escalation

I am a final-year PhD student at a decent, but not stellar, university in Europe. My field is strategy and innovation management. I don't know what kind of career I would like to pursue. I entered my PhD full of gratitude for being accepted, considering that my previous studies were rather unfocused and would not have gotten me into many PhD programs, let alone elite ones. I have always been a good student and a very quick learner, but I never received much guidance about what education I should strive for, and which programs I should apply to. I kind of drifted between small research projects, internships, and volunteer work, trying to figure out what I should do next in order to feel one step closer to the life I thought I wanted. Among other things, I was completely oblivious to the reputational mechanisms and self-reinforcing privileges inherent in academia, which are now taking a toll on me because I am not at a top institution, yet I compete with people who are, and I cannot count on supervisors who are very knowledgeable in my topic, or have a vast and useful network, yet I compete with people who do. The PhD has gone pretty well, all things considered. I went to the major conferences in my field, I elicited interest from well-known scholars, and received praise for my work. Unfortunately, this praise has not translated into acceptance at top journals yet. I collected three first round rejections so far, and the only thing that has gotten close to publication is a small side project related to my master thesis that I managed to sell to a B-level journal (now third round, minor revisions). This gave me a lot of satisfaction and some positive reinforcement, but it is hardly the level at which I am expected to perform. I understand that I have to be persistent and keep trying for top journals. I find at least some solace in the fact that the reviews I receive get a little bit more positive every time. Yet this is not enough to make me feel secure, and when I see other people getting the acceptances that I can't, I feel disheartened. I've tried rationalizing this: they come from better institutions, they have better supervisors, they are smarter than I am, maybe they sacrifice more of their private lives. I am currently at a crossroads because I am working on my application for a tenure-track position at a neighboring university where I have great contacts and (I'm told) a reasonable shot. The position is teaching-intensive, however, and I am very concerned about the fact that I will have six years to produce better research than I have so far, with 50-percent of the time I am used to. But it is tenure-track, and considering that better people than I normally struggle to have these, I should be happy about it. I am also looking into industry jobs and landed an interview with a consultancy firm that does business analytics. I have been teaching myself quant skills from the moment I started the PhD and did courses in methods that I was especially interested in. Data science jobs sound very attractive to me, but I struggle seeing myself in the industry after being socialized into an environment that considers academic research the only worthwhile pursuit. Then I remember that a scientific career was hardly in my cards four years ago, so I should probably be grateful for the opportunities and quit whining. Sorry for the rant. If anyone is or has been through a similar situation, please share your experience. I'd appreciate it a lot.