Humanities - taking a year off between PhD completion and academic job I am a PhD candidate in literature, finishing my degree in August. Due to a combination of factors, I did not line anything (academic) up for the coming academic year. However, I will be spending that year on the job market. I had planned to simply teach a couple of courses if possible, and to work on getting some publications out, and attending conferences where possible. This would make me a bit of a drifter for one academic year, and I am wondering how that would reflect upon my qualifications while applying and (hopefully) interviewing for academic jobs. Essentially, I want to stay active in my research, but I won't have the banner of a university name under my own...

The reason I'm crowdsourcing this is because I'm getting conflicting information. One of my committee members tells me that it's better to have the PhD in hand while applying, so I should finish up ASAP. He also assures me that a PhD still looks "fresh" up to two years after completion, so I shouldn't have a problem. Another member, however (who is perhaps more familiar with the current job market climate) has informed me that a gap year will ruin all chances of employment, and that any period of wandering institutionless - no post-doc, no fellowship, no teaching - would be fatal. He suggests that I hold off graduation, so that I have no in-between time.

Do any of you out there have any thoughts? Or similar experiences?

Thanks for any responses you have.
I'm in the humanistic social sciences. If you were my doctoral student, I would suggest that you delay depositing your dissertation. This is even though there is considerable pressure from my institution to hurry students out (part of the NRC university rankings is time-to-completion so the provost puts pressure on faculty in this regard). 

If you can afford the continuous registration fee and the university does not put onerous rules to make life difficult, then there are many more pros to cons.

Pros:


You can work on your publications as if you are a post-doc.
Applying for jobs is a full-time job
You still get to use your university letterhead
If you don't get any jobs this year it isn't as apparent that you're "stale" next year


Cons:


Your advisor may be under pressure not to allow this.  It could impact her/his ability to recruit new doctoral students until the old ones graduate.
Your university may not allow this
Your university may charge continuous registration fees


Notes:


Your advisor will have to write in his/her letters that your dissertation is essentially finished. Everyone is familiar with this strategy so it's not a red flag.