Yes to all of this. I actually applied for about eighty corporate jobs before I got an interview, and as it turns out, they were looking for someone with a background in curriculum design and evaluation (thanks, Searle Center!) and teaching experience. If I hadn't gotten the skills and experiences I had, they wouldn't have hired me. My regret is, as you mentioned some do and have done, that I wasn't realistic enough about the market before I began the process and overestimating my chances of success. I think if I had done that, I could have saved myself a lot of stress and reached a place of acceptance sooner.
Hey Megan! Fancy meeting you here. :D
Thank you to everyone for all your kind words of encouragement and support! I'm happy that my story has resonated with some of you, and been interesting to others. Also, a big thanks to Nicole and Mallory for the opportunity. The Toast is awesome!
Yes, that is correct. In my case, I was smart enough that my work looked fine from the outside, so in a program with limited resources, time was spent helping others. I never bothered to critically examine my research using the lens of a peer reviewer until it was too late for me to correct the error--social scientific research takes a long time to get approved and conduct, so by my fifth year I was left with no time to craft new studies for publication. If I had really sought out assistance and feedback, I would have gotten it. At the very least, I'm proud of the work I did for my dissertation, where I fixed my oversights.
Torn between amusement and feelings overload.
This is amazing. I'm glad to have contributed two of even the lesser puns to this.
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Whitney Fletcher 
Production