Do not work where you did your PhD

 Here's a piece of advice for PhD students who aspire to a serious academic career: as soon as you have your degree in hand, stop working for your home department.

I'm not saying this never works out, and that you can't build a happy life and career where you did your PhD, but you need to be aware of a few things:

• You will be seen as a student before you are seen as a colleague or expert with your own ideas. This may change over time, but it will take a lot longer than it might otherwise.
• Temporary/contingent positions tend to lead to more contemporary/contingent positions, not permanent positions. Again, it's not that this never happens, but it's rarer than you'd think. I know many people who eventually found their way to something resembling semi-permanent, non-tenure-track employment this way. I know of vanishingly few, in the last ten years, who have landed anything resembling a tenure-track job in their home department.
• Being an "internal candidate" is as often a disadvantage as it is an advantage. Search committees want to see potential; being a known quantity is rarely helpful in this regard.

 

If you want to be a professor, my advice is to look anywhere but the department you did your doctorate for  3-5 years. If you get a TT job elsewhere, you will get some of the scent of the fresh and new on you, and you may be competitive for a later TT posting in that department.