I try not to pontificate about the academic job market. I recognize that I incredibly fortunate to have the job I have. I recognize that it is hard to get such a job, that it in some sense it comes down to luck, that there are more PhDs than faculty jobs, and finally that my job is not my friend. That said…
A colleague of mine had a PhD advisee who was offered a more or less ideal tenure-track job, at an excellent state school specializing in the advisee’s subarea, in a very pleasant town. The student, believe it or not, turned it down, and is now starting more or less from scratch on the alt-ac path. I genuinely don’t understand this. Earning a PhD in your field is the one always-necessary condition for getting an faculty job, even if the skills transfer to other pursuits. The demands of a graduate program expects from you are, to a great degree, necessary to get a faculty job. There are of course extra steps—that qualifying paper has to be sent off to a journal, and so on—but in terms of effort they are nothing compared to the work needed to get your degree. If you are doing well in your PhD program and if you are enjoying your studies, why not, for as long as you are able, consider applying for faculty positions? If you are not meeting your program’s expectations, your pessimism about the academic job market is besides the point, and if you are meeting or exceeding those expectations, you really might want to consider it.