Glory
Glory glory hallelujah, you finished your thesis. If you've set your heart on being the next Noam Chomsky, you're sure to win all sorts of awards. If you go the more traditional academic route and you're wondering if you'll at least get your back slapped from time to time, you can count on it. Those professor types have a good reputation for giving credit where it's due.
Of course, the industry also has its fair share of what you might call "grunt work." Linguists are needed to make sure everything's up to snuff at companies that make language-learning programs, translation services, and voice recognition software. If you think it's a hassle trying to get rid of pop-up ads, imagine trying to make a computer program understand the voice commands of an elderly Austrian woman trying to find out how many pirozhki to put in her borscht.
Actually, linguists already have that covered.
If you get a warm fuzzy feeling from bringing people together, from helping someone understand an idea, or from the whole process of working out a puzzle, this job might be for you.