I completely agree, but I think most people who arrive at this perspective only reach this view after spending time in industry or adjacent to people working there.
A lot of the focus on tenure track jobs comes from professors and academics who dedicate their life almost solely in academic environments (so in their view, it’s a rather unhealthy attitude of academic tenure or bust). I’m not sure how feasible this is, but perhaps a work-study private sector summer internship could be an encouraged part of certain PhD, to widen perspectives and help both students and professors better understand the possibilities out there, which someone can be motivated to strive for, rather than settle for.
Absolutely. There have always been domains where industry roles have been just as sought after as academic ones - think Computer Science broadly, and all the opportunities one has with a PhD there. Other domains have been slow to catch on to this, but it seems like there has been an inflection point over the past 10 years where we're just so grossly overproducing PhDs in so many domains relative to academic jobs that there is mounting pressure on degree programs to revamp their training/prep for "alternative" career paths.
Myself and colleagues are definitely trying to encourage our alma mater to have more support for externships other opportunities in industry. I think things will continue to change - for the better, for early career scientists - over the next 5-10 years. If only because there is a workforce crisis in my field where skills like AI and software engineering are in extremely high demand, but even 3-4 years ago we actively discouraged PhD students from pursuing this type of work!
In my time as a PhD student (granted still there currently just at the finishing things up stage) I was actually part of founding an organization for students to basically do this. We invited speakers from different fields and had them talk about "alternative" career paths considering the current system basically assumes you want to become a professor. We also included a workshop every year where we would build in career skills and have professionals come and speak. You learn very quickly that there is an incredible range of activities one can do with a PhD.
A lot of the focus on tenure track jobs comes from professors and academics who dedicate their life almost solely in academic environments (so in their view, it’s a rather unhealthy attitude of academic tenure or bust). I’m not sure how feasible this is, but perhaps a work-study private sector summer internship could be an encouraged part of certain PhD, to widen perspectives and help both students and professors better understand the possibilities out there, which someone can be motivated to strive for, rather than settle for.