Non-traditional route to full-time professorship

Rich, not everyone is a consultant. Not everyone has a public facing job where the degree might "matter." Most, in fact, don't. If you're a professional working with other professionals then you're working with other people who also have degrees. Everyone is fully entitled to put any degree they want on their email signature. But the fact that only the ones with doctorates do it is, I'm sorry to say, incredibly tacky. In a room full of engineers what matters is that you're all engineers. If one person in the room insists on displaying their PhD or being called doctor it will be noticed and not in a good way.

You have a doctorate? Great! I might have an M.Eng. So what? Your doctorate might not, depending on the field of study, even be relevant to what we do. We know you're qualified that's why you're in the room in the first place.

I will admit that, years ago, your title did matter. Today it does not. If you earned a doctorate in the 1990s then there was a good chance you had the most education in the office by a lot. Depending on your field, you might be surrounded by people who never even finished their undergrad and left to work. Today, degrees are everywhere. No one is saying hide your degree or don't be proud. I'm saying that if your company is owned by another company based in any country other than the US (especially) then there is a strong cultural idea of setting yourself apart by working hard not because you walked in with a different degree than the other people.

I've recruited employees for a lot of places. The only time I have seen people insist on being called "Doctor" at work is when they are physicians. And I have seen more than a handful of applicants with doctorates get passed over because they did silly things like introduce themselves to their interviewer as "Dr. Smith, but you can call me Chad."

In the classroom, the doctorate means you get to sit at the front of the room and people pay to learn at your feet. In the workplace such recognition is a barrier to collegiality. I need to work with Rich, not Dr. Douglas. There are very few workplaces where such formality is tolerated let alone expected. In such a formal setting it would also be proper for you to call me Mr. Neuhaus. And I'm hard pressed to think of an actually successful company where that is the norm.

 

I didn't say it was a bad degree or there was something wrong with the title. I said it's a bullshit post-nominal. The fact that there are so many professional doctorate titles is a good reason to stop using the post-nominals altogether. Everyone knows what a PhD is (more or less). Nobody knows what a DIA is. And, in this guy's area it will almost certainly be interpreted by the reader as Defense Intelligence Agency before they get to Doctor of Information Assurance.

There was a time where using the post-nominal MBA was fairly common. Today, the optics on it are not good.

Recognized certifications can still make a great deal of sense to use as post-nominals. Some degrees in some circumstances can as well. But if someone has to go to the second page of Google to figure out what the hell the letters after your name mean, it's dumb.

 

Yup.

 

Yes, I meant it could be exchanged for cash.

 

Right. But that's about manners, not that the post-nominal is in itself inappropriate. My point was that it occurs all the time outside of academia--in both the public and private sectors. You picked out one--consulting--as if that's the only place it occurs. It occurs in myriad situations and is routinely acceptable in them. If the doctorate is relevant to your role and position, it's fine to have it listed. Thus, my nameplates on my doors on my offices in the government have all had "PhD." At no point have I ever asked someone to call me "doctor." Ever. (I have had a couple who insisted on calling me "Mr Douglas," even when they address others by their first names, in some sort of weird mini-protest against something I've never made any mention of.)

Slight change: it bugs me to see people use "Dr" in casual use, like in a LinkedIn name. It harkens back to all that "Dr Laura/Phil/Ruth" stuff. It's an invitation to--almost insisting--call someone, like me, "Dr Rich." I never, ever do that, even if I have "PhD" after my name.

 

Well said. I think this is a good note to end the lesson on.

 

You're mis-characterizing my point, plus stretching it out of its original context.

I never said anyone should insist others call him/her "Dr So-and-so." Quite the opposite. Such an imposition would be rude.

Whenever possible, when I get called "Dr Douglas," I know it comes from respect, but I immediate asked to be called by my first name. That's something we've seen change over time. There was a time when everyone called the boss "Mr So-and-So." No more. When I worked for Ali Mayorkas, everyone called him "Ali" at his insistence. Not "Director Mayorkas." I'm sure the people working around him at DHS won't be calling him "Mr Secretary," either. Not his style. I like that.

 

One other thing, when I get called "Mr Douglas" in transitory situations where I can't really ask them to call me "Rich," I don't correct them to call me "doctor." Why? Two reasons. First, it would be rude and ego-centric to do that. Second, "Mr Douglas" also happens to be correct.

Even in that situation I described above, where a couple of people have routinely called me "Mr Douglas" instead of "Rich" like they do with everyone else, I let it be. I didn't even ask to be called "Rich." I just ignored it. For years. Their issue, not mine.

 

Yet one other thing: I'm a talent developer. Being a PhD is very much a part of that. It would be silly and counter-productive to omit it from my publications, website, business card, speaker bio, etc.

 

Not true. Organizations don't save a LinkedIn profile in the employee file. They save the resume or CV provided with the job application. When it comes time to hold an employee accountable for embellishing credentials a LinkedIn profile won't cut it. Job openings don't tell you to submit the link to your LinkedIn profile as the foundation of your application. They ask for a resume or a CV. The distinction is very important.

 

Okay, they ALMOST function identically. I was talking about putting one's credentials out there, not a narrow circumstance like the one you describe. But okay, I guess.

I guess you've never applied for a job on LinkedIn using Easy Apply.

 

So when you said "exactly the same" to correct me, you meant "almost the same". Got it

That is true I never used LinkedIn easy apply. But UMGC does not allow LinkedIn easy apply either. So for the purposes of this discussion the difference between LinkedIn and a resume is key. I guess this is one of those "narrow circumstances" you mentioned (along with every federal job and probably most if not all state jobs). But none of those matter because this conversation is about a UMGC employee who definitely applied with a resume/CV and not LinkedIn easy apply.

 

No. I agreed with you. To a point.