, and Diversity Statement, Syllabus, Dissertation Abstract, and 2-5 page Grant Proposal as described on this page on the website.  Be aware, these do not provide for a full review of your documents–just a single edit–but they are guaranteed to be quick.  (And they direct you to blog posts and a Guide to the job letter that gives you all the information you need to produce a strong draft on your own for my final edit. They have proven amazingly effective.).

You can also consider joining our Mighty Networks platform and purchasing access to our Art of the Cover Letter package, our self-guided program for the academic cover letter. It gives you exclusive posts, worksheets, and videos to walk you through the process of generating your own cover letter (but includes no live edits).

Do you refund fees? 

An efficient pace for completing work on each document in Full Review is about 7 business days. If you do not have 7  business days for each of the documents you need to work on, we are happy to help you strategize with a combination of Full Reviews and Quick Reviews to fit your situation!

If you find that you no longer need my services and write to cancel them at least one week in advance of our scheduled start date, I am happy to refund your payment, minus a $60 schedule change fee. This policy applies for six months past your scheduled start date; after that your payment is non-refundable.

If you start work with me and then you decide in the middle to cancel, I refund 50% of your payment minus any work completed. Overflow fees, however, are non-refundable because they reflect that you got a hotly-coveted spot on the calendar and kept it from being used by someone else on the waiting list. That is what the 50% policy reflects. 

I do not refund fees if your deadline arrives before our work is complete. It is the clients’ responsibility to get on the calendar in sufficient time to complete all work before their deadlines. I also don’t refund by draft, meaning on those rare occasions where your document is finished in fewer than 2 drafts, I don’t refund or give credit for the remaining 3rd draft of edits.  Institutional payments are non-refundable. If you have any issues at all, please email me so that we can work with you directly. 

You are welcome to pause work in order to recommence at a later date, either my earliest open date or the following year, as long as you inform me that you wish to do that, and we mutually arrange a plan, and you pay the standard $60 schedule change fee.  If you just disappear and then show up again hoping to resume work, you will be scheduled only at my new earliest open date, which may well be too late for your deadlines.

Any payment credit is good for two years. After that we do not make refunds.

Regarding Consults and Interventions: Once a live appointment has been scheduled it is non-refundable. It can be rescheduled up to 48 hours in advance; after that  it cannot be moved.

Do you help people with post-ac and alt-ac job searches?

Yes I do.  We start with a consultation and from there create a strategy for your success. We offer cover letter and document edits as well as ongoing coaching. We also offer a course on The Art of Leaving and webinars related to the post-ac transition, including “Starting a Small Business: The Other #Postac Option.”  Please read about all of our offerings and take your first step HERE

What are your rules for the work?

I’ll send an updated version of this to clients upon payment, but in short:  To manage the intense demand for my services and large client load, I have several policies that are firm and non-negotiable:  1) Your deadline is not my emergency. I require 24 hours minimum for all edits, and sometimes more.  And, I do not work on weekends. I will not respond to hysterical demands for faster turnaround; 2) I have an email subject line and file doc labeling system that I insist on being followed; 3) because I make many small unmarked edits for style and clarity, clients must download and edit from the exact document that I return to them so as to retain all edits moving forward; 4) work on any new document must be pre-arranged on the schedule and cannot be launched into on the fly; 5) clients need to demonstrate what I consider to be a reasonable level of improvement in each draft–I need to see real and consistent effort to understand and execute the editing principles that I recommend; 6) Quick Review clients must submit a document that has been completely overhauled to follow the principles explained in the blog posts, models, or accompanying PDF, and be correctly labeled in the subject line (as explained in the instructions upon purchase).  If I find that a client consistently ignores my policies, I cancel our work together and refund 50% of paid fees; overflow fees are non-refundable.

Clients are required to purchase a copy of my book: The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. Into a Job, prior to beginning work on their documents.  This is because many foundational document editing posts, to which we’ll refer throughout our work together, are published there, and no longer available in their entirety on the blog.

What is the Interview Intervention?

The Interview Intervention is a 50-minute intensive mock academic interview. You can learn more about Live Interventions here; and learn more about the team introduced here.  We ask you to provide 5 questions that are distinct to your work/the job/the campus you’re interviewing with and/or that reflect issues you’re particularly worried about addressing effectively.  We add those to the basic arsenal of interview questions (several of these are described in my blog post, The #Facepalm Fails of the Academic Interview), and you move through a mock interview, stopping after each question to evaluate every answer for its strengths and weaknesses in terms of brevity, spin, word choice, tone, body language, etc., and refining it for effectiveness.  For some basic questions, you may repeat your response 2-3 times until perfect.  It’s grueling, but very effective.  The job-conversion rate of II clients has been nothing short of remarkable.  Read some of the testimonials on the Testimonials page to learn more.

Once an I-I has been scheduled it is non-refundable. It can be rescheduled up to 48 hours in advance; after that the slot cannot be changed.

How much will it cost to work on a postdoc application? Learn more about postdocs/grants/fellowships on this page. Please email me at gettenure@gmail.com to discuss individual arrangements.

If you want to work on postdocs or grants as well, that will typically be about 4-6 hours, depending on what is being demanded by the application. A 1-2 page research proposal will typically take 2 hours, 3-6 page proposal will take 3 hours, and a 7-12 page proposal will require 4 hours. A postdoc cover letter will be an additional hour, as it is substantially different from a job cover letter.  This work is also $180/doc-hour, with the same discounts mentioned above.  If you want to work on postdocs, I’ll need to know the number of postdocs applications, the number of docs required by each and their page length, and how much overlap you think is possible between the applications.

How much will it cost to hire you as a general career coach?

Learn more about career coaching and consulting here.

What is Negotiating Assistance? 

If you have been the recipient of a tenure track job offer, I will assist you in negotiating your final contract.  It is currently $600 for seven non-sequential days of help for tenure track offers ($400 for NTT offers and $700 for tenured offers), and in only a couple of cases to date has more than seven days been needed.  As a former department head, I have been on both sides of the negotiation process many times, and I know what to push for and how hard to push, and when to stop.  Clients have generally been able to negotiate salary increases of $5-20,000 over the initial offer (in the humanities), $20-50,000 more (in the sciences), as well as teaching releases, summer salary, and even positions for their partners/spouses.  Because negotiating happens on a very abbreviated time frame, I make myself available on email and gchat for ongoing exchanges in as close to real time as I can manage.

How do you work when editing journal article mss. and book chapters? 

I don’t do close copy editing!  I am a “developmental/critical” reader, and I read for soundness of organization, clarity and effectiveness of writing, persuasiveness of argument, and so on.  I am vigilant for chronic writing errors, flaws of argumentation and logic, and inconsistencies in evidence, citations, etc.  While I do catch a lot of grammar issues and typos because I am a close reader, I am not a fact-checker or grammar-wonk.

Do you do writing coaching? 

Yes!  We have started “Unstuck: From Stalled to Submitted,” a writing coaching program.  See more info here.

Do you offer services for applications to Ph.D. programs?

While I feel that Ph.D. programs in all fields are perpetuating the over-production of Ph.D.s with no real potential for secure employment, and are inadequate and irresponsible in the training of the graduate students already enrolled, I will assist with applications to Ph.D. programs on a very limited case-by-case basis for some who insist on proceeding after reading all of my warnings.  These services include: 1. A two-email service related to the decision for $180, in which we can discuss the pros and cons of attending, and also, which institutions, departments, and/or offers are the best for your goals.  2. A 30 minute skype consultation on the question of “Should I do a Ph.D.?” for $150; this covers questions of financing and debt, the hierarchy and status of graduate programs, domestic vs. foreign graduate programs, advantages and pitfalls of interdisciplinary PhD programs, the job market, and evaluating potential advisors and areas of study; 3. Document editing of your statement of purpose, for $120, which includes two rounds of edits — a structural/conceptual edit (first round) and a line edit (second round).  Each subsequent statement of purpose for additional programs is $60. Editing for writing samples, statements of diversity, and other documents that may be required for an application to a PhD program is also available; pricing depends on the length.

Can I hold hours “in the bank” and use them later?

Yes, I’m happy to hold hours that you pay for but don’t use immediately for some future purpose, such as a later Interview Intervention (after you find out if you’ve been shortlisted), editing a journal article manuscript, working on a grant application, etc. However, as I’m often booked 2-3 months in advance, you may not be able to get on the calendar in time for your deadlines, if you delay scheduling.  I always ask clients to keep track of unused hours, which I can confirm through Paypal.

Do you accept payment from university research fund accounts? 

Yes I do.  You will have to work it out with the budget manager at your department, but I’m happy to fill out paperwork to be an “authorized vendor” or whatever is required so that you can utilize your writing support or professional development funds to work with me. Individual discounts do not apply, and we charge a $60 institutional invoicing fee.

Are you scary?

I am really, really blunt, but most people don’t seem to find me scary or offensive.  So far, people seem to appreciate the bluntness, which seems to be in short supply in academia. I promise to always tell you the truth about your work to the best of my ability—-and that includes telling you when it’s absolutely awful and needs a complete do-over. By the same token, I am my clients’ biggest fan and get really, really EXCITED when they finally produce the very best work they’re capable of. 

Here is part of a testimonial from the Testimonials Page that speaks to this question: 

“Some have asked me whether Karen is ‘scary’ or ‘mean’ or ‘condescending.’  None of these describes her at all.  Rather, Karen is honest in a way that is refreshing in an environment in which advisors too often offer platitudes about how great and wonderful their students are.  Karen tells you what you need to hear.  In fact, my conversations with Karen were empowering, rather than condescending.  They inspired me to respect myself enough on the market to get what I want, to judge healthy and unhealthy situations, and above all to be more confident in my own intellectual identity.”

How quickly do you turn stuff around?

Four days is my maximum guaranteed turn-around time, but I always try to get it back sooner. During the job market deadline season, I aim for 24 hour turnaround. And when we get into the final stretch on a document, we often go back and forth on email virtually in real time.

Do you work with people outside the humanities and social sciences?

Yes I do.  While the bulk of my business is with clients in the humanities and social sciences, I have also worked with clients in Chemistry, Biology, Business, Engineering, Computer Science, Digital Media, Journalism, Communications, Education, Creative Writing, and the Fine Arts, and the list grows longer monthly.  These clients have been very successful as well.

I am very careful to tailor my advice to field expectations, and to always seek additional information and background as to field conventions and practices.  Oftentimes I will ask clients from other fields to do some leg work and find materials from senior colleagues that were successful, so that we both can thoroughly understand the field-specific expectations.  I am also ready to admit when I feel I cannot be of assistance because the area is too far out of my realm of expertise.  There have been a handful of those cases too.

Do you work with tenured/senior people?

Yes I do.  While I started out, the vast majority of my clients (by intention) were Ph.D. candidates, newly-minted Ph.D.s, young academics seeking permanent employment, and assistant professors seeking tenure, now, more and more senior clients have either returned, or found me as The Professor Is In has matured in this space. I work with tenured and advanced academics on grants, the mid-late-career job search, and writing, as well as interviewing, and retirement.  I even work with Deans.  I do this on a case by case basis, since I always want to be sure that I can offer meaningful assistance.  The rate for tenured folks is $240/hour for job documents, $250 for dean/admin (pls inquire about rates for book proposals, career consultations, etc.).  I encourage anyone senior who is wondering about it to contact me directly by email at gettenure@gmail.com to discuss.

Do you work with men?

Yes I do.  While my somewhat Suze Orman-esque brand of self-empowerment through clear goals and a great haircut seems to speak with particular clarity to many women, and women are certainly the most visible in my comment streams and Facebook page dialogues, I have a lot of male clients, and enjoy working with them a great deal. In terms of percentages, I suppose my client list breaks down to about 60% female, 40% male.

Why do you have a company mission to support Black and Indigenous women in the academy?

Karen and Kel strive to be active anti-racist allies to communities of color, and in addition to talking and writing about the racism and white privilege that pervades the academy, we are committed to tangible support of underrepresented communities, in particular Black and Indigenous women. We believe firmly that the academy and the world at large needs to hear what Black and Indigenous women have to say, and will provide financial support to help make that happen.

Do you post your “success” rate?

I am determined not to fetishize a single definition of “success” that feeds into the academy’s cult-like and narrow-minded valorization of the R1 tenure track position as the only legitimate career outcome. While many of my clients (and readers!) do get in touch to tell me about getting the job (and btw, then I often get to work with them negotiating the offer), and I always post those results on the Facebook page (anonymously of course), I have never in the 10 years of TPII kept a formal record of outcomes. What I can say is this:  Not all of my clients are successful in gaining tenure track employment by any means, but virtually all of them see an improvement in their “traction” on the market–ie, their success in getting short-listed and interviewed. What I find most compelling is how many of them tell me that regardless of the outcome of the search, they can see how vastly stronger their documents and self-presentation has become from working with me, and how much more confident they feel in their career efforts.  Thus what my clients consider “success” takes many different forms ultimately.

Any other questions? Email me at gettenure@gmail.com. I love to hear from clients and always respond.

“I have never been so greatly challenged as an academic as I was by Karen. She encouraged me to aim high and pushed me to follow through and achieve the results that I wanted.” 2009 Ph.D., R1 University Advisor