Publications and grants are the currency of academia: if one doesn&#x27;t have a recent publication record, a hiring committee doesn&#x27;t have a way to gauge one&#x27;s performance and capabilities as an academic; if one doesn&#x27;t have a history of getting grants, a hiring committee will be (rightfully) skeptical of one&#x27;s ability to bring in money.  Excepting teaching schools, one is hired for one&#x27;s abilities as an academic researcher to bring prestige (through publications and PR) and secure grants (along with that sweet, sweet F&amp;A money).  To get grants, one needs publications and preliminary data.  One also needs grantsmanship skills, and one only gets those from direct experience.<p>A YCR &quot;fellow&quot; (or whatever it&#x27;d be called) would probably not be a competitive candidate for an academic position.  It&#x27;s not because they weren&#x27;t in academia, it&#x27;s because they will likely not have the work product used to measure performance in a academic setting.  A hiring committee is not going to risk department funds on someone with a non-existent track record when there&#x27;s a line out the door of other candidates.<p>I think OP is correct in perceiving that selecting YCR would probably close the door to a future in academia.  I will also predict that  YCR will have difficulty hiring top academic talent.