Options for Success: A PhD's Guide to Navigating Career Transitions and Thriving in Your Next Professional Chapter (Oxford UP, 2025) is a transformative, step-by-step guide designed for early to mid-career academics exploring career paths beyond faculty roles and into careers in industry. This book speaks directly to PhDs asking "What's next?" as they consider their career options beyond the faculty. Blending narrative, practical workbook exercises and real-life examples, Options for Success empowers readers to reimagine their career expectations, navigate the complexities of career transition, and align their professional paths with their personal values and goals.At the heart of this guide is the Options for Success framework, a seven-step process that takes readers through the phases of career change-from Detox, making mental and emotional space for new opportunities, to Onboarding, integrating into new roles with insight into workplace dynamics. With tools like the Ecosystems and Economies framework and Professional Profile Pillars, readers can inventory their skills, evaluate their core strengths, and identify careers that align with their values. The Translational Power of Action Verbs exercise encourages academics to shift from a "knowing lens" to a "doing lens," while the Power Story Method helps them translate their achievements into impactful stories that resonate with potential employers.The book also addresses the "messy middle" of job searching, equipping readers with strategies to maintain momentum and resilience through self-care practices and targeted skills building. Unlike traditional career guides, Options for Success is rich with templates, scripts, and sample materials, from hybrid CV-résumés to informational interview guides and bios, offering readers the practical support they need to articulate their unique value effectively.Career transition stories from PhDs across disciplines illustrate the real-world application of these principles across a range of fields and roles, showing diverse pathways into impactful, fulfilling careers. Written in a coach's voice-approachable, empathetic, and filled with generative questions-Options for Success feels like having a personalized career coach, guiding readers to explore, evaluate, and act with confidence. Options for Success is an essential companion for any PhD ready to transition beyond the faculty and into new professional possibilities.
Fatimah Williams, Ph.D., is an executive coach, speaker, and founder of Professional Pathways. A cultural anthropologist with over 15 years of consulting experience, she has advised organizations like the National Institutes of Health, the Urban League, and more than 30 colleges and universities on leadership development, organizational strategy, and career growth. Her thought leadership appears in both academic and popular outlets, including The Chronicle of Higher Education and Essence. A former career services leader at the University of Pennsylvania, she also has served on the board of the University of Virginia Alumni Association and the advisory council of the Zimmerli Art Museum. She is the author of three books, Be Bold, Professional Pathways Planner, and her newest book, Options for Success, published by Oxford University Press, which guides PhDs through career transitions and the messy middle of reinvention.
Reighan Gillam is Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College. Her research examines the ways in which Afro-Brazilian media producers foment anti-racist visual politics through their image creation. She is the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media (University of Illinois Press).
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