Related Posts
Freelancers. What is your average annual salary?
Do DI has only Indian clients?
Makes sense now.

Additional Posts in Career Pivot
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.



Honestly, making a leap out of higher ed is way more common than you’d think. I was in a super similar spot last year - my whole network was stuck in the same circles, and it felt like everyone I asked only knew academic or student affairs routes. It gets kinda claustrophobic!
I started lowkey reaching out to people in fields I was curious about (even if we had barely any connections), just sent a few awkward LinkedIn messages to folks in project management, HR, and even a couple in SaaS customer success. Most never replied but the few that did had super valuable tips about how to translate stuff like “case management” into terms that made sense outside universities. It felt overwhelming because all the job descriptions kept asking for skills I didn't even realize I had just from all those years of student advising.
What tripped me up most was the resume honestly - it’s weird how many jobs use those ATS bots now, and I kept getting auto-rejected over and over. Ended up running my stuff through Resume Worded, ResumeJudge, and Jobscan before finally figuring out how those keywords and templates matter depending on the industry. Kinda wild, but editing even a few words changed my callback rate completely.
Did you already pick out industries you’re most interested in? I can dig up a couple of awesome templates or intro email scripts I used if you want. Oh, and if you’re aiming at tech/consulting, make sure your resume doesn’t have any tables or funky layouts - they never parse right!