10th July 2011, 08:21 PM
Land-Escapist Wrote:I'd like to come back to academia, after some more experience in the commercial/heritage sector. I've dabbled in several things and I really like working with the public on history/heritage/archaeology related matters and have tried to apply for jobs along those lines but alas to no success. When I started the PhD I was sure I wanted to do academia and I still do, but maybe do academia in 5-10 years time when hopefully have some publications under my belt and more digging experience.
Hi Land-Escapist
Not to discourage your dreams but you may want to talk to some academics about this sort of route. The only archaeologists I know of who have been able to do something like that were those in University Commercial units. Mainly because a lot of them (units) got set up in the late 70's, 80's and early 90's and their employees were members of the university. Only in the 90's and recently when the units separated from the university were they able to stay with the Uni, because they were still uni employees, and go into academics.
My impression is that if you don't land an academic job right after your PhD or 1st postdoc its game over
. At least for any permanent positions, you might be able to string together a constant string of postdocs or temp teaching or temp research jobs but that is it.