More education does not make you more employable

By Anna McHugh. Anna Bellamy-McIntyre's (HES, June 20) situation is similar to my own, but what response does Australia offer those humanities postgraduates who can neither find a job in universities nor are welcomed by the secondary education sector?
After migrating from Scotland in 1994, I scored 99.95 in my HSC. I took a first-class honours degree in English at the University of Sydney and an Australian Postgraduate Award funded me through a PhD there. I loved doing my degree, and at 24, I wasn't too upset when it became pretty clear that there was no job at the end of a doctorate about Chaucer.
Oxford seemed like a good idea, so I dragged myself and a long-suffering husband to England for another doctorate (in 15th century history, this time). I was thrilled to be given a junior research fellowship at Oxford, but less so when I found out that it came with the princely salary of £5000 ($7700). After 18 months of trying to live on that, I gave up and returned (without the husband) to Australia.
I enjoyed the teaching aspect of my fellowship, but I wanted to teach younger students (if you've ever taught Oxford undergraduates you'll know it's a largely over-rated experience). I decided that, if I worked and studied, my bank account could bear one last qualification. A GradDipEd by distance from UNE completed a string of letters longer than my own name.
I discovered quite quickly that if one PhD makes you undesirable, two are just plain unfortunate. State schools (at least in NSW) are a lot less impressed with high-flown academic experience; they want knowledge and use of current pedagogical theory. Very sensible, except that it's passion for the subject, and the personal experience which takes graduates to dizzy doctoral heights, that help teachers to connect with those students who most need to be inspired.
Independent schools weren't much better. Very few heads of department want a 33 year-old woman with two PhDs under them, even if she's as new to teaching as anyone 10years younger and as much in need of their help. I found this out in my first teaching job, which was nasty, brutish, and short.
I was (or rather, my qualifications were) offered a job teaching English in an independent boys' school in the inner west. I was the principal's project, much to the dismay of the head of department (a man older than me who apparently had no formal teaching qualifications). He left me alone with enough rope to hang myself and after a horrendous term, I almost did.
As an example of a bullying culture, it left Oxford in the shade. Unfortunately, it left me in the lurch and I'm now on the bench with no job and a portfolio of library cards to flip through.
Bellamy-McIntyre is right; you can let the lack of societal follow-through on the research they've funded make you jaded and disillusioned. My heart goes out to scientists who can only remain current in their by research if it's performed in expensive laboratory settings.
But humanities postgraduates are in a slightly different boat. Unemployed in my field after two PhDs, I've come to a few conclusions:
You write a doctoral thesis for yourself. 'Mnemonic theory in fourteenth-century poetry' isn't going to set the world on fire, but it interests and fulfils me. It's not a ticket to an academic position but a chance to investigate truth, wisdom, and virtue -- the things that learning was once about.
That said, the abstract skills you've developed will be useful in a great many jobs. You'll work smarter, faster, and probably harder. If you become a teacher, it'll help you see what the most exciting parts of your subject are. But you should be judicious and realistic about what you can offer and expect from your colleagues. PhDs may seem ten-a-penny now, but the majority doesn't have one (let alone two). If you cherished dreams of being grovelled to as Doctor Fantastic, you're likely to meet some resistance in a non-academic setting.
Get used to meeting society's self-centredness and contrariety. Unless you've researched the secret to eternal youth, you'll have to prove yourself to every new potential employer. You're a living paradox; overqualified but underskilled, you have valuable critical thinking skills but are expected to walk off any job that doesn't exercise them. So when someone wants you, be happy! Don't think of it as second-best to an academic job; (chances are, you won't have to publish half-baked stuff just to bump up your research points).
Remember that the academic industry is a wheel. Your field will come back into vogue, even if it looks slightly different. You can keep up with it by reading your peers and contributing sensible things yourself. This is the real test of your stamina and passion as a scholar: do you do it for love of your subject, or for your own glory?
Our generation could become very miserly towards our parents, which nibbles at our stipend of certainty and satisfaction even as it ages and demands our care. We could easily regret investing lonely, difficult, impecunious years in study with no return in home ownership, children, or careers.
I chased academic success for 15 years but only found myself as a scholar when schools and universities had no job for me. I study for love of my subject, in which I find a greater truth.
The flush of academic glory comes with the title and disappears with the funding. In love of your subject is wisdom and excellence, which no one can take from you. These belong to a person, not an institution, and are taken by them wherever they go.